I'm not sure if it is because I'm working or lazy, but I am currently only reading one book, the title of which I could not remember, but one that I recommend. I looked up the title: "The Indian Clerk" by David Leavitt. It is historical fiction, which is not really my cup of tea, but is very well written and reminds me of strolls though Oxford.

Burn Before Reading

Hi Writers,

Yall read a lot. I, on the other hand, spend hours in the book store, buy lots of books, and read them entirely too slowly.

I'm currently reading Until I Find You, by John Irving. I will soon be out of Irving books to read and this makes me have a sad face, but not sad enough to type a sad face. So I've still got my dignity. Most people often extol the virtues of A Prayer for Owen Meaney, but I'm much more a Cider-House-Rules kind of guy (though the subsequent movie makes me throw up in my mouth). (Okay, there goes my dignity.) :(

Our blog, sparse as it often is, needs more pictures. As such, and in no part due to any laziness within myself, I am going to pop in a picture of one of my "To Read" stacks instead of typing. My laziness is only a coinicidence.

On the writing front, I am inactively working on two different pieces of fiction. In one, there is a pregnant woman. I've now written scenes wherein the character miscarries, where the baby is born and the mother dies, and where the baby born and the mother lives. You can imagine how this will be confusing for any potential readers.

For that reason, I have registered for a creative writing class at Boston Adult Ed. Though I often mistrust strangers on principle, I've decided to surround myself with ones that want to write and see what happens. Hopefully magic.

Burn After Reading

No writing? There's always reading.

Recently finished:

Emperor of the Air, Ethan Canin. (I went to a reading of his at a local college, and Curtis Sittenfeld was in the audience, which makes no sense to me- why is she in St. Louis? Anyway, his short stories, especially the title one of this first collection, are pretty great, but he read from his most recent novel, America, America. It seems age and years of listening to himself talk at Iowa has made him expansive bordering on just long-winded.)

The Hunger Moon, Suzanne Matson. (So good! Beautifully drawn characters and climactic tension. And I'm not biased because she was my thesis advisor.)

Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins. (Re-read for about the twentieth time and it blew my mind all over again. Possibly- no, I think it is- my favorite book of all time.)

Currently reading:

Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut. (Awesome, as per usual.)

Of Love and Other Demons, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (A girl bitten by a rabid dog, a corpse with flowing red hair, a smitten priest? I don't know, I can't really get into it yet.)

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace. (Oh, my God, I'm in love. "Forever Overhead": re-read, and omg what an f-ing gorgeous story.)

Whitman. (If I'm sending off an application or going into an interview, for some reason I keep repeating the first few lines of "Song of Myself." It seems to help.)

I miss the blog, Attic-addicts. Let's get it goin. How's everybody doin? I've been slinging books at Borders, got a job today at Wash U, and last night I learned to country two-step. That's about it.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Is this thing on?

Hey everyone,

So I'm sure we're all busy now that the holiday season is here. But I'm hoping we can all take some time to post and discuss new work over the break, so start gathering ideas! In the meantime, what's on everyone's reading lists? Here's a few I'm hoping will turn up in my stocking:

* Reborn: Journals and Notebooks of Susan Sontag
*Frisk by Dennis Cooper (or anything by him, because he's terrifyingly twisted)
*Louise Bourgeois (biography) by Julia Kristeva
*Rrose Is a Rrose Is a Rrose : Gender Performance in Photography
*My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands by Chelsey Handler (come on, you know you wanna read it, too)
*Writing New York: A Literary Anthology by Phillip Lopate (he's my workshop prof for next semester! Kim, he's featured in Tell It Slant, which is currently on my desk)

Ok, that's all for now. Keep the writing coming!

~Stace

late on the deadline . . . been a bit overwhelmed

perhaps due entirely to my technological ineptitude, I've yet to figure out the google group . . .

They moved to Albuquerque from Ann Arbor in summer of ’95, at the onset of Dave’s sophomore year of high school. It was also the summer preceding pretty-haired Susannah’s entry into Vassar, the summer that Amy turned six, the summer after their mother had married Jack.

Dave noticed first the way the water didn’t hit his skin; the way that this sun sucked every drip of moisture out of him. It pulled even the snot from his nose and by the third day there he woke up with a nosebleed that stained his blue sheets brown and red. He pulled the sheets from his bed, gathered them in his arms, and walked across the hall to Susannah’s and Amy’s bedroom. He rapped twice on the door and heard Susannah moan, then pull herself out of her bed. She answered wearing a tanktop and shorts, her face flushed with the unbearable night heat.

“Gimme Amy’s sheets. I gotta run my own load,” Dave said.
Susannah, infamous for her inability to wake in the morning, walked to Amy’s twin bed and pulled her out. The smaller girl stirred, but her breathing slowed and her limbs relaxed as soon as she and Susannah were safely in Susannah’s bed, curled into each other. Dave put his own sheets on the floor, pulled off Amy’s, and carried both sets down to the basement.

Both girls were tied in their dark blonde hair, their curls looser in New Mexico’s aridity. Amy wore hers long and graceless, a tangled imitation of her older sister. Their hair was where their similarities ended: Susannah had the sharp and angled features of her father; Amy the full cheeks and green eyes of her father.

Hey...You...Guys...

Ho-laaa mis amigos de literatura,

I'm gonna throw it out there first thing, in case you don't read the rest of this post (have I already lost you?): Posting Deadline #3 this Friday. Let's make it happen.

Of course, Stacey and Sara are ahead of us all, posting wonderful stuff in between pseudofficial deadlines (coloring outside the lines, I like it). But for the rest of us, let's post a little something by Friday. Awesome turn-out last time. And don't be shy about commenting! I'm gonna vomit reactions all over your work (you can try to stop me, but it doesn't usually work...ask my friend Steve how the backseat of his old car is doin after he drove me home after a long tailgating weekend at Mizzou...we call his two-door beater the Black Panther, and now it smells like the similarly-named cologne in Anchorman), I just have a lot of feelings.

My past week was spent making a scrapbook for my mom's friend's 60th birthday party. Collecting stories and photos from everyone who's ever known her and recreating a life over more than half a century of jobs, cities, love affairs and shenanigans, was quite a job. But I did some lovely nostalgic anecdote writing, so I should be in fine shape when Hallmark comes calling.

I also applied for a few jobs and submitted creative work to a couple of journals. The journals were sweet because there was no fee, not even for postage since I was allowed to submit online. And they were both new start-ups, so there's a better chance my stuff will be read, at least. They were Broken Plate, out of Ball State U, and the Oklahoman Review, out of Oklahoma State. I think the deadlines have passed for those now, Stacey and everybody, but venues like that seem like a slightly better bet.

Today, I took my mom's other friend to the hospital and waited while she got new breasts. She had a double mastectomy in March, and says it feels like she's been wearing a metal Madonna-style cone bra under her chest-skin for seven months, so the real-er thing has gotta be better.

And finally, the last piece of good goings-on news in my life is that Mike, one of my best friends since junior high, who was hit by a car and suffered severe brain damage in March (that month kinda sucked for me), has started using his vocal chords to talk to us (he's way ahead mentally of what he's capable of expressing physically)... The cool, and naturally, typical Mike thing about it is that most of what he vocalizes are movie quotes. He does a mean Darth Vader impression ("Luuuke"), and also Sloth, from The Goonies, hence the title of this post.

And so. I just adjusted Barb (new boobs)'s pillows and am going to bed myself. To Stacey's question of what we're reading, I just finished Steinbeck's Travels With Charley and loved it. Now I think I have to read my uncle's teenage copy of A Clockwork Orange before I have to return it at Thanksgiving. But I'm open to suggestion.

Lastly, what was everyone for Halloween? Post pictures. I couldn't come up with anything and pulled something together at the last minute, a play-on-words costume. How very English major of me.

If you held on til the end of this post...sorry. Ruth! Ruth! Baby Ruth! Goonies never say die!

From an "Attic Office" virgin...er... right.

Sara here.

Since I, too, am inept at google docs and apparently need to spend some time figuring out how google's latest big mechanism works, I am going to post here. My first entry, be nice. And it's only a very rough first draft. But, better than that: it's a true story.

