"Allie, you haven't updated your blog in awhile"- Sorry, Day. I'll try to do better. I write this while in screenwriting class. We're pitching film ideas but I've already gone. We have about an hour left. Now, I really like our professor and you all know I love movies, but sometimes it's hard to concentrate. We're talking about cross-dressers now, so there ya go. It's raining, or threatening to so, nothing new there either. Next month is the Cuirt (pronounced Kertch, I think) International Literary Festival and I believe we get free passes to seven events, which is pretty exciting.
We've moved on to talking about character introductions. The screenplays I brought in were 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Classic and hilarious. You can't get any better than Paul Newman or the Cohen Brothers. Just great. What isn't great (mini rant alert) are people who 1) aren't prepared. ever. or 2) come prepared but refuse to participate. What is the point, really? Just don't show up. The saying goes 'those who show up rule the world', which may be true but, holy cow, be prepared to rule the thing. How most of the world's population hasn't found themselves dead in a ditch somewhere, I don't know.
Update: I'm sitting in my rather chilly room wrapped in my zebra snuggie listening to Kasia scream in Polish over the phone. I am a little afraid to make tea. At least the romance languages SOUND nice, even if the meaning is not. I think I'll just wait until things quiet down, keep a low profile and be thankful that while my workload is heavy and my toes are pretty cold, I have the most beautiful bouquet of daffodils to give me happy thoughts. No, matchmakers (ahem: Giles County), these did not come from a suitor. Part of them may or may not have been stolen from the nuns next door and the others came from my dear friend Jen who brought them to me because I'd been ill. Never fear, I'm on the mend and now my room smells like springtime.
I read two books this weekend, 'A Mercy' by Toni Morrison and 'All Summer' by Claire Kilroy. Both are excellent. Toni is possibly a literary genius and Claire Kilroy is my new girl/author crush. Why? 1) I recently met her (she came to speak to our class) and she's NORMAL. Most speakers come to talk to us about the industry and their method of creativity and let me tell you, though everyone (with the exception of one person who shall not be named, but he was raised in Texas, case closed) has been lovely, some of them have been out there. That's all well and good, but their out there and my out there are completely different places. Claire, I liked because she is creative but admits it is really really hard work and most of the time, incredible boring and frustrating. YES. It is. Afterwards, we talked like normal, down to earth people and she did a reading at the library. Her writing (in that particular novel) is dry, funny and engaging. I want her to be my friend. She's coming to Cuirt and my friend Liz and I are dragging everyone we know to go see her. Liz likes her because she was at the same Kate O'Brien conference and apparently, when a man stood up and criticized writers who didn't do public readings or 'perform', Claire gave him down the road and really put him in his place, arguing that writing is solitary and good writing doesn't always equal performance. YES. Enough about that, 'All Summer' was really good and I think everyone should read it. Next on my list is 'Tender Wire', but I have 'Summer' by Edith Wharton and 'Love' by Toni Morrison to get through first. I count reading as research in my plan to take over the world.
In other news, while I really do love it here and have made some pretty cool friends and meet awesome people, I am just a teeny bit stressed out. One word: Jobs. Why must people write cover letters? I'm sure it's just as big of a pain to read them as it is to sit here and stare at a blank screen/paper. Also, if anyone knows of any openings/has any ideas for ways I might feed myself/pay back student loans come September, shoot them my way. In the meantime, I'm going to sign off here to stare at that blank page and/or work on the non-fiction project that just seems to be going nowhere. Wouldn't want to show up unprepared. World domination awaits. One novel at a time.
We've moved on to talking about character introductions. The screenplays I brought in were 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Classic and hilarious. You can't get any better than Paul Newman or the Cohen Brothers. Just great. What isn't great (mini rant alert) are people who 1) aren't prepared. ever. or 2) come prepared but refuse to participate. What is the point, really? Just don't show up. The saying goes 'those who show up rule the world', which may be true but, holy cow, be prepared to rule the thing. How most of the world's population hasn't found themselves dead in a ditch somewhere, I don't know.
Update: I'm sitting in my rather chilly room wrapped in my zebra snuggie listening to Kasia scream in Polish over the phone. I am a little afraid to make tea. At least the romance languages SOUND nice, even if the meaning is not. I think I'll just wait until things quiet down, keep a low profile and be thankful that while my workload is heavy and my toes are pretty cold, I have the most beautiful bouquet of daffodils to give me happy thoughts. No, matchmakers (ahem: Giles County), these did not come from a suitor. Part of them may or may not have been stolen from the nuns next door and the others came from my dear friend Jen who brought them to me because I'd been ill. Never fear, I'm on the mend and now my room smells like springtime.
I read two books this weekend, 'A Mercy' by Toni Morrison and 'All Summer' by Claire Kilroy. Both are excellent. Toni is possibly a literary genius and Claire Kilroy is my new girl/author crush. Why? 1) I recently met her (she came to speak to our class) and she's NORMAL. Most speakers come to talk to us about the industry and their method of creativity and let me tell you, though everyone (with the exception of one person who shall not be named, but he was raised in Texas, case closed) has been lovely, some of them have been out there. That's all well and good, but their out there and my out there are completely different places. Claire, I liked because she is creative but admits it is really really hard work and most of the time, incredible boring and frustrating. YES. It is. Afterwards, we talked like normal, down to earth people and she did a reading at the library. Her writing (in that particular novel) is dry, funny and engaging. I want her to be my friend. She's coming to Cuirt and my friend Liz and I are dragging everyone we know to go see her. Liz likes her because she was at the same Kate O'Brien conference and apparently, when a man stood up and criticized writers who didn't do public readings or 'perform', Claire gave him down the road and really put him in his place, arguing that writing is solitary and good writing doesn't always equal performance. YES. Enough about that, 'All Summer' was really good and I think everyone should read it. Next on my list is 'Tender Wire', but I have 'Summer' by Edith Wharton and 'Love' by Toni Morrison to get through first. I count reading as research in my plan to take over the world.
In other news, while I really do love it here and have made some pretty cool friends and meet awesome people, I am just a teeny bit stressed out. One word: Jobs. Why must people write cover letters? I'm sure it's just as big of a pain to read them as it is to sit here and stare at a blank screen/paper. Also, if anyone knows of any openings/has any ideas for ways I might feed myself/pay back student loans come September, shoot them my way. In the meantime, I'm going to sign off here to stare at that blank page and/or work on the non-fiction project that just seems to be going nowhere. Wouldn't want to show up unprepared. World domination awaits. One novel at a time.
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