Screen Free Week – Day 4

I had quite a day on my fourth day on this Screen Free challenge.

Since I love baking, I baked chocolate chip cookies for a friend of mine who’s in semi-traction (he had knee surgery) and visited for a while. The visit lasted a whole day! Completely unexpected but awesome.

He lives in Park Slope so I walked from Williamsburg to his ‘hood. The walk  took ninety minutes but the sun was out so it was pleasant.

After we chatted for many hours, we went to a nearby bar, Toby’s, for some grub and trivia night. I’ve never attended a trivia night anywhere so this was new to me and a total blast! I met his kool friends and enjoyed the atmosphere at the bar.

I got home at 1:30 am (the G train was doing this shuttle business between Bedford-Nostrand Ave) and fell out. I was tired, joyful, and proud that I didn’t turn my TV on once! Not even when I was at his place!

When seeking out social activities not including visual media, it’s quite easy to accomplish your goal. This day was perfect because I met different folks from a different social circle and it was grand. Every day is new for me. Every time I meet new people and am in different situations, I think, “How can I incorporate this into a story?” It’s what writing is all about. Then I come back to reality and engage instead of observing (I observe quite often in social situations). It seems like I’m having all these different experiences after I’ve declared a change in location for next year. Am I looking at my city through “graduation goggles?” Perhaps, perhaps not.

Until the next day!

Eat, Pray, Love

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Published by: Penguin (2006)

Elizabeth Gilbert is tired of being married because she’s in her thirties and her biological clock is not even close to ticking. After a devastating divorce, she takes pleasure in Italy for a few months, finds peace in India and falls in love in Indonesia. The last part was unexpected for her but she was ready for it after her heart had been broken.

Resistance

Every time I sit down to write something, I start yawning. My body wants to sleep or is signaling me to turn off the computer so I can put off putting the words on the page.

As soon as I overcome the yawning fit (four or five in a row), the yawning subsides and I’m able to write briskly and with precision.

What is it about doing something that you love that you can be lazy about doing sometimes? I do this to myself all the time and wonder, “How will I ever get anything accomplished this way?” but I do, as I showed myself last weekend when I completed my short story in a few hours (of course with many breaks in between).

Every writer has their process. For this writer, turning on my laptop at night makes me work better than turning it on first thing in the morning. I’m a night owl; I cannot deny this. The trick is to plow through the yawning before it becomes my writing demise.

Raw and Uncut

Last night I met up with my amazing writing group that I procured when I took my Memoir writing class at Gotham in the spring. It was the first time I put myself on the page, authentically and I was scared. I didn’t have any negative expectations but I didn’t know know what to expect. The support and feedback I did receive was absolutely what I needed. This group has fueled my decision to continue with my future memoir. When I’ll complete it is another story. Then it makes me wonder if I should be getting my MFA in memoir writing rather than fiction.

I think my fiction needs more work than my memoir writing. I’m more comfortable with memoir writing and still frigid with my fiction. I don’t know why my fiction suffers while my non-fiction flourishes. Is the universe telling me something? I don’t know.

Eventually, my fiction writing will grow with my creative non-fiction work. I just have to be honest with the material like my own material.

Writing instead of socializing

On Saturday, I was invited to a housewarming party thrown by people I met two weeks ago. They were nice folks and the party was in my neighborhood so I thought, “Why not?”

The party started at three and went on until eight (that’s what the Facebook invitation read). I woke up and read the whole day and also wrote a story for my writing group that meets once a month.

When I got there, I realized that I didn’t have anybody’s number from the party (like I said, I just met these folks two weeks ago through other friends that weren’t there) and the buzzer didn’t work. I wasn’t going to scream because I did hear them in the backyard and I did live ten minutes away. After trying to contact the mutual friends between me and host, I gave up and walked back home.

I arrived and finished working on my story. There was a satisfying moment to sitting down and working on a story for a writing workshop. I think the universe wanted me to finish this tale instead of socializing. I wanted to socialize but I was more invested in writing my story. It was my baby. I’m glad I finished it and now I can play!

I still have more writing assignments to tackle but I’m glad this one is done!

The me last year would have socialized instead, which is probably why I was rejected by all my schools. This time, it’s different.

If I’m choosing writing over socializing, that’s a good thing, right?

Christopher Pike’s Vampire

Remember that favorite teen author of mine I thought wasn’t remembered by folks other than my generation? Well, turns out the majority of his novels are being re-issued by Simon Pulse and now teens are being introduced to his work! This is exciting news! And on top of that, he’s still writing furiously with more works in the future. Which brings me to…

Christopher Pike wrote six novels about The Last Vampire which have all been re-released. According to an interview on The Christopher Pike Fan Club website, Pike has written a new set of stories for the series. He mentioned these books are much better than the former. I hope so because I couldn’t even get through book three – the writing did not hold well up for me. The story was fun and fascinating but I could not continue.

There’s more here! According to Empire.com, The Last Vampire will be a big screen movie. All this Twilight madness has made vampires fun again (which is good for Christopher Pike) and I hope whoever writes the script does Pike’s content justice. Additionally, the director and production team. Dates have not been announced yet which means it’ll be another year or so until we’ll hear more about this project.

Here’s to Christopher Pike and all his successes! Before Stephen King, I was all about Christopher Pike all the way and I’m so happy he’s still around!

Can’t wait to see what he has in store for us.

For anyone who’s not familiar with his work – adult or young adult – I’d suggest picking up Remember Me (young adult) which reads well for adults. I recently re-read this story last year and this is definitely a book that gets better with every reading. I’ve got Pike fever! And soon you will too!

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Author: Patrick Suskind

Published by: Vintage Books (1986)

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born unwanted, non-smelling, and with the sense of smell a perfumer would die for. Bouncing from orphanage to tannery, Grenouille learns how to use his acute sense of smell to make perfume at a young age. He becomes the apprentice of Baldini, a hack of a perfumer, and learns the procedures to mix scents. After almost dying, he comes out alive and moves forward – living in a cave for seven years. When he re-emerges, he is taken in by a mad scientist then works at another perfume shop where he creates scents for himself and creates the best scent in the world – to be loved – which proves to be too much at the end.