More importantly … Lauren’s Writing Goals for 2010 Revisited
I just posted a revisiting of my Christmas Break Goals, but I find this more interesting, because I’ve had a whole year to accomplish these goals. Let’s see how I did.
1. Write more fiction. I did it! I wrote a lot of fiction this year:
I wrote poetry (“Lets Break Up,” The Incarnation, Txt Msg, Unsaid, Future/Present Poems [w/t], Tree Poems [w/t]) and I wrote short pieces (And Eat It Too, the untitled story I wrote about some girl being in love, In Theory, The Little Red Hen Retold).
Note. I didn’t count the writing I’ve done in class (Prose or Creative Writing) nor the works I haven’t published to my blog.
I still don’t like writing fiction short stories, but I don’t mind short short stories and poems. I just have commitment issues, as exemplified in the post before this one. I’d rather labor over a short work than a longer work.
2. Write more frequently. My goal was to write four times a month, which would mean in 2010 I should have blogged 48 times. And in 2010, I blogged a total of (drum roll please) 74 times! Wow!
In 2009 I blogged only 40 times!
It should be noted that I blogged completely different in 2009 than 2010, mainly once I discovered my love for poetry. My posts in 2010 were generally shorter than those in 2009, they contain more photos and more fiction for sure. I think this is good. The first goal shows that I wanted to vary my blog posts anyway. This is good. I shows that I write more than just non-fiction.
3. Connect with other bloggers. Fail. Okay, so Jason Boyett did do that interview piece with me, but that’s about it. Actually, I haven’t been to Jason’s blog much since he moved to BeliefNet.com, mainly because that site’s obnoxious. His blog is good, but that site is annoying.
4. Take risks! I have! I’ve taken a lot of risks with my writing. I inserted swear words all over the place; I try new stuff with dialogue; I write only in dialogue; I gave poetry a shot; I just wrote what I felt like writing instead of thinking about the rules; I’ve imitated others’ writing styles.
5. Learn big words. Okay, I haven’t done this either. I have a new favorite word, at least: assuage. I love that word. With me now: assuuuuuage.
Ha.
Lauren
January 3, 2011 Leave a comment
Christmas Break Goals Revisited
Major fail. I tried, though, I promise.
1. Read three books. I’ve read two so far (Drops Like Stars by Rob Bell and Real Sex by Lauren Winner, which is better known as “That One Sex Book Lauren Winner Wrote”) and I have about a chapter left of Wild at Heart which, yes, I started well before Christmas break. I’m non-committal. I can’t finish books I’m not excited about–not anymore anyway.
2. Volunteer five times. Heh, try zero. It’s really hard to volunteer after you haven’t for a few months. Major fail.
3. Do my Sojourn homework. I started it! I’m 1/3 through it. I’ve also done other stuff for the paper, i.e. making handouts for the staff, planning how I’m going to do edits next semester, contemplating what should change about this semester, making goals, etc.
4. Write a paper. No, I didn’t do it. BUT I have some ideas for poetry and creative non-fiction pieces. That’s a start, right?
5. Get a tan. I went a few times, but I didn’t care enough to keep paying money to go. I’m not pasty white anymore, and that’s all that matters to me.
6. Practice being wise with money. Nope. I went broke buying Christmas presents … and tickets to a Decemberists concert. Even bigger fail.
7. Update resume/apply for internships. This I did well. I wrote a cover letter, updated my resume, and updated my website (my online portfolio). I did a huge transformation to my site, at the request of my boyfriend who demands everything be clear and simple. (Meh, he was right.) This was probably my greatest accomplishment over break. I’m happy with how the site looks now. It still needs a little work, especially on the multimedia page, but I think it looks a lot better. Future employers, here I come!
8. Take care of Body. I did pretty well with this too! I only pigged out a few times this break, and only because it’s the holidays. I’ve eaten tons of healthy foods (salad! vegetables! hummus!) and smaller portions. And I’ve only been drinking water … and Old Crown coffee. I also got Wii Fit for Christmas, which has helped me stay active. Believe it or not, that game works. I’m not a huge fan of the aerobic exercises–because I don’t think they work all that well–but I love the yoga and strength exercises. How can push-ups not be good for your body?
9. Blog/write for fun. Okay, I haven’t done much of this either. I’ve journaled a bit and have written a few poems, as you can see from my blog, but I haven’t done a whole lot. Like I said before, I wrote a cover letter, which is definitely writing. I haven’t abandoned my love completely.
