Ah, Deadline, Maker of Momentum

In order to fulfill my goal of getting the thesis over and done with by the end of the semester, I pretty much have to have it all written and revised by November 14. This means I need to have the fiction part written, the research done for the theoretical preface, and the theoretical preface written. All-in-all, we're talking at least one hundred pages.

Not just one hundred pages written out, either. One hundred pages that have been written, edited, distributed to my thesis committee, and revised in response to their feedback.

All this, in two months. Most folks I know are taking two semesters to work out their thesis. But, that's why I wrote stories ahead of time, right? Right. Now it's crunch time. Juan wants pages every time we meet, and I'm quickly running out of material I wrote over the summer. The cool thing, though, is that where for a while I had stalled out on ideas for stories, all of a sudden, I'm prolific. I've got the first page/paragraph of three added into the thesis to work on, and I'm thinking I might toss in a flash I wrote out completely the other day. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, that flash fits right in with one of the new ones...

Oh yeah, and I'm due for 50 more pages for the CWC in two weeks, without having made any noteable progress at all after I did that spurt of 15 pages. Thus, I'm thinking I'll switch my CWC project back to thesis and kill the proverbial two birds, etc.

Of course, this means I have even more pages to write to get the thesis up to a 50 page sub. than I would have to do the same for the novel, but that also means I'll be that much closer to getting my MA when I want to.

Campus Newspaper Survey

I found a short survey in my campus mailbox today, distributed by English Club for a feature in the university newspaper. They're collecting faculty responses, and some of the questions are straight-forward, like what's your name and position with the university?

Others, though, prove problematic:

#2: What's your favorite book of all time?
Of all time? I can say what my favorite book is today, or what it was yesterday, and maybe they'll be the same book, but maybe they won't. So, "of all time?" Impossible.

#5: What was your greatest writing success and how did you accomplish it?
This one, especially, stumps me. What counts as success, what counts as greatest? Does having people like Oracle enough to occasionally nag me about finishing it count?

Obviously, I could just pick an answer and get on with my life, but I'm pre-occupied with the questions. It's all about wording.

Tell me, if you were answering the survey, what would you fill in for those two?

Speaking the Same Language

In my Composition classes we've been talking about cultural issues, like language and culture clash. We've been talking about using MLA because writing is a conversation and MLA is the language we use. It's all about being able to speak the same language, only then can we have a conversation.

Today I had a meeting with Juan for my thesis. I feel like we're not speaking the same language yet. His definition of magical realism is a pretty hard-core, Gabriel Garcia Marquez one. Magical realism means "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." Okay, I can appreciate that.

However, I also find it problematic to use only that definition. Why? Because of the "magic" part. You look cross-culturally and the common denominator of what magic is, is a description of seeming. Things that seem to be magical, are. It is belief in the magic that makes it real. Magic becomes a description of reality. With me so far?

So, then I start thinking of a less literal description of magical realism - manipulation of our accepted perception of reality. A broader umbrella. Beneath that umbrella falls Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried because the whole book is a conversation about what reality is and how reality and truth are not always synonymous. How things seem becomes more important than how things are. Again, we're back to describing reality.

In my mind, it's all inter-connected and magical realism is a first-cousin to metafiction and ways of story-telling. I briefly mentioned Tim O'Brien as a magical realist author to Juan, and got a very skeptical reaction. I couldn't articulate my thoughts at the moment, so I dropped it.

Bottom line: right now we're not quite speaking the same language. I've got to figure out how to articulate it in a way that's clear before I can make progress on my theoretical defense portion. I've got to figure out how I translate Tim O'Brien into Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

New Music Thing-y

Today I found a new way of getting music, Spiral Frog. I've been scarfing down lots of music, and tonight has had a disctinctive Elton John and Reckless Kelly theme. It doesn't immediately seem like the two should go together, does it? But, I promise you, they do.

So, I'd like to offer you some lyrics ('cause they're sad and lovely), since there's been much talk of cowboys (or, at least cowboying-up) and of striving on the blogs:

"My first love was a wicked twisted road
I hit the million mark at seventeen years old
I never saw the rainbow much less a pot of gold
yeah my first love was a wicked twisted road

My first love was a castle in the sky
never thought I'd make it 'till I had the guts to try
and I sat up in my tower while the whole world passed me by
yeah my first love was a castle in the sky..."

-Reckless Kelly, "Wicked Twisted Road"

Choose Your Own Adventure

After proposing a new challenge every month, I find myself out of ideas. I'm so wrapped up in current writing projects that all I can think of challenge-wise is page count, and that's not at all interesting.

Rather, what is an infinitely more interesting idea is to have an entirely different type of challenge this go 'round. I hereby challenge you to come up with your own challenge for this month. Think of something bold, daring, innovative, and/or uncomfortable to try this month. Then, post your personal challenge in the comments. It's just not fun unless you're accountable.

So, what do you challenge yourself to do this month? What brave feat are you going to attempt?

Messy It Up - The Necessity of Chaos

When I got my CWC critique of the first part of the bar novel, the main common thread in people's comments was to make it messier. Bottom line: it's not complicated enough yet.

The second issue was relating to the protagonist. As anyone knows, if the reader isn't hooked into your main character, you're in trouble.

Now, the cool thing is that if you put the two issues together, they create a solution. Complications build character, and character is how you get complications. They feed off of each other. So, when I solve one problem, it'll lead to the solution to the other. After mulling it over for a while, I've come up with an idea of how to complicate Jess's life. I'm excited about this idea not only for the sake of dealing with the issues I've already mentioned, but also for getting around my stall-out with the sections of the novel when Jess is away from the bar.

It's not even lunch time yet, and I've already come up with ideas on how to tackle the three biggest struggles I'm having with this novel. I'm awesome :)

Yeah, yeah, just let me allow myself a touch of ego, okay? It's the only thing keeping me going right now.

End of August Run-Down

I started off so well with that bet with John - fifteen pages in a week, I was rocking and rolling. Then I stalled out, lost momentum, and haven't really added to those fifteen. I credit part of my stall to the fact that I have a harder time writing the parts where Jess isn't at the bar, which is the next part to write, but I have to admit that difficulty is only a fraction of the reason I petered out. Mostly, I got lazy.

Shame on me.

How did you fare this month? Better than me?