June 2009
15 posts
New neighborhood, new faces, new air. Stories unwritten. Stories to be written. Hello again, Park Slope.
May 2009
17 posts
Find a Penny, Pick it Up
I can feel that being back in New York is starting to do things to my blood. Good things - the best things - that can only happen here, surrounded by these buildings, by these people, breathing in this air as I walk these streets.
I am hoping that characters will again spring to life as the have for the past two summers, and I am hoping that they will feed off of the same fuel that I am. I am...
He told me, “Let things be imperfect.”
Well hello, real world. I have a hunch we’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the next sixty years (but not if I have anything more to say about it).
I am not entirely sure what it is about me, but I have a burning, deep desire - almost driven by fear - to make sure that I am not forgotten. To make sure that in my absence, I will be missed, and in my permanent departure, I am deserving of thought and consideration. Perhaps the only thing scarier than being forgotten is the idea that, ostensibly, I have no control over it.
Online shopping for your new apartment is far, far superior to Christmas.
Where the Lines Overlap
Characters in the pages of fiction are lucky. Sometimes, they get to start over. They get to amend their actions, cognize situations new again - if their authors deem them worthy (or perhaps unworthy), they get a second chance. If our characters could think, they’d have themselves up in arms in a classic philosophical debacle; simply, they are technically not the makers of their own pasts...
There are few things more horrifying than the search for apartments in New York. I will be lucky if there is any hair left in my scalp by the finale of this escapade.
Change Waits for No One; I Waited for Today
It is not change that scares me, but rather the idea of inevitable change - change that I have not willed nor created - that unsettles me. Today, I became a college graduate whether I am ready for the world or not.
I’m still too close to it to synthesize entirely, but the ceremonies were pleasantly expected and tame. We have waited patiently for it to arrive, chewed endlessly over its...
There are monsters inside all of us. How willing are you to admit yours exist?
Fiction doesn’t allow you to write about a character who you aren’t. Fiction allows you to reach so far down inside yourself that you realize that character has been in you the entire time.
I will make sure this summer does not go by without walking over each bridge that connects Brooklyn to Manhattan.
Until We Meet Again
Well, I’m going to do it. I have no choice.
I added another thousand (very necessary) words to a chapter. I’m starting to become sick at the sight of it, and with two volunteers now combing the text from “cover to cover,” now is the ideal time to take that gigantic step away from it. Shove it in the metaphorical top drawer, let it get lost in the shuffle of moving. Two...
…and at what point does dreaming stop helping and become a hindrance?
Strangers in a Strange Land
I was always skeptical about how effective taking time away from my work would really be for the editing process. I’m so invested in my text that it feels like I know it too well, no matter what. But last night, I revisited a small section of manuscript for the first time in two weeks, and I can’t believe what a difference such a short period of distance makes. I was able to dive in...
Thesis defense was a pretty incredible experience. My first taste of post-graduate education is, strangely enough, enticing. And as for undergrad? That’s all she wrote. Thanks, Tufts.
Scribbled Out
How does one not take the editing process personally? When you’ve poured your heart and soul into something so deeply that it essentially becomes your identity, how do you not feel like every idea, every sentence that someone rips down isn’t a direct hit to who you are?
I understand that as we write, we must grow, we must change, and we must edit. I understand that I’m pushing...