A big part of my work last week was the vision exercise. It's sort of a scary thing if you think about it. You have to take yourself five years into the future and write a letter to the teacher as if that chosen future were a reality; it seems like one of Shelly's crazier ideas, but at the same time it wasn't half as easy as I thought it was going to be. I had a really hard time imagining what I'm going to know in the future, after I get out of college. The easiest part of the assignment was the writing part; I know I'm going to be writing, and I have a pretty good idea how I'm going to be doing it. I had all two weeks to do it and I did it on Sunday night, which was obviously not the best decision, but I got it done and that worked.
I workshopped four people's stories over the break--which doesn't seem like a lot more than the usual three, but it actually is--and I have another four to do this week. Since I don't have any Focus fieldwork time on Friday (art history field trip) I'm going to have to do everything on Wednesday, which I can tell already is going to be difficult. I also have to do the buddy assignment before tomorrow, which wasn't really clear to me, because it's due for Michelle before it's due for me.
Before I forget, here are my guiding questions:
Official Questions
1. What is the process of innovative fiction writing? (All locations)
2. How does the process of writing innovative fiction differ from the process behind mainstream fiction? (All locations)
3. What makes a piece of writing innovative? (Reference the research paper to answer this question) How do these techniques and devices differ or blend with my natural writing style? (All locations)
4. How does one overcome the infamous “writer’s block”? (All locations)
5. What is the effect of a workshop setting on a finished piece? (All workshops)
6. How do advanced workshops differ from beginner-level classes? (All workshops)
7. Which element of fiction (character, setting, plot, etc.) is the most difficult to accomplish in first drafts? In later drafts? (Fiction II workshop)
8. Which element of fiction is the least difficult to accomplish in first drafts? In later drafts? (All locations)
9. Which is more time consuming—first drafts or revisions? Which is more personally satisfying? (All locations)
Personal Questions (All locations)
1. How good a writer am I? How will these several weeks affect my confidence as a writer?
2. Will I want to write or edit more often? How committed will I be to writing when it is academically accepted? Will that be more or less committed than I am to writing as an extracurricular activity?
3. What are my standards for finished work?
4. How much will I rely on the workshop for feedback and input? How much of their commentary will I disregard? What will be my reasons?
5. Will I be able to overcome the occasional writer’s block? What techniques will I develop to accomplish that?
I've been thinking a lot about the difference between innovative and ordinary fiction and I admit I've strayed a quite a lot. In my workshop, one of the women turned in an experimental story and I was both impressed and also a little blase. Her piece was called "In Conversation" and I liked it quite a lot; however, I don't think it's exactly what I was intending. There's a difference between innovative and experimental to me. Experimental means James Joyce, David Foster Wallace, cerebral experiments that I spent my first semester reading and still can't quite understand. That makes sense to me. My project is steadily becoming more and more about process because experimental fiction is past me. It's more than I can do at this point. Innovative, however, is not beyond my abilities. There's something innately strange about my writing and I accept that. I look back at what I used to write when I was 12-15 and I realize that nobody else was going to be able to comb through it--it's too dense. I've gotten better, but that sort of complexity and strange quality pervades nonetheless.
My natural writing style really does exist, that's something I'm thinking about as well. How does it work? What does it do?
I'm trying to work as much as I can, but I get distracted so easily. Here's a short list of the books I've read since I began the Focus project (and I'm going to have to keep this somewhere, because it's important as it influences my writing).
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami, second to last week of January
- Kafka on the Shore, Murakami, last week of January
- 1Q84, Murakami, Feb 5 2012
- The Marriage Plot, Eugenides, Feb 14 2012
- Sputnik Sweetheart, Murakami, Feb 28 2012
Note: The date on this journal got messed up too. I wrote this journal on Monday to reflect on Sunday's work.
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