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All content copyright 2010 by Chelsea Biondolillo. Seriously.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

365 days of being a writer: day 334

Here is a recording of me reading Monologue, which originally appeared on 52|250: a Year of Flash.

I can't (right now) imagine reading to a group of people. In just over a month I will be lecturing to freshmen and trying SO HARD not to roll my eyes too much. But lecturing is different: those aren't my words. I can read my stuff only after reading it out loud so many times that it disengages somewhere in my mind and isn't mine anymore. Like saying a word over and over until it loses meaning. I hope to participate in some of the UWyo readings. But my chest gets tight just imagining it. Only way beyond is through!

I am so giddy and ridiculous that I am having a tough time getting to a writing head space. I may not get my last piece in the Colson manuscript in time. Which is OK. Not ideal, but OK. There are a lot of changes afoot and I can only process so many pieces of information at a time. If the last three years have taught me nothing else (which is stupidly untrue, but let's pretend) I have at least learned some of the things that trigger giant nervous breakdowns, for example convergent deadlines with amorphous scope. I need schedules, specifics. Focus. Structure. And while I always thought that stuff was stifling to the creative process, I now recognize that it frees me from so much self-criticism that it results in getting way more done.

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