MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
We hope everyone has a really great Christmas! It's kind of weird one for us. Travis and I's first Christmas without family plus our families are all separated too! My mom is in Connecticut, Dad and David are at the ranch, and Danny today has to work in Lubbock. Travis' mom is in Austin and Maddy is in Canada. It had to happen sometime. We miss all of them and hope they have a nice Christmas all over there! We got some snow last week but its only rainy now so no white Christmas for us.
A little while ago Travis and I went to the Winter Wonderland festival in Hyde Park. It was a very cold day but we were surrounded by the smells of delicious food! We walked down to the Marble Arch where on Sundays people stand up and talk about whatever. There was a man from a Catholic group and a guy from the States. It was interesting listening to the debating and questions people had from them. We also walked over to Harrods! That is the best looking department store I've ever seen! They had rooms for certain things like a room for chocolate, a bakery (with a Krispe Kreme), perfume, everything! Trafalgar Square has a Christmas tree like Rockefellar only not nearly as impressive. It only had white lights hanging straight down and a star. There were carolers from different groups every hour from 5 to 9 from Dec 12 to 21st I think.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What does everybody want from Santy Clause?
If you write it on the blog you just might get it. Christmas came early for Renee and I already in the form of a Microwave...whooopppeeeee!
No pictures, just words
I thought maybe I’d say something about school.
It’s kind of like being eight and riding an elephant at the circus, or maybe even like being out with a really gone, but well behaved, drunk when you yourself are as sober as a stone. Things are going smoothly, everything’s fine. But is it going to stay that way? Things are, so far, relatively undemanding. I feel like I’ve got this, it’s okay, but I half expect to find myself standing in the cold one day, waiting for the bus and an old haggard man in a faded green flak jacket and a hook for a hand to lean in from my peripheral and whisper, it’s quiet, almost too quiet. And then, of course, he would be gone before I could respond. But I would agree with him. I hope not in a fool's paradise.
This is all that’s expected of me for the first year, the Masters: First, there is an annotated bibliography, which will consist of a listing of no less than ten pieces of written material (textbooks, novels, screenplays, articles, etc.) with a short response to each (roughly three hundred words) in terms of how the listing has influenced, inspired or otherwise informed a substantial piece of creative writing I have done, are doing, or will do…pretty soon. Right now I have fifteen listings and have until the end of January to turn it in. Secondly there is an essay of close reading for a short piece of creative writing, basically an essay on a closely examined something that has to be short, and creative/literary. So with the choices being between a short story or, I guess, song lyrics or a greeting card, I’m choosing a short story. It can only be fifteen hundred words long. The story I think I’m going to do is Hemingway’s Hill’s like White Elephants. I think it’s my favorite short. I haven’t looked in the library for it yet but I’m sure it’s tucked away in an anthology somewhere. The third assignment for this semester is a self-reflective essay that can be between twenty five hundred words and three thousand and must analyze either my own work at a mechanical or theoretical level, or creative writing, or even the creative process in general in the same terms. To me it doesn’t seem that well defined of a thesis but I guess this is the point; this is where the creative writing comes in. I guess most anything would be accepted as long as it was fully realized and coherent with a unity of intention. And then the final thing is a five thousand word submission of creative writing. Well this I’ve already got times eight. Since coming here I’ve started working on a novel and as of now, at least am that far into it. All this is due at the end of January so I feel like I’ve got myself pretty well covered. The fright comes out of what the geezer at the bus stop said earlier, it’s quiet, too quiet.
So all in all, getting a MA in creative writing was not as scary as I thought it would be. It’s a helluva lot more expensive than a movie but if you’ve got nothing to do for a year, come over to England and get one, it doesn’t take long, it’s not much work. The M.F.A part which I’ll do next year seems a bit more challenging but still, not really.
But I’m giving the wrong impression. I would whole heartedly agree that there are not very many strict academic hoops to jump through. But writing well is hard. Understanding literary theory is hard. And it’s these things that I’ve come here to learn, and it is these things that I am learning, bit by bit. I’m thankful for the pool of human and textual resources here at school, as well as the motivation for writing that only student loan debt, and professors that want to read and evaluate your work can provide. What is unfortunate is that the amount of effort you put into your M.A. isn’t reflected in the degree. There’s no M.A. with oak leaves, or cum laude or any of this. There is just the M.A. itself and it seems to me that if one wanted to, they could bull spit their way through it. And out of my own vanity I allow all that I have mentioned to grate my nerves sometimes, especially when I think about how initials after your name are, for some, a would-be stand in for real smarts rather than hard work. It’s unfair to make a claim like that without examples but hopefully it will suffice to say that after listening to various other students my own age, or close to it, pontificate and announce their own genius unabashedly in pubs, while at the same time trying to defend their own bad grammar and incoherence of plot in their storytelling, it’s clear that some value an easily won proof of their superior smarts rather than the opportunity to learn, to be taught. These some of mention don’t need to be understood now because after they’re dead, people will look through their notebooks and their genius will be discovered. It’s okay they don’t meet modern or even conventional standards, they are above them. These some also are in Amsterdam this weekend going to raves and in Vienna the next at the opera. They come back and write eight pages of self-indulgent “travel writing” which is little more than a show-and-tell exercise on paper. There are no revelations, no information conveyed, no introductions into strange worlds I am unfamiliar with, only I flew here last weekend and met some ugly stupid people, then I got drunk and listened to some music, brilliant. And it’s not that being bad is bad. I mean, I have to say that right, I'm not convinced I'm any good. It’s the laziness and then the unprovoked celebration of their genius that gets me.
