Also, if it isn't obvious, the very-polished stories that I spoke about in my last post are all (in that order) a complete collection.

It's pretty short for a whole collection, so I plan on doing something that Luisa Valenzuela did, which was to have different sections in a short story collection, each one with a certain theme.

Clearly, these stories are pretty short, so I need to work on length.

A Long Overdue Update

Well, it's certainly been a while, that's for sure. I've got a completely legitimate explanation: I'm taking 17 credits this semester. Some of my friends are going through totally intense stuff. Really, the only reason that I'm posting something right now is because I'm feeling a little bit lonely, it's midterms, and I don't want to work on my Philosophy of Language paper just yet, even if Frege's a fabulous guy.

Writing's been going pretty well; I realized that if I write stories that are closer to the truth--such as the one I just wrote called Berkeley, California--I should try to write them in the third person. I should also try elongating them, as my story will be end up being carried more by plot than character. I turned an intense portfolio of work for a competition here at school for the Creative Writing department, so now a bunch of my works are in tip-top shape, which is GREAT! This includes the titles Red, Strange English, The Naked Diner, I'm Just Joking, and Sleeping with Scarlett. I was describing the stories to a friend of mine and I realized just how bizarre my stories can seem sometimes. Anyways, I had a friend look over a couple, and she asked, "Why aren't you a creative writing major?" That's always totally flattering. But, hey, philosophy and comparative literature make my writing more wonderful than creative writing classes, and that's about it.

I bought the 2008 Pushcart Prize on Amazon.com, as well as Mary Gaitskill's short story collection Bad Behavior (published by Vintage--I found out about her reading an article about her in Poets and Writers Magazine). Anyways, the collection of Puschart Prize stories was actually quite horrendous...the writers certainly had good ideas, but the stories felt ridiculously unpolished, messy, rushed...I was very shocked that they had won such prestigious awards. Perhaps I know too many amazing writers here, because I felt like they certainly could have written the prize-winning poems, and that they had some skills that the prize-winning stories were lacking. (To be fair, I've only read the first three stories and the first three poems.) Mary Gaitskill's short story collection, however, is absolutely amazing. She's wonderful. Her writing is clean and thoughtful, and intricately beautiful. It's also very disturbing. I'm a little bit over halfway through the collection, and I'm very grateful for the writing she's given to the world. As for the magazine I just mentioned, I bought a subscription because the one I bought randomly after a dinner out of town at the Barnes & Noble was totally fabulous.

I'm working a lot on philosophy, which certainly makes my writing far more organized and logical. I'm taking three classes, although one of them is a private reading. Plato's really great--I'm reading Republic and it's very beautiful, although it's got some contentious issues (just like any philosophy, but I would even say more than usual). So, that's my Ancient Philosophy class. I'm also taking a Philosophy of Language class, which is totally mindblowing, so it's great (although a little bit confusing). Aaand I'm taking a private reading in the Epistemology of Emotions with Professor D. Ganson, which is totally great. So I'm writing a bunch this weekend.

My Honors project is going fabulously, but anyways, I'm getting very distracted by a friend, so I'm going to go! And get dinner!

Adieu!

After Babel

So, while my writing is a little bit behind currently, I've been doing some work to get ahead on my Honors Project. I'm working on an introduction (which is proving very tricky!), and I'm reading a totally addictive book, called After Babel, by George Steiner. He's certainly a man to my heart. I'm only on page 18 and I'm certain I can finish it by this weekend.

Tomorrow, I should see what I'm submitting to where. Yes.

EXTRA EXTRA

EXTRA EXTRA:

This week:
None.

This month:
Fri. Jan 30- Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction- ohiostatepress.org
Fri. Jan 30- Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowship- www.creativewriting.wisc.edu
Fri. Jan 30- Writers' Journal Annual Fiction Contest- www.writersjournal.com
Sat. Jan 31- Glimmer Train's Family Matters- www.glimmertrain.org
Sat. Jan 31- Just Deserts Short-Short Fiction Prize- http://myweb.num.edu/~passages
Sat. Jan 31- Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant- www.ohioana.org
Sat. Jan 31- Frank O'Conner International Short Story Award- www.munsterlit.ie
Sat. Jan 31- Prism International Annual Short Fiction Contest- prismmagazine.ca

ROLLING DEADLINE: www.milkweed.org

I'm going to be writing some absurd stuff because that's all I've got in my right now.

This one's going to be called, Twenty Years and Sixty-Seven Beggars.

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.

Oh Oh Oh Oberlin

So, I'm back at school, overwhelmed with such a winter and such a state. I feel less alone than I have in a very long time, and yet, I can tell I'm a different person from when I left. In a good way, though. But it's still a strange feeling. I feel like I'm doing things I could have never been capable of, even if I had been willing to do them in the past. I'm glad I'm living life in such a way that makes me become more like what I want to be, and even more, what I've always felt I'm supposed to become. Going to school at Oberlin has certainly been part of this.

Currently it's Winter Term, so the campus is bare--but that's part of the beauty of it. Not to mention, I'm not overwhelmed with billions of people around me. In Paris there were many people too, but as it's a city (and especially Paris) people keep to themselves there. I feel like I'd gotten so good at being alone that I need to learn a way to cultivate that skill, to be happy being alone, in a way. But I'm also happy to be meeting many people for lunch tomorrow, at Java Zone.

All this might seem irrelevant, but it's very relevant to my writing, so I guess that's why I'm posting it here. A book of places to publish to should be showing up in the mail soon, so some EXTRA EXTRAs will be popping up soon here. My writing projects have come to a halt, with the unexpected culture shock, as well as other reasons. My thoughts are preoccupied, but, not to worry friends, at least I am still reading (even if what I am reading is in French and I have once again halted reading Middlemarch).

The world is quite bizarre sometimes. I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens, and that helps. But I'm happy, be sure of that. I'm happy.