Soundtrack

The unofficial soundtrack to my story thus far is as follows:

Jay Chou: Secret (entire album)

Kwon Bo Yong: My Wish

Paramore: Decode

Loveholic: Crazy

Cecil Brooks III: I'm a Fool to Want You

Dido: Thank You

Flyleaf: So I Thought

Meg & Dia: Roses

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus: Cat and Mouse

Sugizo: Synchronicity

30 Seconds to Mars: The Kill

These were the songs I listened to most while I was compiling my work. The beats helped me visualize actions and exchanges, and even helped bring out appropriate emotions for my characters while I was writing.

Thanks to the talented artists out there who inspired me!

Cristina

Holy Cannoli, I'm on time.

I'm not sure what the blog is supposed to be about this week so I'm just writing about whatever I want, which is to say, my thesis.

I think that it's definitely coming together in a way that no other collection of mine has done. Although I'm still having issues articulating the thread of my collection of work I think that it's there and that it will reveal itself to me as I continue to work on it. I feel like every poem is a step closer to the revelation of some grander meaning, like every piece rounds out the collection as a whole so that each part is a commentary on the whole.

At the moment I think the whole thing is best articulated as a collection of pieces that deal with perception, and specifically on moments in life (my life) that have shifted my point of view of the operations in the world.

I think that's the most concise way to put it. I've been talking to people outside of Mills and outside of academia about it and that's really the best way to explain it. However, I found that it's also useful to describe my influences, which I made up retroactively. Kind of. I think that Beth Lisick and Miranda July influenced my work because of the following two reasons:
1) I was reading/ went a reading of their work in the time that I was developing and writing my thesis

2) I think that the way that they deal with the day to day is really interesting. Mundane things become evocative. There are interesting and even twisted views of their lives that are hilarious, terrifying, and beautiful. I like that. I want to do that.

Bonus Reason) They're both from the Bay Area and I really like to rep that.

The major issue in my thesis at the moment is mainly: having the time to do it! and the conspicuous lack of sex. If I was doing a deconstructive criticism of this thesis I would say: Why is there no sex? Is she intentionally avoiding sex? The answer is Yes, I was.

I think the idea was that I could just create a piece of work about my shifting perspectives on the world without being bogged down by the topic of sex. I think that I succeeded to a point. I think that by leaving sex out, I also left out a bunch of relationship poetry without leaving out romance. I didn't want to write about relationships or emotional others because I didn't want to go on about it forever as I tend to do when I get on to that facet. In other words, I didn't want to get stuck on poems about how much I loved or hate my ex-boyfriend. Still, I think that I touch on romance in my work and I tried to do it in such a way that it was the kind of romance that is not specific to me.

I don't really know how to bring the sex in, but I think that it will work it's way in if I keep writing. We shall see.

when I read

I love twists. I like when I'm reading a fictional action novel and there's a romance amidst the blood and horror and endless list of supernatural creatures that amaze me. A FEW books I've been able to reread over and over again. stargirl by jerry spinelli, demon in my view by amelia atwater-rhodes, the alchemist by paulo coelho, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the things they carried by tim o'brien, Kushiel's legacy, American Gods and Good Omens by Neil Gaiman, Hold Still by Nina LaCour, Confessions of a Teenage Vampire by Terry M. West and Steve Ellis . I like when I read a book and can tell that the author did research to back up his fictional claims. I love reading something that moves me by the way it is written as well as by what it is saying as I read it. I love pulling out quotes that move me while I read a novel, be the quote funny or serious. I love reading about characters that seem real, not in a physical sense but in personality. I like reading and believing that the conversations or how the conversations are carried out could actually happen and that a person or creature would actually act like that. I was just talking to a friend of mine about films I enjoy the most being the ones where the characters are most believable. I love reading a book and dreaming about it later, wishing my life could just be placed into the center of the story so that I can get a better view of what's going on and be a part of the plot. So ... I'm going to stop rambling and leave it at that. If I remember something more I'm sure I'll blog again ;)

Tell me something good

I spent most of my day on Saturday thinking about who is my favorite author. Just kidding I only spent about five minutes. What I decided was that I don't have a favorite author. However the qualifications, or rubric, that I was judging these people on pretty much determines what I thought was "good" writing.

Over the last few years I've really got into reading series books, and I think that's because I fall in love with style. I read a bunch of Salinger toward the end of high school and he beginning of college, I think this is because Salinger has a very distinct voice. You can always tell when you're reading Salinger, his lines direct your reading. When lines are long it's meant to emphasize the short lines. But I've already discussed Salinger, we know I'm a fan.

