I’m a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut. He’s on my facebook favorites, for godssakes. The man is funny, and honest; a light that illuminates the flaws of humankind, but the hope for it, too. This is my idea of literature. It follows then that I like this lecture.
Yesterday, I took this and made a chart of my novel, Promises. There are three story arcs: Jimmy/Eva, Winston/Anya, and T.S. Eliot/Kurtz. These plot lines intersect with each other at crucial points; most of these characters have a history with each other and those that don’t are building a present. But these plots could also conceivably stand alone.
On the one hand, the T.S. Eliot/Kurtz story line is still a little shaky, presumably because I recently introduced a new element to their story. But no worries! I’ll feel it out. It’s just a matter of adding a missing scene or two in the beginning. And in terms of the overall story, giving Eva some backbone. But that’s typical by now. My girls need to stand up for themselves.
I’m slowly learning how to stand up for myself.
If love is respect and tenderness, then I don’t know if I love you. If love is putting up with your crap, then I love you. If love is forgiveness, damn it, I do love you. But if love means staying, then I can’t love you. This all makes sense.
I’m a horrible gift-giver. I’m the person who gave you a gift certificate on your birthday, didn’t realize you’d expect a gift on our anniversary, and cooked “Christmas dinner” in lieu of a wrapped present. In short, you shouldn’t expect much from me. … My latest failed romantic interest was bewildered by my choice to …
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Lately, I’ve been reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I love it. Her dialogue is sharp and funny, and her writing just kills me. Most of all though, I love her characters – she has a bigger cast than usual, or maybe it just seems bigger because they’re all so unique and real and richly …
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Back in the day, I was all about activism for artists: film festivals, gallery exhibitions, benefit concerts, even arts and crafts projects. I feel that if I were ever to pick up activism again, I’d fall back into these old patterns. It was me. I like looking for spaces, contacting artists, making schedules, bringing in …
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I’m reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. It’s a collection of short stories by a prominent Indian American writer. This is the first of her work that I’ve picked up. I’m reading it in hopes of examining it as a writer would. So far, I’ve read only the title story. It’s slow, but detailed. She …
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A few years back, I found free copies of Art on Paper Magazine, which has since ceased publication, stacked on a table in the main exhibition of Art Basel. Though I didn’t know it then, this series of letters would significantly influence me as a writer during those last two formative years of high school. …
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I wrote this short story in ninth grade. It was just a few pages, but I remember being pleased by the end result. It was a conversation between two unnamed individuals about a third person. The mood was heavy; I had religious allusion and snarky one-liners, and if it felt contrived, well, I was only …
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Promises wouldn’t be much of a story if not for this small problem with unrequited love and messy requited love and, oh hell, it’s mostly about the physical component. Eva is the maiden; she’s sweet, she’s innocent, she’s so damn stupid. She trusts easily, and she wants things even when she doesn’t realize it, and …
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I took a class last freshman spring called “Political Violence and Social Change.” Taught by Professor Zaretsky, this course brought to my attention the concept of memory. I didn’t appreciate it at the time – I was in the middle of an academic crisis, in that I hated my politics classes, but wasn’t willing to …
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Professor Moore once told us that all writers consistently write about the same thing. “Just wait and see,” she warned us after the first workshop, “by the end of the semester, you’ll have realized that you wrote about the same subject matter, over and over.” “Now that you told us that, we’re going to have …
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