Little Known Legends and Picky Muses

Greetings. I've got it done, the horrid metafiction short story of doom. Even having knowledge of metafiction, and knowing what general things comprise metafiction doesn't give me the peace of mind that what I wrote is, indeed, metafiction. Yikes. It's half lyric essay, at least. It certainly isn't the kind of thing the people in my class would want to read. It's also the only thing my overtaxed muse could come up with after three solid days of failed ideas. That's about fifteen pages of wasted time, nearly half that many different possible leads, and as many different ideas. I hate (HATE) metafiction. You heard me complaining about modular stories, but this metafiction is the blackened pit of hell in comparison. Use all sorts of gimmicky tricks to create it, but make sure you have a really good point, and that it isn't just gimmick. That's not exactly the kind of sound, concrete advice that's conducive to good fiction. Play pranks on your readers, but make sure you've got a good reason? Come on!

In any case, I expanded on the only four lines of information I found on this forest chick from Hungary, and got about seven pages of whiny, "please don't forget me" crap. It's what they're getting. Hopefully, they'll be full of advice on how to save this wreck, and I can churn out something more appropriate before I need to send it to publishers.

Oh well. I get my POV story back tomorrow, and I'll be able to see how well the "cute" genre works. I don't have high hopes. But if they want one a week, they're gonna need to lower their expectations. My poor muse is running dry.

Now, I need to go grade about twelve first reads, by Monday at midnight. It should take about six hours, all told, and I plan to leave most of that for tomorrow. Last night, I went to bed at five, and I'm not interested in repeating that. (I don't usually make it a habit to stay up that late, SR, but when the bedraggled muse finally speaks, I obey.) Oh well. I can squeeze in about two before bed tonight, and then call it a day.

End.