Process III

“One of the best pieces of advice he had ever received as a rookie was to treat your station as one table. Check all the tables, see how they are, and then go get whatever they need all together. Be smart, save time.” - from Carl’s Last Night

My evenings are spent treating my graduate school work as one table. I keep track of time, reading for all three classes in equal measure, taking notes, and writing. Lots of writing.

This weekend I completed the first draft of a short story for my “gothic fiction” class which will be workshopped in a couple weeks. That one was heavily plotted, which is why I was able to bang it out so fast. There are stories in my head which have rolled around so long that, given the opportunity to actually write them down, I don’t need to think about what happens, and only need to concentrate on the words to share it accurately. This was one of those occasions.

My playwriting workshop will be reading twenty pages this week, twenty pages from the full length script I am writing for that class. That one is coming to me in bits and pieces. I have characters, and setting, but no obvious plot. But that works too, as our professor keeps reminding us, writing means quantity over quality. Don’t worry so much about writing the thing, just make sure you keep writing, and write a lot.

That third class, dedicated to the works of three prominent African American, male authors of the mid-twentieth century, has required a considerable amount of reading. An entire novel every two weeks. The writing for that one has not yet commenced, but will involve emulating the style of one of these authors, and not only their style, but their approach to social beliefs (but the emphasis is on the former.)

It is this assignment which is most challenging, and therefore most exciting.