Happy Birthday to my Mom

My mom has been a very big contributor to my interest in writing. She took me to the library to get a library card when I was just five years old. She used to read to me when I was little. Not just kids' books. No, she read things like Tarzan and the Count of Monte Cristo to me way before I was old enough to understand them. Which served to make me vow that I would read them myself when I was older. She went to the school library and checked books out for me when I had chicken pox (and mumps...), including The Secret Garden. She bought me books like Huckleberry Finn as birthday presents.

And if you were there at the residency this summer, you will recall David Long's talk: A Writer is a Reader Moved to Emulation. Well, my mom taught me to love books. Of course, this has lead directly to me being so busy with school that I haven't had a chance to send her a birthday card. Oops. Sorry.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Eureka!

I got a packet back today from PF.

Hallelujah, finally I am not upset about getting a packet back. My writing in the order that things want to come out seems to have been vindicated. I think he really liked the writing, although, of course, he had comments, but for once it felt like the comments were helping me more than just making me feel like I should never have sent him what I sent. So now I think I know how I need to proceed on the writing.

He also mostly liked my commentaries, even though I was surprised that the one he seemed to like best was about the book I liked least.

So now, it's just a matter of getting all the work done. I really want to go back and rewrite chapter two, continue into chapter three and I want to go on and write more of chapter 13-14. I haven't decided where to divide them up yet, because I have a lot more that I want to write. that either has to go into 13 or 14 and only certain things have to be in one or the other. I guess I'll just write it all into thirteen until I get to an obvious spot for fourteen to start. I mean, I guess as I think about it, it does get more obvious, since the theme of fourteen is balance and there is a way that balance applies to what is going to happen next.

I suddenly got an idea for an alternate title, which is ... well, I've been relutant to talk about specific details of the book here, the web being what it is. But we'll see. Now I have two good possibilities.

I hope the process of working with each advisor is not as challenging as this first time. I feel like I would like to settle into a rhythm and just get a lot of work done. And it's totally not Pete's fault. It's just getting used to submitting something to someone who is a professional writer whose opinion is going to affect me more than a butterfly flapping its wings over the Pacific. (And everyone knows that even that can mess me up for weeks.)

It's midterm and I've been told that my midterm assessment is going to say that I am working hard and seriously and am on track. yay! I think I am going to miss working with Pete because he's so flexible about what I can do. I think some other advisors are going to make me go crazy. I wonder who I'll get next time.

While I think about it, I need to check to see if the library will send me a thesis from a student who graduated in the winter. Pete recommended that I take a look at it. He said it was someone who writes fantasy and struggled with some of the same issues in her writing that I am now . So I'm off to do some Pacific library research. :)

and isn't it fantastic? I'm not going to be morose for the whole weekend!!!!

You must have been busy, says my mom

A couple of weeks ago my mom pointed out to me that I hadn't posted anything on my blog since I complained about getting the packet back from Pete. You must have been busy, she said.

That I have. After getting a message that Shelley sent out to all of us MFAers, I realized for the first time that we actually had to turn in 12 of our reading commentaries to the program office. Paste your 12 best commentaries into one document, she told us. I was like, "Twelve best?" I had no idea that we were supposed to write more than 12. I looked it up and found that the MFA handbook says 12-15. I was planning to write 12, but knowing that they would become a part of my permanent record made me want options.

I had only sent two in each of my first two packets, so I knew I needed to crank it up and send three in at least two of the remaining packets. So I did that. It sounds like no big deal, right? What's one more two page paper. Well, it's another book, is really what it is. And in my case, I stopped reading a couple of books, realizing that they were taking too long to read and I wasn't going to get them done in time, and switched to books that for some reason I could read faster.

For the first time ever, I overnighted my packet today. There's no shame in it, I figure. At least it won't be late.

I send only 14 pages of fiction and didn't revise chapter 2 from last time. I think I'll work on that now that I don't feel under pressure. It needs some finessing, since I'm not completely happy with what happens in that chapter. I want to go back and look at some earlier iterations of it and see if I can make it better.

I've got some books in mind to read this time. Wouldn't it be great if I could finish four?

And I have some more of the story that has been dying to get out, so I'm good on fiction for at least one more packet.

So next week, Wednesday or Thursday, you will probably find more gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair right here when I got my packet back. I think I just should look at it until ... The thing is, whenever I open it, it's going to have the same effect on me, so I might as well get it over with. But can I be sedated first?

I've been reading about what the requirements are for getting a teaching job with an MFA and I've been trying to prep myself for the future. I need to do an internship or two, but I don't know how I will manage it with my job. It would also be great if I could sit in on some undergraduate creative writing classes just to watch what they do in class. Maybe I can do that next semester. I'll check into it. In the meantime, I've been investigating creative writing books adn trying to figure out my philosophy of teaching creative writing. What I know about pedagogy could fit into a thimble at this point. But sometimes you know more than you think you know. I'll keep working on it.