So, the next series I read and liked a whole lot was the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Why did I like that? I think mostly because it took a very strange look at something I thought I knew very well, organized religion. The story was told from the point of view of a child which I don't usually like because kids tend to irritate me (I'm sorry but it's true). However, I think that the form fit it's function because I understood that I should be discovering the multi-verse with wonder and curiosity not strange twisted desire. If you have read the series the previous sentence made sense to you.

I guess mostly I think writing is good when I can see the mechanics of it working for the betterment of the piece. The form and the rhetoric come together in such a way that the craft and skill of the author are apparent but not so much that it's pretentious. The author is trying to tell me something about the life they experience, and make it sound awesome also.

Lupe Martinez

Looking Looking Looking...

What I look for in a good piece of writing are the same things that inspire me. I need intensity, adventure and a message that speaks to the greater good. I love stories that are on an epic scale because stories that are about someone making a huge difference or fighting to make the difference really speak to me. I like stories that have a much grander underlying story to them. When you read about a character who is faced with tremendous odds and responsibility are easy for me to get attached to and really root for.

I also like stores that have beautiful descriptions of the scene and setting. Oddly enough, that's what I'm currently struggling with the most in my novel to perfect. I really love reading about different places, expecially when the descriptions are vivid and visceral so you can completely imagine it in your head.

intersection of land and violenc

I don't think I ever read and set out to find something in that reading; I just read and allow myself to discover whats there and if it inspires me, then I read and reread like a banshee.

I keep re-reading Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country because he makes the land of South Africa into an achingly beautiful character that slowly erodes from page one. For me, the land is more important than anything else (without it, how can anything else be? even the interactions between people occur? and yes, the slander hippy applies to me), and I'm trying to learn how to write the land into a presence that isn't cheesy, especially as the story that I'm working on exists upon and within the earth.

For similar reasons, I've reread Blood Meridian twice, but the violence keeps me from rereading it again, though I keep turning back to Cormac MacCarthy (I read The Road eight times in two weeks and if I could tell you why, then I'd've begun this blog with that) to learn how to be ruthless with language and judicious with violence (with all my problems with Blood Meridian's violence, none of them are because its gratuitous: its the reality of the US-Mex border) because the subjects that I'm obsessed with are ultimately integrated with the land and defined by violence.

Take a Look, It's in a Book

Couldn't resist throwing in another pretty Catalina picture - this one's on the boat and that's the island way out there! Okay, done with my tangent now... on to the real point of this post!

When I was younger, some of my favorite books to read were those good ol' Nancy Drew mysteries, and there was one big reason why. Every book used the same technique to leave you dangling at the end of each chapter, on the edge of your seat in suspense, unable to put the book down because you have to find out if your heroes make it out alive. The chapters all end something like this:

* Nancy rounded the corner to find herself face to face with [insert name of bad guy], and he was pointing a gun straight at her head!

* They burst into the room and gasped in horror. Dr. Drew was gone!

* Nancy, Bess, and George bolted toward the exit, only to find that the door was locked. They were trapped!

Exclamation points and all, these last lines help the books accomplish what all good writing should: they make you want to keep reading. That's what I look for when I read: suspense. Not necessarily oh-my-gosh-the-bad-guy's-about-to-chop-my-head-off-what-will-I-do suspense, but the kind of suspense that comes from not knowing what's coming, and makes you desperate to get to the next page and see what happens. I don't so much enjoy books that are bogged down with back story or paragraphs-long chunks of a character's thought process. I like action and dialogue and adventure. I also like catchy beginnings - I've learned that every story should have a good 'hook' so you're drawn in immediately - and I don't have any good examples of this that come right to mind, but I love to open the book, read the first sentence, and go, "Whoa!" I also love books that can make me laugh, where the humor is woven into the narrative and the characters so it's not blatantly obvious that the writer's trying to make jokes.

How ironic is it that the things I like best in the books I read are the things I have the hardest time writing myself?

Other things I like in books: sensory detail, believable interactions between families and friends, characters who change for the better, beautiful settings, characters who help each other, clear, snappy language, well-crafted dialogue, descriptions of people, unique/quirky characters, rescues, reunions, epiphanies, dangerous missions, nail-biting climaxes, problem-solving, heroes and heroines, journeys, changes of heart, growing up, mending relationships, secrets, hidden pasts, quests, humor, joy, relief, writing that makes you feel as though you're right there in the story and you forget about everyone and everything around you, likable characters, animals, plot twists, happily ever afters.