But who cares, the world needs its balancing forces.
Let me talk a little bit about my novel now, since this is what I have been working on the most since being here. Basic premise is this: The setting is Austin, TX early fall of last year, not the beginning of the recession but arguably the time when the general public at large was becoming aware of it. A group of friends all end up losing their jobs in one way or another but resulting from the recession, an economic situation that they come to reason came about mostly through greed. Through this angry perspective they begin to see profiteering going on all around them with corruption and hypocrisy the name of the game. They see the world as one filled with thieves and maybe it’s high time they became thieves themselves instead of just working for them. So that’s basically their mindset and the whole thing is a kind of who-done-it crime story. Except it turns out they’re just no good at being criminals. They are really average people, smart, but not entirely capable when it comes to crime. I’m trying to fill it with humor and realism and current tensions, but at the same time desperately want to avoid any kind of contrived political/economic didacticism. I’m pretty sure it will end up being a morality tale in one way or another but, of course, I hope to leave more of that up to the reader’s interpretations. But that’s it in a nutshell, with four male leads as the group of friends and then one female who’ll bring in the main sub-plot. I know the magic number of friends is three and I can’t explain why I have four, except that for now if just feels right. Maybe I’ll shed one later but so far it seems that it’s not hindering anything. The way I go about writing it is I outline a few scenes at a time in my notebook then type them out on the computer. I’ll do a scene one day, go back the next day change it up, or just read it and then go on to the next one. I’ll keep going until randomly I’ll be struck by something and go back to the very beginning and right the whole opening over again, or do a whole scene a different way. I’ve been told this is not the usual way to do things. Apparently most write the whole thing out, beginning, middle and end, and then go back and make changes. But in doing it my way I always end up satisfied and don’t have a sense that I’m wasting my time. So until I do I’ll keep doing it.
Well that’s about fifteen hundred words now so I guess I’ll stop. Apparently fifteen hundred words is all you need to say what you need to say anyway. Or maybe the limit has more to do with one’s tenacity to read something writ that deals with neither news nor entertainment. I’ll let you be the judge...
It’s kind of like being eight and riding an elephant at the circus, or maybe even like being out with a really gone, but well behaved, drunk when you yourself are as sober as a stone. Things are going smoothly, everything’s fine. But is it going to stay that way? Things are, so far, relatively undemanding. I feel like I’ve got this, it’s okay, but I half expect to find myself standing in the cold one day, waiting for the bus and an old haggard man in a faded green flak jacket and a hook for a hand to lean in from my peripheral and whisper, it’s quiet, almost too quiet. And then, of course, he would be gone before I could respond. But I would agree with him. I hope not in a fool's paradise.
This is all that’s expected of me for the first year, the Masters: First, there is an annotated bibliography, which will consist of a listing of no less than ten pieces of written material (textbooks, novels, screenplays, articles, etc.) with a short response to each (roughly three hundred words) in terms of how the listing has influenced, inspired or otherwise informed a substantial piece of creative writing I have done, are doing, or will do…pretty soon. Right now I have fifteen listings and have until the end of January to turn it in. Secondly there is an essay of close reading for a short piece of creative writing, basically an essay on a closely examined something that has to be short, and creative/literary. So with the choices being between a short story or, I guess, song lyrics or a greeting card, I’m choosing a short story. It can only be fifteen hundred words long. The story I think I’m going to do is Hemingway’s Hill’s like White Elephants. I think it’s my favorite short. I haven’t looked in the library for it yet but I’m sure it’s tucked away in an anthology somewhere. The third assignment for this semester is a self-reflective essay that can be between twenty five hundred words and three thousand and must analyze either my own work at a mechanical or theoretical level, or creative writing, or even the creative process in general in the same terms. To me it doesn’t seem that well defined of a thesis but I guess this is the point; this is where the creative writing comes in. I guess most anything would be accepted as long as it was fully realized and coherent with a unity of intention. And then the final thing is a five thousand word submission of creative writing. Well this I’ve already got times eight. Since coming here I’ve started working on a novel and as of now, at least am that far into it. All this is due at the end of January so I feel like I’ve got myself pretty well covered. The fright comes out of what the geezer at the bus stop said earlier, it’s quiet, too quiet.