The return of the packet aka deathwish

I think I'm not so good at this getting feedback stuff.

I think I'm going to write to him and say that I want to alter the process somewhat and see what he thinks.

It sucks. I get so happy when I see that I have a packet, but then when I read it, I wish I hadn't opened it. I tell myself now that I won't open the next one. I'll just keep writing and let things go the way they go. I get derailed every time I read one of the packets, when it's such an unnatural process for me. It's just not the way I write. That chapter that I got such good feedback out of, would never have gotten me such good feedback if I hadn't written it in layers, in my own time. Ideas come to me in dreams, slowly and, bit by bit, I weave them in. I don't know if that will happen if I try to force it in this way. I think this process may wreck everything.

Second packet in

I sent my second packet to P.F. on Tuesday. I almost used regular priority mail but at the last minute, I chickened out and paid for three day FedEx. I don't know what to say about it except that I'm afraid to say anything after last time. We'll see what he says.

I do find it frustrating that all the feedback comes at once and I can't get more immediate feedback. I like to ask a lot of questions when I write. I plague Marc with questions about my work. Can you just read this part? What do you think of this? Is tetrahedron the word that I want? Why can't I use limned like that? What do you mean by that remark?

Obviously, I would never expect to ask all those questions of my advisor, but I would like to talk about bigger ideas before doing the actual writing.

I just checked fedex.com to see if the package had been delivered yet and it isn't even on the truck. It's been sitting at the storage facility in Great Falls since Wednesday night. This does not make me happy. I guess I'll look at it when I get home and if it's not arrived yet or isn't out for delivery, I'll email everything to him. If FedEx lets me down on this, I'm going to stop using them. But, I think it's guaranteed to get there by 7 pm which is 9 pm here. So I should try not to panic too soon.

Ready! Set! Stay awake for four days...

My next packet has to be in by August 17th. That's a week from today. However, it has to arrive there on the 17th (or earlier) by mail, so take away at least one of those days, preferably two or three. I'm staying home today and maybe Monday if I don't finish everything this weekend. Even though I have been working consistently on everything and have gotten a lot done, it still seems like it comes down to cramming at the end.

I have only written half of a commentary or notes for one anyway. I've finished two and a half books. The third book is taking forever to read for some reason. I think the type in it is smaller than in previous ones so there's actually more to read.

I finished my revisions yesterday on the chapter I sent Pete last time. I had worked on them before and set them aside, so in a few minutes yesterday I gave them a final going over. There still might be one or two slightly rough spots, but I don't think it's terrible. It certainly is better than last time. I am halfway or maybe a little more through with next chapter.

Ideally, I would mail the packet on Tuesday at the latest. So can I get it done without staying awake for four days? How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a toosie pop? One-two-three. Crunch. Three. :)

Discoveries

I am finding the writing of reading commentaries a helpful process. Each time I've written one, I've figured out things about the text that I hadn't noticed, even during a thoughtful reading. In fact, I've started to mistrust my initial reaction to any text, whether my own writing or someone else's.

I've been working today on my commentary for Tahar Ben Jelloun's The Sacred Night. I finished reading it last week and wasn't sure what to write about it. I found something that happened about a third of the way through the book fairly disturbing and I had not been able to reconcile this event with the rest of the book. I found myself questioning the way this particular event was handled because the author is a man and the first person protagonist is a woman--a young woman at that particular point in the story. The particular event I to which I refer is a rape. I felt that the writer didn't handle the emotions of the narrator well. But in retrospect, I realize that the rape was more than just a rape. It served several purposes. I also came to believe today that this character is actually a representation of woman in the North African culture at the time in which the novel is set. All the difficult events that occur in her life represent the various ways in which women were and are treated in that culture (and to a lesser extent) in our own culture.

It was only in thinking about the book for several days, reading about the author and his life and other works, and then trying to write about the story that all the separate realizations and bits of information coalesced into a larger, more meaningful whole. It's kind of exciting. Now I just have to work on the form a little.

In addition, I just went back to Pete's email in which he sent me some sample reading commentaries that he thought were good. Rereading his email after getting over my initial reaction to his critique of my work (which was not wrong--it just worried me), I realize that his email response to my question was much more clear and positive than I had originally made it out to be. If I had quoted it before without looking back, I know I would have worded it quite differently. This was a pretty big discovery for me. I really have to remind myself that I tend to project my own lack of confidence in my work into other people's comments. As I've said all along, he couldn't have been nicer, but now I realize, he was even NICER than I perceived him as being. Nuff said, except... I'm a moron. But there is a cure for that involving going to Lourdes or something, probably.