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.

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