current writing and reads, etc.

So, I know it's been a ridiculously long time since my last post. That's probably because I got real burnt out from the two writing conferences I went to (Indiana U and U of Mass-Amherst), and up until last week I couldn't think a bit about writing about writing. However, I got some good headway on some stories, specifically Strange English and The Naked Diner, and wrote a new story, Icarus, which needs a tiny bit of revision, and started another story that's probably kind-of sort-of a lesbian version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and certainly more modern, and shorter. It's probably less interesting of a plot, but, that's not my focus considering that it's a short-short and Tiffany's is a novella. I really need to work on plot, though, so I'm thinking of purchasing a couple spy novels, hopefully something about a heist, a good mystery, and I got some Truman Capote from Amazon for only about $5 a book: Breakfast at Tiffany's, of course, and In Cold Blood. I probably won't be able to get to these new books for a while, though, because of my Honors Project.

I haven't been submitting anywhere recently but that's because I'm real busy from working on The Truce--I'm on about page 50--and I need 100 pages done by the end of the summer. (Technically, by December, but hell, I want to work on editing the first draft and on the critical essay in the fall semester). So, I'm doing about 5 pages a day this July, so I can unwind a tiny bit in August, and do some reading for the project before I delve into really working on the essay in September-November. I want to have something totally concrete by December, so I can put some finishing touches to everything. Of course, The Truce won't be a final draft, but it will be a good one. And that will be pretty cool. I should contact Prof. Faber sometime in late July, to let him know how everything's going. With all this planning, all of this seems to be going very well--especially since reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast really gave me a good kind of voice to come from. Benedetti's a very quintessential Uruguayan voice, so it only makes sense that I pick an essential American one. I'm so excited about this, and I need to stop being silly and just work!

As for reading, I decided that I really need to get back to Virginia Woolf, because Paul Lisicky, who read my manuscript at the UMass conference (I promise to talk about the conferences in the next post), told me I should read her because she'd be good for my work. (He said this in response to Strange English). So I'm reading Mrs. Dalloway right now, and it's absolutely wonderful. I'm sure I'll be finished with the book in a couple of days. I'm also reading Camus' L'étranger in the original French, and while I have to look up words every once in a while, it's ver readable. I should keep doing this, so that whenever I pick up French again (I certainly hope to do it at graduate school--many MFA programs require taking language classes), I can really know what I'm doing.

Just a note: Scrivener, the computer program, has done wonders for me. It's just great.

Thanks, Isabel Allende! I've decided to try out a little something for a book of great beauty, the Botany Story, which is to switch between first and third person (but still always following the same character, the botany professor). I don't know how well it will work, as I'm obsessed with my narrator, but the problem is is that he strays away from plot often, and I need a little bit more control over it. Also, I think he sounds too much like me, and perhaps if I stay a little bit away from him, that will happen too. So we'll see. We're all post-post-post-post modern here, so anything's possible structure-wise, so I might as well experiment. It's a big intense book after all, and I won't be able to work on it all spring (snif) because I'll be working on the translation of Benedetti's book for my Honors project.

Speaking of Isabel Allende, I've totally forgotten to post up what I *did* get to read after I left Paris. While I only got fifty more pages into Middlemarch, I was able to finish House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. Just yesterday, I finished reading Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, in the original French, yay! I'm going to be reading a book of shorts by that guy who just won the Nobel Prize this week, although I doubt I'll get through the whole book. Anyways, we'll see about that too.

Myself, I need to work on being back in the States again. I'm finally home, but I'm afraid that I've been gone so long, that that might not really be the name of this place anymore. I'm going to do some work today at Java Zone after lunch, and I'm letting myself work on whatever fiction I need. Because I need it to feel more in place, I guess.

Oh, God, Mika. I know for a fact that my taste in music is terrible, but I don't care. I love Mika.

Reading I've Done Recently...and other things...

So, I guess I should update y'all on what readings I've been doing lately...

So, I finished up Benedetti's La Tregua (whilst taking a break from Allende's Casa de las espiritus), and it was absolutely fab. I'm still waiting to hear about Honors...but I've decided to apply to a creative writing workshop if I don't get accepted for that...and then do some translation work over the summer.

