Dahl Prize, etcetera

Hey everyone!

So, good news, separate from creative writing, but certainly not from writing. I won the Dahl Prize, which is a prize for the best undergraduate essay submitted, and that's ridiculously exciting, yay! I'm winning $150 for that. If only I'd get this sort of reaction for my creative writing. (But, then again, this is far less competition.)

Among my own writings, I'm going to no matter what finish up the Los Ángeles story today, because I need to use it for the creative writing apps that I'm also finishing up today (which are due tomorrow by 5 p.m.). I'm really hoping to get into the fiction class, as Bernard Matambo and Dan Chaon are teaching it. I did a winter term with Dan Chaon, and it was absolutely, terrifically amazing. I wrote a bunch of stories and he went over them with me, and our tastes totally clicked. It probably helps that before I wrote the stories as I traveled for the month of January of 2008, I read an entire huge collection of Raymond Carver stories. Read, read, read. That's the only thing to keep us writers good and going.

So, I've decided that this summer, I'm going to read 3 books a month (at least): one in Spanish, one in French, and one in English. It's going to be a bit of a drag to not allow myself to read that much English, but it's just, totally necessary for my education in the other languages. Going abroad in Paris, and then taking a super-intense 400-level Spanish class this spring, just goes to show what reading in other languages can do for your writing. On top of the 3-books-a-month plan, I'm going to be reading a lot of theory, and working on my Honors project. Still keeping my fingers crossed for a job.

So, it's finals time at Oberlin. Crazy. That's the only word for it.

Love,
Me!

Juniper Summer Writing Institute

So, among many other things that have happened, I was accepted into the Juniper Summer Writing Insitute at UMass. I've applied to a good amount of summer workshops, and I've gotten into two (that one and the one at Indiana University). I'm definitely going to the Juniper Institute, because it seems to be highly lauded, and is at one of the *top-ten* schools in the country. The other one is at a school I absolutely adore from a paragraph I read about and visits to its website, but the program itself is for just about anyone. Which is fine, but that all depends on my summer job.

Currently I'm doing summer job stuff, and I've been meaning to see if anyone in the Hispanic Studies Department is interested in having someone do research over the summer, so I need to make sure I do that. That's not really writing-related, though. So sorry to get on that tangent, I'm just thinking about it lots lately.

As for how writing is going, I'm working on an expansion of the Los Angeles story, and then I'm working on some creative writing applications for next fall. I'm really busy, but I'll post something better soon.

--Me!

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

Work so far!

Okay, well, I finished part I of the magical realism novella much faster than I thought I would. My friend who is very picky about fiction she likes--and knows a lot about magical realism--read it and loved it. So that's a good sign! It's called The Beasts We Knew, and takes place from 1860s-1920s Spain and Connecticut, two quite different places. And there might be a short stop in England, but I'm not sure. So, I can send that off to Spiral on Monday. Alyssa's going to take a look at it, who has done lots of work in genre fiction, so that will be helpful, too.

Here's a little something from it (yes, I've been sucking at putting up excerpts lately, so I'm starting again):

I never believed any of those stories they told when I was younger, when I was intent on growing up, but suddenly, I was with child, and when I gave light to a baby boy, I knew that there was something within him that I could never let go. I was fifteen years old and being a mother had made me more beautiful. It doesn’t matter who the father was, only that I wasn’t one of those girls who made up stories about ghosts or gods. His father wasn’t human at all, and ghosts and gods as any Católica knows are very human, and that’s why people make them up, because all humanity wants is more and more of us. I never told anyone about his father, and whenever asked about it, I would give very human descriptions without giving any lies: big hands, strange smile, wouldn’t take no for an answer. They just smiled and looked at me like I was the monster.

Currently, I'm finishing up the short stories in the Los Angeles collection: Los Angeles, The Disease, and Sleeping with Scarlett. Today, Sleeping with Scarlett seems to be the biggest focus. I'm considering translating it into French (it takes place in Paris) for my conversation class, but, we'll see about that. It would be exciting to talk about Scarlett Johansson's body in French. Totallay. Duffy's great to listen to for working on this. Here's a little something from that, too:

“Oh,” she said in her low voice. “Oh,” she repeated. I couldn’t stand looking at her and walked away, fingering my pockets for a second cigarette. I was a cameraman. Moving things like this woman I walked away from shouldn’t be burning into my eyes the way she was. But the important thing is, that’s what she was doing. And that meant something. I headed for the doors as fast as I could and took a taxi home. The Paris sky, that meant something too.

I'm hoping to have all the Lost Angeles short story stuff finished by Sunday, so that I can start to focus on my new projects.

That is all!

Los Angeles, etc

I finished writing the Los Angeles story (yay!), and editing it, as well, so I'm going to be working on finishing up a couple more stories (Devil's Den, and another one I started about a man with an oxygen tank (it's from the point of view of a lesbian?)) I think after these two, I should try to put together a collection. I'm going to be writing a story about/in Prague (I'm there now), but we'll see if that goes into this collection or not. I guess it depends on how the short stories develop while I'm in Paris--if they're *all* Europe-oriented, I'll put the Prague story in there. If they're all Paris-oriented, however, I'll put the Prague story into the Los Angeles collection. I'll be working, in Paris, on My Dearest Tomcat (which I might change to Mon Chere Ohio?), and on the botany story. I'm going to go now, to do some handwritten work on one of the three stories I need to work on.

Short Story Collection!

So, I'm thinking of putting together a short story collection. I'm thinking of naming the collection Los Angeles/ The Angels, or something along those lines, when I combined the style and themes of my writing with the fact that I noticed that there are always beautiful women in my stories. One of my stories is titled 'Los Angeles,' so it's appropriate. (The one I started yesterday and is going swimmingly.) The fact that some of my stories are half spanish/ half english, and all of my stories have a feel of escape and travel, make the bilingual title work, I think. When I met up with Prof. Chaon last February, he mentioned the idea of 'ghosts,' and then hinted more at the idea of 'spirits,' and I think the latter is more what's going on with my stories: there's a certain pull, a certain magic, but more of a charming, beautiful sort than something spooky or fatally sad. The only truly sad people are my narrators, and by the ends of the stories, there is always some sort of feel of redemption even for them (hence why 'angels' seems a bit appropriate).

Henry Miller, etc

Henry Miller's The Tropic of Cancer was awesome. Recommend it to anyone who won't hate a book if it's racist/ sexist/ intolerant, etc. The guy's got a heart, guys (sort of). Anyway, the writing was spectacular, so, that was awesome. I'm finishing up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (read it on the busride back from NYC, no air conditioning for four hours, yikes!), and will be reading Bertrand Russell in a few days! Oh, joy!

My writing...let's not talk about that. I'm totally, entirely behind. But I started writing a story sort of based off one of my mom's Uruguayan friends who I found hot this one time in LA and all they talked about at dinner was school shootings from their childhood, laughing about it the entire time.

Harris, just by talking and being himself, has been somehow helping me lots with writing lately. It's awesome.