Spring Break

More like Spring bullshit. You want to know what’s new with me? How about some existential crises? I also feel like I have no grasp on my own writing anymore. I may or may not get a tattoo with Raise Up Roof Beams lyrics and probably freak Nathan out, who, I have to remind myself, is not actually my friend no matter how much I like to believe that he is. I do not have his phone number. We do not hang out. I have never made him and Anne dinner.

Reading Sartre and cannot help but think of Beth as Anny and Randy as Antoine. For no reason at all. I really should not have taken two and a half philosophy classes this semester. Why? BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING ME UP. Also its so much goddamn reading. Of course I can go to class and reading a hundred pages every night. Why can’t I do that? I mean, that’s absolutely reasonable. I have lost my ability to connect with literature. Because I can’t do anything but read for main points. Except for with Sartre. I’m too emotional, and yet too distant. Walking paradox.

I wish I could have classy blog posts like Alison Feldish.
I wish I could be in Costa Rica like Abby.
But most of all I wish I could be with Kenny.

I have been working everyday, but I have not been doing enough work. I do not feel like I am capable of working hard enough to be a good writer, because I will always favor sleep over writing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to myself.

“our mother has been dead for so long now”

More Nausea, staying up late tonight.
I hope it warms up so I can wear these dresses.

All my affections,
Liz

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Turning and Turning

If we are so privileged, why are these things so hard?
This guy.
I’m picking up a philisophy minor ala Kelsey, Wall, and I believe Blankinship?
“We like to have concrete answers, and Shelley provides us with none.”
I think I’m going to write my Novel paper about Hobbes in Frankenstein.

“You
keep talking
about apples
but when I
hand you
one it
doesn’t
even fit
into your
palm.”

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How to Not Fucking Die in College: A Guide by Elizabeth Morris

People are always fucked up in college.  They stay up all night and then wonder why they can’t just bounce back and be totally productive in class.  Here is a guide to avoid this.

1) Drink water. No, not coffee.  WATER.  It’s the original beverage.  It’s what 2/3s of your body is made up of.  Is your body made up of coffee?  As much as you would like to believe that it is, it is not.  WATER WILL FIX SO MANY OF YOUR PROBLEMS.  It’s harder to fall asleep in class when you have an ice cold Nalgene of water in front of you, forcing you to have to pee every so often.  Keeping hydrated prevents you from being sick, prevents you from being hungry when you’re not (aka when it’s 11 pm and you really want to eat three Easy Macs),  prevents headaches, and just generally makes your body feel better.  Nalgenes in the 1 liter size are my water bottle of choice because two of them equal the standard “8-glasses”-of-water-a-day deal.

2) Go the fuck to sleep. Yeah, it’s college, and your mom isn’t going to tell you to go to sleep, and you have a lot of reading to do, and lol it’s so funny when you don’t sleep and then go to class and can tell everyone you didn’t sleep.  Guess what?  Your body will hate you.  There’s this neat thing called the Sun.  Your body reacts really well to being awake when the Sun is up.  It does not react well to being awake exclusively when the Sun is set.  That’s why a lot of people get really depressed in the winter—because the Sun sets so early, and they want to go to sleep at 6 o’clock, but cannot.  So rather, I should specify—go the fuck to sleep at a decent hour and get up sometime relative to when the sun rises.  Then, if you do end up being overwhelmed by work and have to stay up late, you will be able to fall back into your schedule.

3) For the love of God, EAT. Your body needs food.  Your body needs REAL FOOD.  Not easy mac, not one salad with some honey mustard and three crackers, not pizza all the time (or at all hours of the night).  (And this goes for coffee too.  A cup of coffee≠breakfast.  Never.)  It needs some solid, hearty meals. Vegetables! Whole wheat!  Cheese! Milk! Protein! Bananas! Grapes!  Food will help you stay awake.  Food will help your body not get sick by making it strong.  Your brain likes it when it has nutrients to—Oh, I don’t know—stay alive.