“The Pied Piper”

By Sara Lyn Rice

It came out like angry

jazz—but silver

from the Professor in the gold-rimmed eyeglasses:

Put on your headphones and earphones,

block out the sound

of the wheels, the silence.

This train is straight, inbound

to Harvard Square. I ain’t never seen

Obama there—in the neighborhood.

I’ll tell you where it’s at, bitch.

I don’t want anyone

stupid thinkin’ the President

is gonna save they ass right now.

In 1962 the cops were walkin’ around—you read

about 1962!—trying to arrest me, for a something

I didn’t do. There wasn’t

no Miranda, you didn’t get the rights.

I got a God who takes me away

from black, white—

Florence Nightingale, give me another healing,

Betsy Ross, sew me another flag, one with different stripes.

He abandons his soup to the floor of the train. It sits without spilling.

I’m takin’ my coat off

this train—I’ve lived in it,

will die in it... Yet.

That’s what your life is: yet. Yet,

it ain’t over. Oh, but it will be someday.

Remember

that

oh

yeah.

He stands up, never falters. People stare, try not to.

You think this is dramatic?

Just call me the Pied Piper.

Talk with your mouth

and not your hands.

That’s my last lesson,

a black lesson, muthafucka.

Then he crosses himself. People get off.

Amen.

Writers Weekly is a load of doggie-doo?

Hi all,

A few things:

1. Great postings! There's such diversity here; a lovely change from workshopping pieces of the same topic/concept.

2. Katie, thanks for the comments! I find them very helpful, and am going to try and get my fanny (best word ever, btw) in gear and start commenting on things as well.

3. One thing I think this blog could use: submission hints! I'm collecting a decent body of work thus far, and am starting to snoop around for places to submit (paying or non-paying, reader fee or no reader fee). I know Writers Weekly lists a number of publications looking for submissions, but my professor told me that stuff was crap (I think she forgets that unlike her, I have yet to publish in the NY Times or Washington Post...or write 9 novels), and the best thing to do would be to find particular essays/stories of my favorite writers, see where they've been published, and start submitting there. Does anyone else have any suggestions? Craigslist is great if you want to write Porn reviews...I'll admit, I did it, but just ONCE. Made twenty bucks, but had to take a scalding hot shower afterward. AND they told me it was 'too literary' and 'not titillating'...titillating, what a yucky word.

4. Book suggestions! What's everyone reading these days? I know it's hard to read for pleasure while still in school, but even if another online blog, news story (perhaps on writing, publishing, etc), or some quick read comes to mind, let us know!
I'm karate-chopping my way through all things canonical, and am actually enjoying a good deal of it! Just finished Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms, and am now reading Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (Pevear and Volokhonsky translation...they're a hot couple). So yeah, throw us some good reads!

Lastly, let's post pictures too, just for fun. Of anything. yeah...

~Stace

Success!

Just wanted to say how awesome it was to read all the postings this weekend. You people are damn good writers, so thanks for letting me read your stuff.

Like last time we posted, I took the liberty of making some comments on the pieces. I hope this helps, but let me know if you don't want that. I was hoping to get some discussion going about the pieces we've put up. I know that as I'm trying to keep the writing going post-undergrad workshops, I would really appreciate some feedback. Like, I'm thinking of sending out to a couple of new lit journals, so if you guys wanna share thoughts on what's been posted, it would help me out a ton.

In other news, I am now slightly employed. I'm going to do some very part-time work for the professor I worked for this year. I'll be reading her chapter drafts of her book before she send them to her editor at Yale U and giving her editing/comments. Tom, as the expert, could you tell me if this counts as freelance editing?

And finally, since Allie is bad at introducing herself, I'll introduce her. We lived together for a semester in Bath, England and both did the creative writing tutorial with an Oxford-educated "freelance" professor who put us down all the time and oozed smug from his pores. When she's not applying for law school, trying to eradicate childhood poverty, or teaching with Teach for America in Denver, she enjoys sarcasm and a glass of red wine. And she writes a mean fiction story.

I'm not really very good at titles, or introducing myself, so I guess I'll just vomit something up in this space - I don't think I have access to the google documents. As a warning, I have been surrounded by 10 year olds for the past year and a half and have not written in that time, so I'm feelin' a little shaky about it. (the beginning)


"The Navajo Nation"

Helena, with a cathedral-work of veins coloring her calves, kneels in the enclosed dirt space in front of her home. Nothing is sprouting from the soil she’d spread six weeks ago. She stares at the barren enclosure and wipes the back of her hand across her nostrils. When she stands, her knees creak, and her elastic-waistband shorts new from the Wal-Mart in Gallup ride up her inner thighs as she walks back into the house.

There are three window-unit air conditioners stationed in the kitchen and living area, blasting her with frozen waves when she comes in the front door. Her landlord had snapped at her the previous week when he came to fix the leak below the sink. “You’re gonna blow out the whole neighborhood if you keep running with that many BTUs,” he told her. Whenever he calls her refers to himself as “Mr. Berkway, your landlord,” as if Helena would not have recognized his heavy southern drawl. He is hardly older than Dave and already owns three houses on the lot. Another of his tenants, Meredith, from the down the road, told Helena that he’d gotten a law degree at Clemson University before coming to do “God’s work” with the Navajo nation. Meredith had smiled when she said that, while Helena tripped over her stomach, her loud, smoke-infused guffaw rippling through the desert air.

“BTUs?” Helena had asked. Mr. Berkway looked up at her from where he knelt on the kitchen tile.

“It’s sort of like the amount of power you use. You’re using too much. I’m surprised you don’t blow a fuse every time you turn these ACs on.”

“Must be okay ’cause I don’t turn them off and on,” Helena suggested.

“You mean you leave those running all day and night?” Mr. Berkway then stood up in the kitchen, his wrench in his right hand, his left hand exploding into the air, punctuating his question.

“You mean to stand in my kitchen and tell me that you turn off your air conditioner at night, Mr. Berkway?”

His face had begun to flush with color, but he knelt back down on the tiled floor and began wrestling with the plumbing again.

Anyway, Helena feels just satisfied with her stubbornness on the units now as she did then, when she smirked as Mr. Berkway fixed her leak. In just the few moments in her garden, beads of sweat had formed on her temples, and she can feel heavy moisture gathered in her armpits. She walks into the kitchen to pour herself some iced tea. Dave had given her a Mrs. Tea maker for Mother’s Day last year, delivered to her door gift-wrapped from Amazon.com.

I just learned "vomited" only has one T

Dear Blog,

I came here to share the exiting news that I had received my first check for freelance writing. I also planned to share with you an enthralling, heartbreaking parable illustrating what it feels like to finally be paid to write.

Then I remembered I worked as a technical writer for a year after graduating college. So, yeah, they paid me (a lot more than this silly little freelance job) to write and I didn't even realize it.

The moral of this story is that writing is writing and money is money. (I prefer morals that don't actually mean anything and leave you feeling the uneasy desire for actual wisdom.)

On an unrelated note, I "blog[ged] it up" (translation: "vomited a poem") on Google Docs. Okay, I'm a day late, but nobody's paying me to write silly poems about sunshine. And yet, I still manage to have posted one. What I haven't managed to do is ignore the fact that whenever I write a poem it seems to support moral viewpoints that I do not. Also, you already know how betrayed by meter and rhythm I feel.

Blog it up

Blog is not a synonym for "vomit." Unless by "vomit," you mean an explosion of awesome.

Due to the fledgling success of the last posting party, and Tom declaring himself "always ready for a good writing deadline," how about everybody try to post something by this Friday? (Dan, you're off the hook if you want, since you just posted.) Either put it up here, or put it in your folder under Google Docs. Just a little somethin-somethin.

And feel free to browse past postings and comment. I'm thinking of sending some pieces out to a lit journal soon, so I would love to hear anything you think.

Stacey, I promise we'll be better than those two-faced workshop students.

An Explanation and Three Poems

Hi all,
I don't know most of you, but I've seen some of your writing (specifically what is on this website) and as someone who until last year thought "blog" was a euphemism for vomit, I am terrifically impressed by what you guys have created here. I'm still a junior at BC, but it's nice to know where English majors go after they graduate.
On the front of interesting news, I've met with ODSD (now called SPO) twice this week in regards to starting a slam poetry team at BC. If anyone is still in the greater Boston area and wants to help/participate in that be sure to let me know! Right, so I promised Katie I would post some writing, sadly the aforementioned slam obsession has taken a horrendous toll on my written work (or at least made me horrendously self-conscious about it). I wrote a few short things while I was driving across country this summer. It's not much, but until I can remember how poems work it's what I've got.


