The Return of the Princess of Laziness

I'm home.

Possibly one of the most depressing realizations I've had since I turned fourteen and I ran out of new things in life to angst about. I - aspiring novelist, college bound Asian, hobbyist musician - am staring at a computer screen and lounging on a queen-sized memory foam bed all day, fretting about my driving test in four days as I twirl my pen idly. The colors, the noise, the enthusiastic conversations about the nature of beauty and truth are now swept under the rug of Yesterday. I am home.

Really, I ought to get up and do things more. Take a walk. Build a card castle. Bake a cake. Now I understand the term "everyone needs a hobby." Even though my mind is finally free to frolic in the realm of my imagination, my body can't keep up - it gets so bored, sitting here. It gets in the way of my writing.

My writing, I hope, has improved. I have difficulty judging that, though - after all, it was only two months of learning, and I haven't gotten round to writing anything substantial since I got home last Friday. Besides, my personality often leads to inconsistent work: what I write tomorrow might be the best thing I've ever written; what I write in a month might be the worst. But after going to both EPGY and CSSSA I now know that only a small portion of the experience was geared toward cultivating actual technical skills. Most of it was about the process and the approach, and in these areas I am confident I have grown.

Writing scares me. Terrifies me. That's the main reason why I used to keep putting it off, procrastinating on projects until just before the deadline, then slapping together something crappy that I would sheepishly call "art". It's a weakness of mine, trying to hide from things that scare me. But the programs, CSSSA in particular, forced me to sit my ass down and just puke my guts out (metaphorically) no matter what prompt I was facing. The process of writing is not some mysterious beast with rainbow-colored wings. It's just writing. Ideas are gold nuggets, words are nothing but things that shape the gold into jewelry. Got something to say? Then say it! (EPGY had a rather more scholarly answer to writer's block: first becoming one with a character, and then simply letting the character carry the story, which leads to a very natural flow and more often than not surprises even the writer with a resounding conclusion.) Refinement and polishing can come later.

Of course, if you aren't double-checking every sentence in the first draft, the rewrite and revision process becomes much more important. EPGY had a pretty heavy emphasis on this. I wrote a character sketch that I had absolutely no intention to use as an actual story, but then I rewrote it and touched it up a little, and everybody loved it. (It's little Tito's story.) CSSSA's workshop model helped me learn a great deal about how to evaluate other people's work and how to take criticism myself. For long works especially - I used to nitpick like crazy when reading other people's novels-in-progress. Now I know that, for the moment, grammar and stylistic differences really aren't that important, and comparing someone else's writing to your own writing is the worst thing possible you could do. What's important is the big picture, and the integrity of that person's idea and voice. I really like that phrase, so I'll repeat it: integrity of the writer's idea and voice. It's the soul of the writer's work.

Okay, that's enough blabbing for now. I'll get off my ass and do something fun, like, oh I don't know, blowing up the kitchen. Now, where to find that cake recipe...

The CSSSA Reports 1

After four days of figuring out the tangled web of dorm life and cafeteria lines and two teachers and lots of writing homework (hence the dearth of blog posts) and getting to know my three roommates, I can safely say that CSSSA is not as bad as the two "policewomen" of the place made it seem. (It's just that the campus life sucks compared to Stanford's.) So far, despite art school's reputation for being pretty dopey, I have not seen any drug use or even heard of it. The food's pretty good, and changes every day, though if you don't like the day's main course you're basically screwed (not much variety in a single meal). At first I think I wasn't eating enough vegetables or something - my mouth felt weird. Tonight I accidentally ate a vegan meal, chili beans and brown rice with sauteed vegetables and vegetable soup, and now I feel great. I love chili. Yesterday two of my roommates (one in Creative Writing with me, the other in Visual Arts - the third is in Film and already has friends in CSSSA, so she's out a lot and I haven't gotten to talk to her as much) and I ordered Thai food delivered, mainly because they both suddenly craved boba tea for whatever reason, and also because none of us had done this before and we wanted to try. That curry was good. Made me happy. Yum.

Crap the lights are out, I have to go to bed soon and I still have work to do. Uhhhhh today there was a faculty reading, basically our four Creative Writing teachers got on stage and read examples of their work aloud. I really wish I had the poet and department chair as a teacher - she was fucking brilliant (sorry cuss words proliferate a great deal around here) and hilarious as hell. My two teachers are also very good though - both playwrights/screenwrights, as it seems CSSSA has a pretty big emphasis on the film industry. It's why the school was built in the first place, according to the handbook. The fourth teacher, the short story writer, he told a story about a father and his daughter and his inability to connect with her because they lived apart, even though he loved her a lot; and for whatever reason I started to cry and I wanted to talk to my dad and make sure he knew I loved him and I really really missed him. So after, as I was walking back from the reading to my dorm, I called my parents up and then started bawling like a baby as I tried to say, "Hi Daddy." My mom is probably reading this, though, haha - I love her too. I have such a great family. In my memoir class, I realized what a perfect life I've had: loving, stable family, great grades to compliment a great education, never ever had to worry about money. This is probably where all my problems come from, oddly enough. In my lack of problems. I'm gradually learning how to make use of my advantages though - there was a speech my older sister showed me that dealt with this too. Later when the lights are on I'll post the link. 'Night.

In Summation

Let me tell you about EPGY.

A small group of brilliant kids all around your age come from incredibly diverse backgrounds all around the world meet in Stanford to study something you love. You have a plethora of counselors who also work as teacher assistants and your awesome older siblings, so they can help with both life problems and academic questions. The first few days you're given a tour of the campus structured as a game and led cheerfully from place to place so even the most directionally challenged person won't get lost. Activities and having fun and making friends are strictly enforced, with plenty of student input of course. The food is great, the campus is beautiful, the dorms are homes away from home, the instructors are among the best. It's impossible not to enjoy your stay.

For me, EPGY was probably the most incredible writing experience I have every had, not just because it revolutionized the way I see short stories and poetry (particularly poetry), but also because of the atmosphere of freedom, friendship, and pursuing a passion together. After the first few days counselors didn't follow us around to class anymore, so it was remarkably easy to skip class - but it never even crossed our minds. We have our fun, but we all know what we're here for. When I sat down to dinner and for the first time saw all my friends start talking about the art of literature, I realized I was exactly where I wanted to be. The camp felt like a bubble of intellectual delight. I was also lucky enough to be in (we call ourselves) the best house in EPGY: the Creative Writing and Anthropology people were so sweet and funny and smart, and the counselors too. I still talk to the people I met there and still love them very much.

I'm writing this in CSSSA, actually. There are 73 creative writers here, not fifteen. Yesterday for orientation we were told, "Your roommate is not your best friend, so don't tell her you're having sex with your boyfriend," and then we were lectured for another twenty minutes not to use drugs (but if we hand over whatever drugs we brought by 9:30 pm they'd turn a blind eye). Yeah, I miss Stanford.