The piece that i wrote was inspired by a special person from my past; she was a great woman who screwed me over. I was watching a movie called First Love: The Litter on the Breeze. the movie is a satire of the early films of wong kar wai, they usually involve people in love or love sick or heartbroken. the stories are usually multilayer with a minimal-hyper link style. films by him i recommend are days of being wild, chungking express, fallen angels and in the mood for love, as well as as tears go by and happy together. and maybe ashes of time, which i love but isn't for everybody. any way first love deals with that, first loves.
i got to reminiscing about this woman i knew and decided to write the story of our brief relationship. she had a big impact on my life because she showed me how complicated love could be, as you'll read in the story, how complicated it was for me.
I tried to go for a semi-experimental thing: time warps, flashbacks, self commentary/reflection, story about writing the story, etc. hopefully it worked!
revision: well, whatever prof. dragan says i have to work on, i'll work on.
this type of writing was kind of easy for me. of all genres of non fiction i'm used to it has to be memoir; the first thing i wrote that got me recognized by my high school teacher was a memoir of my childhood. I have used personal stories before, but for prose fiction as sources of inspiration.
I don't really know what i learned from writing this other than i can reach down into myself, replay bad memories and actually be able to document them as a story, and come out of it alive!
I wrote the story by long hand, i feel more comfortable with a pen, i feel that my fingers typing can not compete with the speed of my thought process and i fear i won't get everything down. pen usually comes out very illegible so it takes some "translating."
excerpt from: "You're only a baby, and you know how to make love."
She was older than I was, may be somewhere around ten years my elder, an artist I met at a party through a friend. She took a liking to me quickly, impressed by my knowledge of art and political views; we spent the night refilling each others drinks, talking about communism and the avant garde, every now and then her hand would appear on my knee.
I sensed her interest in me, beyond my intellect and artistic aspirations and our conversation; I was too shy to indulge. I had been down roads like this before; thinking the woman in front of me was attracted to me and even understood me, only to be let down and heart broken. She didn't bother with the mind games the others played, leading you on and on to the point where you ask them out or for a number, they just laugh and walk away.
I walked her to the bus stop and we continued to talk, it was late and the winter was in full effect with gusts of icy wind that made you want to crawl into any hole for warmth. When the bus arrived some time, art movements, historical events and song lyrics later, she invited me to spend the night.
“Honey, it's too late. Just come to my place.”
People on the bus stared at how close we got to each other, I guess these bourgeois bastards weren't used to seeing a couple like us. Drunk and hugging and whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears, she would tease me by telling me how long it had been since she was with a man and caressed my leg slowly til she reached my groin and smiled in to my face. Others turned around as she spoke and I shot them a dead man's stare as they turned right back around. I didn't care about them, they were nothing to us. We were too drunk to care and free to give a shit and buckle under the pressure of their “standards.” We were rejects of love and relationships. They were probably the ones who wouldn't give us their numbers or a date or even interest or the slightest attraction. Lost, we found ourselves in each others arms as their stares of ridicule and hatred, disapproval and misunderstanding, put two little drunks under a love spell.
We were all over each other by the time we got to her place. Drunk and lusting after each others bodies, we stripped each others clothes, passionately kissing, colliding with walls and the night table and lamps. I pushed her onto the bed and she stretched her limbs out like she didn’t have a care, and with her sparkling eyes she sent carnal telepathic instructions to me and I went to her like the lonely love-sick soul I was.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Blog Assignment #9: Final Workshop Reflection
Now that the semester is ending, it is time for retrospects and reflections, forms of analytical nostalgia. I enjoyed much of the class. The assignments were very helpful, intending to evolve us from the writer i was when i first entered the class. The blogs were also very useful in trying to collect and create ideas for stories or see what others are working on and what their aesthetic and writing are all about .I think i must have grown as a writer after this class. I had never written nonfiction before, it was my first attempt at trying to write stories that are true or based on "true events." I had mostly written short stories, fictional stories, that were more or less "me" on the page.
I like to write about the darker side of america: the poor, the damned, the depressed, the ones who have given up hope or are stuck in some physical/psychological/emotional rut. these characters were usually of the less reputable players of society: junkies, dealers, working girls, con men, gangsters, hobos, wanderers, commies, nihilists and others i consider dionysian martyr/saints of our great, blessed nation of the united states.
usually my stories are tales of people stuck in a place and delving into the things that will ultimately hold responsibility for their demise (a depressed catholic who drinks himself to death when the woman he loves won't return his love) i would make characters that were basically extensions or exaggerations of myself, once i picture a character in a setting, i attribute different emotions and feelings i have to that character and have them either solve their problem or martyr and die eventually. that used to be the closest to nonfiction i ever got to in my stories, the actual true emotions and feelings, mentality i have.
After this class, i started writing about the one person i really understand and know the most - myself. Now instead of fictional drunks and junkies or fictional depressed nihilistic love sick wanderers; it was me on the page documenting events in my life that actually inspired the feelings for my prose fiction.
i found myself having to recall dialogue and details i didn't really think i could remember, and conceiving a story out of that.
