Saturday, August 01, 2009

Open Thread

This weekend's question is brought to you by Helen's prompting. What are you proud of? What are you pleased with?

5 comments:

Helen Rickerby said...

Alrighty, as the demandy person who requested this week's question, I shall be first to answer. I'm too sleepy to be clever and enigmatic, after spending the afternoon with two babies and a Brian, but never mind.

One thing I'm pleased with myself about just at the moment is that I have been trying to be more open with people, talk about things that are sometimes hard but important; and I've been noticing (and being told) that it is helping some of the people I've been opening up with to open up too. Had a great lunch with a friend yesterday - we normally have fun but talk about everyday things. But instead we talked about some difficult and hard things, but by the end she was really excited about trying to find some ways to positively improve parts of her life. And I felt really energised from having a deeper connection with her.

Also, I sometimes lament that I take so long to get things done - the writing and the publishing type stuff - but I've been proud of myself lately that, despite my frequent slowness, I do actually do things. I set out to do something, and I do it, and I finish it.

hix said...

I'm proud that my two months of practicing cellphone poker paid off last night, and I won my first real-life game.

And I'm proud that I kept my fellow players entertained with the story of my recent speed-dating experiences.

I'm very proud of my friends who are working on 'The Event' which contains some pretty freaking great writing. And of Andrew's new comics project, which is a box full of similar.

And I'm pleased that I've managed to overcome a pretty gruelling week, and seem to have gotten back on track creatively.

Matt said...

I'm proud of getting an article accepted for a magazine. Finally got to see what an acceptance email looks like!

I'm proud of The Event too :-) I'm loving the inspiration from other people and the freedom of having an audience that's not English HoDs looking to buy books for their department.

What bits of The Event have stood out for you, Steve? I've been particularly impressed by Debbie's introduction of creepifying elements into the mundane setting of a night at work, Steph's elegant restricted third person loaded with personal voice (eg - "She reached out a hand (forbidden) to wipe the hair and sand from his face"), and Chris's slightly mind-bending prose style and protagonist.

debbie said...

Aw, thanks for your kind words about The Event. I too am very proud of the project and continually impressed with the writing of the others in the project.

I'm loving being involved in a project that I feel lucky and proud to be part of, and I'm really proud of what's being achieved both by the individuals involved and as a collaborative group that keeps pushing it forward. The shared momentum and energy is really inspiring for someone like me who is used to writing in a bit of a vacuum.

I thought Jenni's part three was a brilliant example of how to get writing in a shared world right. You incorporate elements that other writers have established while moving on with your own character's story and then at the end, you ramp up the horror tension another whole notch in scale.

I'm also very proud of Matt both for his recent writing work on the article, The Event and his current novel, and also just managing to keep up with his goals on top of a crazy busy week of parent-teacher evenings and the hectic demands of fatherhood.

I'm smugly proud of myself for finishing 'The Land beneath the Shadows' before my end of July deadline, so much so that I bought myself a hoodie with a cute green monster on it. I may start this as a tradition that I buy myself themically-linked items of clothing as a reward whenever I complete a project. :-)

hix said...

First off, I love that you five are actually doing the Event. Debbie proposing it; all of you deciding to write it. And I'm loving the implied behind the scenes conversations between you all as you feel out the actual nature of the Event.

Everyone's stories have elements that stand out for me but here's some stuff just off the top of my head:

Chris - conveying the idiosyncratic inner life of a very unusual character

Jenni - a sense of reality coming from drawing on lots of her own life (locations and work) and adding horror to it. It feels vivid and plausible.

Debbie - just brilliantly readable prose. I really really like it

Matt - the way Seth's perspective has been altered by the LSD so that your writing implies that he can't totally trust what he's seeing - a very dangerous trait in a survival horror situation

Steph - you're keeping it really intimate, and popping in lots of nice details. Plus out of all the character, Robin is the one I felt the most fear for; when she went into the water to rescue the guy I genuinely thought she was going to get turned.