4) Don’t do drugs. Coffee is cool and everything, but even if drink only one cup every day, you’re forcing your body to do things that it doesn’t want to do.  Again—if you do have a night when you have to stay up late, when you decide to get a fresh brew in the morning, it will actually help you wake up.  Coffee will not let you stay awake indefinitely.  Sorry, kids.  Adderall will probably let you stay awake indefinitely, but it will also make you not do number three, so none of that either.  On the flip side, if you’re stressed out, do not drink an entire bottle of raspberry-flavored liquor.  Don’t!  Besides, you are more than likely not 21 and getting caught just is not worth it.  Neither is the hang over which will prevent you from doing all of the first three items on this list.

5) Miscellaneous. Don’t go to Applebee’s for half-priced appetizers three times a week.  Don’t fuck every person you meet who is willing to fuck you too.  Don’t do every quiz on Facebook.  Don’t drink anything with the number 99 in the name.  Don’t watch youTube, in general.  Don’t “pick five” things fifty times.  Don’t do anything associated with Farmville. Don’t go to any sites that involve fucking my life, texting, or viewing photos of the generally unattractive in strange situations.  Instead, do your work.

6) Don’t stress out about your work too much.  “Oh. Em. Gee.  This is probably the worst three-page paper that I have ever written in my life! I’m going to cry for awhile and then e-mail my professor and see if he’ll let me do it over, or perhaps let me do an even harder more extravagant project to make up for the new level of low that I have just reached.”  Whoa!  Well, it might not be a classic essay that should be added to the curriculum, but at least you did it, so stop stressing.  Besides, it’s only worth maybe 5% of your grade.  I’m not saying don’t do your work, but if you keep up on things, you’re allowed to slip up once. Or twice.  Or maybe 10 times.  You’ll probably still get some sweet grades just as long as you’re diligent and punctual.  Work done on time is always better than work done with an extension when you should have been doing other work and now you’re just even further behind.  

7) Hug everyone. It will make everyone much happier.

 

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Write.Fail.

I’ve tried to write the same poem three days in a row now. Melissa already has a packet coming my way. I wish I had a little Karla Doll that I could pull a string on the back and it would give me writing exercises.

Murderboatin’ in Philly tomorrow. Let’s hope I can sing.

All my affections,

Liz

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I can write fiction. I can write fiction.

Every time I want to stop, I think of the day Tom told me, as we walked to his truck after Writing in Action day, that he thought I was a fiction writer.

“You know, I used to write poetry.”

“Bullshit.”

“I did!” And he got into his truck and drove home.  I went back to the Writer’s House and told my mom I wasn’t going to Philadelphia the next semester.  That I had to stay to take adv. short story.

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STRUCTURE

When writing my self critique about my poetry portfolio:

I realized I remember nothing about structure.

Well.
Fuck.

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Punch in the Gut

So I got my first response to “Mechanics,” and it was just as much a punch in the gut as workshop usually is, except it came from the beautiful Becky Shealy, so it was at least pretty.

FIRST–self-deprecating, whiny rant:

OH! That’s right! The reason none of my stories go past twelve pages is because I leave out character development!  I forgot about that shit.  I hate how I can put in a story about 12 times that a girl is a senior graduating from college drinking wine and still be asked, “how old is she?” Then again, that just shows that my characters are, I suppose, flat and don’t show themselves off as their real age–or don’t have the time to show off their age.

And, of course, when Tiffany pulls Tim into the drawing studio and gets naked, it’s rushed. I sort of knew it was rushed.  But at the same time, when the pregnant chick starts fucking the biological father of her baby in “Caviar,” I thought it was rushed!  I had no idea she wanted to sleep with the dude! But that wasn’t rushed!  Why wasn’t that rushed? I guess I should add re-reading that story to my list of things I don’t have time to do.

And, again, I’ve really written myself into a tightly knit story here.  If this were actually knit, it would probably be felted at this point. Okay, that’s an exaggeration.  But again–time period: 4 hours.  Where is there room for reflection?  There isn’t.  Maybe I should start the story earlier in the day.  Or end it later. Or something.  Blah blah blah. This is why I write poetry.

SECOND–introspective rant:

Okay, so I was never one to get emotionally attached to my stories (I remember one intro-peer getting so attached to a story about a father watching his daughter grow up that he just never really edited it.) but I’m realizing recently that I do get very emotionally attached to the amount of work I put into a story.  Then when I get back feed back, it’s hard for me to view it as “ways to improve,” and I instead see it as “ways you have failed at writing fiction.”  Mr. McQue let me view these issues in bulleted formed. Thanks, Steve.  Thanks for the bulleted points of how I have failed as a fiction writer.

