I'm back

It isn�t that I�m not flattered by all of your (all three of you reading this) dedicated checking and rechecking of my website and utter depression at the lack of a new entry. It isn�t that I�m carrying on a full-blown, tumultuous affair with graduate school. That�s not it. It is that I�m getting old, people. O-L-D. I get tired. I lack motivation unless fueled by copious amounts of caffeine. I fall asleep while reading in bed. I get backaches and practically give myself third-degree burns because I can�t remember to turn off my heating pad. So I have a hard time updating the website, okay?

Here�s a little story. In the typical fiction workshop environment, classmates offer writerly advice on how to improve your plot (map it out), your dialogue (avoid stiffness), your characters (make them flawed, dammit), and your flow (whatever vibe it has). The professor conducting the workshop usually takes in the general comments that are made by classmates and processes the information (e.g., �these observations are related to a point-of-view problem"). This sounds pretty standard, right? No need to deviate from a plan that�s been working smoothly. Agreed?

Au contraire mes amis. The current professor running my workshop interrupts people to�what else�talk more about himself. Here are a couple of clips:

�When I was working on my last novel. . .�

�I wrote an article for Glamour magazine several years ago��

�While I was interviewing Robin Williams. . .�

Each of these statements are both preceded and followed by an extensive monologue about the general greatness of the professor. Want to know more? Just ask him�he�ll be more than happy to take a break from talking about himself to talk about himself.

Needless to say, workshop is rather unproductive and a hilarious waste of time this semester. Still, I�m writing. So that�s something. Oh, and now I�m an official desperate writer because I�ve subscribed to five different literary magazines and I�m deluding myself into believing I�m going to be able to stay awake long enough to actually read them.

Other news from Oxford:

1. I won an election and will be the new editor for our online literary magazine, creatively (ahem) called Oxford Magazine. If you�re a halfway decent writer, please send us something. I�ve been reading a lot of bad fiction, people. Bad bad.
2. If you want to read a good book by a professor of mine who never brags but who really should, buy a copy of American Son by Brian Roley.
3. My friend is in discussions with a small press and may be getting a novel published! This means there is hope for me, too. She is also a painter. I�ll post some of her work here at some point in the future so you have something pretty to look at.
4. I�m being held hostage by a foreign language requirement. In order to graduate, I need to fulfill a �reading proficiency in a foreign language� dealie. This means that I will be spending three days a week learning not to speak but to read French with the aid of a French dictionary. Correct me if I�m wrong. Can�t I already do that? In any case, I am stuck in Oxford for the entire summer learning a language that entirely fucks with my ability to spell things in English. Ugh.

And since I seem to work only in furious bouts of production followed by long naps under my sun lamp, I promise to have a good story for you kids tomorrow, too.