32. no showing off.

basement windows, buried alive.

i met with my writing adviser today for our weekly office chat.

he said that i write well, and then told me to stop.

31. coleridge.

"whatever is translatable in other and simpler words of the same language, without loss of sense or dignity, is bad."



clarity: a moral issue.


(as observed in style)

21. unshakable desires.

 

i like writing.

this is not a revelation, like saying i secretly like whiskey. because i don't, secretly or openly.

perhaps more than the act of creation, i like having created something.

having something to show for my time, for hours and minutes of disorder brought to clarity.

but the process is not always pleasant.

often it makes me cranky and isolated and incapable of focusing on anything else.

it can make me doubt my capabilities with language or even my own mind.

but when it works, when 600 words become 1,300 and those words have shape and weight, when maybe a single sentence feels like a miniature triumph- a sentence that perhaps no one will ever read but you- then for a moment it's like birthday cake and the fourth of july and a hug from the one you love.

even if in the morning, it all looks like the work of a toddler.

20. true.

i met with my writing adviser this afternoon and we talked about urine for 25 minutes.
you know, among other intellectual, authorly topics.

8. seeds.

feeling better with increments, i suppose.
i registered for an independent study in creative writing for the semester.
i'll be writing narrative non-fiction in the form of personal, linked essays, receiving guidance and graduate credit along the way.
this will make me stressed in a different way than my normal library classes, where if i'm overwhelmed with work, 90% of my unease comes from annoyance at having to do busy work.
but being bogged down by work that is of value, even if it is just personal value- that i can handle.