I'll try not to be a raging downer today.

It's 6am and I'm up.

This is not unusual. I've been falling asleep in unusual positions, then waking up around 6am, then falling asleep again around 7am. I thought I might actually try to get a few words down before conking out again.

Today is my last Fiction I class. I have issues with endings, but I'm not going to put too much emphasis on it.

I have been thinking about my two stories. They're there, in desperate need of revision. I'm going to have to take up that task soon. The first story involves two young girls walking through an overimposing, unfamiliar neighborhood; I know I'm going to have to focus on setting in a way that didn't happen in the first draft.

There's a song still due on Friday, although I did warn Mr. Producer that it might not happen. I've been data-mining for lyrics lately, but not feeling super inspired. The piano is calling me. But I can't think why. I get so extraordinarily moved to go sit down at it. But then I plonk at the keys without much truth or beauty emerging at all.

I'm reading a collection of short stories called Points of View. The stories inside are...wait for it...organized by points of view. But it's fascinating to see them all grouped together like that, to notice the similarities and differences between them, to see how each different author accomplishes his or her aims.

I've been discovering a whole crop of short story authors I dig: George Saunders, AM Homes. There is a dark thread running through their work, a deep groove of twisted sensuality, very stark. Very adult, I think.

It's something I'd like to incorporate into my songwriting.

j.

Story?

Okay, it's taken me a bit to get the motor running again post-FAWM.

I missed my writing class deadline for my booth story, which was yesterday. Bad form. Ultra, mega bad form. Now I'm going to have to email my classmates a story and have them print it out. Which is not really part of the rules of engagement.

Sorry classmates.

The good news is, I finally have a story to send them. Or, the inklings of a story. I am another couple of hours away from a first draft. I have 3200 words of one, with a few holes to be filled in. Thank god for FAWM, because I stole the plot from a guy's FAWM song. Or, I started with that, at least.

The story is not extra good. I hope, at least, it's interesting. There's a lot of revision to do before it's readable, but, I'm ready to print this sucker out and get to revising.

I have spent all day at the computer. I have been listening to some of my favorite authors talk about their work, George Saunders (who is a badass), and my beloved, deceased David Foster Wallace. I hope his soul is at peace now, as corny as that sounds. I'm listening to him being interviewed, talking about how much the world hurts him. God, it makes me hurt. I am not a maternal soul, but if I could could cradle a soul like that, for just a few minutes....I don't know.

I just...respond to someone in that kind of pain. I know what that pain is about.

Anyhow.

I finally hooked up the printer I had sitting in a box for, oh, a year. So, I can print out my story and start revising. Yay!

Let's do that now.

j.