I know I mentioned before that I was reading some other books; I finished Duras' The Lover (English translation), and I also finished Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, which was challenge, but totally awesome. I'm currently working on Maryse Conde's Crossing the Mangrove (English translation) for class, Paris in the Fifties (for class!), and, finishing up Allende's Casa de los espiritus.

Other things:

I really want this program for MFAness....It looks so fab...: http://iub.edu/~mfawrite/about/
Of course it's amazing so who knows if I'll get in. But it's very international-like, and reputable. Two very good things.

I really miss philosophy classes. As usual. But I will be taking 2-3 this next semester, so...

I will be doing a reading in French literature for Winter Term...so I will be able to continue studying...yay!

--me.

Current Projects

So, now that I got all midterms and travels to Barcelona and the Honors Application finished, I've got some low-stress projects I'm working on. Going to be

-finishing up part one of the magical realism novella (I'm working on it so that I can submit each section of the three for a serial publication in Spiral)
-continuing to edit the botany story
-considering writing up a screenplay version (or a musical version?) of Socrates on a Plane, but in the 50s...
-finishing up the stories in Los Angeles (Sleeping with Scarlett and The Disease)

So, it's really just all some catching-up work. I hope I get this all done by the time I head over to Uruguay, so that I can continue some serious work on the botany story when I get there.

If the Honors proposal gets accepted, I'll be starting working on the Benedetti translation in the spring! If not, I'll probably be working on that during the summer.

That's all!

Oh, and wait, I wanted to advertise something my friend put together: http://iomoth.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/photocomic-incomplete-from-summer-2008/

It should take about three seconds to read, and it's very good!

Writing Class & Honors

So, I'll be taking a writing class in the spring with Prof. Watanabe and this other guy whose name I can't remember (Matambo perhaps?). I think the guy was an Oberlin alum, so that probably means he'll be cool. The class is called Geographies of Displacement, it's only 2 credits (otherwise I wouldn't have room to take it!), and it seems cool because I think it's going to be half writing/ half reading, and it's about exiled writers. There will be many visiting authors for the course. It sounds good, and I'm surprised it's not in the Comp Lit department ('cause I'm sure to get Comp Lit credit for it).

I'm going to be turning in my Honors application at the end of this week; in case you don't remember, I'm hoping to translate Benedetti's La Tregua (The Truce) for the Honors Project, and then writing up something on the practice of translation in relation to the theories of translation. Prof. Ali and Prof. Faber have agreed to be my advisors for it, so all I have to do is hope that my crummy GPA in the school (3.3ish when it has to be at least 3.5) doesn't get in the way. I'm considering mentioning my writing blog in the application...We'll see...

I've been sucking at posting in general lately. I'll put up the EXTRA EXTRAs soon. Promise.

--Elisa

Suddenly, everything around me is changing.

I'm becoming more competent at everything: reading, writing, organizing my time, dealing with writer's block and just writing, writing, writing, reading, reading. I think it's a couple things: (1) I'm really homesick, (2) I visited two museums this weekend and (3) getting more fluent in my other languages is having an astounding impact on my English.

It all started with the Centre Pompidou. As a result of said museum, I finally started on 'Sleeping with Scarlett,' a short story about beauty (and, yes, Scarlett Johansson) and just aesthetics in general (I would love to show it to a philosophy prof sometime who won't judge me for the popular icon use--or perhaps I will and change their mind). I also worked a little bit on 'The Disease,' which is a reaction to a kind-of-well-known short story a friend sent me a while ago--it involves a lesbian and an oxygen tank, and talks about love. And music. I also began work on a serial novella, that I would like to submit through my friend's Oberlin publication, Spiral (I may have spoken about this in my last post...). This novella involves a bunch of crazy stuff, like fate, incest, reputation, curses, love...anything you'd expect from a genre-type story that I write, especially when it's semi-magical realism, in French-thought, Spanish-thought, and English-thought (it takes place in Paris, Montevideo, and a small town in Connecticut).