Reading Old Love Letters in Cody, Wyoming

1.
Cody is the unfinished lullaby blowing in the plains.
Drunken sons relive the past with blanks and bullwhips;
they grind their footprints into the orange dust.

2.
The hotel clerk drinks cold coffee from a gallon jug
sun-split lips moving, murmuring endless
incantations.
And they wonder where the legends come from.

3.
Overheard were the French tourists outside the firearms museum
with wide eyes
at the plateaus of this powder keg geography,
at the sacristies of these wind-cut cathedrals.
They will search six languages for the proper words.

4.
Sometime in September you were thanking me
for the best year of your life.
Love is in the bedrock here,
antique love,
bloody love,
the early love
that never leaves.



For Lauren, who was not at the Iowa State Fair

I expected at the Iowa State Fair
something vague and meaningful.

Not, that it would be the grass.
Or the sharp, electric, way
the grass felt
pressed flat or in handfuls

as I sat waiting, hillside.
Near the talent competition, ten and under
with so many decades of flawless pageantry
ushered on stage,

I missed you and your mistakes-
-amongst the other things I missed,
the hollow milk bottles
and most of the red paper star.

I left with nothing oversized or soft
or stuffed with tissue paper that crunched
at the touch.

I left with nothing.

I left for once embracing the sunset
in chain links and Chevrolets,
with light feet on static grass,
humming
in the purple gray dusk.



Babel
Before the tower fell,
every word was perfect
and nobody ever said
I made you breakfast just because

::Cricket Noise::

Howdy,





So I had my first official 'workshop' Monday night, which was on the piece I posted regarding my fantabulous German roommate. The response? The students, who are brutally honest and usually give me mixed, yet fair reviews of my stuff thought it was hilarious. The professor? Seemed to like it by the way she talked about it. Then I got home and read the comments...

"Okay, so all you're doing is complaining"


"I don't feel sorry for Eva. You sound obnoxious."

"It's really hard to like you at all, when all you do is bitch."

"This is very one dimensional. You put yourself on a pedestal, expecting the reader to sympathize with you. YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM." (The part in Caps was actually in a different pen color.)

Lastly,

"Stacey, this piece is not an essay; rather, it is a list of complaints about your roommate, and the fact that you do nothing to take a stand for yourself makes me hate your character even more. Give it more dimension, okay? Thanks."


Soooooo yeah. But to be honest? I'm doing alright. Talked with the other students, and knowing that they've been honest in the past helped me see their comments and suggestions in a better light than the prof. So maybe birds don't rest their wings on window perches, and some of the chronology is a bit off. But I wasn't trying to solve literary cancer; I basically did just want to complain. Next time, I'll throw myself under the bus. Relax, not literally. :)

...and never mention the fact that I dressed like an obnoxious, slutty school girl AGAIN. hehe

Let's keep on writing/posting!!!

PS I'll be at BC all weekend, in case anyone wants to meet up.

Don't Be Scurred

It really was blogtastic. Shana, Tom, and Stacey: thanks so much for posting last week! It helped me fill an unemployed afternoon, and besides that, the pieces were awesome. I didn't know if anyone wanted me to, but I couldn't resist, and I made some comments on the pieces (they're on G-Docs) if you're interested. Maybe that could be my job. Maybe somebody will pay me to have opinions and give suggestions. A professional suggester.

Shana, I hope this experience is easing your fear of the blog. I really liked reading your work (since I never have before). The blog is your friend.

So don't stop. I need to know what happens at The Butter. Post again next week?

I'm still scared of blogs

Let's talk about why in some other forum, but I did post something onto google docs. It makes me sound like an alcoholic, but I have more words than Tom.

Hope everyone is well! Katie, I have no idea why Harvard didn't hire you but keep trying!

I'm in.

891 words posted. That's almost 1,000, which is almost 10,000. Novel here I come.

Also, I can officially write "Freelance Writer" on my resume. I write things like, "Warning: this e-card may induce excessive giggling and infinite smiles." Yeah, cheesy e-cards is where the money is. I'm rich with creative fulfillment.

Once a Bum Always a Bum

Time to bring it back to the blog.

Tom's freelancing, trading words for dollars. Stacey's facing the tough crowds of MFA workshops. Kyra's working in New York, and Liam's off being poetic somewhere. Shana and Katie Bartel have dropped off TAO's map, (my guess is they've gotten into alpaca farming). Kim is terrorizing freshmen finance majors. And I want some people to write with, goddamnit. We need this blog more than ever! The internet is the answer.

So, let's get it on. Newcomers, if you're there, welcome. I'm just gonna put this out there: anyone who's interested, post something by this Friday (October 10). Post whatever. Just not too long (let's not get ahead of ourselves)-- a poem, a few pages of prose, you know. If Google Docs isn't working for you, say somethin. I can't fix it, but I know a guy.

Please?

Love,
Katie

Throwing up on Chapter 5

Dear Blog,

Where have you been?

My new career as a freelance writer has been coming along swimmingly. Not only have I come to terms with my awkward love of puns, but I've also put it into action by deciding to name my company (can one person be a company?) Basic Human Writes. This has also caused me to own my first domain name (basichumanwrites.com). Currently, it is a generic "This domain has been registered" page. But one day, it will be a real website. If any of you also wants to own a domain, I happen to know for a fact that reproductivewrites.com is still available.

I also have a phone interview with my first-ever prospective client tomorrow. This is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, and frankly makes me want to vomit. Perhaps this was a bad idea.

I can't wait to see what happens when I get past Chapter 5 in my "I want to be a freelance writer" book. Hopefully less nausea.

The Best 12 Inches in the Midwest

Hey guys,

Just wanted to check in with you all and see how you're doing. I'm definitely still on college-time since I see September as a time of new starts. I don't know if that's completely accurate for everyone on this blog, but there are a couple of us who are starting a school year or a new job in a new city, or like me, are just beginning the hunt for a real job.

In the meantime though, before I find this "job," I'm going to fill my time with settling back in to St. Louis, doing cultural things (last night, I went to the Great Forest Park Balloon Glow and had sweet steak-on-a-stick, hence the title), scrapbooking South America (half-joking), and actually doing some writing. Man, I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

I also read this article today I thought yall might be interested in, considering what close ties most of us still have with universities and the academic life. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/magazine/21writingprof-t.html?pagewanted=1
Speaking of, Shana, why didn't Harvard hire me? Nerds.

That's all I got for now. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Just Below the Border

Hola,
I´ve been in South America since August 9 and am now onto my third country: Ecuador, which is turning out to be something of an enigma for me. Loved Chile and Peru, but can´t quite figure this place out.
Anyway, I just wanted to check in. Congratulations on the NYC jobs-slash-school, guys! And you were freaking out, pshaw. I have no clue what I´m doing when I get back stateside, considering I thought I basically had a job in the Harvard English department, but they failed to ever finalize the offer...or call me back...after months...not a good sign. But I´d like to keep this thing going and read some writing, please.
And if you´re bored in these new endeavors, feel free to take a look at the little blog I´ve had while I´ve been down here: katemoulton.blogspot.com. I only have a few entries but at least one if hefty and can do the procrastination job.
Hope all is well!

paz,
Katie M

So now I have a job ....

.... as en editorial assistant for the Public Relations Society of America (random). In New York. Stacy, want to meet up?

Forget "new" career. I need ANY career.

Here's my litany of excuses. i need to get out of my house. I am still looking for a job - desperately, anything, hopefully in New York (I'm not sure why I'm so drawn there, I just am). However, right now I'm in a suburb of Boston ... without a car, because i was rear-ended on the highway. It's impossible to write while home - I know that sounds like a lame excuse, but due to how my house is set up, my mom is constantly peering over my shoulder ("what's that?").

I need a job.

But, the problem is very similar to the whole blank-screen (page) problem: when you have nothing, nothing seems to come. So, ironically, when I have the time to write, I'm too anxious and claustrophobic and preoccupied to put together a single sentence. Seriously, I'm even jotting down ideas in bullet points.

