I learned today that it is possible to rewrite a story too much. The story I'm working on has become for me nothing but a pile of words. They have lost all meaning for me.
This will sound weird, but this came at the best possible time. I realize now that these rejection letters are the measure of my work. The more rejection letters I collect, the harder I am working. The acceptance letters will come when they come.
Away from the stage too long, my timing was trash, my delivery was self-conscious and my material was weak. Just before I went up for my set I was working on the best way to describe the incredible pain felt by the main character in a story I'm writing. Difficult transition to the funny after that.
In his book ON WRITING Steven King suggests putting a finished story away for a month before rewriting. I need to follow this advice, though on a smaller scale for my short stories. I rewrote a story today and got rid of 300 words. That seem to me an amazing reduction considering how terse my writing usually is. It was like I was reading the story for the first time and all the bad things jumped right out at me. Like the story mentioned on 2/1, when I rewrite immediately things just get lost and twisted and mushed and the small amount of progress does not warrant the huge effort. Patience has never been one of my greater virtues.
Fun show. I love doing comedy in bars, loud drunk regulars and all. The stage is an old coffee table. The spot lights are desk lamps. The crowd is fun. I saw some very funny comedians I haven't seen before. A friend of mine from The Mount was in town and got to see me do comedy for the first time. I don't think it's what she expected.