A Few Days Later

Saturday went reasonably well, aside from not having much sense about microphones and that horrible random shaking thing I do (I did try chastising my body for never figuring out how to cope with adrenaline, but that route has yet to work). Nate recorded the event, so if I ever get the nerve to view that (the thought of hearing my own voice somewhat frightens me) maybe I'll post it somewhere... somewhere safe where no one can get to it or find it- even myself.

Also, my book idea is far from the other one that was floating around the forum sometime back, so now I'm sure I'm not accidentally stealing someone's idea, I'm going to start pressing forward with it. I'll hit up Sarah during office hours tomorrow for some general advice and guidance to get started on (as well as tending to inscape business), and have more details after that. This really is exciting for me, and wonderful for the community if the book comes together and catches the eye of the right publisher, so again, more details soon.

Reminder: inscape release this tuesday at 7pm in Bradbury Thompson on campus!

General Style thoughts:
What's up with dashes? Seriously. one - is a hyphen two -- is a dash, but anymore computers haven't been autocorrecting the -- into the "megadash" like they used to, and I get comments on my papers that a dash is one big long mark and not two hyphens. Well, I know this, but the computer doesn't and I have no idea how to get the damn thing to read my mind. Lately I've just been rewording sentences to avoid this, but eventually I'm going to have the unsurpressable urge to use a dash.

Other Thoughts:
I think this week I'm going to try to really hit hard on the playwriting and try to turn out drafts of a couple ten-minute plays. Now that I've kind of settled into it, I'm really enjoying playwriting. I'd never intended to limit myself to just one genre, so it's good to get this sort of experience.

I'm really missing not being in a poetry class of any sort. It's really unfortunate, the timing of Amy leaving and the general cutting back of courses. I've taken all that's offered. There's creative writing and advanced poetry. There weren't any courses on poetry as literature this past year, and it doesn't look like there will be next year... and again, writing wise, I've taken what's offered. The only thing for me to do now is take independent studies or ask to sit in on advanced poetry next semester just for the experience. I wish there was a way to arrange a sort of group independent study in poetry, like 2-4 of us and whichever professor. The advanced poetry class is hardly advanced, in my opinion, and generally too large to be helpful in the way someone taking their writing seriously would like. Especially with the growing number of students, it would really be great if another level were added in. From my one experience with Writer's Circle, that just didn't cut it. I got almost no feedback because poetry just wasn't an area of much experience for any of them. Maybe a course like "advanced studies in poetry" would be an idea to bounce off of someone... something that focused on both continued guidence in the student's writing coupled with the reading and interpretation of existing poetry. Unfortunately, Washburn hasn't been a good fit for me in either of my major areas, aside from Amy.

Speaking of whom, I was asked the other day if I thought Amy had a lot of impact on my writing; if it is what it is because of her. Absolutely! Honestly, I may not have stuck with it had someone else been teaching the course. A different professor may have had such a completely different style that I, as a completely new writer, may have been discouraged by that alone. While I look forward to Eric McHenry taking over Amy's position, I think that if I'd taken that initial course from him, I'd probably be in a library science grad program right now. Not that this is something that should be taken negatively, though; just a huge stylistic difference that I don't think would've worked for me at that point. NOW, however, I think it's a good thing, that it's something I can learn more from now than I would've then; to have the chance to study with someone whose style is so different from mine; something that challenges me. Aside from style, I think it was also that I felt completely at ease talking to Amy, so I asked the questions I needed to ask, was able to write without feeling like I had to "write safe" and didn't feel too awkward to talk about the things I was writing at the time and go in depth with them and how I felt about them. I think it was the perfect combination of the right person being in my life at the right time, and I will always, always cherish and credit my studies with her.

Final thoughts:
I randomly saw today that last spring my uncle and his wife (Trent and Charlotte) took part in the top city poetry series. No idea they wrote. They kind of keep away from the rest of the family, though his realtionship with my dad seems to be much less strained than with the rest of the family (I don't really expect to ever know why things are the way they are, and would rather just stay out of these things) so maybe I should try getting in touch with them.