Right. Working a ton. Not keeping up with people. That is what I intended to write about...
Do you remember Tino was working on a short story? Well I asked for it to read/edit/give comments and she sent it to me... I even started reading it, and editing some parts - making comments, etc. Perhaps all of you should know I just went through a phase of reading books about writing fiction. My favorite of the bunch is by Sol Stein: On Writing.
Anyway, so I am reading along--- 10 pages or so in- editing like crazy- and this was 3 weeks ago or so. Then life interrupts and I put it down.
never to return.
-Right Tino-- so I still have your one-third-read/one-third-edited short story... Do you want the first third? or should I wait to finish it? I was thinking wait to finish...
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What else? Skuh sent me this LOVELY personal email... and I put a ninja star on it (as my gmail is ninja themed) and never replied.
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Then one of my favorite academics who is just now starting her tenure track job far away tagged me on facebook in a note: 25 random things about me. I am supposed to write a list of random things. First of all, I hate the word random. It is overused by people who don't want to think of the appropriate descriptive word. After that we have a list of 25 things that people on facebook don't already know about me. I have no intention of making that list. You see, I have a bit of a popularity complex. I friend everyone just to get my friend number higher. That means I have tons of "friends." The way I see it-- if they don't know those 25 things about me already-- then I don't want them to find out with a chain-letter list. Now, Mrs. Favorite-Academic, sure I like her TONS, and I think I will send her the link to this secret blog of mine so that she can learn those 25 things in blog form. But have I told her this? Have I sent Favorite-Academic the link? Not yet. I am just that awesome at keeping in touch.
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And finally this blog- I haven't posted. This could be a good thing because it means I am using all of my time to work and sleep and walk the dogs and kiss the husband. It could be a good thing because life is peachy.
Until now.
I changed groups... And the group I joined happened to be Katu's group. Which is good because the Prof I work for is smart and she has money for lab supplies and plenty of work for us to do. But I was friends with Katu before and I wondered if it would affect our friendship. Guess what? It did.
Right so before I joined there was Katu and Pizza-Pan, the graduate students, a post doc and the Professor. Now there is Katu, Pizza-Pan, Nice-Girl, and me (the grad students), the same post doc and the Professor. Nice-Girl and I sit by each other and I (obviously by her name) am quite fond of her.
Now, Katu and I used to be lunch-on-the-weekend-friends. And lately Katu and Pizza-Pan go out to lunch together all of the time. But they don't invite me or Nice-Girl.
This is not a big deal itself. So this Friday I say to Katu: We never hang out anymore- let's have lunch this weekend. And she says: I don't know... my finances are kinda tight. I say we could bring lunches- but we change the topic...
Flash forward to this Sunday. Katu, Pizza-Pan, and I are working in the lab. Nice-Girl isn't around and neither is Postdoc. Then suddenly at lunch time- Katu and Pizza-Pan leave to have lunch together and even mention it to me when they get back.
WTF Katu. WTF!
So obviously, we aren't "friends" anymore in my book. Certainly not lunch-on-the-weekend-friends like we used to be.
So what could have happened?
(a) Katu's environment could have changed:
I think Katu feels like an older sibling when the mom just had a new baby. Katu used to be the smart and industrious one. And now, she is not the only one who is smart and industrious.
(b) Katu's vision of me could have changed:
She could be pissy because I openly LOVE working for our boss. I LOVE being at work and being in a lab that has money to be used for lab supplies. And she doesn't like research- she openly tells me- and I LOVE research. Before when we were friends- I was less happy: I was working for Catfish -without money for research supplies- with a broken instrument.
(c) It could be a combination of both. It could be that Katu isn't conscious of the fact that she has stopped opting into our friendship.
So right. It pissed me off. But writing about it has helped. And what else? It is okay. I have more friends than I need or can even keep up with. Katu was not the only friend. I can invest my time in other friends.
Showing posts with label writing fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing fiction. Show all posts
Monday, January 26, 2009
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Writing about Writing
This post is inspired by Tino's Book Talk.
Thinking about writing a book is an interesting thing to do. Of course, if I were to write a book I would want it to be a good book, one that I would enjoy reading. So what makes a book a good book? My requirements are:
1) Good character development. I think I could handle this if I wrote about people I know... Or base characters off of people that I have known well and find interesting. Or mesh the people I have met into someone wonderful!
2) No Excess Words. That means that everything written must be written for a reason. The best books give you hints and details along the way that you only fully understand at a later part in the book when things start to click. So maybe if I was writing I would go back through once I had a draft and indicate the usefulness of each paragraph. You've got to be able to kill your babies they say. X everything that doesn't help the story.
3) Plot (Action). Maybe even a Plot Map. Something has to happen, and since life doesn't happen in a vacuum, there are sub-plots woven into the big plot. I guess if I were doing this I would come up with the BIG PLOT and work the sub-plots into it by working outward from the center.
I guess that is it. I bet I would need a million drafts to get a good final copy.
Also it seems that it would be easiest to start by writing about something I know very well. I do think I understand people, so I bet I could do the whole character thing... Just how to communicate what I know in words on a page? Communicating takes some effort. I know lots of things but generally I don't care if other people know them or not, and this makes me a poor communicator.
Oh yeah. So since I don't know how I would write the book I would try to write the same story from the first person and from the third person and with mostly all dialog and without much or any dialog and all of these different ways. I bet then I would have a better grasp on the story and I could pick the version that was the best.
Finally, I like well written books. What the fuck does that mean? The sentences must be enjoyable to me. I know I don't write like that personally, but maybe I can go look back at some stuff I like and reevaluate the beautiful sentences.
