Monday, April 2, 2012

I missed my last Gotham class tonight because I had Calliope and Shakespeare Society. It was okay. I was done anyway. Not that I didn't love the workshop, because I did, but getting there and back was hell for a Monday night, especially the Monday night after spring break.

Because I miss Shelly a little bit already (and because it's informative), I'll do what she calls a creativity check-in right here.

I did a lot of morning pages this week. 6 days out of 7, I think, although I don't think I did all of them in the morning. They've taught me a lot. You sort of have to empty your head before you write and that's what the morning pages are for, and also they make a great record for what exactly you were thinking about when you were writing. More than anything, Focus has made writing personal to me, perhaps because I had to share it and defend it. I actually have to pay attention to what I'm thinking about--not to mention I have to write for credit, now, which means that I don't have the time not to write on the days when I don't feel like it.

I don't do visuals or artist's date. I don't do visuals because I don't have a painterly bone in my body, and I don't think it's worth my time. I just don't like doing things if I can't do them right--I know how awful that sounds--but if I can avoid it, I will. Bottom line. Artist's dates I try to do but it's a lot harder than it looks, maybe because I don't actually spend a whole lot of time by myself. When I'm writing I'm usually alone, but I don't think that counts. I'm actually so infrequently alone at my desk that the monotony doesn't really get to me.

I did do media deprivation. I know it's contrived but I enjoyed it. I didn't get anything done, though. The no music thing was a little ridiculous (Shelly's media deprivation is 2 days of no reading, no Internet, no television, no music, and no anything where you could possibly hear or see an advertisement) but other than that it went rather well. I suppose the problem is that individual media deprivation is easy, while avoiding it when you're around other people is much more difficult. I'm supposed to explain to my friends that I can't listen to the radio in the car? It would work a lot better if I was home alone for two days, but considering spring break just passed, that seems unlikely. However, that said, I enjoyed it a lot, and the silence was nice, really nice, surprisingly so. Eventually I'm also going to try Shelly's silence exercise--you just don't talk for a day--but that seems impractical in an academic situation.

What else am I forgetting. I keep a whole bunch of notebooks, including one I got that actually allows me to write in the shower (!!!!!!!!!!!!). I have my daily notebook and my morning pages in notebooks and than you MUJI for making them $2.25 and beautiful. Makes my day every day. I also have a new notebook of my weekly plan, which is my new creativity tool. I don't usually plan out what I'm going to do on what day, but I feel like I would follow it if I did (and this very journal entry, believe it or not, was part of my plan). I'm just hoping that at the end my presentation can be about process because I have learned so much about process. I'm in the process of learning whether or not this particular process works for me (ha ha).

As for actual writing, I was workshopped in Myla's class on Wednesday. It was a bad idea and I knew it. The workshop actually went great and I got a lot of wonderful feedback, but I wasn't emotionally prepared/invested. I hadn't looked at the piece in a couple of weeks--which might not seem like a long time, but it was. I didn't know it intimately to want to immediately revise it when I got home, although that is my project for tonight. I guess I just sort of slid along on it, which I recognize was a bad idea, but the workshop itself was fine.

I also got a really nice email from Myla Goldberg herself, which is printed below:




Hi Serena - I'm looking forward to discussing your story tonight. I am impressed by both your writing and your contributions to the class. I don't know what your aspirations are, but if you want to meet sometime to discuss writing and possible paths to take after high school, I would be happy to grab a coffee either before or after class sometime, or to chat over the phone if pre- or post-class timing is too difficult. Drop me a line if you'd like to try to schedule something at some point.






See you soon,


Myla








I scheduled a meeting with her on the 18th of April and I'm obviously really flattered by that comment. That's also the date of my next workshop, which seems frighteningly close. I don't know how I'm going to survive that, but I guess I will.

I read a great sudden fiction story called Lint the other day; it's very short and I highly suggest it. I don't know if I could convince a panel into flash fiction, but boy do I wish...




I'm hungry. I'm getting up.