Today I did some work on some poetry (tried at a sonnet--it's been a while!), reread some old stuff, and worked on some nonfiction that's really hard to get through--I ended up crying a little bit because that's what happens when I face my honest feelings about things. I also printed out the botany story, finally, so I can rewrite it, and the rewriting's going very well. My narrator has a more distinct voice now, and now that I know more what it ends like, I'm adding in little things to the beginning that show that he knows how it's going to end, too (because it's written like a confession). Best of all, this week I had been thinking, and today I finally picked up Benedetti's La Tregua. Finally. I think reading Allende has made more comfortable with my Spanish, and finally, I see the blaze of Benedetti's writing, its sharp beauty, its disturbing sorrow. I'm going to apply to translate that book--if not also others--for an Honors project. He's not translated in English. And I know, I know, oh God, I know that he will be so beautiful in this language.

My goal in all this: Be respectable. Grow up as a writer. Honor literature and language, but most of all...the so many billion ways that humanity can experience itself--in other words, honor life. If I do that, even if I'm not famous, etc, then I will find my life worthwhile. Not just as a writer, but as myself.

PS- I really, really miss philosophy classes.

How Everything Goes, Presently

So, I guess I'm going to post again on how is everything is going. Sorry about the lack of entries, but after all, I am in Paris! While my quinoa cooks, I'm going to type up a little bit about how everything goes.

I finished my magical realism short story, so now my projects I'm working on intensely are buffing up the botany story, a magical realism novella in sections (that I will submit to the genre magazine at school, Spiral), and anything else that I happen to stumble upon. Here's an excerpt from the story, originally titled Tunnel of Love (after the Dire Straits song), currently titled Strange English:

I’m sitting in the sand, the Oregon shore, that ocean, the tips of your fingers, everything blue, you open your mouth to say something, and I watch your eyes flashing devotion, but those words still within you are something else, that I can only hear now, as this man gasps and grunts, the way no American boy would dare to do, with your thin bones and light hair, all men like you can do is run, dissipating slowly into air. It all ends as I look into your eyes, emptier than the others I have seen, and this man in front of me, bellows, whispers in anguish, the name of a city which I will later learn, in one of our few last meetings at the coffee shop on Baker Street, and is as split as his heart and as our lives, a blue body of water running through, like a sculptor’s cut, like a ruptured front line.

That's not a very magically realistic part--there's a part with ghosts, and that's the part--but, I really like the trick with tenses I do, which doesn't make much sense here, but does in the context of the rest of the story.

As for reading, I read Colette's Cheri and Camus' The Stranger for my English class recently, I finished an *abridged* version of La Bete Humaine in French for my class (because it's really, really long), and I'm now working on Bonjour tristesse by Francoise Sagan, also in French. I finished Swann's Way pretty recently as well, in English. I'm currently reading Allende's La casa de los espiritus in Spanish, and it's absolutely amazing, and Benedetti's La Tregua is next. As for English reading on my own, I'm a little bit behind. But it's probably a good thing to do some work in my other languages, if I wanted to keep them in good quality.

I e-mailed Prof. Faber and he agreed to work on a translation project with me over the summer, so that's very exciting! I need to pick a poet I enjoy. I should head to a bookstore soon and delve.

I've been listening to Cat Stevens and Billy Joel a lot lately. It's very uplifting. I'm in a really good mood lately, even if I seem to be constantly coughing. I'm going to be doing some grunge work on the botany story TONIGHT and TOMORROW because I decided to make my characters better people so I have to change the plot a little bit.

And that is that, presently!

Update!

So, everyone, clearly I haven't really been updating this blog for very long. Apologies! (Although, I really don't think many people read this blog, so perhaps I'm only apologizing to myself...) Anyway, I really think I should give an update on how everything is going.

I traveled to London to visit Tevi this weekend, and brought a couple friends with me from Paris, and it was absolutely wonderful. As usual, travel did a lot for my writing: I worked on one short story (Strange English), started a new short story/novella (something having to do with a curse), and did some work on the botany story (which I haven't done in a very. long. time.), all on the Chunnel! Both on the way to London and from.

