So here’s a random update on all things that I find relevant in my life at this very moment.
I’ve applied to grad school for my MFA in Creative Writing to three schools. There were many more on the list, but the fees became overwhelming and the process too exhausting. So I applied to Virginia Commonwealth University, Louisiana State, and SFSU (my alma mater). I honestly don’t know if I would go back to SF because I need a change in my life, but we shall see.
I’m taking novel writing at Grossmont College with Lisa Shapiro and she is quite the amazing professor. The class itself lacks organization but I do enjoy many of the people that are in my “small” group of 16 people so it’s not all bad.
Word count for an “A” in the class is just over 13,000 words, and I just started writing a couple nights ago. I have about 5,000 right now, and my small group is workshopping a couple chapters of mine for the first time tomorrow night. (My main motivation for getting something down on the page). I also have a whole group workshop with my professor the following week, so I really want to get some feedback and polish up my submission for next week. Let’s hope I can fit that in between both jobs, school, and trying to get a new job since the hours at my day job were cut significantly due to budget cuts.
I’m also taking a poetry workshop with Sydney Brown at Grossmont, and I absolutely love that class, because it’s like a big family of poets sprinkled with hugs, and beer, and love. It’s sappy and I know it, but quite frankly, I don’t give a damn.
I’m also planning on submitting to the Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference. Not sure if I want to do the writer’s workshop or poetry as I do write both and Sharon Olds will be attending the poetry workshop, and wouldn’t that be awesome to have Sharon Olds read my work?!?! Yes I know. It would indeed be awesome.
Outside of writing life, I have my braces to deal with. It’s been over a year, and they are still on, and I don’t see any real progress as of late. I went in to have two crowns done last week, and I’m still in quite a bit of pain. The pain was really bad the first couple of days, so I got drunk and it wasn’t so bad anymore. But I can’t do that working 14 hour days so I just deal. I don’t eat as much, which is a good thing. I think I may have lost a pound or two. But the pain is an uneven throbbing that doesn’t seem to let up. I’m hoping once I get the permanent ones put in, it will subside, but that’s not until next Thursday.
I’m also hoping that the crowns don’t extend my braces treatment any further than it has to be. It’s been over a year already and my estimated time was 10-12 months. I wanted to wait on the crowns until after braces, but I have insurance at my night job, so I figured why not just go ahead and do it while I have insurance, since most jobs on the market right now are not offering medical and definitely not dental insurance. It still cost me just under a grand for both crowns, and boy did that hurt. To pay that much money to be in pain for two weeks…don’t you just love American health care?
I’m feeling down at various corners of my life, and this blog, well writing in general seems to tug me along. And so I write to the proverbial audience of the internet, and wonder if anyone but the voices in my head are listening.
what rhymes with orange? 