This Week (6/14)

This week, we looked over each others' short stories, read the 3rd fiction packet, and read more of Bird by Bird.

Going over each others' work was good, and probably one of my favorite parts of class. It's the only time when we get direct help from various people to better our writing in this class. The two stories that I wrote were intertwined with one another. The first shows a teenager named Ray (real name: Spencer) who shows no respect for his parents. Because of this, he is transferred to a different region, a different dimension which tries to make him see his actions as wrong, but instead, he refuses to look at his own life, so he is killed.

The next story that I write is connected with the first one. It has the same character, but instead of him causing the problems, the ones causing the problem are his parents. It takes place in a "parallel universe" of sorts, if you will. In this scenario, he is taken the same outside region, but instead of it trying to cause difficult thoughts, it comforts him. Once he is well, he goes back.

The people in my group were very good at giving me some other advice - I think we should spend more of our class time doing this. The one major remark I got told again and again was to be more clear, which is hard to do when you want the story to be quick yet complicated.

The fiction packet was very hit and miss, with more misses than hits. The first story is awful, and I cannot stand how the writer talks. It's extremely difficult to get through (like I'm shoveling snow with my eyes) and a very boring, repetitive read. The next story, The Falling Girl, was definitely a relief and had a very interesting plot - a girl who jumped off of a building, not because of suicide, but because she was in a hurry. As she falls, many people invite her to their parties and what not, but she declines, and keeps falling and falling... Then other girls start falling with her, girls she envies due to their good looks. As they keep falling, she grows older and older... It's just a really good, interesting read that I'm quite fond of. The one other story that I found worthy of mentioning was August 25, 1983. It'd be very strange to meet a version of yourself that knew more about you than you do - and even weirder to meet a version of yourself that was about to die. I was expecting more panic in this story, and I'm glad I didn't find as much as I was expecting. It's a pretty straightforward story, and easy to digest, so the only thing I really have left to say is that it's good work.

I'm getting a little bit tired of reading writing about writing. Bird by Bird is still going mostly in that direction, and while it seems to be a good book, I've just done a lot of reading about writing, not JUST in this class, but other places as well. Although the girl along with her family are very interesting characters, I don't have the drive to read this particular book like I would normally have for a book that I choose to read on my own.