And I know this is an excuse. I know that I could carve out sometime, somehow, to write. But in order for me to really get anything out, I need to feel like I can really focus, like I have room to breathe. Therefore, I need my own space ... but, in order to get said space, i need a job. See a pattern?

I'm going to go back to monster.com and feel sorry for myself. Tom, good work with the freelancing - that's something I would love to do (am going to do, to put it in a more optimistic frame) someday.

...Thanks for listening to my whining. Sorry.

PS. I just spell-checked this, and there were no spelling errors found. That's never happened to me. Unless I did something like spell "but," "bust" ... which has happened. In the title of papers, even. Just wanted to end my post on a positive note.

My New Career

Is it awful that I have been writing, but not posting to our awesome blog? Is it terrible that I hate the word "awesome" but use it anyway? I'm sure I have your forgiveness for both.

My latest misguided plan is to become a freelance writer. I'm not sure I have enough of a business mindset, but I do own a book entitled "Getting Started as a Freelance Writer." Let's face it: I'm 99% of the way there.

Branching out

Hey Tom, how do I invite another person to join the blog? I can't figure it out.
By the way, I haven't seen anyone post any new writing or comments on the docs in a very long time (not that I have either, but) I'm anxiously awaiting more stuff from y'all.
I haven't really been writing, except in journal form, but I've been reading a lot, like Kyra. I'm a little ADD right now and can't stick to one book, so I'm in the middle of The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, Death in the Andes by Llosa, Frommer's Guide to South America, and something called "How Proust Can Change Your Life."
I also go in and read slush at River Styx lit journal every week, so I get to read about a million pieces by unknown (at least to me) writers. Sometimes reading the slush pile makes me feel good about my own work, and sometimes it's dismal thinking that I'm just one of the middling masses. Sometimes reading at River Styx makes me sick to my stomach-- like the other week when one of the editors, upon hearing of my upcoming trip to South America, decided to read aloud a long, detailed poem about the gruesome life cycle of a parasite in the human body and its emergence through the skin as a teeming, bloody boil. (My dreams have been tainted, now so have yours.)
Speaking of travel and disease, I've got to head out to my immunization appointment now-- no Hep A, B, typhoid, yellow fever or rabies for me! Hopefully my writing arm isn't too sore...

So there was this one time...

When I opened the mail on a Friday night, and saw an acceptance letter from the New School.

Then I realized it wasn't for me, but rather addressed to a Mrs. Ayala.

I became sad.


And angry.


And a nasty beeyotch to everyone around me.


And then...

I got a phone call.

From a Mrs. Ayala.

She lives in Brooklyn.

She was nice.


She told me she had something for me. Something big.


I thought it was a foot. A huge, stinking foot to stomp all over my already dismembered heart (I don't mean to potentially plagiarize, should that be the title of a preexisting emo band's first hit) .

But it wasn't that messy.


She too, had a letter.

I puked a little.




Then a voice said, "It is my pleasure to notify you of your admission to The New School's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing beginning in the Fall 2008 Semester. You have been selected for the concentration in Non-Fiction."

I might have told her I loved her.

I hope her husband didn't hear me.


THE END.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


True story! I guess it pays to be persistent when you're in the collegiate Purgatory of Waitlists.

So NYC, here I come!!!!!!!!

...oh, hey everyone ... I'm still here....

hi. sorry.

I did the whole "gee-i've-been-in-new-york-for-a-few-job-interviews-i-havent-checked-the-blog-or-written-anything-but-one-poem-when-I-was-drunk (don't ask)-so-now-I-feel-guilty-I'll-just-avoid-it" thing ... so now I've decided to own up and come back to the blog, figuring that it's the baby step to get back on the horse (or wagon or whatever this thing is). I've been reading at least, telling myself that I'm storing up creative resources - I highly recomend "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz.

Tom - good work with the writing. I'm impressed ... and jealous of your productivity, since all i've been doing when i take a break from staring vacantly at monster.com, I'm drinking diet coke and watching reruns of old sitcoms. Good luck!

Stacy - i looked at your website, your paintings are amazing. Don't worry about the whole writer-artist conundrum - talent is talent, and you'll figure out what is uniquely true for you.

so - this is my first baby step. i'm glad to be back

Excel Poems

Good news, Bloggers: I've been writing (just not on here). I think as a way of avoiding fiction, I have been writing poems, which is strange as I would much rather be writing fiction. I've also been doing weird things like writing poems in Excel and in the shower.

Now, I'll admit 65% of what I say is made up or exaggerated for the sake of humor. But when I say I don't really get poems, I am speaking from squarely within the other 34% (1% of what I say is neither true nor false). I've decided that just because I can't understand poems, even ones written by me, doesn't mean I shouldn't write them. Also, since I can't tell whether my poems are any good, I've decided to start sending them to people and saying "Hey, you wanna publish this?" So I bought a copy of P&W and highlighted (though I prefer "highlit," I don't think it's correct) places to send them.

I'm such an accomplished poet. (Please don't tell anyone that this secretly isn't true.)

And this is why I haven't been as productive in the literary world...

Ok, so it's offically done. I think.


Many people (I won't name names mainly because I don't really know who these people are, but critics from both the literary and visual world drill this idea into my head) think that's it's not possible to be a writer and an artist.


I hope they are all massively incorrect in their assumptions that the human mind is so narrow.

If they are correct, then I pray to the creative gods that I at least have something going in one of the worlds (::begin incoherent chanting and wild limb-flailing::)...


www.staceysmall.com

This has been a massive pain in the behind to create. However, I learned some html.

I also learned that I don't ever want to speak in technical code again.

Spanish is cool, but no more html. Madre de dios!

As the internet would say: thx

Thanks for your advice Katie, Kim, and Tom. I decided to drop the class. I'm sure it would have been great and all but I also realized something else: I love my job. And a 28-year-old with as much work experience as me (but a masters from the Kennedy School) is shaping up to be my new boss. So, instead of a fun writing class, I will be learning how to manage non-profit organizations (financially no less) so that I can keep my new boss in line (and some day give Harvard a reason to make me my own boss).

Creatively, I'm a disappointment, I know. For once, practicality wins.

I second that emotion

There's something to be said for letting the story stand on its own. So I guess in that way I agree with Shana's fancy Hahvuhd teachuh. I know in my writing I have a hard time keeping hands off-- seems like I'm always judging my characters or inserting my emotion into the scenery and language instead of just letting it be. But no emotion, period? Then why tell the story at all? Maybe your instructor just means the old show-don't-tell: choose the right story, tell it simply and honestly, and it will affect your readers personally without you having to beat them over the head with it. I've been reading Lawrence Wechler (a seminal Kim fave), and he does non-fiction unbelievably well, just by noticing how different pieces of the world fit together. Maybe check him out.
In other news, I got an interview at Harvard for this Friday! ...hopefully I'm not jinxing anything. So as you may have guessed, I'll be in Boston this weekend, and so excited to be back so soon after graduation. Maybe we should have a meeting of the Midnight Society, um, I mean, The Attic Office...a little tea, a little 'I Remember'? Also, can I invite Sara Rice to join? She's BC 08, former president of the English Association, and actively writing. (It's true, she just sent me a poem the other day.)

after reading google docs, a long p.s.

So, I'm reading these gorgeous poems and pieces on google.docs and feeling something between the lines, something like when does this all add up to something? or how do I go on doing this and why? I don't have answers to these questions (sometimes they aren't even questions. They're like a constant pressure.), but I thought before I left I'd remind you of some things I've found helpful as you start moving (and we're always returning to this place--between projects, when we change jobs or geographical location, etc.) between being a sprinter to being a marathon runner. So, some thoughts:

Remember that everything you do to empower a clear, gentle internal voice/presence/self inside yourself is helpful.

