25 June 2004: Poems and Invitations

The Poems section is back up, with three new poems - "New York City Eyes," "Family," and "Lesson" - all written for my Creative Writing class during the past two weeks.

The Creative Writing class is awesome. Great teacher, amazing group of classmates. I'd write more about it, but I don't have time because I have so much writing to do. We spent the first two weeks writing poetry; these next two weeks will be spent on prose, and the last two on drama (meaning writing plays, not having breakdowns and shouting matches in class).

This prose part will be the hardest. Twelve days from now I have to hand in either two short stories or 20 pages from a novel-in-progress. I'm not a fast writer, and these next two weeks are busy weeks already. Early tomorrow afternoon, I leave for Argus' wedding, and I don't get back until Sunday night. Next weekend is my birthday, and Geminica and my parents will be in town. Which is wonderful, but it does mean that to get the writing done, I'll have to miss a lot of sleep.

I've decided that instead of short stories (a form that doesn't come naturally to me), I'll hand in a novel excerpt. All the novels I've wanted to write have been on the back burner for a long time now. I'd made up my mind that I was going to focus on school for as long as that took, and then on nonfiction that would support my post-academic career ambitions. So it's an interesting experience diving back into my novel-writing ambitions for two weeks.

I did a quick review of the scraps I've written in the past, and discovered that I hate it all now. So I've got to write 20 pages of all-new material. This class is slanted toward writing that's rooted in autobiography and personal experience. The only novel I've wanted to write that fits into that category is the one about my time living in Philadelphia with the Khan. That's one that I've never tried writing any of, because I just couldn't find the voice for it. I'd decided it was one I wasn't likely to actually write. Much to my surprise, when I started thinking about it this time, I found that the proper voice was right there in my head. So that's what I'm writing.

The Orphans of Delirium video documentary is set to premiere at CELLspace on September 16th, ten months to the day after the CELLspace lecture/demo that launched this phase of the Work for me.

If you're reading this, you're invited to my birthday dinner, on Saturday, July 3rd. This is your official invitation - I won't be sending out emails, because everyone I'd send them to has mentioned to me at one time or another that they read this journal.

This year's birthday dinner will be at Fellini, located at 1401 University Avenue, at the corner of University and Acton (across the street from Andronico's). Fellini makes pizza with your choice of real cheese or surprisingly non-digusting soy cheese, and we'll be ordering some of each, so this dinner will be safe for vegans and real-cheese-purists alike.

Fellini lends itself well to the long, leisurely, hanging-out sort of meal. I'll show up there at around 6:30, and I'll probably be there until at least 8:30 - later, if the conversation is good, which it's likely to be.

Hope to see you there. Bring whomever you like.