Back to Baltimore

Good morning! In just a few, I'll be heading back to Baltimore. Back to reality. Though, these past few days have been rejuvenating. I got my fill of family, food and craziness. Now, I look forward to airport security and hoping there is room for my my carry-on luggage with is admittedly large in the over-head bin. If it is, I'll be able to avoid standing around that carousel waiting for my black bag that always ends up looking like every other black bags. Oh well...I know the drill!

I Love NY

Spending the last few days at home in NY, seems to have been just what I needed. With the semester picking up, I'd began to feel pretty burnt out. Taking 3 classes last semester and three this semester has proven to be more of a challenge than I'd anticipated. I'm mentally exhausted. Not to mention working on my novel...or should I say not working on it. I spend more time agonizing over how far I have to go with this novel than I do actually putting pen to paper.

This week will be the week that I win. It will be the week that I gain and maintain control. I'm speaking it into existence. Ask me how it's going on Wednesday...that's usually as long as my will and follow-through lasts. Here's to a fresh start! :-D

choose your own adventure?

i'm becoming increasingly more frustrated with this our choose your own adventure story. nothing seems to be working out the way i'd planned. perhaps i'm thinking too much of the logistics when i just need to finalize the story at this stage. hoping my classmates can give me some suggestions/insight during class tonight...

AWP hang over

Well, I'm the queen of ambiguity. So, it comes as no surprise that I left AWP feeling inspired and simultaneously discouraged. I mean how could I not be inspired? I was surrounded by hundreds, possibly thousands of writers. People who's mere presence validated my desire to write. They were proof that I wasn't alone...that there are other people outside of UB that are chasing the same dream. And they were all incredibly hopeful. Though, I overheard many expressing fear or doubt about the collapse of the publishing industry and newspapers and peoples' disinterest in reading good work. They were disappointed by the seemingly insatiable demand for what many consider the "trashy, grocery store genre" of books. I saw through this though. They were there. This alone insisted that they wanted to believe that there was still a place for them...for good literature...good writing.

However, I was discouraged by all of those writers! I'm a novice. The realest thing about my writing is my desire to write. Though, now I see that there are thousands of people are there working to the same end. And, as many panelist confirmed, it's hard to get published. The market for good writing, is diminishing. It's becoming increasingly more difficult for authors to compete with reality TV and other mindless pastimes. And, what bothered me most, is that I (yes me) am a part of this disenchanted, less curious population. Yes, I read more than most. But, not as feverishly. Not as intently. Not as exclusively. It seems these days, reading always has to share my attention with something else...

I don't know. I'll take an aspirin, and see how I feel in the morning...

2 hours later...

...and still nothing. okay. that's it. i look forward to class tonight. i'm interested in finding out how my classmates did with this task. someone enlighten me! damn it, "garden of forking paths!"

Wild Goose Chase?

Am I just inept when it comes to Internet searches? I continue to come up empty. I've started and abandoned this task several times this week. I quickly became frustrated each time I started to look for an interesting presentation of "The Garden of Forking Paths," using hypertext. I've found several sites that provided summaries of the story, background on the author and even great suggestions and exploration of ideas of how the story could be presented using hypertext. But, no actual hypertext. Hmmmmm....

I hope that I'm not the only one who's come up empty handed!

Click the red

I found a website that approached the Garden of Forking Paths with simplicity. Though, I thought that the execution was pretty successful. Ab0ut a paragraph or so of the story is presented on separate pages. On each page, there are several words called out in red font. By clicking any of the words in red, you can be lead to a different page. The words you choose to click determine the path that you'll take to read the story. I went through the site at random, choosing different paths each time. It seemed that some of the paths made the story even more difficult to digest...though, I think that's intentional :).

A couple more sites to check out

the writegallery is another cool site to check out. though, i thought the layout of the site was a bit busy and amateur looking, navigating the page was easy and friendly. if you're interested in poetry, simply click "poetry," if it's fiction, or personal essay that's there too. there are also links for author information, submission guidelines and other literary sites. i found this site simple, yet satisfying. why not indulge? http://www.thewritegallery.com/

backhand stories - this site is pretty great! it even gives you the option of subscribing and having stories sent to your inbox. the site publishes new short stories, flash fiction, non-fiction and essays by new and unpublished writers. the site is easy to search and the work that's published seems pretty wide in range. definitely work checking out!
http://www.backhandstories.com/

Pittsburgh in Words - A Creative Nonfiction Website

This site is a favorite of mine, because it combines both classic and quirky, famous and emerging authors, short essays and long. The set-up of the site is pretty cool too. There are several ways of choosing an essay to read. For instance, you can choose a random word from a word bank taken from each essay or you can choose an essay by author. Essays are added to the site often and submissions from up-and-coming writers.

http://www.pittsburghinwords.org/