Of all the writing i enjoyed the most would have to be capote's in cold blood. i became fascinated with capote after i read a quote by him where he said that jack kerouac's on the road was not "written" but merely "typed." After that the hoffman movie came out; i was familiar with robert blake and studied in cold blood in a film class; i wanted to read capote but never got to it. After a class where his novel was described as the first non fiction novel i got really antsy and started reading. My fascination with the text is not really the content but his creative process. He actually interviewed people to get his story. For some reason i always pictured the great writer at a desk, at 2 in the morning, chain smoking cigarettes and taking a swig of whiskey or wine, and just hammering down on some type writer, a very introverted, almost hermit like existence. I pictured great writers being misanthropes who exile themselves from society and write the true story of life on earth. Capote changed that and showed me the benefits, and verification and authenticity you can achieve with just being a little friendly and opening up. i think that’s what the most important thing i learned from this class - to let others tell me a story, their story, and make art out of it.
excerpt from Walking Catholic
By this point my father began to argue with my mother, accusing her of raising a dissident or free thinker. “You don't take him to church; you don't check up on him, you do nothing.” My mother was a gentle, loving and tolerant person. I'm sure she felt the same as my father about the communist tendencies I held, but she wouldn't be the
same as him. I hated hearing the yelling, my mother arguing with him for also not doing anything. I heard the thud of something hitting the wall. When I saw what it was I balled up my fist – the Manifesto.
As they argued, I picked up the book and put on my jacket.
“Where the hell are you going?!”
“Although you need it more than I do, I'm going to church.”
I left the apartment and they continued, he probably thought I was trying to be a smart-ass. I went down the stairs and down the street; I forgave them though; they knew not what they said, thought and did. I lit a cigarette and sat on the steps of St. Anthony's cathedral. I rolled the Manifesto into my coat pocket and reflected on what just happened. Would my father be cool by the time I came back, does he really think I'm a communist, would he really treat me like a degenerate if I was...Was I a communist?
I always felt at peace when I was inside of the church, the stain glass windows, although depicting acts of torture and death, i.e. the passion of Christ, were beautiful to me. The music was always so majestic and calming, a gentle and somber tone throughout the Lord’s house. I went in and as my mind's ear overheard my father calling be a bastard commie, mocking me as another Che Guevara, I lay down on one of the benches as mass begins and I read the Communist Manifesto.
I like to write about the darker side of america: the poor, the damned, the depressed, the ones who have given up hope or are stuck in some physical/psychological/emotional rut. these characters were usually of the less reputable players of society: junkies, dealers, working girls, con men, gangsters, hobos, wanderers, commies, nihilists and others i consider dionysian martyr/saints of our great, blessed nation of the united states.
usually my stories are tales of people stuck in a place and delving into the things that will ultimately hold responsibility for their demise (a depressed catholic who drinks himself to death when the woman he loves won't return his love) i would make characters that were basically extensions or exaggerations of myself, once i picture a character in a setting, i attribute different emotions and feelings i have to that character and have them either solve their problem or martyr and die eventually. that used to be the closest to nonfiction i ever got to in my stories, the actual true emotions and feelings, mentality i have.
After this class, i started writing about the one person i really understand and know the most - myself. Now instead of fictional drunks and junkies or fictional depressed nihilistic love sick wanderers; it was me on the page documenting events in my life that actually inspired the feelings for my prose fiction.
i found myself having to recall dialogue and details i didn't really think i could remember, and conceiving a story out of that.
Of all the writing i enjoyed the most would have to be capote's in cold blood. i became fascinated with capote after i read a quote by him where he said that jack kerouac's on the road was not "written" but merely "typed." After that the hoffman movie came out; i was familiar with robert blake and studied in cold blood in a film class; i wanted to read capote but never got to it. After a class where his novel was described as the first non fiction novel i got really antsy and started reading. My fascination with the text is not really the content but his creative process. He actually interviewed people to get his story. For some reason i always pictured the great writer at a desk, at 2 in the morning, chain smoking cigarettes and taking a swig of whiskey or wine, and just hammering down on some type writer, a very introverted, almost hermit like existence. I pictured great writers being misanthropes who exile themselves from society and write the true story of life on earth. Capote changed that and showed me the benefits, and verification and authenticity you can achieve with just being a little friendly and opening up. i think that’s what the most important thing i learned from this class - to let others tell me a story, their story, and make art out of it.
excerpt from Walking Catholic
By this point my father began to argue with my mother, accusing her of raising a dissident or free thinker. “You don't take him to church; you don't check up on him, you do nothing.” My mother was a gentle, loving and tolerant person. I'm sure she felt the same as my father about the communist tendencies I held, but she wouldn't be the
same as him. I hated hearing the yelling, my mother arguing with him for also not doing anything. I heard the thud of something hitting the wall. When I saw what it was I balled up my fist – the Manifesto.
As they argued, I picked up the book and put on my jacket.
“Where the hell are you going?!”
“Although you need it more than I do, I'm going to church.”
I left the apartment and they continued, he probably thought I was trying to be a smart-ass. I went down the stairs and down the street; I forgave them though; they knew not what they said, thought and did. I lit a cigarette and sat on the steps of St. Anthony's cathedral. I rolled the Manifesto into my coat pocket and reflected on what just happened. Would my father be cool by the time I came back, does he really think I'm a communist, would he really treat me like a degenerate if I was...Was I a communist?
I always felt at peace when I was inside of the church, the stain glass windows, although depicting acts of torture and death, i.e. the passion of Christ, were beautiful to me. The music was always so majestic and calming, a gentle and somber tone throughout the Lord’s house. I went in and as my mind's ear overheard my father calling be a bastard commie, mocking me as another Che Guevara, I lay down on one of the benches as mass begins and I read the Communist Manifesto.
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