When a professor asks why you put a certain line into your paper...

...do not answer with, "Because I was trying to fill up the page."

All right. So, me saying that to my Education prof (who is also an English professor) was indicative of how I think about my own writing. I am not confident enough, and I do not take a lot of initiative to improve my writing. Instead, I am constantly restarting a new story. After the words split from my head and splat on the paper, my head thinks the process is over. I do this with term papers and short answer essays. I do not look over my work. Even when I pass along an unrevised first chapter to a friend, I tell them I have not read it. It's a sort of mini-disclaimer, but it accomplishes nothing good. In fact, it probably annoys the people I say it to; they just happen to love me too much to say anything.

And so, that same professor asked me to submit to a literary and art publication via my school. I really, really, really want to...but yeah. I honestly do not have anything that fits the bill. And since this publication looks for pragmatic and abstract submissions, it is extremely hard to find a viable excuse. I do not have any short stories that make sense, especially because they are all the beginning of a novel. My prof suggested I send him something that could be turned into a short story and we'd revise it together. Who the hell would refuse that offer? Not me. So now I am in a predicament: wtf do I send?

I'll be rummaging through my folders this evening in the hopes that something pops up.

And sorry I was gone for a week; life totally caught up with me.