Monday, October 22, 2007

Just Write

Two weeks ago, I got sick to the point that my officemates are still wondering why I'm coughing out phlegm every five minutes. That easily put a hold to my writing exploits for Unreality Bites, which is why I stopped writing my writing journal: because I've stopped writing. Last Friday was no help either as I got home early in the morning after doing monitor duty in San Miguel's Oktoberfest (listening to podcasts the entire time to the point that I've actually exhausted that week's supply), and then waking up just in time to meet with the Lit Critters.

Anyway, the deadline for Unreality Bites is next week and while my story is far from finished, I plan to get it done by the end of the week. But the pragmatist in me always considers the possibility that I won't make my deadline. Tyron in Banzai Cat's blog also hesitates about writing "Filipino" Speculative Fiction for fear that "there really is such a thing as Philippine Speculative Fiction". I bring that up because my answer is the same. So what if I don't meet my deadline? So what if my story isn't classified as "Philippine Speculative Fiction" by the critics? Honestly, my worst-case scenario is that I have a story. And is that really such a bad thing? (Unless of course the story itself wasn't well written. But that's what edits and revisions are for.)

Anyway, I honestly have more than a week to finish my story (unless you know, I'm struck by another epidemic). I'm actually more excited with the fact that I'm writing a new story. The prize money is lucrative but as far as publishing goes, there will always be other markets.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But that's what edits and revisions are for."

But I thought you said;

"I hate it when people use the excuse “there’ll be editors anyway to catch my errors” when they recklessly submit an unedited draft."

Charles said...

Yes but in this instance, I never said that the editor should be doing the "edits and revisions". Personally, I try to stay way from something I've written for a few days so that I can look at it with fresh eyes and edit it myself. That's why I wanted to finish the draft last Oct. 15 so so I could spend the following week editing it myself.

Anonymous said...

Hehe, I knew that was what you meant. I just wanted to see you explain yourself. :P

Good luck on your draft! :)

Charles said...

Thanks =)