Five Good Things: Easter Bonnet Edition
1. The smell of freshly ground beans in the coffeemaker
2. Being done with five of a series of six short stories–and considering a bonus seventh
3. An Easter brunch tomorrow, complete with Barefoot Contessa fritatta and a French toast casserole
4. Condo suddenly having found a new lease on life and swimming all over his tank in aquatic bliss
5. When Tom comes in from work late at night and says, before anything else, “It’s only me, Kate.”
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Happy Holiday, gang.
April 14, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
Your name’s Kate, then? And you’re a writer? I majored in creative writing. (If you can major in such a thing.) It was wonderful. I love writing. What sort of stuff do you write?
April 14, 2009 @ 8:51 pm
I’m Katie, actually–Kate is mostly a boyfriend thing, cause it’s faster to say when he thinks I’m about to start screaming ’cause it’s the middle of the night and I think he’s a robber. Not that, uh, I’ve ever done that.
And hey, I majored in creative writing, too! I’m shopping a YA novel around to agents right now, but I keep getting distracted ’cause I’m mired in this short story series about this kid who loses his legs in a car accident, and blah blah blah, way to get obsessed with writing something that no one is ever going to want to read in their lives. BUT. What about you?
April 15, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
Haha. That’s funny. That is dang cool that you have a novel written–I haven’t written much since I graduated from school. I think I needed the break… I’ve been feeling a lot more inspired lately than I did at the end of school last year. I write mostly nonfiction and sometimes poetry, but I’m thinking of trying more fiction. Fiction’s hard for me, though, because the idea that there are endless possibilities actually cripples me… ha. Imagine that. Writing, besides photography, is my lifeblood.
Where did you go to school, if you don’t mind me asking? I went to Utah State University. Their creative writing program just got started in the last few years, but I still loved it and the experiences I had.
April 15, 2009 @ 7:22 pm
Ask away! I did the program at Emerson, in Boston, and I loved it–always having a deadline (plus all that built-in writing time) was really helpful. I miss talking about writing and books every day and scribbling pretentious writer-kid things like “nice word!” and “is the ending earned?” in the margins of other people’s stories.
Who do you like to read?
April 15, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
Oh man, I love Boston. It’s so beautiful there! I’m not sure I’d do great with the whole big city thing–I’m from a relatively small town. Emerson is a great school! I’m jealous. Yeah, deadlines did a lot for me, too. I work best under pressure, though the time off, like I said, has been really nice. I find myself editing books I read… and I tell my husband about what I’d change if it had been my book. I think I would be a good editor in that way–but if you write, I think that’s a quality you’ll always have.
I love Bill Bryson. He’s sort of offbeat, but I love his style, and I’m especially envious of the fact that he gets to travel and then write about it. I LOVE Mary Oliver’s poetry. There is no other poet I love more. She just has a way with words I can’t describe and I never tire of her poetry.
I read a lot of YA literature, and I like offbeat stories, like Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman. I have a hard time getting into the classics on my own, though I really like All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren and I was chilled by The Bell Jar. I also loved Life of Pi. It’s hard to list them off the top of my head–I tend to bounce around from writer to writer a lot. I like an eclectic mix. How about you? [Sorry this is so long… I get excited talking to other writers/readers…]
April 17, 2009 @ 12:26 am
No, long comments are the best š I’m super into Julia Glass, Alice Hoffman, and Sue Miller–I like Sarah Dessen for YA. Right now I’m reading “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” by Lionel Shreiver, which is really wonderful but totally devastating.
I’m so glad we found each other out there in blogland–hope you’ll stick around š