I also bought a new program, recommended by Harris, for only 35 bucks, called Scrivener. You can find details here:
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html
I'd recommend the program no matter what if you have the cash to spend--if you have a good income, or whatever. If you're very unorganized as a writer, then this program will obviously give a really good benefit. I'm actually unorganized most of the time, but when it comes to my writing, I'm not--I just feel that time goes against me a lot of the time. So, this program will help me with concentrating better while writing, as well as being aesthetically pleasing enough that I will work with it often. I'm expecting it to up my long-prose by 20%, my short stories by 10% (they don't take as much research, and in general, I have more practice at them), and screenplays probably by something like 50%. (Poetry is far too manual for me, so I don't think I'll be using Scrivener for that.) However, I think in general it will make writing more of a pleasure, mostly because of the 'full screen view' that I really enjoy--it makes your writing look like it's already in a book, I think. Anyway, look at the details if you're interested. I don't think it's a necessity, but if you're serious about writing and have the money to spend, I'd say buy it.

As for books I'm reading right now, I'm doing a lot with trilingual reading:
In English: Middlemarch by George Eliot; short stories by Vladimir Nabokov, Swann's Way by Proust (this is assigned, so it gets preference maintenant)
In French: Bonjour tristesse by Francoise Sagan (assigned), La Bete humaine by Zola (assigned), L'Amant by Marguerite Duras (the English version is assigned later, and I've already read it, so I figured I'd have a try at the short French version)
In Spanish: Casa de los espiritus by Isabel Allende, Eva Luna by Isabel Allende, La Tregua by Mario Benedetti (preference--I've been meaning to read it for so long!), and some poems also by Mario Benedetti.

So...I'm hoping all this reading will be wonderful! As, I hope, will be the writing! Also, I'm submitting the story I'm working on currently (Strange English) to a competition on the 25th--to find out five days later if I made it...Ahh!!

Paris!

Now that I'm in Paris, my mind has cleared for new types of writing. Turns out none of my Sept. 1 contest are actually viable (they all have word limits that I don't make in any of my current stories, or have changed their deadlines to later), so that's good because I don't have to stress out about them and can concentrate on my writing. I've made My Dearest Tomcat into a personal project (a way to practice writing that I won't try to publish), but I'm sure it will have its own effects on the rest of my writing. So, that one's easy to work on because I don't have any publishing deadlines. So, I'm working on the same old projects:

-Benedetti poetry translations
-botany story
-short stories in Los Angeles
-France short stories
-read La Tregua for Benedetti novel translation

I might add more on as the semester continues. It's a really great environment, because as France attracts many artists, people here are very artistic and thoughtful! Yay! I'm very excited about writing here.

Books I'm A' Takin' To New York

La Tregua- Mario Benedetti
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Diaz
Assymetries in Time- Paul Horwich
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov- Vladimir Nabokov
The Tropic of Cancer- Henry Miller

and, a random copy of Avery, a literary magazine, that I impulsively bought for $1 yesterday at a used bookstore, because Prof. Chaon's story was in it--I figured I'd do him the honor of reading him, since he's done the favor of reading me. (Alyssa said, "Oh, I hear he's actually good," so, I hope I'll enjoy it. It's also a good sign that his story is the last. They must have put it there for a reason.)



"NYC, just got here this morning, three bucks, two bags, one me!"

Ah! Hahh..

So, turns out that the new substory didn't work at all with the botany story, so that's completely out of the picture. It made Daisy into a complete bitch, muddled up the story, made the botanist's wife act far more intelligent than she wants to (even though she's actually smart), all this stuff that just made the characters do things that I would never, ever want to happen. However, it makes for a good beginning for something, so I'll see if I can play around with it a little bit.

So, I am getting quite serious about writing every day while I am in Europe with the fam, so I was thinking I'd do it in France, too, although in the form of letters. I will be missing many people when I'm abroad, and I'm thinking that it will be a sort of part fiction/ part nonfiction thing. Because it will be in letter form, there won't necessarily be a straight narrative, but instead, little snatches and bits: I have promised myself that in each letter, there will be some sort of call back both to Paris and to whatever I'm missing from back home. Kind of like a metaphor of places, I will relate both of them to one another. Something like that.

