I'm always excited about writing. I'm currently in a creative writing class, it's great, I really hope I learn how to improve my writing. As always things that i have too high an expectation of is bound to disappoint. So I'm just going to enjoy myself and the process. I hope that I will be lucky enough to meet people who share the same passion and will be kind enough to guide me along. Anyhow, this is a quote I found recently. Believe it or not, here it is.
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school...It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no CHristian ear can endure to hear.
--William Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI, 4.7
By: Nippy | Friday, August 28, 2009 at 7:54 AM | | 
Feels like it's been so long, since we celebrated turning 16.
Suddenly, it's seven years down the road
and I wonder what are you all doing tonight
will you all sit at a table surrounding by drinks and talks and laughter?
I wonder
where did all those years go?
the 21st birthday, the trishaw rides
how long ago was it?
since I stood on a balcony
pouring water onto the sunflowers below me?
and how long more
what will happen?
Who will I meet?
Will they make a difference
like you all did
perhaps time will have an answer,
but I'll just have to wait and see.
By: Nippy | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 2:39 PM | |
Oh God. I've never dreaded first day of school like today.
My math instructor is quite a character. I just wish he'll talk human. He uses language mathematically. I'm serious.
So far, all my classes seem to suck. I shouldn't complain but I just don't feel up to it this semester.
By: Nippy | Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 12:33 PM | |
I don't remember much of the book now. Only that she said "The moon makes children of us." That is the only line I still remember. I wonder where it is right now? Floating somewhere in the world.
Last night as I walked home from the bus stop, I realized how right she is. The moon makes children of us. It hung there like half a watermelon, glowing.
I have been wanting to write a story for a while, but.
that's the thing--but.
There's always : but.
By: Nippy | Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 2:32 PM | |
Haha no dirty references intended. Just thought I'll drop you all a note.
Some mysteries:
The other day, at civic center, by the main library, I saw a seagull stealing a homeless guy's lunch.
Today, I found a walking cane (a beautiful one) leaning outside of a pub, abandoned.
I'll be applying for schools this fall. Wish me luck, I really hope I can get some kind of grant or fellowship, that way I can move out of the city and even farther, perhaps out of state.
By: Nippy | Friday, August 14, 2009 at 1:21 PM | |
I was at a dance performance with my sister. It was painfully boring. Oh my God. It was horrible and to think we paid money for that shitty performance. It was mind-numbingly, unbelievably, insanely boring. To top it off, it refused to end. I breathed a sigh of relief thinking that the first dance (In five bloody movements) was over. BUT NO! They came back out with more of the same boring stuff. We left at intermission. We didn't think we can sit through another 45 minutes of the self-indulgent, repetitive and overly conceptual choreography. It was pretentious. I fantasized an earthquake, with the ceiling collapsing on stage killing all. I wouldn't mind if I got crushed in process. It was really that bad. I am not exaggerating one bit.
What's mind boggling though, is that they got a standing ovation after the first half. We came to the conclusion that those were family and friends. Either that, or the people had really bad taste, or maybe we just completely missed the point.
By: Nippy | Saturday, August 08, 2009 at 2:44 PM | |
The Pacific is inconstant and uncertain like the soul of man. Sometimes it is grey like the English Channel off Beachy Head, with a heavy swell, and sometimes it is rough, capped with white crests, and boisterous. It is not so often that it is calm and blue. Then, indeed, the blue is arrogant. The sun shines fiercely from an unclouded sky. The trade wind gets into your blood and you are filled with an impatience for the unknown. The billows, magnificently rolling, stretch widely on all sides of you, and you forget your vanished youth, with its memories, cruel and sweet, in a restless, intolerable desire for life.
--W. Somerset Maugham
Read the second and fourth sentence. I can feel the pulsing of the sea in the sentence. It is the pacing and the brilliant use of the commas. For example, "..., with a heavy swell, and sometimes, it is rough, capped with white crests, and boisterous." Then after a simple "it is not so often that it is calm and blue." It goes on to "Then, indded, the blue is arrogant." I really need to take that grammar class. I want to be able to construct sentences like these. And I admit I have a love for the word "Then" followed by a comma. It is so full of possiblities. Lee thinks I have a problem with punctuations. I want to go back to basics and relook at them when I take a grammar class in Spring, but punctuations are full of possibilities. I have seen how Virigina Woolf uses semi-colons. I have always hated semi-colons, because they feel pretentious and disruptive, but in the hands of a great writer it felt nothing but sincere and absolutely apt.
Sometimes when I think of the sea.
It is blank, wordless.
It is too burdened by the weight of many memories
the distance between the same big body of water
tied sea to sea, river to clouds, rain to tears
I try to give it a shape, a sensation
I am left trying.
It is a comma, a pause,
a suspense
of something left hanging
a thought in mid formation
a wave
before it approaches
By: Nippy | Friday, August 07, 2009 at 2:18 PM | |
I have always been sightly disturbed by the length of stories that I write. I worry that they are too short and underdeveloped. Then I found
JESSICA TREAT She writes short short stories, sometimes totalling only a little more than six hundred words. I think worrying about the length screws with my writing, I odn't write naturally and try to add on details that sometimes don't sit so well within the work itself. I'm still not very good at it right now, but I hope I learn better control on my sentences. Maybe I should take a grammar class. I admire writers with clean and powerful sentences, Jessica Treat is definitely one of them.
Oh yes! Join Goodreads. It is a place for you guys to exchange reviews for good and bad books you've read and you can post and read other's stories. There are some bad writing, but there are also great finds-- like Jessica Treat.
By: Nippy | Thursday, August 06, 2009 at 10:20 AM | |
I found the story by Paul Yoon that I have started. I finally finished it. Read it
HEREHe is an absolutely fabulous writer. I wish I have the ability to create such searing images with such sensitivity and gentleness.
When I finish a story such as this, I feel like I have drank of some spiritual water and my heart is so full, it can leak.
And tonight my heart is also full from the knowledge that, indeed,the Corinthians is right about love in so many ways. It is a gentleness, a blessing and I am so grateful for it.
By: Nippy | Sunday, August 02, 2009 at 2:54 PM | |
While browsing books at Books Inc today, I came across a collection of story titled: Once the Shore. I have only managed to read half of the first story, but the quiet power of its language and sense of place is quite startling. (considering I have only read half the story). I always admire writers who can create a sense of pacing. They force me to read slowly. They let images sink. In one of the interviews I looked up online, he mentioned something about wanting to create the presence of water. I am starting to believe that there are elements that the best writers invoke. The slow trickling of water, and its lapping and encircling-- so much like the way stories and language have that same power to draw us in, to suck us into its depth, to soothe us and to quench our thirsts.
AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL YOONONE OF HIS SHORT STORIES HERE
By: Nippy | Saturday, August 01, 2009 at 10:20 AM | |
