Torn

"Nothing's fine, I'm torn; I'm all out of faith; This is how I feel; I'm cold and I am shamed; Lying naked on the floor."

Forgive me for that, but when I wrote in the title that popped into my head. I figured I'd share it.

I've quite possibly over-extended myself again. I've got a few different posts for Sally; one about her night out on the town and one about her day playing softball. This also includes an actual short story, told in 3rd person on that day out in the field because the blog is really a tool, a practice if you will, in really getting inside my character's head. If the story is good it should translate well into a story page and if I gather up enough I could get a book out of it. That is if people would buy it. Which I'm doubtful at the moment as I have no followers on here and only 3 on Sally's blog, which includes myself and my writing helper/online friend who I stole the idea from (with her permission).

I'm also working on a short story. I was inspired when rating articles at Helium under the Short Story: Writing topic. And it amazes me how few short stories are actually in there, most of them are written like memoirs or testimonies, and some of them out right say they are a true story. So with a little unfinished blip of a piece I wrote years ago, a story just took off. Now the thing about my short stories is they usually start a little too close to home. But I really REALLY don't want to be a Jenny Schecter so they usually evolve, leaving the true story behind as merely an inspiration. I've recently invited friends and family members into my Helium which will inevitably lead them here. Hopefully they won't see any of the little tiny details that remain true to myself, but will see them entirely as works of fiction. Writers should write what they know. It becomes fiction when you leave a significant amount of that behind. Where that line is exactly is left up to the individual though. I can only send it out and hope it gets perceived how I wish.

So not only am I torn between the many different things I'd like to be working on, and torn about letting people I know read what I wrote, I'm also torn between censoring myself or not. See this short story I've already been forced to because you can't swear. But I know how people rate and if it isn't in the debate channel where you only compares ones on the side you are on then if you write something they don't agree with they could very well rate it poorly. They should be rated on how well they were written as well as appropriate to the topic content (example; writing about a dog breed in the Autos topic should be taken down). But if my character just happens to get a phone call from her girlfriend... Well I can just see it being rated lower merely for that and not because I didn't dot an I or crossed a T. If I see an article using i instead of I, I check the other one to make sure they haven't done some glaring mistake and rate that one better. Wouldn't matter the subject matter.

Oh and as for Helium, if you do wish to join, let me know (emailing me with the email address you wish to use) and I'll send an invite which gives me bonuses. I recently wrote some stuff to the marketplace now that I have 2 stars. As for the creative writing memoirs competition, well I'm currently in 10th and yesterday was as low as 13th. So much for making money that way. But it is proof that I write better if I write fiction.