my angst

My goal since I came to Queens in 2006 has been to finish up my undergrad work and enroll in the MFA program for creative writing. This class is making me question whether I'm a good enough writer to even consider that path. All my life teachers and friends have told me I should write and I have filled notebooks and scratched ideas on post-it notes all throughout my house. But in this class I feel a glaring gap in my writing skills. Maybe I'm just getting exposure to writers I've never read before. I am awed by their talent and feel that their craft supercedes anything I could write. Slowly taking this journey for the past three years, taking two classes per semester, I am almost at the end of the first half of my goal and suddenly I feel a lot of angst in my spirit. Have I chosen the right path? I feel so unworthy, so frustrated. Perhaps creative writing is not for me. I wonder if every writer has to go through a period of angst when they feel they just aren't up to par. Maybe these feelings drive a writer to push though the frustration and find their voice. Maybe I'm just tired and need a break from writing every day for the purpose of a grade.

Andrew won't beat me

Not to be outdone my our friend Andrew the blogger, I am going to post something new today too.

I have spent the last several hours not lifting weights or running, but rewriting my paper. Now I have to go to the store and get some ink for my printer and produce ten copies. Ten copies or nine? Anyway my printer is printing lighter and lighter words and now the last page I pulled off is barely legible. Cancel! Ah, why now. I have spent so much time editing and reprinting pages to edit that I now have to go read the articles to discuss in class tonight. Good thing it's a light load at work this morning so I can get everything accomplished.

Anyway my paper is now much more focused - just the first decade and mostly focused on my family and my dad and brother especially. I think the workshop really helped to zero in on what to write about. My first draft was much too expansive. This one I'm calling "My Two Freds" and I hope it reads better.

Thank you all for your feedback - very helpful with my rewrite!!

Live, Love, Laugh

It's a little cliche and overused but I see a lot of plaques and framed posters with this saying. Mostly they pop up at Kirklands, which is one of those stores I frequent more than others. I am not a shopper by any stretch. Shopping and I have never gotten along. But I actually bought a framed piece of art with that saying and it hangs in my bathroom - I like art in the bathroom. There's something about hanging a pretty picture there that takes the clinical feeling out of the place. And there's something about that phrase that I like. It is so positive. It feels warm. It makes me smile. I think about how much life I've seen and think I'm only half way along and certainly haven't seen as much as I'd like. I think about the people I've loved throughout my life. There are many. Some I remember and some I don't. And the people in my life that I've loved are they type who make me laugh. We need humor in our lives as much as we need art in the bathroom.