Sleeping With Scarlett, etc!

So, I finished Sleeping With Scarlett, and sent it to friend whose opinion I respect--they really liked it, so that's great. Here's an excerpt:

She shook her head, smiling. “I slept with you for no professional reasons. I just liked you.” The waitress put a candle on our table as they dimmed the place again. Scarlett nodded towards my kir and I nodded back. I handed over the glass and she tried some. “Kind of sweet,” she said after taking a large gulp. “Like you, when I saw you the first time, back at the museum.”

I still have to edit it, but anyway, this is great news! This means that I only have to finish up The Disease and I'll have the rough draft of my Los Angeles/ Strange English short story collection done! After that there will be the rough-rough final draft, the rough final draft, and then the final draft, which is only really temporary, depending on the effect of the passing of time on the work.

As for all my other projects, I'm following what was planned in the last post--except, I want to finish the very beginning draft of my Honors project introduction by New Years. So, that and the short story collection have priority. I'm almost done reading the Allende.

Everything!

First of all! I've got so many papers, papers, papers! Oh mon dieu! So I'm really busy with that...so I can only dream, presently, of doing any writing of my own. Either way I hope to submit some stuff before I leave Paris. I'm leaving in less than a week!

Projects I've really had the urge to work on lately:
-Botany story (reading the Modiano has given me a good way of thinking about structure when it's got to do with self-discovery and being adventuresome, yet intelligent.)
-Finishing up the short story collection of Los Angeles/ Strange English. It's almost finished! So I should make a point of doing that before I leave for Uruguay, and if I don't finish it by then (which is likely), I should finish it in Uruguay. No ifs ands or buts because I have a lot of work starting in the Spring (with Honors!), and I would like to do some fun writing this winter, which does not mean finishing up stories and editing them but starting on totally new things! Like...
-Working on a short story project this Winter Term (on my own, not for credit) about a cafe in Paris. I'm thinking my reading in French (which is my real winter term project) should help with this.
-Sometime in my writing life: interviewing my grandmother for stories. I did this a while back, in high school, but I'd like to get my memory refreshed. Perhaps do something Duras-style, about photographs, or something like that. Hmm. Something to think about, anyway. Thanks to Isabel Allende for this idea, since every magical realism writer does this. And speaking of magical realism...
-finishing up the magical realism novella. I'd like to get that done this winter, too.

Reading Projects:
Finish reading Isabel Allende by end of Uruguay trip (because I'm still pretty behind on it).
Finish reading Middlemarch. I'm about halfway through. I want to have that finished by the end of Winter Term.
Winter Term project--reading a bunch of modern French writers.
Read something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the original language (starting Winter Term, continuing during the year).
Get into a poet. I haven't done that in a while.

At this very moment, I am dancing to Mika and writing about the Algerian War. Yes!

Elisa

May I just mention that Patrick Modiano is totally fabulous?

EXTRA EXTRA

EXTRA EXTRA:

This week:
None.

This month:
Mon. Dec 15- www.richardburgin.com (Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers)
Mon. Dec 15- www.calwriterstv.com (Masters Literary Awards, $15)
Tues. Dec 16- http://crazyhorse.cofc.edu (Crazyhorse Fiction Prize, $15)
Mon. Dec 22- www.scratchcontest.net
Wed. Dec 31- www.uah.edu/colleges/liberal/english/whatnewcontest.html (H.E. Francise Short Story Award)
Wed. Dec 31- webdelsol.com/NorthAmReview/NAR/HTMLpages/NARtoday.html (Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize, $18)

Voila!

Honors, Papers, and Sleeping with Scarlett

So! I got accepted for Honors! I keep remembering it and it feels sooooo unreal! It was way scarier than any sort of place I've applied for publication, because, as opposed to just judging only my writing, people looking at my application were also judging my work ethic and my ability, and eventually, me. So I'll be workin' mah ass off next semester and the one after, especially since I'll be finishing up two majors. But I'll have a summer inbetween to work, too, if I need it. I'm going to be translating a book and then I'm going to be writing an Honors paper. Yikes! Michael and I can angst together, although his will probably be super-hard--he's going to Honors in philosophy.

Papers--I'm putting together currently a really intense paper on Marguerite Duras' The Lover and it's totally driving me crazy. I'm writing about something that I've found impossible to find in JStor. I'm a little scared that it might totally suck, but at the same time, it's a totally badass idea.

Sleeping with Scarlett is going well. I'm going to translate it into French to show the un-translability of things ultimately in a presentation for my conversation class. Oh, man. What a sad story. It's totally my goodbye to Paris, too...I can tell I'm really going to miss this place. Excerpt time:

“Oui,” I said, practicing the native language. “Let me just get my tie on.” I took out a green one from the fake wood drawers, where I kept a couple watches and some spare condoms.

“Real men don’t wear ties anymore,” she said, grabbing the tie from my hands and throwing it back in the drawer. After sex, we walked over to the nearby Metro stop and we took the eight line to Bastille. It was a little cafe she said she had come across, where people recognized her but weren’t rude and wouldn’t ask her for anything, except the three euros sixty for a hot chocolate. She ordered her usual chocolat chaud, and I ordered a kir d’alsace, some sweet wine.

“So I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, sipping her chocolate slowly.