I realize that I've been neglecting you when it comes to story time. Sure, I've swabbed your eyes with pretty colors as I've posted drawings and videos, but it's been a long while since I've given you any prose, for which I apologize. I'm in school--sometimes by the end of the day, I'm so sick of writing papers that I forget about the fun writing, the writing that people outside of the academic circles will--hopefully--want to read.
So hello, you!
Let's talk about me for a while. Then you can have your turn (please note the comment option at the bottom and that you must have a screenname in one of several sites or blog pages, but you can always email me at
no1getzs0da@yahoo.com).
I've been doing everything in my power to distract myself from studying for my econ exam tomorrow. (Do you really want to know why an English major is taking microeconomics? Well I could rant and rave, but I'll save it for another day). The sandman has even added to my distraction as I just woke up from a "study session." Other things to distract me are the Charleston drawing below, DeviantArt memes (something I've just discovered, and I've only done two:
Discworld and
Dr. Who), and YouTube channels.
Yes, I've actually subscribed to more than just channels of bands I like. I actually have two subscriptions to people who regularily sit in front of a camera and talk at you. It's wonderful! It's the wave of the future, man. Or something. (If you're curious, I subscribe to
Llewtube (Robert Llewellyn) and
Vlog Brothers (John and Hank Green).
So enough about how I've been spending my time, right? That's not why you're reading this, you've got plenty of things to do and don't need my recommendations and in fact have your own YouTube subscriptions to worry about thank you very much. Well then! Let's get to the point.
Writing conferencesThe second writing conference that I will attend in the history of my entire life is in a week and a half. I have submitted my first chapter (of Riff) to WisCon where three other novelists will evaluate it along with a pro, Theodora Gloss, who I met at the Minneapolis Fantasy Matters conference. I'm pretty psyched to get some feedback. I still have yet to read the entries of the other three people in my group. I have been printing them off on campus because it's free. Teehee.
TANGENT: Speaking of the Minneapolis conference where I met Neil Gaiman...Neil Gaiman just came out with a new book called The Dangerous Alphabet, and it's "about two kids and their pet ibex." Now it just so happens that the ibex is my all time favorite animal. Coincedence? Probably. Great minds think alike. Ha! Blasphemy!
Grant writingNext year, I'm applying for a grant so that I can afford to hire an editor for Riff. So, I've been doing some reasearch, getting some quotes. Prices vary a lot, actually. If anyone knows any thorough but cheap editors, let me know. The grant is at maximum $1,250.
Summer internshipI think I'll be working at Bleak House Books in Madison this summer. It's unpaid, but it's pretty much exactly what I want to be doing, so I can't complain. I haven't gone in yet or anything, but I'm pretty confident it will work out. Excited!
Other summer thingsMy main goal is to get Riff edited to the point where I'm ready to pass it on to an editor next spring (the grant money doesn't come in until December). There a bunch of work to be done, a lot of rewriting, restructuring, etc.
I'm also going to Charleston, as you can probably tell by my previous post. I'm meeting up with my flatmates from London who I haven't seen in a WHOLE YEAR! So excited!
I'm taking a summer portfolio class, which allows people who want to hire me to see some of the work I've done. Yes, that means that there will be some of my writing available to read on the internet. Are
you excited now?
Writing classesI've written some great stuff for school this year. I took a creative writing course where I wrote some poems and stories. I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to poetry. I
like poetry. In fact, I can suggest some good poems:
Theodor Roethke (Dolor, etc.)
Jane Hirshfield (The Envoy, Tree)
Yuhuda Amichai (I passed by a house where I lived once)
Bob Hicok (Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem)But when it comes to actual writing them...eh. Here are some poems I wrote for creative writing class:
Leaving London
My flatmates say they left their hearts in London.
I lost my heart
in Heathrow baggage check.
No one claims the dirty dishes left in the sink
clogged with caramelized onion slices
evolved into minnows swimming in milk,
expired April twenty-second,
drained from a good-bye gift of mac and cheese,
last box of three.
We leave that for the future tenants of flat forty-eight.
I unpeel a layer of flesh from my chest
and pack my pulsing heart in the suitcase
beside the Venetian mask and headphones.
We didn’t just leave the flat
or the city
but the whole island
that day.
a journey like this:
Broken-wheeled bag.
Overstuffed tube.
Heathrow Station closed.
Rain.
Jam-packed bus.
Tear-stained t-shirts,
last flatmate of three.
Now boarding seats forty through twenty.
Chicago is upside-down,
sunlight winking at me from the roofs of parked cars
like the ground is the sky and the cars are stars.
A baby screams all the way home
like the wheels scream as they touch American loam.
First Mid-Western accent I hear in months:
“Be careful when opening the overhead bins,
because as you know, shit happens.”
My bags, more reluctant than me,
do no make the journey.
now my headphones play only
Billie Piper, The Fratellis, Kate Nash
to appease the pulsing contents of my bags.
When I hear they’ve cut my scene from the film
I creep through the dark to the projection room
where I find film sheets bending like waves,
all frames locking motion like somebody’d frozen the ocean,
curled like a nest, each scene a twig or list
of old groceries, a moment in a life—
but my twig is missing.
The gyre of tape mad-bird-screeches
as I tear off another wing
to adhesify my scene,
the one left so carelessly on the rug.
I explode the nest as strip tastes blade:
Snip! Slice! Split
screen, super imposed, juxtaposed
two characters that aren’t really together
but are now reely together, spliced forever
between rolls of holes and whole roles
like my twig in the nest.
Before the projector hugs the spool,
the director will bow
to me for mending his oversight
but when the doorknob jiggles
like somebody rattling chains,
they shatter my makeshift lock,
stuff fists into mine like a badass handshake
gone wrong
and a cop turned gardener weeds out film roots
from my upturned mitt,
crinkling minutes of characters’ lives,
stripping off tape like defeathering a dove.
They cuff my wrists behind my back and
as they drag me out the door, I watch my scene
detach from continuity and flutter
to the cutting room floor.
[Unfinished/untitled]If I leave you
In the sun
Will your skin curl
Like paper?
Can I turn the pages
Of your flesh
To find a new chapter?
If I hold you
Under water
Will you rust?
If I saw you
In half
Could I count your rings
To find your age?However, I did write some good stories. Well, one good story. It's called
White Elephant. I was a tad nervous about how the class would recieve it, but it got a really great response. The students (and the professor) gave some good suggestions, but for the most part, people really liked it. It's kind of 50's sci-fi-esque. Someone mentioned that it reminded them of Twilight Zone. Another person said they'd forward it to their family. I will need some time away from it for a while in order to ever do a substantial second draft, but I did fine-tune the current draft to turn in at the end of the semester (aka today).
In my prose class, I wrote a character portrait about my grandpa. Weird experience, let me say. I dislike feature writing and non-fiction, but this was quite fun. There was a lot of research that went into it, which then came together like a puzzle. According to my grade, there are still some weak elements, but personally, I was electrified by the finished product. ZZT.
I also wrote some reviews. Again, not a fan of feature writing, but I picked some topics that interested me. You can actually check them out at the class's blog:
http://nelson313.blogspot.com/It includes the awesome
Kate Nash concert that I went to. Check out some of my photos
here.
I'd love to stay and chat, but I must be off to take my econ exam now. And yes, you may have noticed that an entire 24 hours have passed between now and the beginning of this blog.
