• Reread the first three books of Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles. This was sort of an experience--I haven't read them since I was an early teenager, and I'd forgotten how uncomplicated they are. Lots of things are only a day's journey--maybe two--although this might extend as long as a few weeks if necessary for the plot. Character development is told as often as shown, although this gets a bit better by the third book. Still, they feel more like the outline of a book I'd read now than a whole book in and of themselves. I'm wondering if I'll feel the same way when I reread Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence--long my favorite books in the wrold.
• The second and third Buffy Season 8 comic compilations. Not sure about the whole Buffy/Satsu thing. Sure, women have more flexible sexuality in general, but...somehow, in my head, just not Buffy. The Master and Xander, however, cracked me up like nobody's business.
• Peter Sagal's Book of Vice. review--three and a half stars
• Leonie Swann's Three Bags Full. review--four stars
• Robert Sawyer's Hominids. review--three stars
• Jo Walton's Farthing. review--five stars

The last one, granted, was at least five years long. And I hadn't done much serious fiction writing, even then. But I thought the process would be similar: a lot of starts and stops, waiting for the right words, constantly editing even though I know I shouldn't. But it's completely different.

I feel...like my thought processes, at least the ones not related to physics, are writerly. So even in terms of social thinking, I tend to "practice" conversations, which is an awful lot like writing a story with real people as characters. And the exercise of writing these little stories for my friends is less like laboring to come up with something that works, and more like becoming aware again that I can capture these fleeting bits of fancy my brain creates all the time. I'll be sitting somewhere, think, "Oh, that would make a nice bit of a story," and there's a beat before I remember that--oh yes! I CAN write it down! And because I'm trying to write now, in a way I haven't had time to for a while, that's more...directed than it was before.

It also feels pleasantly like cleaning out cobwebs from my mind.

For one thing, I don't really have many friends here yet (I've only been here a couple of months, after all) and so I'm not spending a lot of time hanging out with people. That sounds sort of depressing but it's fine--I have some friends, just not a plethora.

Mostly, though, I think it's the lack of busy work. Most semesters I had some kind of class that was way too easy, and it's...draining. I guess it's like pushing the gas pedal on your car when you're in neutral, or something--the engine revs, but you don't really go anywhere, so you get wear & tear for no purpose. But all my stuff is hard now! Wow! But not impossibly so--it's stuff I feel like I can do, just not stuff I know how to do the minute I look at it.

I haven't been writing much so I'm determined to start doing an hour a day (probably after finals--it strikes me as a horrible idea to stick to that kind of plan the week I need to start studying, when I'm still cold). It's been so long since I've really written a lot that the normal banked oven of skill is totally dead and everything on the back burners is gelatinous and kind of disgusting, so I should build up slowly--so I'm counting correspondence and blog posts, for the moment. (I seem to have a thing for inappropriate analogies at the moment.)

In good news, I just got a Levenger lap desk for my birthday (a little early since I was home). Yay for working on soft surfaces!

One thing I've noticed, though, possibly because of that inexperience, is a proliferation of stories which read like outlines. Some of them are like this a bit, with spaces of description in between vivid scenes; others are nothing but related action. I suppose I can't really talk, because the short story I just sent off a couple of weeks ago is 3/4 the protag relating how this situation got about and only about 1/4 current action; but I hope the narration was at least engaging.

So, questions:

1. Is this because some writers try to fit novel-sized plots in short stories, rather than taking stories which are more innately suited to the short story form?

2. Is this because it's the mode of most people to start writing as a teller (not the comedian) and only gradually to move into a shower (not the bathroom fixture), and I've just found people who are part of the way there?

3. Is this because I suck as a reader of short stories?

4. How many licks does it take....er, sorry, different area of expertise required.

The teacher's asked us to keep a reading journal, and I thought I'd do it here, to educate the large number of people who .... are not reading this journal at all, really. But it's handy and I can write in it anywhere with the Net, so.

Two hours after coming downstairs, I finally check my email. I'm still trying to get up the courage to look at the actual review.

Well, I get this nervous about everything, I guess. I need to know but I'm just so worried that it'll be bad...

To quote: His remarks were echoed by Jim Kozak, editor-in-chief of In Focus, the magazine of the National Association of Theater Owners. "When [patrons] get there early to get a really good seat, they like to have something to keep them busy, something to do besides talk to the person they came with."

I'm trying to decide what's worst about this statement: that he thinks people like the fact that movies start 15 minutes or more after they're supposed to; that he thinks people don't like to talk at the movies; or that he might actually be right...