Everyone comes with one of these, it's just that some of us (and although I don't know the details of each of your histories, generally speaking writers share a little trauma, a little outsiderness) have very loud and painful contradictory voices that drown it out. Sometimes it's tempting to think that we need to build up an inner cheerleader to counteract the inner critic. In my experience it doesn't work. It feels false. A little cheerleading is good, but you don't basically trust it. What you do trust (because it's deeper than trust. It doesn't ask for your acknowledgment) is that part of yourself that can look on your worst qualities without getting panicky and angry and your best qualities without trying to cling to them or wear them like a little good-person outfit. You might have become aware of this part of yourself when you've finished sobbing yourself into silence or been in extreme physical pain (childbirth comes to my mind) or that strangely clear moment when you get great news, just before you start grasping it. In any case, it's important to remember that it's there.

Commentary and feelings that come from this place share a tone that you can learn to recognize--there is usually a quality of clarity or simplicity (like a glass of fresh water, a single leaf) and a tone of gentleness.

You can pretty much count on the fact that anything that sounds angry, funny but slightly hating, desperate, depressed, etc. is not from this place. Nothing wrong with those emotions--that's the materials you get with this incarnation. It's your party package. It's what you are destined to create with. It's all good from the creative's perspective--but don't let those voices have the final say. Don't make decisions about your writing from that place, and try to keep one hand on the truest part of yourself at all times.

A note: you may notice that when the writing has taken you under its wings, and you are just watching that ink, that you feel something akin to being written through. People feel inspired, that is--in spirited. Depending on your spiritual orientation you might say with a Christian, "I let the divine in me speak," or with a Buddhist "I wrote from a state of luminous emptiness" or with a more secular mind, "I was in the zone." All valid. It is a wonderful state--usually brief and totally involving. We can be writing about the most gut-wrenching things and the most exhausting pitch, but what is carrying us is that calm, kind watching part of ourselves saying, "Go ahead. Yes. And yes. Yes."

The question is how to empower this part of yourself that allows you to stretch out into larger projects, to do the deep spelunking that helps you discover the subject matter, etc. There are no tricks here. Some people find that stretches of repetitive motion is a helpful way to quiet all those other freaked out voices (grasping, aversion, and passivity are the usual categories)--swimming, long walks (get off the bus early. Drive your car to a different lot.). Some of you may have found long car trips do something similar. After a while you're going to get bored of your usual mental loops and deeper clarity arises.

Sometimes it helps to read a book or be with a person who embodies that voice. What's important here is to remember that they are only a reflection of what is already inside you. In fact, that's my biggest hint about this--the most important thing, the most stabilizing thing you can remember as you sit down to write and every section of your ego starts dancing the hootchie kootchie around your worst fears is that there is a clear and gentle part of yourself under that noise. Sometimes we've had things happen in our lives or been so poorly parented (or worse) that we can think that we simply don't have that quality, that we have to find it outside ourselves. For writers this can lead to needing to get some reinforcement from outside--and if you're a beginning writer, there will be precious little of that. You can spend a long, long time and loads of energy trying to get reinforcement that won't feel nearly as good as that quiet place in yourself. (Hemingway said that the worst thing that happened to him was the Nobel Prize.)

So remember that it's there, that no one can or every could take it from you. Even if you can only feel it .001 percent of your time at the table, you can trust that it is there in you, and when all the ego freakout ends, it will be lying there at the bottom of the pool like a gold coin.

And no, there are no exceptions. It came with you from the factory. Everything else is story--wonderful, terrible, vivid story. And when you can see that, it's so much easier to tell them.

Love to you and the work that's inside you,

Kim

Whale Cove

Hey Attica Officini,

I'm off to Whale Cove this week, so I wanted to say goodbye and surf around the office and admire. All sorts of wonderful things going on everywhere. Don't think I'm not wishing you well when you don't hear from me or that I don't like what I'm reading. Remember I'm supposed to disappear. That's my Cheshire cat-like job. Then you go on adventuring, hopefully with a sense of my smile encouraging you from somewhere over your left shoulder blade.

No, a little lower. Farther to the right. Yeah. Right there.

Keep doing what you're doing, and even a little weirder. A little strangeness is a very good thing. And I'll be admiring.

Go ahead and write without judging. Follow those little painful places where the pulse is. I've got your back.

Love,

Kim

So I got angry at Rolling Stone for being so cool...

and I just sent a song, 'boom,' to "Theatticoffice" Gmail account, so you can all access/ download it. Let that count for my submission, and maybe I'll dig up something else. The song is new, hasn't been revised, and I kind of like it as an opener for this ep project I'm doing with a former student of Kim's (Dan Viafore -- BC grad a few years ago: anyone know him?). Any ideas would be great - whether it coheres, what it's saying, I'm not sure. I think it needs to find its form still. I have an idea for a new ending already. [technology wise -- it was originally a .wav file, but I converted it to .mp3 (I think)].

I second the welcome, Caitlin. And I'm working towards the comments, it's been a busy week. By sunday.

Let me also recommend Luke Oleksa for admittance to the Finer Things Club. He's an interesting guy; it's not like we roomed together in Bath, England for a semester. Something tells me Katie had Luke in mind too. I read minds, I'm just that mis-styxal.

Two posts in one day...

I need a life. Or a job.
Welcome to the blog, Caitlin!
And to everybody: can we invite more people to join this, if we know they're writing and have an interest? Or should we keep it to writers who are connected through the wonderful Kim?
Do we vote?

I am really quite hopeless at this sort of thing...

I've been trying to think of a creative/funny way to start this, but since everything pithy and relevant is escaping me at the moment, I'm just going to dive into it and hope my awkwardness is mistaken for wit (or at least a kind of grinning, hapless charm). I'm going to be a sophomore at BC this fall and I had the pleasure of being in Kim's Creative Writing class last semester. To help me make some writing-minded friends (and keep me out of trouble this summer), Kim hooked me up with this blog, which I have been faithfully stalking for the past few weeks. I've decided that it's time for me to reveal myself, a la Phantom of the Opera except without all of the terrified screaming and falsetto, and therefore have published this perfunctory embarrassed introduction born of my writerly terror of being rejected and simultaneous need for companionship. So yes, let the wincing begin.
Tom, thanks for taking a leap of faith that I wasn't deranged or something similar and inviting me to join this blog. I think this is going to be great and I'm excited to join.

Misadventures and Mis-styx

Sometimes I like to multi-task. For example, I like to eat and read at the same time. Sometimes, I even eat and read and listen to the tv/my mother talking in the background. It's stimulating.
I can't always multi-task though. For example, I am not capable of carrying on two conversations at the same time. Not even two IM conversations. Just can't do it. Sometimes, multi-tasking is physically impossible. And sometimes, multi-tasking is illegal. Sometimes, multi-tasking calls into question the integrity of an entire literary publication and its staff.
Here's the long story: I decided to volunteer as a slush-pile reader at a local lit journal in St. Louis: River Styx. I also submitted to the journal's international poetry contest. I never thought this was a problem, but, alas, I am an idiot.
Yesterday, I'm sitting in the office with another staffmember (I think she actually might get paid), and we're a little dismayed over the quality of some of the submissions, and she says, "Yeah, this is the only poem I've liked today," and hands me an envelope. It's my submission. And she actually marked "yes"-- yes that it should get considered, sent on, read by other people! It's very exciting, and I stammer, "Oh my gosh, that's my poem," and everyone in the tiny office turns to stare... After much confusion as to what I had actually done ("staff members don't generally submit to their own contests"), and a lot of laughing at me ("now I know the journal is rigged, I'm submitting every time!"), I had to make the choice: did I want to be considered for the contest or did I want to stay on at River Styx and actually have friends who are into writing?
I chose friends. I am a sucker. And that is the Writer Lesson du jour.

I feel threatened....ok, more like 'helpfully pressured'

My brief internet hiatus has left me out of this lovely loop, and for that I apologize. The Friday deadlines sound good, and I'm going to read through all that I have missed since my travels. From Cali to DC, NYC and beyond, I'm gathering 'things' (how descriptive) and enjoying it. I'll check back tomorrow, and will hopefully have some 'stuff' (English teachers love this one) to share!


Celtics parade tomorrow. Perhaps I can write a story about a man in a testosterone-induced state who swears 'a wicked lot' whilst donning a lightweight Northface atop a Garnett jersey and meticulously ripped AE jeans, promising that he knew from the beginning Boston was 'going all the way.'

I've been threatened...

