Orbiting the Literary Planet
New stuff is afoot.
My new change in appearance: I took the plunge and got the rest of my hair chopped short, ala Jean Seberg in Breathless. I've never had enough cheekbones (i.e. been thin enough) to pull this off before. So far, I love it. I don't even have to comb my hair when I get out of the shower. I just sort of mess it up a little and it looks more professional than ever.
But you didn't come here for vanity updates. You probably came to find out if I dropped off the face of the literary planet entirely after I stopped doing Barbes.
Well, sort of. Not entirely.
My new project of late: I'm taking a writing class.
I'm itching to blog about the details of the class, the types of people in it, what we've done so far, what the teacher is like...but I know all too well that the first time someone in the class decides to google their classmates, I'd be in big trouble of Harriet the Spy proportions. Even if I said nice things, I'd be afraid of this happening. Hell, I'm already afraid that merely by having a website where I pretend to be a writer, I'm asking for trouble.
But I will tell you that so far, it's going okay. I've even volunteered to have my current project workshopped in the next couple of weeks, and I'm looking forward to getting feedback. Hopefully I will not be damned with faint praise. (One of the most crushing moments of my adult writing life happened after my first reading at Barbes. When I met the relatively well-known author who'd "headlined" the reading, she shook my hand and said to me, in a tone that could not be any more disinterested, "you're a good writer." I'm sure she meant to be gracious and polite, but I never wanted to throw in the towel, and never write another word, more than when I received the lamest, blandest compliment possible. Maybe this is why Salinger doesn't write anymore. Perhaps, like, Truman Capote or Nabokov or someone told him his books were "nice.")
My other new project of late: I'm doing some freelance book reviewing.
That's right. A rather large and high-profile publication is actually sending me books in the mail, which I'm to read and write a small review, after which point they'll publish my review in their publication and then they will send me money. It's not enough to quit my day job yet, obviously, but someone is paying me to read books. I'm ridiculously excited about this. My first book arrived yesterday. I have already finished reading it. I'm like a little kid who's just started a new grade in school (and hasn't yet been jaded by the concept of school in general). Did I mention I get to keep the books when I'm done? Whose idea was this? It's like being paid to ride roller coasters and eat ice cream.
All of this reading and writing at the behest of others makes me deeply regret not having taken more English classes when I was in school. Hell, I wish I'd double-majored. But English, at the time, seemed like such a pedestrian thing to study in college, and I didn't want to put any actual, serious stock in the notion that I could actually do something fiction-writey for a living. (Honestly, I didn't think much about the "real world" in general when I was in college. That's liberal arts for you.)
Partially, I think I was afraid of becoming one of those space cadets with an MFA who's capable of doing nothing but churning out directionless, flowery prose and nattering on about their "art" in a smug, superior tone to anybody who'll listen (fellow guests at cocktail parties, bored relatives, perhaps the captive audience of a community college class if I got really lucky). (Forgetting all the while, of course, that I may occasionally be directionless, but rarely am I flowery.) I needed real world experience and real life events and skills. Mostly, though, I was scared. Scared and lazy.
Truth is, I'm not actually all that bad when I put my mind to writing and my fingers to keyboard, and I know this. And the only way to improve on "not actually all that bad" is to keep doing it, whether freelancing or working for a class.
My new change in appearance: I took the plunge and got the rest of my hair chopped short, ala Jean Seberg in Breathless. I've never had enough cheekbones (i.e. been thin enough) to pull this off before. So far, I love it. I don't even have to comb my hair when I get out of the shower. I just sort of mess it up a little and it looks more professional than ever.
But you didn't come here for vanity updates. You probably came to find out if I dropped off the face of the literary planet entirely after I stopped doing Barbes.
Well, sort of. Not entirely.
My new project of late: I'm taking a writing class.
I'm itching to blog about the details of the class, the types of people in it, what we've done so far, what the teacher is like...but I know all too well that the first time someone in the class decides to google their classmates, I'd be in big trouble of Harriet the Spy proportions. Even if I said nice things, I'd be afraid of this happening. Hell, I'm already afraid that merely by having a website where I pretend to be a writer, I'm asking for trouble.
But I will tell you that so far, it's going okay. I've even volunteered to have my current project workshopped in the next couple of weeks, and I'm looking forward to getting feedback. Hopefully I will not be damned with faint praise. (One of the most crushing moments of my adult writing life happened after my first reading at Barbes. When I met the relatively well-known author who'd "headlined" the reading, she shook my hand and said to me, in a tone that could not be any more disinterested, "you're a good writer." I'm sure she meant to be gracious and polite, but I never wanted to throw in the towel, and never write another word, more than when I received the lamest, blandest compliment possible. Maybe this is why Salinger doesn't write anymore. Perhaps, like, Truman Capote or Nabokov or someone told him his books were "nice.")
My other new project of late: I'm doing some freelance book reviewing.
That's right. A rather large and high-profile publication is actually sending me books in the mail, which I'm to read and write a small review, after which point they'll publish my review in their publication and then they will send me money. It's not enough to quit my day job yet, obviously, but someone is paying me to read books. I'm ridiculously excited about this. My first book arrived yesterday. I have already finished reading it. I'm like a little kid who's just started a new grade in school (and hasn't yet been jaded by the concept of school in general). Did I mention I get to keep the books when I'm done? Whose idea was this? It's like being paid to ride roller coasters and eat ice cream.
All of this reading and writing at the behest of others makes me deeply regret not having taken more English classes when I was in school. Hell, I wish I'd double-majored. But English, at the time, seemed like such a pedestrian thing to study in college, and I didn't want to put any actual, serious stock in the notion that I could actually do something fiction-writey for a living. (Honestly, I didn't think much about the "real world" in general when I was in college. That's liberal arts for you.)
Partially, I think I was afraid of becoming one of those space cadets with an MFA who's capable of doing nothing but churning out directionless, flowery prose and nattering on about their "art" in a smug, superior tone to anybody who'll listen (fellow guests at cocktail parties, bored relatives, perhaps the captive audience of a community college class if I got really lucky). (Forgetting all the while, of course, that I may occasionally be directionless, but rarely am I flowery.) I needed real world experience and real life events and skills. Mostly, though, I was scared. Scared and lazy.
Truth is, I'm not actually all that bad when I put my mind to writing and my fingers to keyboard, and I know this. And the only way to improve on "not actually all that bad" is to keep doing it, whether freelancing or working for a class.
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