So all in all, getting a MA in creative writing was not as scary as I thought it would be. It’s a helluva lot more expensive than a movie but if you’ve got nothing to do for a year, come over to England and get one, it doesn’t take long, it’s not much work. The M.F.A part which I’ll do next year seems a bit more challenging but still, not really.
But I’m giving the wrong impression. I would whole heartedly agree that there are not very many strict academic hoops to jump through. But writing well is hard. Understanding literary theory is hard. And it’s these things that I’ve come here to learn, and it is these things that I am learning, bit by bit. I’m thankful for the pool of human and textual resources here at school, as well as the motivation for writing that only student loan debt, and professors that want to read and evaluate your work can provide. What is unfortunate is that the amount of effort you put into your M.A. isn’t reflected in the degree. There’s no M.A. with oak leaves, or cum laude or any of this. There is just the M.A. itself and it seems to me that if one wanted to, they could bull spit their way through it. And out of my own vanity I allow all that I have mentioned to grate my nerves sometimes, especially when I think about how initials after your name are, for some, a would-be stand in for real smarts rather than hard work. It’s unfair to make a claim like that without examples but hopefully it will suffice to say that after listening to various other students my own age, or close to it, pontificate and announce their own genius unabashedly in pubs, while at the same time trying to defend their own bad grammar and incoherence of plot in their storytelling, it’s clear that some value an easily won proof of their superior smarts rather than the opportunity to learn, to be taught. These some of mention don’t need to be understood now because after they’re dead, people will look through their notebooks and their genius will be discovered. It’s okay they don’t meet modern or even conventional standards, they are above them. These some also are in Amsterdam this weekend going to raves and in Vienna the next at the opera. They come back and write eight pages of self-indulgent “travel writing” which is little more than a show-and-tell exercise on paper. There are no revelations, no information conveyed, no introductions into strange worlds I am unfamiliar with, only I flew here last weekend and met some ugly stupid people, then I got drunk and listened to some music, brilliant. And it’s not that being bad is bad. I mean, I have to say that right, I'm not convinced I'm any good. It’s the laziness and then the unprovoked celebration of their genius that gets me.
But who cares, the world needs its balancing forces.
Let me talk a little bit about my novel now, since this is what I have been working on the most since being here. Basic premise is this: The setting is Austin, TX early fall of last year, not the beginning of the recession but arguably the time when the general public at large was becoming aware of it. A group of friends all end up losing their jobs in one way or another but resulting from the recession, an economic situation that they come to reason came about mostly through greed. Through this angry perspective they begin to see profiteering going on all around them with corruption and hypocrisy the name of the game. They see the world as one filled with thieves and maybe it’s high time they became thieves themselves instead of just working for them. So that’s basically their mindset and the whole thing is a kind of who-done-it crime story. Except it turns out they’re just no good at being criminals. They are really average people, smart, but not entirely capable when it comes to crime. I’m trying to fill it with humor and realism and current tensions, but at the same time desperately want to avoid any kind of contrived political/economic didacticism. I’m pretty sure it will end up being a morality tale in one way or another but, of course, I hope to leave more of that up to the reader’s interpretations. But that’s it in a nutshell, with four male leads as the group of friends and then one female who’ll bring in the main sub-plot. I know the magic number of friends is three and I can’t explain why I have four, except that for now if just feels right. Maybe I’ll shed one later but so far it seems that it’s not hindering anything. The way I go about writing it is I outline a few scenes at a time in my notebook then type them out on the computer. I’ll do a scene one day, go back the next day change it up, or just read it and then go on to the next one. I’ll keep going until randomly I’ll be struck by something and go back to the very beginning and right the whole opening over again, or do a whole scene a different way. I’ve been told this is not the usual way to do things. Apparently most write the whole thing out, beginning, middle and end, and then go back and make changes. But in doing it my way I always end up satisfied and don’t have a sense that I’m wasting my time. So until I do I’ll keep doing it.
Well that’s about fifteen hundred words now so I guess I’ll stop. Apparently fifteen hundred words is all you need to say what you need to say anyway. Or maybe the limit has more to do with one’s tenacity to read something writ that deals with neither news nor entertainment. I’ll let you be the judge...
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Amy's Visit
A couple weeks ago we saw Travis' cousin Amy LaVere's show with Seasick Steve. I put up a clip from the duet song they did together. Its supposed to be on Seasick Steve's CD. It's really cool how on the video everyone starts cheering once Amy starts singing!
After she went to France she came back to London and last Saturday we spent the day with her and her friend. We went from London Eye to Greenwich on the Thames on a river taxi kinda thing. It moved a lot faster than the boat we took with my parents. Amy's friend Graham showed us a few pubs in London including the oldest wine bar called Gordon's wine bar. The tables are all in a basement with low ceilings only lit with candles. It was really great. Not a whole lot else going on here. Travis only has a week or so left of school.
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