All of this from a non-writer.
Thinking about writing a book is an interesting thing to do. Of course, if I were to write a book I would want it to be a good book, one that I would enjoy reading. So what makes a book a good book? My requirements are:
1) Good character development. I think I could handle this if I wrote about people I know... Or base characters off of people that I have known well and find interesting. Or mesh the people I have met into someone wonderful!
2) No Excess Words. That means that everything written must be written for a reason. The best books give you hints and details along the way that you only fully understand at a later part in the book when things start to click. So maybe if I was writing I would go back through once I had a draft and indicate the usefulness of each paragraph. You've got to be able to kill your babies they say. X everything that doesn't help the story.
3) Plot (Action). Maybe even a Plot Map. Something has to happen, and since life doesn't happen in a vacuum, there are sub-plots woven into the big plot. I guess if I were doing this I would come up with the BIG PLOT and work the sub-plots into it by working outward from the center.
I guess that is it. I bet I would need a million drafts to get a good final copy.
Also it seems that it would be easiest to start by writing about something I know very well. I do think I understand people, so I bet I could do the whole character thing... Just how to communicate what I know in words on a page? Communicating takes some effort. I know lots of things but generally I don't care if other people know them or not, and this makes me a poor communicator.
Oh yeah. So since I don't know how I would write the book I would try to write the same story from the first person and from the third person and with mostly all dialog and without much or any dialog and all of these different ways. I bet then I would have a better grasp on the story and I could pick the version that was the best.
Finally, I like well written books. What the fuck does that mean? The sentences must be enjoyable to me. I know I don't write like that personally, but maybe I can go look back at some stuff I like and reevaluate the beautiful sentences.
All of this from a non-writer.
Monday, February 25, 2008
How do you spell neurosurgeon?
Careers. What are those?
My kids are doing a research paper on a career that they think would fit them. Some of the dumbest said they wanted to be neurosurgeons and some of the smartest wanted to be basketball players and models.
They have no clue, and all I could do was continue to emphasize that they are just looking into a topic that is interesting to them. But it also has to be substantial enough for a paper, so "model" isn't going to exactly fill out three pages, much the way they don't fill out anything else. Like an application for a real job?
It was a lot of "THIS COMPUTER ISN'T LETTING ME IN" and "THIS SURVEY IS TRYING TO PLAY ME." No, hunny. You just didn't type your birthday in right on the profile page. Gotta love the freshman. I do most of the time. But they are some not-listening fools.
I started a short story this weekend. This is a big deal for me because I've been struggling with the being-a-teacher-and-still-being-a-whole-person issue. I haven't been to dancing in six months and I'm intimidated about stepping back in to class all rusty. Even though no one would care but me. It's going to be painful to realize how much catching up my body has to do.
So I try not to talk about short stories when they're not finished because I'll inevitably tell people about what I perceive to be my great ideas, and then they sound cliche out loud, so I lose my excitement and drive of writing them. I'm afraid my grueling school schedule going to suck the steam right out of this one, but I'm still excited about it. It's about a young teacher crossing lines with a student. Not autobiographical or completely creative, but it will be wrought with conflict I tell you! I'm interested also in taking advantage of this period of weird "What is this adult life after college supposed to be like?" And how all of the old insecurities from way back get drudged up and you start comparing yourself to people again and wondering if your present matches up to your past hopes for yourself at this age. It's a cool time of self-discovery (Wrought with conflict). And in a story, if a character is in that state, she'd be doing things that she wouldn't normally do if she had a handle on what kind of person she was and what she would and would not decide in her life. This summer...a teacher and a student walk the line between friends...and something else! Ugh. See what I mean.
For the Tie-In, I'd like to state that In Conclusion, careers are confusing to one's identity.
My kids are doing a research paper on a career that they think would fit them. Some of the dumbest said they wanted to be neurosurgeons and some of the smartest wanted to be basketball players and models.
They have no clue, and all I could do was continue to emphasize that they are just looking into a topic that is interesting to them. But it also has to be substantial enough for a paper, so "model" isn't going to exactly fill out three pages, much the way they don't fill out anything else. Like an application for a real job?
It was a lot of "THIS COMPUTER ISN'T LETTING ME IN" and "THIS SURVEY IS TRYING TO PLAY ME." No, hunny. You just didn't type your birthday in right on the profile page. Gotta love the freshman. I do most of the time. But they are some not-listening fools.
I started a short story this weekend. This is a big deal for me because I've been struggling with the being-a-teacher-and-still-being-a-whole-person issue. I haven't been to dancing in six months and I'm intimidated about stepping back in to class all rusty. Even though no one would care but me. It's going to be painful to realize how much catching up my body has to do.
So I try not to talk about short stories when they're not finished because I'll inevitably tell people about what I perceive to be my great ideas, and then they sound cliche out loud, so I lose my excitement and drive of writing them. I'm afraid my grueling school schedule going to suck the steam right out of this one, but I'm still excited about it. It's about a young teacher crossing lines with a student. Not autobiographical or completely creative, but it will be wrought with conflict I tell you! I'm interested also in taking advantage of this period of weird "What is this adult life after college supposed to be like?" And how all of the old insecurities from way back get drudged up and you start comparing yourself to people again and wondering if your present matches up to your past hopes for yourself at this age. It's a cool time of self-discovery (Wrought with conflict). And in a story, if a character is in that state, she'd be doing things that she wouldn't normally do if she had a handle on what kind of person she was and what she would and would not decide in her life. This summer...a teacher and a student walk the line between friends...and something else! Ugh. See what I mean.
For the Tie-In, I'd like to state that In Conclusion, careers are confusing to one's identity.
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