--from "One Step Ahead," by Deborah Gibson

I was up all Thursday night getting my writing contest entries together.

Ironically, I ended up not submitting the one essay I'd planned to submit all along. I wasn't quite ready to rip apart and reconstuct my essay on Beloved. Looking over what I had, I decided that, as it stood, it was a good essay, possibly even a very good essay... but that it had the potential to become a great essay, and I wasn't ready to turn it in yet. So I'm saving it for one more year.

In the meantime, the one professor at my college who knows this journal exists -- although she still hasn't checked it out -- suggested that there might be something here worth submitting.

My initial reaction was that there was absolutely nothing here worth submitting. Yet. I suspect that that will change by next year, but for now, most of what I've written here has either been trivial, or has been laying the groundwork for what may develop into something useful done the line. But nothing here comes close to standing on its own as an essay.

Still, I zipped through the archives (I'm so glad I made those monthly tables of contents now), and realized that there was one exception to that rule. The entry of January 24th, about my grandmother's passing.

So I had a couple of people look it over really quickly, and spent about an hour and a half ripping apart one sentence and putting it back together again in a multitude of ways, with the invaluable assistance of Alia, over on my usual MUD. I then added in a few local details which may have weakened it or strengthened it or neither; by that point, I was a bit past being able to tell the difference. I'll see what happens, I guess.

My non-fiction submission also included an essay on my childhood, written three semesters back. I didn't feel up to submitting it last time, given its personal nature, and, besides, I was very confident in the two essays I submitted last time. I'm not confident about anything this time.

Over in fiction, my submission is "Is It Live, or Is It Metafiction?" a short story written with the deliberate aim of being obnoxious towards the rest of my Fiction Workshop class last semester. It has no theme, which was, however, exactly its point at the time. As my classmates were finding "poetic" meanings in awful stories since the start of the semester, I figured I'd give them a real challenge; a story with all sorts of tempting clues and allusions, and absolutely nothing at its core, other than contempt. While telling them so in the text of the story. And also including allusions to other works submitted in the class.

Most of them did better than I'd thought. And, somewhat to my surprise, most of the class (1) realized the story was about them, (2) felt somewhat alienated, but (3) loved it anyway.

I'm not sure it works at all outside of that context, but I didn't have anything else worth submitting in the fiction department, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

As for poetry... I submitted Papermate, the Casey Variations (about which more in tomorrow's entry), a poem about my relationship with my sister (which is probably the best of the bunch), a poem about the challenges inherent in writing about my family, and a couple of poems that originated as blackboard graffiti, begging for a break in mid-period. Most of it is lightweight stuff, but, again, it can't hurt to try.

Anyway, I arrived at college at 9:00 AM, at which point I stopped by the English Department, picked up a copy of the official rules, and trudged off to the computer lab, where I put the finishing touches on the pieces, and printed them out. Went back to the English Department, stapled the various bits together, put them in envelopes, and dropped them off. Went back home, arriving at... I don't know, 10:15, 10:30. Checked my e-mail.

At this point, what I intended to do was update this journal, go to the library, take care of a few more errands, and generally hold out until sundown before going to bed.

What actually happened was that I collapsed into bed, fully clothed, and pretty much didn't budge for the next fourteen hours.

I suppose you could say I needed that.

And that explains why this entry is late.