I'm also considering, for my honors project (if it gets accepted...), to write a story about a gay couple in Uruguay, or something like that. It wouldn't be terribly political--gay marriage is legal in Uruguay, and people aren't very religious--so if anything, it would be just a cultural thing. It would also be modern-day, so there would be interesting to see what influence (and what not-influence) there is by the US within Uruguay. So, because of this, I really need to "get on it" with my writing. I'd really like to say that I've finished stuff, but for now all I've got to show is some short stories. I need to have a book written to show that I can do anything within a time constraint. So, I need to finish the botany story, or at least get 3/4 of the way through, this summer, and I seriously need to get to the Mario Benedetti translations.

So, here's what I have to do (writing-wise):

Summer:
- write 5 pages a day of the botany story (this will kill me, and will be flexible while traveling)
- every 2 days, a Benedetti translation
- 1 short story every week (or every 2, depending on inspiration)
- write-something-every-day while in Europe with the fam
- write a 'little something' everyday, more like a writing brainstorm than anything else
[I'll continue this for a while, and if I get into a good rhythm, I'll approach SOAP. All I have to do is convert into a screenplay, and it's so much like one already, that that shouldn't be so bad.]

Fall:
-every day, write a letter, while abroad (try to play around with language, bring in some French)
-edit 8 pages a day of the botany story
-make SOAP into a screenplay, 5 pages a day
-do/try out a long Benedetti translation (La Tregua, anyone?)
-1 short story every week (or every 2, depending on inspiration)
-convert stuff into manuscript format

Depending how all of this works out, we will see what happens in the upcoming future.

As for reading plans:
this week: finish Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, start and finish The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Horwich isn't as necessary as before (because the substory didn't work for the botany), but if I want to make the substory a short story, I still may need to use it--so I will read it between breaks in reading Junot Diaz. I will be taking the bus to and from NYC this weekend, so I will have time to be reading.

next week: Must read Bertrand Russell. It's been too long and I love him. Also interested in looking at some Quine, because of stuff I like to do with language. So, we'll see about all that. Interesed in, fiction-wise, some Edith Wharton, Henry James... Because philosophy is heavy, I will allow myself to read something shorter by the fiction authors. Will be continuing the Horwich, most likely.

week after next: Should go back to reading a book from the botany list, most likely The Botanist and the Vintner (Christy Campbell). Will read whichever philosopher's left over from the last week, and will e-mail a few professors about stuff in the aesthetics-realm (since this will be a botany-focused week).

The Naked Diner, etc.

So, I finished my short story called The Naked Diner! Thank God I got away from the sci-fi theme--it was headed in that direction, and that genre never works well for me because I'm not original enough. So, for this week, I have left (1) Benedetti translations, (2) finish reading Orlando by Woolf, (3) start screenplaying work on SOAP, and (4) work on some poems, if I can. Next week, botany story! (And continuing screenplaying work on SOAP.)

Here's a bit of The Naked Diner:

“Have you selected what you’d like yet, sir?” She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but it might just be because she’s nude. In fact, I’m sure that’s the reason, the mix of her brash nudity, showing all she’s got to give, and her polite stance, quiet voice, use of the word, ‘sir.’ I’ve never seen anything like that before. She’s the purest woman I’ve ever seen, because she’s got more to hide from me than any other woman. She gives herself last, her body first. And she’s blonde. I’ve always had a thing for blondes.

Well, I guess I'll get to the Benedetti later today. Right now I'm working on a short story called, 'The Naked Diner,' which is exactly what it means (although, with some sort of existentialist doubt, etc, black coffee, missing shoes..etc.). The Virginia Woolf is amazing, and will be a great thing to read for the botany story--so I'll have to get back to the botany story next week, as I imagine I'll be finished with Orlando by the end of this week. Work, as my boss is not here, is even less work than it even was. Which is why 'The Naked Diner' is coming along so smoothly, and why I might have a story and some translations done by the end of today.