And it worked. Tom said he would post about an embarrassing childhood story if I didn't blog today by 10PM. I don't think it's embarrassing---it's actually ingenious, except that I probably killed the grass in my backyard. But I'm posting now, so he can't write about it anymore. +2 writer points for me!

I have a hunch he'll still write about it anyway if I don't write something better than that. Hmm. I've spent a lot of my day stalking people. I also accidentally emailed faithgod@gmail.com and it did not bounce back to me. So God may have gotten a request from International Security today to review an article about the spread of military power. Yeah, I italicized the journal. +half-a-writer-point.

The pilot wings on my keyboard are making me want to climb a waterfall in Yosemite. In the meantime, I'll write about a poem that Tom showed me last night in an issue of Boston College Magazine. It was about mannequins. Turns out that's almost as versatile to use in poetry as mayonnaise.

Margaret Atwood Sleeps in a Bed

Writers should not sleep on futons. This wisdom I have gleaned over the past several nights. The stuffing is made of hideous synthetic materials that emit (paradoxical) invisible, yellow fumes that form clouds around the writer's most important writing muscles, rendering them useless for at least 48 hours. This, among other excuses, is why I have not been writing.

I have, however, been valiantly thinking about writing. One of the perks of disliking music in it's entirety and being forced to own an iPod is listening to podcasts. I have been listening to Writers on Writing with host Barbara Demarco-Barrett and Book Lust with Nancy Pearl. They interview writers and other writer-type people. It is vaguely magnificent.

I have also been reading Margaret Atwood, causing one person, seeing it on my shelf, to exclaim with glee, "Wow, you are reading Margaret Atwood? I love her!" My literary vanity bolstered, I have read three of her short stories. I have been made to think alternately "This is
easy; I can be a short story writer" and "Oh crap, what am I thinking?" Luckily I have learned not to pay attention to my mind's reaction to most things and am instead led by the invisible, yellow idea that I am a writer.

And I will be writing again soon. (Does this count?) I like Friday deadlines, but I like most deadlines. Of course, I will also be a good reader and read everything on Google Docs. I mean, I
have read everything on Google Docs and have had thoughts and reactions. I will soon give these things an exit strategy from my brain into the real world where they may be of use or of vague amusement/nausea/confusion.

(I must also work on my intense use of commas and my not-so-vague overuse of the word "vague.")

New Stuff

Hi all,
A quick development: by Kim's request, I set up a google calendar in our Attic account. Just a place where we can post deadlines and other such things. Katie and I had talked about trying to post something every Friday, and so far it seems like Fridays would be good for me. It's added incentive and seems like it could become a rhythm. Whatever works for everyone, I know we all have very different schedules.

Yes. I like sports.

Katie, didn't you know I was a veritable man without qualities? I don't memorize Sports Center casts and I hope Jim Rome falls down a deep crevasse and burns, but I enjoy sports. And hating on Boston sports is such a safe, fashionable thing. Just because the Patriots have worked themselves into the best dynasty of the past thirty years, the Red Sox are better (and yes, much more lovable: Manny could make the transfer from bad-ass outfielder to pull-string plush-toy quite seamlessly) than the Yankees, and the Bruins... nevermind. How is it that you spare the Celtics? The lovable losers (pretty non-threatening: I understand why you'd be afraid of the Sox in St. Louis)? Only for our generation I guess. But that's all about to change.

In a more general address to the blog community, I figured out the way to comment on work, so I'll go back and comment on those pieces (Tom, I owe you some I know) that I've read and didn't mark up.

JK and CR

I have discovered that unless I am required to do something, I have a quite a bit of trouble mustering the motivation to do it. Good thing there is Tom who harasses me until I post on this blog. Otherwise, I would just sit at work and see who is on Facebook right now until it hits 5pm (or really anytime between now and 5pm when I intend to leave and get 30% off a lot of Ann Taylor clothes).

So I have done little writing since my last post. I think I wrote a paragraph about my map (perhaps I'll post this once I get home). Tom and Katie, you will be glad/annoyed to know that it is, yet again, written in the second person. But I have admired one writer and her awesomeness and went on my first family vacation in 10 years. We went to Costa Rica. I would say it was a lot of fun but I seem to forget it happened (today I told Katie that this is my first year without international travel).

I'd love to read what y'all have posted on the googledocs so I hope that will happen this weekend.

Oh, and Tom, I've been to Emily Dickinson's grave. I have a grave rubbing in my 5th grade report to prove it. I got an A. And that is why I was an English major.

You like sports, Liam?

Celtics are the only Boston sports team I can stomach...mostly because of Larry's legacy and his French Lick, Indiana roots. The Patriots cheat. The Red Sox can go [do something I'm too polite to post on a blog, so in its place I will substitute:] stick it.
Will comment on your play (hopefully more favorably) soon.

[post (post post)]

Allow me to rescind my previous blog-title. But really, did anyone else expect that? The capacity of Boston teams to work themselves out of playoff deficits and win the largest comebacks in history never stops amazing me (i.e. Red Sox, what was it, three or four years ago?). I won't even ask if they deserved it.
Also, let me take a quick moment to deter anyone from believing I'm too much of a cynic (that is, for leaving the game early). No, it wasn't pessimism that drove me away, but my enthusiasm for POETRY (or in this case, playwriting) that brought me towards the blog. Any way, I'm late for my job.

For those of you Boston fans also too depressed to watch a twenty point spread after the first quarter...

I'm working on getting a pic of my desk. Not like it's anything you haven't seen before -- standard BC ignacio issue, I've fixed so many of these things on the job that I wake up and check my own drawers for loose screws. On an order in the mods today I found a digital camera (thanks again to hungover and exorbitantly wealthy seniors abandoning everything that's not in their pockets on graduation day). It doesn't have a wire, so as soon as I can buy one I'll post pictures (I know, I know, you're all waiting).
In the meantime, I'm offering a play. It's relatively short, a one-act. I wrote it in Scott Cummings' Playwriting II last semester, and I think Katie's the only one who may have seen it. Let me know what you think, I'd like to send it out to have it read sometime soon. It's a first draft, so I'm especially interested in hearing what needs teasing out.

Thanks,

Liam

[post post]

the draft will be on my google-doc thing (through theatticoffice) soon

River

...aka, What I Do Instead of Looking for a Job. Rain = Flooded Meremac. Usually, people live in that bus. And, I guess I found another desk option.

Also, Kyra: love the story ideas! Tom: really enjoyed the start of your story, I commented on it on docs. Can't wait to see more from everyone!

Desks

...aka, What I Do Instead of Writing.

I have three desk options. Some might call me an over-achiever, some might call me indecisive. I call me master procrastinator, and I will post the options here.

Secrets are Hard to Title

There’s this secret I have. It’s an ugly secret, an ugly black secret with yellow teeth and bloodstained claws. I would never dare speak it in a room filled with writers. They would gasp and faint, dig up the bones of Emily Dickenson and stab me with them.

You are all writers, but luckily you are also all at a safe distance. And I bet few of you know the location of Emily’s grave. That is why I feel safe in admitting: rhythm and meter are not my friends.

There now. The worst is over. Let me explain. Many sonnets ago, in an iambic pentameter far removed from my present ill-formed free verse, I was a student at Boston College. As such, I was required to take an art class. I chose music; I am a fool.

“Wait,” you say, “music class is the easy way out. Professor McGrann plays you some CDs, you tap your foot along to a couple of jazzy numbers, and you get an A.”

Wrong, my writer friends. When I tap my foot, I look like a lunatic. I can not find a beat to save my life or my GPA. I am deaf to rhythm and meter.

So there, now you know the whole unsanitary business. It will be no surprise, therefore, when you read my latest attempt at a poem. If it helps, picture me rapidly and randomly tapping my foot when you read it. Because I certainly did when I wrote it.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dc8dd77d_11gq3pk4gz&hl=en

P.S. Kim, I love everything I write and I am awesome. Yeah, I’m great at poems and making them sound good. I also play the piano well and am considering attending Julliard. [+10 writer points]

filling up blog space just to contribute

Hey everyone -

Sorry I'm dead weight. I've decided that the apropriate way to deal with my structure-less existance is to flee - to my friends' beach houses and then new york (tough life, I know). So I haven't been excessively productive.
However, something about the Amtrak route between Providence and New York (I dont even live in Providence. I don't get it either) made me feel very existential and literary, and so I wrote down story ideas (but then I took a nap before elaborating on any of these story ideas). I thought I'd share them with you, since I have no other content for a post, and I like the sound of my own typing:

1. (this is inspired by a sub-plot of atonement and is a little dark/twisted): A victim of sexual abuse from her southern neighborhood ends up growing up and marying the guy.

