I’m possibly crazy for joining NoNoWriMo, the acronym for National Novel Writing Month. After all, I’ve been in a writing funk since the beginning of June, which is when I posted this awful little thing, and I haven’t even finished part four of Permeable since posting part three in September 2008. But my fingers are itchin’ to type, college is, um, boring, and I need a good kick in the pants to get going again; so I’m now an official participate.
Tomorrow, I’ll begin writing. What? I have no idea, no inkling of what I want to babble about for 175-pages (50,000-words) by midnight, November 30. And since it has to be a novel, FanFiction does not count. (Sorry, people who keep begging for more chapters of Say.) I will attempt, though, to stay clear of of my protagonist winding up pregnant; it happens way more than I’m willing to admit.
It’s just too bad my research paper for comparative politics class or short story for political science fiction can’t be counted in my word count. At least then I’m guaranteed to hit the 18-page mark. Wait a minute. Can my main character write a research paper and short story in the novel? No? Rats.
I entered You into a local creative writing contest, and I was very excited to hear that it won first plac in the FanFiction category for high school students. It garnished fifteen reviews on FanFiction.Net, and while that doesn’t sound like a lot, each one exclaimed how perfect You was.
In the past couple of weeks, the group hosting this contest have been in a bit of a debate. See, when I entered, I didn’t know that if You won, it would published in a book along with the work of third graders. I didn’t even know it would published, so I didn’t think twice about submitting something that uses the F-bomb twice, calls someone a bitch, and references sex, um, quite a bit. But if you’ve seen “Greek,” you would know that this fits right in with the show. (Okay, maybe not the F-bomb, but in real life the characters would use these words.)
Today, I recieved an email from the woman in charge of the contest saying:
“I am sorry that I need to ask you to edit your work. Unfortunately, “You” cannot be included in our book in its original form.
I am hopeful that we can maintain the spirit of your story and still be able to publish it in the same book with all the finalists. To achieve that goal, your story will need to be edited to be appropriate for a 3rd grader.”
Now as I’m editing You down to the appropriateness for a third grader, I keep feeling like I’m being punished. As I told my parents, I feel like I’ve won but lost at the same time. I always have the option to say “I am unable to censor edit You, and ask that you, please, not publish it outside of its original form,” and my mother says she would support my decision. But I would like to be publish, I would like to be recognized for my achievement; I just don’t want to censor my writing.
Comment from Queen-of-Azarath:
So, I’m reading all of your Greek stories.
You are, actually, my favorite Greek writer in all of this fandom.
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Title: Permeable
Title: Realignment