Today was the first day of ADVANCED WRITING. Holy shit! First day! I made a fucking joke about writing Dead Kennedys fanfiction and it went well! I feel so at home!
So in this advanced writing class (ADVANCED because it’s fucking A D V A N C E D as SHIT), we only workshop! Fuck yeah, am I right? Fucking full on critique mode activated. Professor asked for who’s gonna be volunteering to go first, and my hand was the first to raise. I’m gonna be posting up 5 poems of mine to get critiqued. All pretty new. All need improvements. I went a little too all out and also included a cover page because I’m a prick. Or something. Is this self-awareness or completely miscalculated post-irony?
We’re full swing into spring now. Clouds are parting, the weather here in Warsaw, Washington is getting better! It’s adding to the good vibes by having good classes and knowing a bunch of people at university. For the first time ever I feel like I have an appreciation for spring. This is the evergreen state, so a venture into the woods here will always yield brighter colors than expected. Fall affects few, winter just brings white sheets, but summer and spring everything seems to glow quite vibrant. I dunno. I feel the magic.
It’s helping that I’ve gone through my playlists on iTunes and mixed them up a bit. Now on my iPhone is party rock, hair metal, and all that wonderful Xilent. The same iPhone, by the way, that I used to use for my photography. But thanks to my sister I’ve got the Canon, so I can take pictures of random shit and get instagram famous. God damn it feels good to be gangsta. Valley girl gangsta with pretentious selfies and quotes.
One of my favorite songs going into this season is Revolution by Xilent. High hopeful energy is only more beckoning me to enjoy the sun while it’s here and I don’t have much to do in the morning. This has inspired the second of five poems in my next workshop, “Zailent Spring OS”. Fuckin’ shout out, man. A lot of your stuff inspires me.
What the hell is interesting in a blog? I have to keep asking myself because I want to tell you about me, but not really because what if someone finds out where I live and stabs me up? Shit, John Lennon got shot for making a comment about Jesus, years after he made the comment. I’m opening myself up to a lot of bullshit by including my real name on everything, and I take it in stride that I won’t say anything I regret. Far more famous people have said a lot worse than I can, though.
To get back on topic, what organization is in a blog? I want to say so much, and yet there are times where I think better of it. UNLIKE USING Cliched MOTHERFUCKING RAIN as a part of 4 poems of the 5 in this fucking workshop. I guess that’s what’s on my mind right now, Advanced Writing.
The packet I have here is of the poems currently titled: “Lunarium, Zailent Spring OS, Mossman Cense, Vagabondage” and “Death6ish”. These are gonna get beaten to hell, god willing. People have described me as a hard critiquer, and so be it vice versa. I love to get torn into when it concerns something I’ve made. Call me a bitch, say this detail is shit, I relish the ability to know the passion for someone’s dislike of anything I have to offer. Which might sound confusing, but it’s basically that I love knowing how much people hate anything I’ve got. Gives me a lot to go on.
I run on a lot of confidence, so a shot at taking me down a peg is what I need to look at something. Throw my credibility as a writer into question so I can defend it, please. It’s exhilarating and some of the best stuff I’ve had, has come from a professor or a peer calling me out on something. I can work with it and roll the punches. Writing creatively is like forging. Is that a little too rough? Sand it down. Is it uneven on this side? Hammer that fucker out. Viscerality is something I like, the down and dirtiness.
Praise has done little for me, and I think that can be dangerous. On one hand, I’m confident, but in extremes that confidence becomes megalomania. On the other hand, I pay a LOT of attention to everything that needs work, which means I’m aware and can address it. Ignoring praise can make you complacent: “I knew it’d be great, because I made it” is a rather humorous attitude the likes of Jim Sterling takes, but sometimes it can just be a bit, only present as an act of some sort. Yet I’ve fallen in love with things I’ve written, defending their purity only until a week later when I have a new batch of shit to fawn over. I move pretty quickly.
I want my things to be critiqued hard. Really, unrelentingly hard. Especially among friends who might go softer on me who don’t know that; I love the glory of literary combat. Edits, tune ups, remakes, all that shit. It’s fucking great.
Yet I did get the official news from the Student Literary and Arts Magazine that I’ve got three poems in. I already knew that, though. I’m on the fucking board. Getting recognition and having people congratulate me is insane. Being congratulated for doing something I love. Writing. It’s crazy to me. I do enjoy it. I’m going to look forward to designing a way to read “Wrong Number” in less than a month. I’ll be reading it among people who are there to listen.
In the end, Radio Reality City was founded by wanting that. Something glorious. Something mine and untouchable by others. Impure, but mine and glorious all the same. Here we are today! Second time published by my college. In a class I’m gonna enjoy quite a bit.
Here’s to winter quarter’s demise! Fuck you, winter quarter! You’re gloomy and no one likes ya!
And here’s to spring quarter’s entrance! Fuck yeah, spring quarter! Damn, I hope this is going to remain as enjoyable as today was.
Consume Reality! 