2. you know how the nephews of hitler all made that pact to never reproduce? Imagine the next hitler has a kid. He makes the same pact with himself. and then he falls for some chick he meets on a train.

(... ok theyre both a little weird so far, and, now that I look at it, are combining love and sex with something dark and sinister. Huh. Don't read into that).

So now that Im posting this, maybe I'll feel obligated to follow through. Good work, everyone!

PS. Im still trying to figure out how to access google docs. I'm easily baffled.

almost back in action

Hey y'all, figured out that you probably couldn't access the docs I had put up before so I have now glutted my folder on our shared Google Docs. Have to run right now, but I'll update soon. It's been a bit of a hostage situation over here (think: 95 degrees, no AC, no internet (at all), no phone, no alarm system, no mail service, and barred from physically leaving the house waiting for AC repairman...vicious cycle).

Lisa Frank is my Hero

This, KTB, is the luck dragon.

As you can see, I, like Kim, enjoy a solid, serious writing notebook. It may not be "black" like Kim's, but what is black anyway? Is it not a large-eyed girl with giant diamond earrings and rainbow-stitched mittens hugging a blue-eyed polar bear beneath a pink and purple sky while being watched by a frozen puffin that died pondering what it was doing in the Arctic when its natural habitat is the rocky seacoasts of the North Atlantic?

If that weren't serious enough (and it is), there is both a multiplication table and a list of frequently misspelled words inside that somber cover. How else would I be able to properly type, "Dominant broccoli biscuits schedule separate sandwich salaries" or "Shining vacuums financially separate truly foreign potato mosquitoes?"

People often visibly react to the seriousness of my notebook when I take it out in public. Or are they wondering where my niece is and why I have her notebook?

And here are the goods: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dc8dd77d_2g8jknwd3&hl=en
I am currently 20 pages deep in a short story with no end in sight. That is, what I believe the kids call, fucking hopeless. And that is why I uploaded something totally unrelated. Specifically, a page of some creative non-fiction I started with the "I remember" exercise and ended abruptly, mid-thought.

I remember when there was no blog and no one knew about my Lisa Frank notebook. I remember. I remember. I remember.

Oh mayonn, aise up on Tom!

I'm testing out that versatility. I also apologize for not posting in a very long time. Everyday I mean to bring my camera to work but everyday I forget. So I'll describe my desk to you instead. I don't use my desk at home because it leans and I think it will break if I touch it. The items of interest are as follows:
* Pen caddy with glue sticks, a WI cheesehead pencil with cow spots, a pencil with a prop plane on top so I can spin the propeller around when I'm editing footnotes, and a white plastic soup ladle. And lots of red pens that I don't ever get to use.
* my father's pilot wings, on my keyboard
* a carved "one world"-type statue from Ghana
* a large coaster with a camel that looks very much like the luck dragon from Neverending Story that says, "I don't trust camels....or anyone else who can go for a week without a drink." And a camel teacup and saucer. Courtesy of my father.
* a stapler with "KTB" written on the top in white-out
* a Jane Austen action figure
*pink grapefruit Airborne (not so delicious)
* sketches from my sister in which she compares Calvin (C&H) to our [stuffed] rabbit
* a card from Halloween that says, "The mummy unwinds after a long day"
* two Persian rug mousepad coasters (you'd think I like coasters a lot, but this what happens when I ask my dad for one thing)
* lots of postcards that lean against my fake window with the fake blinds that overlooks the hallway
*Post-Its everywhere

And lots of work that I put off daily. And I do not let the Chicago Manual of Style sit on my desk. That's by my phone. I don't like using the phone, and I thought I would hate Chicago so I banished it when I first started this job. It's actually not so bad, but that's where it sits; I can't move it.

I haven't been doing much writing lately, although that will change when Shana gets back from Costa Rica. Maybe I'll write a poem about Miracle Whip.

continued...

So: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dc8dd77d_0f7xzjrdc&hl=en? I'm not sure if you can access this here, but I saved it to my folder in theatticoffifce shared google thing, so I guess you can just log in and view it there if this link doesn't work.

The Prodigal son returns

Hey all,
If you read Stylus or know me you'll get the title reference. Sorry I’ve been MIA. Lots of graduating, lots of moving. I still need to figure out how to get e-mail notes about blog-posts.
It’s amazing what BC students leave behind, furniture/accessory wise. Not legacy-wise. That’s much more intangible and somehow linked to alumni donations. I’ve been hooked up as a writer though – found abandoned printers, chairs, paper, books, bookcases and pens. Everything but the filing cabinets, Kim.
I also sent out to a few contests. Part of me feels ‘$20 down the drain,’ the other part feels ‘I’ll get read.’ I sent to the River Styx thing, so Katie, if you’re reading, wink wink, find ‘The Merrimac’ and move it to the top-pile.
I haven’t been doing much writing. I’ve written a poem, a song, and very small pieces of two or three stories (this a month or two). In too many places at once. I’d like to find the time to sit and write a large part of a short, but I gotta work around my work schedule now. I’m kind of energy zapped in the afternoons, but I’m acclimating. I’m eager to have a story read though, because I haven’t written one in a while, so maybe I’ll focus on that.
In the meantime, to compensate for my absence on the blog-wall, I’ll post a poem early. I’ll do it in the google-doc way, so I hope it works, i.e. hope I can figure it out.

Liam

Thank you, Al Gore.

I can't stop. I love the Internet. Here are the poems I'm thinking of submitting to the River Styx poetry contest. Any feedback/last-minute comments are appreciated. Thanks!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d6ptbpm_2hg9n2kgb&hl=en
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d6ptbpm_4f4thvkt7&hl=en
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d6ptbpm_3hj6gxzfd&hl=en

Ok, so I'm stealing free wireless at the local library. Yes, I chose the dorkiest option. I say nay (Nay!) to Starbucks and Panera (known around here as St. Louis Bread Co.) with all their aromatic atmosphere and corporate cookie-cutter hipster-de-leche sensibility. Give me the outdated, empty Cliff Cave branch of the St. Louis public library!
Good news: I ordered high speed internet from AT&T (I "bundled" something or other), so my house will be getting the hook-up. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going down to the offices of River Styx, the STL lit journal to read some slush and make literati friends and turn in some submissions to their poetry contest (do you think I get guilt points for submitting in person?).
Speaking of writing friends, the other night at a bar, some guy tried to buy me a drink and claimed he'd written a book. So, of course, logical me told him we should be in a writing group. Note to all: a bar is not the place to meet dates, and neither is it the place to meet writing partners. Especially not a bar called the Atomic Cowboy.
Now I am attempting to post a piece of writing by pasting a link to its Google Docs location. So if you don't have a Google Docs account, this won't work. And it may not work otherwise. Google luck.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=d6ptbpm_1swdc6khh&hl=en

Due Dates

What do you say that we all (by that I mean you all--that's teacher speak. It'll wear off.) post something that we're writing by each Friday? Until we figure out the google docs angle (jump in, anyone. Tom's little typing fingers are going to wear out), let's just cut and paste SOMETHING, anything. A sentence fragment. I don't care what. Just getting a Friday deadline in our heads. If you're writing nothing then put up what your routine MIGHT be, and what your pen and paper look like. You think I'm kidding? The notebook that you can carry around with you counts as work. So go to a bookstore and find one. Some people like to go fancy (I'm more this way. I spent too many years as a mother writing on the back of my kids' muffin wrappers and then throwing them away--I need the solidity of those black books I can later write the composition dates on the spines of. Don't read that sentence over, please. You'll sprain the grammar part of your brain.), some people like to have the grungiest spiral notebook with Sponge Bob on the cover. Try both. Just whatever. But post about it, because that gets your thinking about writing's place in your life through a little everyday thing. And that's where the work gets done--in the humble, almost invisible decisions.

Looking forward,

KG

I exist.

