Slowly, slowly poisoning myself.

No draft today.  “Win” is already 12 pages long and it’s still not done.  It’s an interesting but problematic story.  I think it might be about too many things.  I need to cut it down or expand it significantly.  I’m going to try the latter first.

Instead, I thought I’d give you a peep at my working environment.  I do most of my creative writing looking much like I do in the above photo.  I sit on the floor of my apartment wedged between an upholstered chair and my coffee table.  I drink coffee, tea, or chemically caustic diet cola.  I make a wan and harried face.  It’s actually not a very comfortable position, but it seems to work.

Sometimes I forget how to speak English while I'm here.

I do most of the translation and analysis work for my Russian classes at my official thesis desk, where all of my dictionaries are in easy reach.  It’s in the library under a skylight.  I’m desk neighbors with my good friend K.  Books, tea, Kate Beaton comic about Cossacks, postcard that says “STAY COOL”, liquor that looks like a magic potion.  Also, Hypno-Kafka.  I might make him a speech bubble that says: “WRITE!”

I had a semi-official workshop for “Goodbye, Invisible Man” today.  Undergraduates!  They like it!  Lots of compliments on the prose and the voice of the narrator.  The main thing people wanted was moar of the invisible man himself.  Maybe I’ll add more in.  Or maybe I’ll write a sequel in which Bartholomew Gone is the protagonist.  That could be an intriguing project.

Midterms this week, so I’m probably going to be pretty quiet for the next five days or so.  After that I’ve got a week of fall break.  I’ll be noisy then.