Tuesday, September 28, 2004
08:38 p.m.

One last hurrah before classes start? I guess that's not so much the case, because I am rather looking forward to the courses I'm taking this quarter. Philosophy of Human Rights -- yay! Beginning Verse Writing -- (maybe) yay! (I'm excited about the class, but I hope I like being *taught* poetry writing. This is pretty much going to make or break my Creative Writing focus in my English major.) Third-year Japanese -- yay (so long as I review some of my kanji tonight :P)!

People are all back, and I'm basking in the return of my outdoor social life. (By 'outdoor,' I mean 'outside of my house.') I get to go to north campus again, rather than just the south campus building I work in. In fact, I don't have work at all this week, because I wanted to concentrate on my classes -- which is a great feeling. XD

So what have I done this summer? I mean, besides move into my first 'place' and learn how to maintain it (more or less). Well ... I've done, oh, a couple of thousand words of a novel attempt, with bits and pieces of solid planning. *sigh* Certainly not what I'd hoped my summer vacation would produce.

I know why I accomplished so little, though. (I mean, besides the fact that I've never attempted planning or writing a novel, and I probably couldn't have finished a complete draft even if I'd worked regularly all summer.) It wasn't because I was lazy. Sure, I have less discipline when I don't have a full schedule of classes/work/clubs to keep me in line (I'm one of those people who accomplishes more the busier I am). But I kept occupied with work, reading, cleaning, and grocery shopping. (Not exercise, though, but that's another story ... ^_^;;) It wasn't because I didn't enjoy the writing when I did it. I always love writing (fiction). But whatever I wrote, I would be afraid it wasn't good enough -- not just good enough words, pretty enough prose, but also, did express characterization? Did it evoke setting? Would it tie into the general tone, plot, theme of the work (yes, in the first 2000 words :P)?

It was the same thing that always gets me, really: lack of confidence and SHEER TERROR that I would make an attempt and NOT ACTUALLY SUCCEED (and oh no, how would I ever deal with A FAILURE!? XO).

Yeah, easy for me to be flippant about it. Not so easy for me to deal with it. To some extent, caution is as aspect of my personality -- I'm paranoid and careful about a lot of things. I'm shy and not outspoken because I'm afraid to say something stupid or offensive. I don't try a lot of new things that I don't think I'd be at least halfway decent at, because I don't want to risk failure. But to get back to the subject, writing a novel is obviously a daunting task. You have to have a coherent and entertaining plot. You have to make a believable world, physically and culturally. You have to write the whole thing and have it at least make sense. You have to do *big things.* I am much more comfortable with shorter mediums. I had no problem writing poetry (though I didn't write much, partly because I lacked the provocation of thought that classes usually give me).

So, yes. I don't mean to whine and say I deserve slack because of my particular weakness. Other people have others and work on them, I work on mine. It's easier for me when I lay it out like this, though. And what am/will I doing/do about it? Taking it in smaller pieces, for one: planning handfuls of scenes or possible chapter units, for one, rather than the whole thing OMG RIGHT NOW. I'm also considering NaNoWriMo, which will give me October to outline, and also some sort of pressure/discipline. (I may not aim obsessively for the 50K finish line so much as dedicate myself to daily wordcounts, though.) And other things: reading, thinking, engaging in the rest of my life and not worrying about it too much because I need to remember that 1) stress stifles creativity, and 2) inspiration comes just as much from the 'real world' as my own isolated imagination.

Change of subject! I mentioned reading. I did get to read -- glorious, glorious books that WERE NOT FOR CLASS. *_* Some were from the roomie (who brought a whole new pile of books I could look at!), some where old ones of mine I'd been meaning to read for however many years, some were library books. I did fantasy/sci-fi, romance, mainstream, and a touch of non-fiction/theory (plus some manga/graphic novels and poetry, of course). There are some interesting differences between my current reading habits and those of, say, high school. One of them is that I'm less into the epic fantasy thing. The first book I read, Sara Douglass' The Wayfarer Redemption, was good, but just didn't grab me. (Part of this might be because I started it over Spring Break and dropped it for a couple of months due to classes. :P) I'm not as interested in gods and prophecies and such anymore. I used to be: I read Eddings' Belgariad or watched Fushigi Yuugi and loved all the Heroic and Destined and Earth-spanning things they included. Now, though ... I wouldn't say I've gotten too cynical for that kind of thing, exactly; I'm just more interested in the 'smaller' focuses on individuals and families, societies, etc. Epic fiction often includes these things, of course; but for me, the Prophecy or whatever usually gets in the way of that.

Also, I'm reading less fantasy/sci-fi in general. It's still my primary single interest, and definitely my favorite genre (since everyone and their brother in the writing industry seems to need to use such categories) ... but, as above, I am less interested in one of the sub-genres. I also think that, having read exclusively (though not exhaustively) fantasy for years, I have hit upon enough repetitions and cliches that I need to get a shot of new stuff in my reading just for the sake of novelty. This is not a bad or unique thing in fantasy -- I'm not avoiding it because it's bad, but avoiding the old stuff that's bad and just going for new stuff. This is why I will read romance novels that aren't very good (though I did read one that is good this summer, Jennifer Crusie's Fast Women). I've started exploring more 'mainstream' fiction, and enough of it's new that I've avoided the generic family drama or woman's liberation story. (By reading stuff like Anchee Min's books. Great, great stuff.) In fact, after the giant biannual city library book sale a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I had more mainstream stuff than anything else. Although one of them, Fifth Life of the Catwoman (which incidentally, my boss at the literary agency sold), is basically a fantasy story labelled as allegory/magical realism/etc. to make it palatable. But this is a topic I've discussed before, and which most fantasy fans have ...

