First of all, a new layout/design! The orgiami animals are from a textile I saw in Ikea that I may still go back for. I can’t sew (ah, well, I can, but badly), but…I know people who can, and that’s what matters!
So, school has started, and I’m now a second-year Fiction student. I’m taking two classes (a literature class on the media, and workshop), teaching two, and meeting my thesis adviser for thesis hours. Teaching two classes is hard. And that’s all I have to say on that, haha.
I submitted the first part (“chapter” would be an overstatement) of a novel to workshop already (was unlucky enough to be up at bat first), and I was really surprised by the positive response to the weird, magical element in those pages, and questions/suggestions of how I could tease that into the other sections. It was hugely encouraging, and one of the reasons why is because the scenes of strangeness were parts I had written on an inspired whim. The rest of it was more or less forced. So it was interesting to see that people definitely responded more to the part where there was more heart and blood going to it, I guess.
I’m reading Lisel and Po by Lauren Oliver for fun (and for Figment), and Falling Man by Don DeLillo for class.
But I also have The Night Circus and The Shadow of the Wind on my nightstand. Too many books! I think those are next on my reading list, though…or maybe Divergent, which a friend characterized as “Hunger Games-enjoyment level.” Which is huge.
Little Fictions. 