Or do I?
After some time-- 20 hours on the road, 1 lucky deer, 1 less lucky bird, 4 days recuperating at home, 17 blog posts-- of being MIA (that's "missing in action," not the Sri Lankan rap-tress), I have found the Internet again. It took 25 minutes to pull up the page, but I stuck it out, and here I am.
It looks fantastic (thanks Tom), and I'm so happy to have photos of the attic. I would post photos of my desk options, but my camera is sinking to the level of my internet connection in terms of speed, and even when it finally creaks out an image, I can't connect it to my lovely old PC (did I mention I saw three foxes in my backyard yesterday? Who needs the outside world?). So this is my plan: get DSL ASAP. And wireless too. Move the POS PC to the basement and set up my laptop. Trade in my camera for a new one (birthday on Friday), take some pictures, post them. Maybe write something. Lord knows I haven't been doing any of that writing thing.
What, you may ask, have you been doing? Well, I went to what turned out to be a hardcore hiphop open mic night (did not participate), giggled through Richard III at Shakespeare in the Park, nearly made myself sick riding the Round-Up at the St. Francis of Assisi school picnic, and watched the Indy 500 with the fam in Indiana yesterday.
And now put up this long post to overcompensate. Keep posting! Where is Lovely Liam?

California (postgraduationliver) cleaning

Hey all,

Just wanted to keep you posted and let you know that I leave for Cali in 6 hours...I haven't started packing yet, and seeing as how I need to be at the airport by 4am, I should probably think about that instead of perusing through the recently added photos on here. But hey, procrastination is a fine form of productivity. You're just productive with those 'other things' you meant to do. Right. Ok, I'll have many stories and photos to share with you all when I get back in two weeks. Don't have too much fun without me here! :)

Mr. Wizard, like Dumbledore, is dead

Bad news first: I have no idea how to put text files on here. Well, that's not entirely true. There are a couple of ways that involve making other websites and linking them from this one. But that seems silly. And let's face it, we are the most serious bunch of people I know. Perhaps there is a way to share them on Google Docs and put a link in a post? I miss Dumbledore.

Links to Poetry Daily and it's brethren are easy. I'm not sure how to tell yall to add them or even if you can. Can you edit the blog? Or am I forced into a role of Blog God? Being a god is better than being a wizard. That's just simple physics. Add comments to this post with any links you want me to toss into the right side of the page.

As for my invisible blog, it's the damnedest thing, I put it down somewhere and now I can't seem to find it.

This is a desk in recovery. You'll notice that no actual writing is happening on it. This is what happens when I clean too much. I take all the bits of inspiring paper and postcards and stick them in a frame and mess with my lucky statue, and balance that weird wax hand on my lamp, and generally mess around. Right now I believe that fossil in the center of my page is what is stopping me from writing. That or designing next semester's courses.

So imagine how happy I am to see your untidy desks. It means that you are writing even as you are putting on your deodorant and playing with that bendable guy thing.

Now that we've been introduced to some of the desks, what do you say we make some links to cool sites like Poetry Daily. Mr. Wizard--I mean Tom--can you show us how to do that? And then we'll need to know how to post little writing attachments. (I know what you're saying, Tom, I love my writing, oh yes, I do--no, not that kind of attachment.)

And, I can't say it enough, thank you for doing this for all of us. If we're very, very good, can we get connected to the invisible blog?

Just wondering,

Kim

Hey Tom, thought I'd send this along so you can use it if you feel like it. Okay, so it's not as fun as the table with pencils, but it's something.

Best,
Kim

I Managed to Type the Last Paragraph without Calling Myself Lazy (Even Though I Am)

Instead of being asleep, preparing for a morning of creating a strategic plan change for my company (whatever the hell that means), I am awake and reading a blog. Specifically, http://writersgroupblog.blogspot.com/

Now, I know most of you are like ummm graduating or something tomorrow, but if I remember correctly, between the time the commencement ceremony ends and the time you need to be packed up and out of the dorm, you'll have ample time for reading the 396 posts there.

What you will find is 4 women who subscribe to the crazy notion of having a writing group (and of not allowing men in said writing group). Two lovely notions. Up with writing, down with men. Specifically, in their early posts (from 2006) they talk about why and how they formed their group. Also, they talk about what they actually DO when they get together.

If nothing else you will see that, while less prolific, our blog is prettier. And that's what writing is about. Right?

They also do something interesting with their blog. Once a week, each of them posts what they did the previous week to help "make a literary life." This, conveniently, translates into "Here's what I've done lately to be a writer. I only did it because I knew I'd have to tell you jerks about it. Thanks a lot (for making me a writer)." You can see why they went with the more succinct phrase. While this may be too ambitious, it's a nice idea, and one that I think would be enjoyed by the owner of the attic office, so I thought I'd throw it out there. Now it's up to Shana to reject it.

my camera is broken.

My camera, unfortunately, smells like beer. The result of that is I can not use it to send you all a picture of my messy, messy desk. However, when I go home (which will be by something like 8 pm on monday night, as BC graciously kicks us out within 30 seconds of getting our diploma), I can send you all a picture of my Home Desk, which will probably also be messy.

Thanks so much for setting this up, Tom!

This one isn't soaked in beer...

Since Tom says that I know what comes next, I'll play along with this desk of mine (I have two of them, but I keep forgetting to bring my camera to work). As you can see, I wear glasses to use my computer. Mostly I paid $150 for them because they make me look like a writer (no really, future grads, the real world makes you blind). My Harry Potter day calendar says that today is sat/sun May 3/4 and that Professor Umbridge (trademark) surveys the progress that the fifth-year students are making on their O.W.L.s. Somewhere beneath the piles of The Office dvds, I have a bunch of random chocolate my mother hid all over my house for Easter and I pretended I didn't see for 2 months. I really hoped my boyfriend would just eat them, because I'm not really that into chocolate...if everyone else is, let me know, I'll mail them to you with the forever stamps I bought at work or I'll just pass them out the next time we meet. I'm sure I'll still have them. Maybe we can use them to bribe Katie M to come back to Boston!

Am I an author now?

Oh boy! I posted. I want author points. Desk to come as soon as I remember to bring my camera to work.

Why I need a new working space...

Yeah...new, cleaner pictures to come!

First blog post since I realized Myspace was no longer (if ever) age appropriate...

Hello Hellooo!

Thanks for setting this all up, Tom! As I sit here at work, attempting to remove the false eyelashes from last night's 'Dance through the Decades' costume, I am in fact thankful to have responsible individuals out there whose biggest concerns in life stretch far beyond the depths of wondering just how long manufacturers truly meant when they named it 'semi-permanent lash adhesive'...

A Present for KG

Once you have signed up as an author, which I am sure you all have done immediately upon recieving the invitation, posting is easy (no matter how extensively HTML tags scare KG).

1. Access http://www.blogger.com/, enter your Username (which is your email address) and your Password, and click the blue Sign In button. This is known to the educated in-crowd as "signing in."

2. Click the New Post link (located next to the green +, below the title "The Attic Office").

3. Here comes the hard part. Take a deep breath.

4. In the Title field, enter the title of your post.

5. In the large, white, unlabeled field, enter a string of words (preferabley ones that, together, convey a larger message to your audience. Start with a sentence and build from there).

6. To include a picture:
A. Click the icon that looks like a tiny boring hill under a tiny boring blue sky (to the right of the spell check icon). The Upload Images window opens.
B. Click the Browse button and select the image file from the special hiding place on your computer.
C. Choose a layout. The handy icons show you what each option looks like.
D. Select an image size. The options are limitless (just kidding, there are only three options, sorry).
E. Select the I accept Terms of Service checkbox. Click Upload Image.
F. Wait for image to upload (stare absently at the wall pondering your career options with the new skills you are learning). Once uploaded, click Done.

7. When post is composed and you have proofread it a minimum of 8 times, click Publish Post.

8. Breath sigh of relief.

As Ordered: My Desk

Here is the green table of my dreams. I rescued it from the garbage when a restaraunt in the North End tried to throw it away. The fools! Who tosses a perfectly good, perfectly green table?

You can see that instead of a view of the Mediteranean Sea, I have a view of a white wall. On that white wall is a picture of the Mediterranean Sea. Technology prevails again.

Now I just have to see about getting a chair...