Hallowe'e'en

I read several articles out of the Guardian and Observer today. My previous encounters with British journalism left me wanting on many levels, but I suppose I can chalk that up to reading things like the Sun. The two I read today, those I could easily read regularly. When I get the chance I'll go into more detail, but I'm not in a place to really think much about it right now. I'm outside in the cold sitting indian-style on concrete.

I wrote a new version of the story of Hope for bloc today. This one I used Blake Snyder's beat-sheet template to build a structure for, and I think it helped out a lot. My first attempt set up the setting, the character, and the tragedy like I wanted, but it didn't have a lot that actually happened. I think this will do a better job of drawing a reader's interest. That is, once I edit and smooth things out.

Another day, Another paper

I cranked out the rough draft of my cannibalism paper today: two pages on why cannibalism is a good thing. I feel good about my basic arguments, but I'm still going to give it a couple of days and then trash it. I haven't done any reading lately, I'm being a bit bad about that.

A little something different

I'd not had a good morning today. My bank tells me they can take six weeks to cash my student loan checks, DHL is trying to charge me 200 pounds sterling for having my laptop shipped over for VAT expenses which blows my mind, and there's a lot of stuff going down with my landlord and rental property that is not going up here. This is just to establish that I was not in a pleasant mood.

So I worked with it. I had an assignment to write three pages in the first person with a distinctive voice, so I chose the voice of the ignorant asshat from immigration that kept me in the holding pen for four hours. Every half hour he would remind me that he could send me on the next flight back to the States if he wanted. He kept me in a state of pure panic for four hours, I shall put him in a state of dangerous inbred malintelligence for all eternity. I got 900 words out of it.

Edited my Island Argument piece today, and I'm definitely going back to it before I turn it in. I think it holds up pretty well, but it could conform to the structure of the assingment more. It may make the piece suffer a bit, but we'll see if it works or not.

Needless to say, the reading hasn't been up to the pace I'd like lately.

Wednesday's business

I've written a rough draft of my next assignment for Derrek Hines' class: in two pages convince an island nation to let you build a naval base for a war they're not involved in. I am going to not think about it for a few days, then attack with with a word lion to make it work structurally. There are many avenues available for me to write the way I want, otherwise I'd complain about feeling confined by the new emphasis on structure. The truth is if I can fully incorporate the elements of structure into my style, I should be able to write around it so that readers won't notice. This is what I'm telling myself so I don't feel like I'm selling out.

Continuing to pick my way through 1000 Faces. I'd like to have it finished this weekend so I can loan it out. The book's good, I'd actually like the chance to talk over it a bit in class, but so far that's a no go.

Monday Evening

I should be reading a book with a cup of light tea by my side, but instead I'm probably going out for a pint or two. I have class at 9 tomorrow, so I shouldn't do too much tonight.

Over the course of the weekend I went through my email accounts and tried to catch up will close to 50 people, just letting them know where I am, what I'm doing, and asking them to get in touch. The fact that almost all of them have something to do with the comic book industry is completely relevant.

Changing topic before anyone can respond, between all those letters, the 2500 words I wrote and slashed down to 1700 for class this week, and being over 100 pages into Hero with a Thousand Faces this weekend, I feel pretty justified in going out for a brew tonight.

In the back of my mind, I know I need to attack my big story, which we'll call Haunted for now, with the literary equivalent of explosives before too long. I had a lot of ideas recently with no good window to incorporate them, but I have to get them down and in before they go back to wherever they came from. I also have a very nice stack of books that I really do mean to read. All things in due time, right? Right?

The game changes

So it appears that not only should this blog be for reading, but writing as well.

Duh-DUNNNNNNNNNNN

Yesterday I read Snow-White and Rose-Red from a book I bought at a second-hand bookstore in Falmouth for two quid, then wrote an 1100 word story adapting it for modern times. Rose tells Verne Troyer the mandatory sentence for tampering with an endangered species, isn't that adorable? I had to chop about 300 words to fit with the assingment though. I wonder if I can still fit in the undercover cop, I forgot about him.

Also read a few chapters of Hero with 1000 faces. Good reading, but hard to stick with.

Aristotle's Poetics

I recently finsihed Aristotle's Poetics. If you have a good understanding of Roman culture, you can probably ignore the preambles, index notes, footnotes, and pretty much anything except the actual text, which is only about 50 pages. Otherwise, you have a lot of reading ahead of you. Aristotle's text has more or less been THE basis for dramatic writing since it was first written, but he references a lot of plays, songs, and mediums that simply aren't thought of today. Without that background material somewhere in your brain, you're not going to get much out of it. If you do have that, though, what you read is a clear, albeit dry, treatise on writing drama, maybe the clearest you'll ever see.

First Post

Reading Diary, Day 1: I ain't read crap. People are looking over my shoulder, it's a lot of pressure. That's about it. Carry on.

EDIT: Actually, I have read all of War and Peace while I was waiting in queue. And if you believe that, I have some wonderful bridges to sell...