Thoughts on The Pink Institution

there is never a real end. leaves us swaying back and forth on the edge     cliff. 

post-modernism a     fragment      a creation of disunity     is     the    theme of PI 

little book [thoughts]   picture of a hanging pig 

compilation of poems, pictures, physical disarray of text

 lovely, what a lovely read about lives worse off than the less fortunate. 

they them who grow and multiply in their misery,

 miserable     in     their    wealth    they   are  but short stories  

Po-Mo poem on second story

Ring-ing

Bells are ringing

Memories    are riots. They roar.

He      dreams     white

Blow                        out                                        smoke

Jeans soaked stuck to shaky ankles

Can I ask a, never thought I, will you?

Drip

drip

drip         his form          pouring

Drip Drop Rain

Hello?                    Gonna be late.            Why?

Like a shadow, someone lingers behind that line

Doubt  chokesaroundhisthroat

Run   SPLASH     Run SPLASH   

Knockknockknock

I               do        not            do           I

Write it, fix it. Write some more, fix some more. Keep writing until you don't need to fix anymore.

I found an interesting interview in which Hemingway speaks briefly about revision. This is what he had to say:

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?
Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.
Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?
Hemingway: Getting the words right.
(Ernest Hemingway, "The Art of Fiction," The Paris ReviewInterview, 1956)

 39 times!!! I can imagine what he meant by "getting the words right." Haven't you ever felt like you wanted a section you've written to be formated in a specific and perfect way? To get close to something like that, I guess we do have to reread and reexamine our work. Revision is playing with words. We arrange them one way and then decided to move/add/dispose of some pieces so it fits into what we the creators deem to be excellent. 

Revise, it's healthy writing.

There was a discussion in one of my lit classes about perfection. Nothing is ever perfect. Everything is in a state of change. That's what we call progress, most of the time. Writing is the same way. Nothing we write is permanent in the state that it is in. Change is always going to happen, and it should, because keeping things moving can stimulate creativity and bring about new ideas.
It is the laziness of not wanting to think or analyze our writing that might make us hesitant about going back and really looking at our work. To revise is to spend a good amount of time just thinking over what really needs to be said, how to say it best, and what details work/doesn't work, to say the least.
Revision is what makes a writer a healthy writer. Keep at it, having an intimate relationship with your work is a good thing. :)

Spring is officially here!

Spring is here, and with it comes warmer weather, I hope. So, I picked out a poem by one of my many favorite authors, William Blake to share. Hope you guys like it as much as I do. 

To Spring 

William Blake

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down 
Through the clear windows of the morning, turn 
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, 
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring! 

The hills tell one another, and the listening 
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn'd 
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth 
And let thy holy feet visit our clime! 

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds 
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste 
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls 
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee. 

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour 
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put 
Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head, 
Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee. 

Revisions.... :|

Revisions are necessary, for me at least. My first drafts are just dumped information into a semi-organized form. The next time I look over it I clean up the mess. (And it tends to be a big mess). I use the second and third revisions to incorporate details and expand on the main topics I threw down on paper. Then the last couple of revisions are to filter out unnecessary words, punctuation marks, etc.

Bottom line:
Revisions are annoying but useful. We go through the torute of clawing at our own work but the final draft is worth the aggrevation. Good Luck with your endeavors. :)

5 Stories Told and Waiting to Be Written

5 Stories told within the last 3 days

·         My friend got so frustrated that he punched the wall. His hand got swollen and we spent the rest of the night at the ER.

·         I spent four hours in this goddamn kitchen cooking for (secret identity) and this is all *** have to say? Next time stuff some of those already made chicken nuggets in the microwave to keep **** from starving.

·         The “tornado” on Saturday blew half the things on my balcony out onto the streets. My barbeque grill toppled over. I guess we won’t be grilling hamburgers any time soon.

·         I call out to my sister from my room into the hall. “Can I get the number for the pizza guy please?” (I get a txt from her instead) “You can’t just come over here to tell me? You sent the wrong number anyway! Wait, you’re missing a number too.”  I ended up walking over to get the delivery papers out of the drawer.

·         I was going through my ipod looking for a song to listen to with my friend to pass some time before class. “Oh, this is such a great song. I love it.”  We sit back to listen. A minute into the song and I had to change it. “God, that was getting annoying.” My friend just looks at me like I belong in a hospital not a university.

5 Stories I hope to write

·         Family Memoirs (My grandmother’s story and my mom’s story especially)

·         Historical Fiction –there are so many events that have occurred in our generation.  

·         YA Fiction—just for fun and more importantly to raise awareness of the dramatic increase in Teenage Depression and Suicide. They are not getting the attention they deserve.

·         General Fiction

·         I’ve always wanted to write a really complex and twisted Sherlock Holmes type story. I love the idea of a good police case that needs the brains of a brilliant but misunderstood person (Man or woman).