Suze is Hunting Muses, 8

Competitions and Memes

By Proud ViM ProductionsPublished 13 days ago • 3 min read

Hi. My name is Suze Kay, and I’m a proud moderator of Voices in Minor, a community of Vocal authors who desire to uplift, inspire, and support one another. Every Wednesday, PViM will publish a weekly round-up of whatever lures my muses closer to my writing nook.

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Happy Wednesday, fellow creators! I'm writing this missive from my bed, where I've kipped for a short bit. It's been a very busy day, and it's not over yet -- this morning, I woke up two hours early to finish my series "Women Who Stay," did a full day of restaurant work, and now I've got about an hour before I have to leave to meet up with my writing group. Just enough time to write this, I think.

But don't worry. I'm not cutting this installation short. I have lots of little tidbits to muse on.

NYC Midnight

The title and synopsis of my weird little tale

Last Wednesday I got some lovely news: I made it to the second round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Competition. The competition runs in four rounds over nine months. Each round has a progressively more restrictive wordcount and deadline, and each contestant is grouped by specific parameters: a genre they must write in, a concept that must appear in their story, and a character that must make a plot-defining appearance.

My first round was total kismet. I was given a week to write a 2,500-word story, and my parameters were totally up my alley: Sci-fi, comparison shopping, and an intern. I wrote a story that I was super proud of (DREve, which you can read here), and I came in first in my heat! Go me!

For the second round, I had only three days to write a 2,000-word tale. No biggie, I thought. I've been writing 1,800 words a day for the last two weeks. But my parameters were just about the worst thing I could imagine: an action/adventure story, with something high-security, and with a stunt person as a character.

Um. Yikes. I think the only thing more out of my comfort zone would have been something in the dreaded "political satire" genre. I won't lie, I had some major doubts. Why had I paid $65 to compete in a competition that wouldn't let me just... do what I wanted?

But here I am, on the other side of writing "Being Margo," and I'm really proud of myself. I never would have written something actiony before, and I may never again, but now I know I can. It forced me to think differently, plot better, and write more flexibly. I still managed to pull in a lot of themes that made my story more "me" -- image vs. reality, doppelgangers, and strong female characters. I feel that I have come out of the experience a stronger, more confident writer. And that's only the second round!

Also, the feedback that I received from the competition's professional judges for the first round was truly excellent. It was critique like I haven't had since college, in a good way. That alone is worth the high entry fee, I think. There's a very good chance I won't see the third round. Like I said, this genre is not in my comfort zone, and I know for a fact that "Being Margo" is not my strongest work. But, hey, hope springs eternal.

With all that in mind, I decided to sign up for the upcoming Flash Fiction competition as well, which kicks off at the end of May. Maybe you'll join me there?

Memes

It's also been a good week for me screenshotting memes. Some of them have already inspired me (especially as I wrote "Women Who Stay" and "Being Margo") and some, I think, will inspire me more in the future.

I leave them with you below, grouped vaguely by theme, a humble offering from my muse to yours.

The Humiliation of Existence

Oh, boy. What a cool way of thinking about what our appearances, and acknowledging them, feels like. I know I fixate on small things about my face: the symmetry of my eyebrows, the pimple growing on my chin, the potential of spinach between my teeth. Does anyone else look at me as intensely as I do myself? Probably not. Hopefully not. But should I even look at myself so intensely? Probably not. Hopefully not.

Similarly, does anyone ever look so deeply at my history, or recall with such punishing clarity, all the shameful things that haunt me? Probably not. Hopefully not.

On Writing

On my days of optimism, I disagree. And on every other day, I think there's something to this. I, for no good reason, would have called myself a sad child. Would still say I was a sad child. But I think that writing is all about building a world in which confusing/maddening things are clarified. Those things can be as profound as love or as simple as cruelty. But you have to want something different than what you have to imagine something different. And I think that, at its core, can feel very sad.

Been on a big fanfic kick of late. 'Nuff said.

The Power of the Yearn

When I commuted daily, I felt this so hard. There's something about a liminal, transitional space that opens the heart to possibilities and erases the self from the equation. I have never felt so anonymous as I do on public transit. I have also never felt so seen, so exposed. A lot of my best drabbles and ideas have begun on a sticky seat surrounded by strangers.

Is closure always healthy? Or does it sometimes just replace hope with mourning?

As "Women Who Stay" was all about a journalist, this one just made me chuckle. It also accurately sums up 90% of my internet existence, which is googling the same news story or historical question mark or celebrity scandal for days on end, until the next one comes along to seize my interest.

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