Logically, I know this is all REALLY melodramatic and I just need to get over myself and write the goddamn story. But can it at least be agreed upon that there is someone amount of paradox (Oh, Great Paradox) that fiction is supposed to “deepen feeling” (which I do believe) and yet as a writer I’m supposed to be able to emotionally detach myself from it long enough to write multiple drafts?

Perhaps that’s the whole point of undergrad, to figure out how to view fiction so it doesn’t seem like some overwhelming, never-ending battle.  I’m working on it!

On a completely different note, I had a dream last night that Aaron, Beckley (I think), Nigel (maybe), and Nadia were at my Grandfather’s house.  He had a guillotine for some reason and then we beheaded Shakespeare.  In my dream, I saw Shakespeare’s fucking head get chopped off. EW.  Then I was trying to shake these little plush pokemon out of my flash drive and Nadia had two babies and one was named Dane.

End melodrama.

All my affections,

Liz

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The Mechanics of Sleeping Alone

I just finished that story I was so struggling with (first draft, anyway) and realized a few things.

First, I can’t seem to write a goddamn piece of fiction past 12 pages.  That’s exactly how long this one is (3, 850 words exactly) and my last story was around 10 pages.  “Twine,” my favorite story from intro, was 3,000 and “Valerie,” the one I didn’t like so much, was 2,997.  Maybe I just think in terms of story arcs that are very narrow.  Each story tends to take place over the time space of a few hours or a few days.  I think, really, I’m afraid to write something that takes place over a longer period of time because I’m afraid to cut up the action too much and have it lose its charge.  I really envy the likes of Rickrode and Coakley who seem to be able to write for ages.  Rickrode had a fifty page something or other for intro that was written from like four different perspectives when we were freshman.  Coakley’s first piece was 30 pages. Goddamn.  I wish I could work with paring down what I have instead of having to expand upon them. I have to start editing my first story from this semester, which is about a grandfather taking his granddaughter to get an abortion, and I have the narration so tight that I have no idea how to get back into it. Hence, me avoiding it for six weeks.

Speaking of grandfathers and abortions, the other thing I learned is that I can add something new to the list of things I write about.  If you were to read anything I’ve written you can find these main things:

1) Babies/abortions (ala any dreams I have about being preggo that become poems, and my screen play, that story)
2) My body (ala any poem ever)
3) Light (ala ANY THING I’VE EVER WRITTEN EVAH)
4) My grandfather (he’s dead. I miss him a lot. I write about missing him a lot)
5) The seasons (this also goes along with light)
6) Girls I have crushes on (aka the goddamn chapbook I’m working on (Girls from the River School!)

But now I can add number 7:  middle aged, sexually frustrated men.

“Twine” and the story I just finished are both about lusty, middle aged men who just want to get their yammies in and/or have a friend.  I find it really easy to write fiction from this point of view.  Mind you, these stories are very different.  Marley, in “Twine,” hasn’t been with someone since college (he’s around 30) and finds this abandoned dog and realizes it’s the first friend he’s had for years.  Tim Carley (name and description blatantly stolen from my dorky AP World History Teacher from high school) was married for at least 8 or so years, but has been divorced for twice as many and gets super bored with porn and almost makes out with his daughter’s friend.

Ironically, I went into the recent story with the idea “write a story about a dad who isn’t a total douche” because I tend to write stories that either totally leave out a father or mention a very distant, asshole one.  But when I finished I realized he was more similar to Marley than I had intended.  Not that anyone else would know that.  But interesting all the same.

Anyway, I’m off to cash a $6.88  check from Emma’s,  try to pick up some musical tickets, and apply to every restaurant on Union Deposit so that I can maybe hopefully have a job that I can walk to this summer instead of no job at all.

{edit} I just had that goddamn check in my hand and now I can’t find it. Of course.

{edit 2.0} I left the check on the kitchen table, applied at T.G.I. Fridays, Chuck E. Cheese, and Infinitos (some pizza buffet place).  I feel a little bit like I sold pieces of my soul, though Kenny claims he has it safe with him.

All my affections,

Liz

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