Europe...Among Other Things

My plan: while on vacation in Europe with the family, I will write one short story every day, or a poem--although poems usually take much longer than a day for me, but we'll see what I can do. I'll edit everything on the planeride back, then I'll be back a day, and then off to France for study-abroad. (I don't understand the logic of traveling thusly, but my parents affirm it's the best thing to do.)

I've been meaning to write a poem lately, so let's see if that happens...perhaps I will just do the Benedetti translations instead, as I had been planning to do this weekend anyway...Translations always help my writing in general, though, so perhaps I'll work on a poem and some of the botany story after working on the translation. So, this weekend, I should start revising SOAP, and do somewhere from 1-10 Benedetti rough draft translations (this is of poems--not prose).

I'm basically halfway through The Unbearable Lightness of Being, so I can probably get that out of the way soon. Metro rides make a great thing for reading. It's a touching subject, but I think that's more on a personal level than with the actual level of the writing. Too bad it's a translation, I can sense so terribly how much is lost there. Perhaps I'll learn Czech after French? We'll see how quickly I learn French. I'm advanced in the language lab and in the homework thus far, so I'm doing some outside reading from books my brother has lent me (he took French in high school and has a bunch of books). I should have known that French would consume me this way. The same thing happened with the English language, and that's why I read so much; it took such great effort for me to learn it, and language has seemed so powerful since then.

I would like to add, this blog has made a huge difference in my writing: not just how much I write (which has expanded), but just, how I feel about writing, how much I read, and how confident I feel about the whole thing. I recommend it to anyone who takes writing seriously.

I'm putting in an excerpt from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, because I've been meaning to since I started reading it:

Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colorful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles. It looks as though the dead are dancing at a children's ball. Yes, a children's ball, because the dead are as innocent as children. No matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery. Even in wartime, in Hitler's time, in Stalin's time, through all occupations. When she felt low, she would get into the car, leave Prague far behind, and walk through one or another of the country cemeteries she loved so well. Against a backdrop of blue hills, they were as beautiful as a lullaby.

For Franz a cemetery was an ugly dump of stones and bones.

Benedetti Translations

I think I'll start some poetry translations of Benedetti this weekend. That'll help me get into his voice...I should really read La Tregua, I've decided, but that'll have to be not this week, since I have to finish the Appiah, and begin and finish the Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Readings

I guess it's always important to write about what books you're in the midst of reading, if you're going to have enough confidence to write in general. So, here goes with the summer books:

Gracias Por El Fuego (Thanks for the Fire) by Mario Benedetti. I'm considering translating a couple of his books for Comp Lit, whether or not I do Honors. So I'm reading up on him. The book itself is *really* political--about Uruguay--so on the one hand I feel very comfortable with it (it's Uruguayan), but on the other hand I don't (it's about politics). My mother tells me his best book is La Tregua (The Truce) , and says I should read it, but she says it's terribly sad. I know what it's about--a widower who falls in love with a young woman at work--and I don't know if I could handle reading that considering preference for older men. But perhaps that will make the read all the worthwhile. Look Benedetti up here if you want... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Benedetti. Super-famous, only has had one book (of shorts!) translated into the English. I'm considering contacting his publisher next time I'm in Uruguay, although if he's in Spain, I should give it a try while I'm abroad next fall.

Experiments in Ethics by Kwame Anthony Appiah. This was recommended from http://www.ethics-etc.com/ (and I recommend that site to you). It just arrived in the mail yesterday, so I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm planning on doing a tiny bit of that while waiting for Kate today for lunch. So, hopefully, that'll be good.

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. One chapter left in this one--I read it for my botany book, and I'll be done with it soon (reading Pollan--not writing the book). I recommend ANYTHING by Michael Pollan. I heard he's kind of a jerk, but I want to bone him anyway. He has a very yummy love for thinking.

I'm up for reading some Edith Wharton or Haruki Murakami, but I'd love some recommendations. I'm also in the Raymond Carver mood, but I think I've read everything by him...why did he have to die? Got any recommendations?