Yet another change. And another big one at that. I reported in my last story update that I was going to focus more on Maddie in order to better tie together the Waking storyline with the Land of Nou storyline. Turns out that didn’t work at all. As much as I like Maddie as a character, she was never intended to be the main character – that was, obviously, always supposed to be Poguri. So I’ve been putting a lot of work in, going to critique groups, really rethinking the whole thing.
And the results have been promising. It is getting to a point where I may actually be “outgrowing” the critique groups, because most of the feedback has been small nitpicks like ellipses at the ends of sentences requiring another period – that is, a fourth dot. Or my occasional overuse of the word “that”. In terms of content, flow, engagement – it all seems to be there, and that excites me.
Oh, right, and then there’s this minor development: I applied to and was accepted into Goddard College’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. This is significant for two main reasons beyond the obvious:
- It means that my writing has improved substantially in the year since I was rejected 4 separate times by MFA programs
- The low-residency model of those programs that rejected me? Goddard College invented it. And they accepted me. So how do you think I feel about those rejections now? Couldn’t care less? That’s right.
So it is my plan to either finish Land of Nou as my capstone for the program, or to finish it during the program. Either way, what this means is that I can expect to produce a publish-worthy product in the not too distant future.
And that is exciting.
