Spinwork Blog

Finals’ time is here again, meaning fire season and impending doom. Things are actually looking pretty light this year, even though this semester holds the record as my worst academic performance pretty much ever. Senioritus is a flaming bitch. I’m actually convinced it hasn’t left me since high school, since most of college as-is has been like, “wait, I have to do work?”

That said–things are continuing to progress with Cloudnigh. Its been so long since I’ve been 100% dedicated to a fresh project like this that I’ve almost forgotten how exciting it is. Better still, is the feeling of streamlining and improvement of process that I’ve gained since the last time I undertook something like this. What’s weird is I’m actually taking to outlining this time. Nothing too restrictive–but something to go off of as I push forward. I’m recognizing that I really can’t just wing it like I’ve done in the past, since I’m actually (hopefully) going to have readers this time and I want to tell a solid story. The outline was actually finished last Sunday night (or early Monday morning, however you want to look at it), leading to a very interesting and demented flight back to Burlington (due to the sleep, of which I only got an hour, not the outline).

What was refreshing was realizing I had a pretty solid idea of the story already, after working on it throughout the summer of 2008, and the little bits I did even further back. Now that I’ve got a shell, my structure, character and continuity problems are a lot clearer, meaning I can now focus on where the story *will go* rather than where it *might* go.

In other news, I finished Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions last night. Without a doubt one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. There’s just something about his depravity that I can identify with–even initially I had no idea if he was just being flippant with his self-insertions, literary crutches, and commentary on the holes in the plot, or brilliant. That, and there were innumerable penis jokes, which everyone knows I’m far too mature to partake in pretty much made the book. I’m going to head back to reading Atlas Shrugged and its numerous philosophical posings and self-absorbed, romantically-materialistic, individual-exalting sex scenes.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Uncategorized 2008, 2009, Atlas Shrugged, Breakfast of Champions, Cloudnigh, Outlines, Vonnegut

The other day, I had an in-between day, a rarity when I’m up at college. In order not to be bored out of my skull, I did something I haven’t done in a while: I curled up and read.

Reading regularly is one of the things I lost in high school. Something about reading 50-odd pages of this or that classic a night, followed by 45 minutes crammed with tearing it apart didn’t sit well with me, so I just stopped. Between then and now, I’ve only read a few books, which were usually stuff my dad would give me, or that my friend Marina would recommend. After a while, I began to feel like my writing was starting to suffer, so I knuckled down and began picking things up here and there–first, Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, which was fucking hilarious, and then Brave New World by Huxley, which completely changed my perspective on science fiction. Finally, I finally picked up The Fountainhead, which coincidentally, Marina gave me as a birthday present way back in 2007–and read it in about three weeks.

I’m not sure what it was about that book, but it’s since turned me into a voracious reader. At the moment, I’m trying to resist the urge to pick up more than one at a time–which I’ve already failed at by reading Atlas Shrugged and Breakfast of Champions simultaneously. In my defense, Atlas Shrugged is dense and long-winded as fuck, and the sex scenes–of which there have been several–remind me of British tea ceremonies interrupted by violent, individual-crushing, possessive ravaging. From the ceiling in the form of Batman. I’m taking it slowly, in doses, breaking to laughing my ass off at Vonnegut’s drawing of *ahem* beavers in Champions whenever Rand decides to spend 30 pages to detail Dagny Taggart’s quest to find the creator of some random static-powered atmospheric motor.

What? Yeah… pacing fail.

Nonetheless, breaking my reading phobia came at just the right time. This past summer was an absolute slog for writing. It was one of those times where I knew I had to make my process more adaptable, and was fighting tooth and nail to get writing in between that and my job. I think in all my sessions of muse-abuse, I’d completely forgotten the distance you sometimes need to put between yourself and your work, and that time can be just as constructive as the process of creating. That’s what’s always been detrimental to my working–I’m sometimes so fucking desperate to get something down that I’ll go into full tunnel vision and burn myself a new one. Hopefully reading will mean I won’t be so hard on myself, and that I’ll allow myself to do that rather than obliterating my sanity.

Or hang out with friends. I’d forgotten about that.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging 2009, Atlas Shrugged, Brave New World, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, reading, The Fountainhead