21Jan17 There's always the work.

After approximately one month of chipping at my stories, bitching on my blog about being stir crazy from a lack of things to do, school is back. But there was always the work.

Hello one hundred thirty five page reading assignment and critical review along with a journal write up.

Hello short story review complete with suggestions on improvements, several Claude McKay poems to be conversant with by Monday, and start of the "homeless gentlemanl's" story for my next project.

These are of course variations of the work.

I haven't even touched on the execise routine still in the early planning stages. LOL 

I am occupied mentally and physically therefore content.

I am Beefless! Meaning I got no beef with anyone or thing.

I live too much in my mind always. Things are constantly being weighed, decisions questioned, guilt imagined before any act performed. Unfulfilled longings that can never be. They all push at each other, demanding to be first, to be addressed.

It all disappears in the work.

My mind focuses in on the one thing it can control, the fate of my characters. The "is she thinking of me?" Becomes, "how can I make this scene feel real, make the reader feel what I want them to feel?

After all this time im starting to see glimpses, tiny fragments in the flow of my writing along with the occasional line i'm actually proud of. 

The work is a refuge for me, a world i crawl into and put defense satellites around. I've done so many other things but always there was, is, the work.

16Jan17 Bitchin but only a little.

I checked my mail today to see if the professors had posted any additional instructions.

Of particular concern was my writing class. As mentioned here recently, I finished a short story about a mother's struggle raising a child. At the end angels appear to discuss her fate. The issue is the appearance of the Angels. Technically they constitute a supernatural element.

The professor states emphatically there is to be no genre work.

This isn't my first creative writing class so I suspected this could be the case but wrote it anyway, my first mistake. I guess I figured the overall thrust of the story was literary in essence and I could argue the piece was more that than genre.

The frame of mind encouraged in graduate students is one that your opinion, your view is as valid as the professor's. We are urged to see them as equals, as kind of friends trying to help you be the best writer you can be. 

With that in mind my I initially wanted to argue my case and see if she changed her mind. But I think she can't allow me to break her rules and I should be considerate enough to not challenge her.

I could alter the story which is the heart of my post. 

It would be a small thing to remove the Angels. The old me would've gut the thing and moved on, mission accomplished.The story would still be effective.

The new me is refusing to do this for some reason. Some reason ha. The reason is it would lose something. This new me bristles at that thought. I sweated over this, to get it like this for a reason.

It remains as is, on to the next story. As vane as I'm loathe to say that sounds it is what it is. Still, the idea of me not changing it is interesting.

15Jan17 the blog challenges

I started them in an attempt to share more of me, The idea being people who blog more about themselves, reveal more, and thus connect more with readers. It was part of a long range plan to establish a fan base

I realize now i'm of a certain mindset. This is not to say i'm not open to new things, more that my personal private life is mine and i am loathe to share pieces of me with the public.

There is also the fact the topics suggested felt mundane,pedestrian even, near the end. I fail to see how knowing what my favorite song or color is will increase my readership.

Maybe I was too literal with the whole thing. Possibly the goal was for me to loosen up mentally, to get my mind on things worth sharing. In any case i'm back to the more personal week to week updates with the occasional sprinkling of segments from the challenge that feel worth the effort.

School starts next week. The now familiar pattern of getting into short story writing only to have to stop and put on the critical hat is here. I'll get it done.

The short story No Souls Left is finished. Now the cool down before submitting it to class. Prior to that i'll take another swing at rewriting, see how it flows, check for grammar errors, repetitive words, and things of that nature.

I have the rough outline for the Homeless story which is next short project. I decided to go with a first person perspective. its one i haven't done in a while, since I got away from writing detective stories.

I've been chipping away at "Found While Dreaming," too. It's my science fiction story about an aged African warrior in the midst of a life change. The last couple of semesters i've had it on hold while focusing on school. Now i plan to work it daily, even if its only a couple of pages a day. I need to get it done!

09Jan17 blog project #10

Your favorite song and why.

Too many songs. This is a silly task!

Due to the sheer volume of tunes ima have to go wit...

"All I do" (is think about you,)" by Stevie Wonder.

Of course pretty much anything off of "Songs in the Key of Life" would work but I had to pick one and this is the one I'm feelin right now post shower, anticipating the restart of school, and generally feeling joyful.

Stevie to me always sings with reckless abandon. I feel like there's no separation between thought and action, kind of like when Jimi Hendrix plays guitar. No hesitation concerning the right tone or note or turn of phrase. He just channels pure joy.

07Jan17 blog project #9

Ten little things that make you happy.

1. Movies

2. Reading in any of its mediums.

3. Eating

4. Drinking

5. Sex (It should note here these are not in order!)

6. School or learning in any form.

7. Non conformist! Stay crazy, be different!

8. People! for looking at or living vicariously though.

9. New Orleans. It's a mad mixture of magic and old south in the end as Wierd and crazy as the people who live here.

10. Writing. Listed last but the most important. Never have I had a more love/hate relationship with something. It tasks you, demanding you give your best each time. Only to find upon rereading it needs work!

02Jan17 blog project #8

The movie that most reminds me of my childhood.

For me the movie is "The Learning Tree," written and directed by Gordon Parks.

It's the tale of a young black boy living in Kansas coming of age. It's an old film, came out in 1969 but ibis world is much like my childhood growing up in rural Ohio.

I don't remember the story line truth be told, I just recognize the terrain, I walked similar roads.

We called our space "The Country" growing up. Any relatives living in the city laughed at us and our Green, rural life. But those dirt roads? it felt like they could lead anywhere.

I remember wandering the back acre of our piece of land, building forts, hunting for wild dogs or monsters with my cousins and neighbors. 

I remember cutoff jeans and bare feet and working in the small garden behind our house on the hill just below the watch tower.

the locals and people in the film immediately takes me back. I'm eleven again and sad at the news I'd have to leave all that for the uncertain life of the city.

The saying goes "You never knew how good you had it," but I think I did. The city turned out not to be the horror story I feared, just another mystery to crack. 

But the country? That will always be Oz, or the great forest James Fennimore Cooper describes at the beginning of "Deerslayer," breathtaking and magical.

01Jan17 blog project #7

Name your favorite movie and why.

The first to leap to mind is "The Last Emperor." Of course there are hundreds of movies that could be named, Casablanca, braveheart, Heat of the Night, many John Wayne, yes John Wayne movies, but...

Only The Last Emperor moves me to tears every time I watch it.

There is something about that little boy, an infant, literally becoming Emperor before realizing what a burden it is. He resents it as he finds himself manipulated by various court factions then finds he is Emperor in name only. What follows is a descent into decadence and the loss of family and faith. The final insulte is him being used as a figurehead for the Manchu movement.

It is the end that always gets me though.

long after he's been overthrown and re educated he takes a tour of the forbidden city like any other communist citizen. Underneath his old throne is the cricket he played with as that lonely child all those years ago. still alive. It's an impossible thing of course that moves him and in turn me to tears every time.

I'm such a wuss!