At the moment, in a last-ditch attempt to do fun reading before the course load hits, I'm in the middle of three things: Jeanette Winterson's Art & Lies, Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, and Ultimate Spider-Man volume 8. The first one, I may actually quit because I'm not getting into it. I'm not sure what it is -- I loved Written on the Body when I read it for class my first year, and recently I read The PowerBook and enjoyed it (though not as much). It may be the case that I need to be *taught* the book, rather than reading it on my own, to really get it -- postmodernism is definitely not my literary movement of choice. But also, I know that Written had a more coherent story. All three books are told in vignettes, but Winterson plays with multiple narrative viewpoints in the latter two -- stories within stories, switching perspectives, etc. I'm not getting as strong a sense of character from these other two, and I think it's partially due to that disjunction. (Or maybe my brain has gone soft over the summer and I'm just not smart enough. XD;;) The second one was recommended in my first English course ever, and I finally saw it at the book sale and picked it up. Good philosophy, but ... the point is to comfort man in his suffering by having him turn to the eternal good (i.e., God). I'm just not interested in eternal, or sublime, or perfection, or other grand things. Like I said earlier, I'm into the smaller stuff. I don't know, maybe it's an effect of youth. :P And of course, the Spider-Man is entertaining. He's such a cheeky little bastard. XD

Hopefully I'll get to finish these books tonight (at least the ones I want to) before I have to go to sleep for class (eep!). Will blather about school tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 1, 2004
04:21 p.m.

Mrrgh ... I need a new layout. Hawkeye is much teh cool, but even so -- three months? O_o The only reason I haven't violently rebelled against the monotony and slapped up some half-assed text based layout is probably the infrequency with which I post and actually see it. ^_^;;

In other news, I have been experiencing much more social activity than my expected living-with-two-roommates-but-having-no-travel-plans summer called for. For one, I *did* travel, even if it was only a week off at home. (I've hit that point where being home during a holiday, rather than acting as a boring interim between exciting activity ... *is* the exciting activity. ^_^;) There, I had one day to stand as a barrier between one year and an ocean. *sigh* (I also got to see Rent, as I mentioned. More on that later.) We've also seen a number of visitors in the house, and my parents are making noises about coming to visit this weekend. Last weekend was the combined birthday/PAX/Dragon's Pen half-reunion extravaganza. XD Much, much fun, and, I think, just enough to last me the four weeks until classes start again.

I think I could do without the classes, though. ^_^; I'll certainly enjoy the stimulation, as working as an office monkey doesn't really engage the brain. But I've also enjoyed having weekends off with nothing to worry about -- heck, I don't have to think about anything as soon as I leave work in the evening. But ... I do know that the discipline of classes will do me good, because I am one of those people who is most organized/productive at my busiest. Who knows, I'll probably get more writing done during the school year than I have all summer. (Which is ... 2500 words. But that was accomplished over the space of four days. So if I could just keep up that pace ... :P)

Anyhoo, Rent. MUCH LOVE. <3<3<3 Watching shows live is always fun, like seeing the rotating stage setup of Les Mis, or Phantom's visual opulence. What Rent has is a wonderful *energy* that is, of course, palpable in the music, but really does need to be demonstrated by the actors. ("La Vie Boheme" is so much FUN to see acted out. XD)

I read a couple of reviews in the local papers about the production (the Seattle leg of the tour, but the same people), and both were pretty unenthusiastic. Of course, both reviewers also seemed to hold no particular love for Rent itself, which sort of strikes me as being similar to criticizing the chef for a dish you don't like anyway. *shrug* There were some praises for Andy Meeks (Mark), though, which I wholeheartedly agree with. It was odd to see how ... irritating Mark makes himself in the show (^^;), but I was rather charmed by him anyway. "Tango Maureen"? Now one of my favorites. XD (Well, they're all my favorites, but it has that particular love I reserve for I'll Cover You, La Vie Boheme, Light My Candle, One Song Glory ...)

Roger was great, too -- that perfect balance between deep and husky, and the ability to get really raw at just the right moments. He seemed to have an issue with volume, though -- at the beginning of every piece, he would be drowned out by the instruments. No one else had this problem, so it probably wasn't technical; and then after a line or two, whether he had a crescendo or not, he'd seem to find the right volume. It was sort of odd ... The actor was also really freaking tall. ^_^; I mean, whenever he and Mark sang at each other he'd sort of have to hunch down to look him in the eye. (This probably contributed to my impression of Mark as being small and cute and a little bit bippy. XD;;) His size did a nice job of making Mimi seem smaller and more vulnerable, though, especially in "Without You." Her actress had an unfairly pretty voice, as seems required of Mimis; and she pulled off the dancing and contorting of "Out Tonight" without a hitch. (Doubly unfair.)

Collins was wonderful. *_* He had a *nice* voice, and liked to play around with his parts, improvising and flourishing and just being playful with the music, without overdoing it or being annoying. Made me cry at the "I'll Cover You" reprise, and, as beautiful as the song is, I haven't cried at it in years. :P

The others were great, too; these were just the standouts. I loved seeing Maureen's performance; her actress was really amusing. The audience (or at least the front rows) got really into it, too, and almost started mooing before she asked. I'm sure they must have already seen or at least heard the show before (though they laughed at some of the jokes as if it were their first time ^_^;). It makes me wonder, though, what the first few audiences of Rent thought of Maureen's compulsory audience involvement ...

Oh, and the front row people went *mad* when Angel ran out onto the stage at the very end of the finale. It was great. XD