10. Relax. Mmm. I’ve done this too. Guess how many episodes of How I Met Your Mother do you think I’ve watched? Maybe 100. How many times have I seen dear Nathan? Seven. (Which isn’t enough, obviously, but it’s pretty impressive for a 3 1/2 week break, and we live an hour apart.)
—
Break’s almost over for me. I move back to campus on Thursday and Sojourn workshops start Friday afternoon. I think I’m ready for the semester. I’m a little scared because my schedule looks intense, but I’m excited for a lot of the classes (mainly my two Mary Brown courses).
I’ve always had a soft spot for spring semester anyway. It seems more romantic for some reason. There’s nothing like walking to class at 7:45 a.m. when the sky’s still black.
Lauren
January 3, 2011 Leave a comment
"Let’s break up," a poem
VII.
“Let’s break up,” she said
just to rile him up.
She liked the way
his eyes turned glossy.
If she were lucky
a tear would ski down
his cheek
dodging flags and trees
called freckles
and she could catch it
on its final turn
on a lower peak
before the big finale
(all for dramatic effect).
She folded her arms,
took a step back, and
waited. “Well?”
“Okay,” he replied.
“I never liked you much
anyway.”
—
(It’s fiction, geez.)
December 21, 2010 Leave a comment
The Incarnation, a poem
December 19, 2010 Leave a comment
Finals interlude
Okay, so I haven’t been inspired to write at all. I’m just trying to get everything finished: finals, classes, papers, projects, etc.
So here’s a poem I wrote for creative writing this semester. It’s about — guess who?
VI.
On his windowsill he keeps
dead insects in alcohol
in glass vials. Dragonflies
and moths with motionless wings
sit still, keeping guard. Below,
he sits on his couch not a
bed—he doesn’t own one. He
sleeps hard on the floor alone.
On his couch, behind a closed
door, he thinks and stares at
the cardboard beer box he cut
and flattened into décor
above his closet. The rest
of the wall: bare, beige, and bland,
except for a lithograph
of Emily Dickinson,
plucked from a library book.
In the corner: his altar.
Three guitars—an acoustic,
electric, and bass—lean up
against his vintage, baby-
blue, nineteen-seventies amp.
A one-millimeter pick
sits and waits for him to play.
When he does play, it’s with shut
eyes. Concentrating, he jams.
With knock-knock-knock on the door,
a young woman walks into
the bachelor’s dead-bug, bed-less
hub—his pad. He stands up and
hugs her, smells her hair, kisses
her neck near her collar bone.
He says, “I love you, pumpkin.”
Deep, pleasant sigh.
Lauren
December 14, 2010 Leave a comment
Christmas Break Goals 2010
Okay, I used to do this all the time. Every Christmas, spring, and summer break I’d make a list of goals I want to accomplish. Especially with three and a half weeks off, I figured this would be appropriate to do.
Some goals. (Note: Some are completely shallow. Some seem very self-righteous. Let those two balance each other out.)
1. Read three books. Ideas: To Kill a Mockingbird, finish Wild at Heart, Drops Like Stars, a book by Brian McLaren, probably one of the five I asked for for Christmas.
2. Volunteer five times. I miss InAsMuch. I miss working with people one-on-one.
3. Do my Sojourn homework. Yeah, so the Sojourn has homework.
4. Write a paper. There are so many comm. theory papers I want to write…. I don’t know if I’ll actually write them, but I want to research them, just for kicks. Honestly, this will help me with my senior project next year.
5. Get a tan. Yup. I’m doing it. Sorry, anti-tanning-booth people.
6. Practice being wise with money. Okay, so in general I’m not bad with money. I can make $100 last me a month if I have to. BUT now that I have money and a consistent income, I need to practice saving and investing and using less of my disposable income on crap I don’t need (i.e. food). Basically, I need to budget.
7. Update resume/apply for internships. Summer will come fast.
8. Take care of Body. My poor body has had it rough this semester. Over break I want to get in the habit of sleeping 7-9 hours, eating healthfully, doing physical activity, etc.
9. Blog/write for fun. Yeah, so who has time for this anyway? At the middle of the semester I was decent at updating my blog, at least for poetry. I need to keep doing this. I only have a few writing classes next semester, I can write more for fun. Really. I can.
10. Relax. I need to do a lot of this. I have had a crazy semester. Tons of work. Upper-level classes. A boyfriend. Geez. I’m exhausted.
Lauren
December 13, 2010 Leave a comment
Txt Msg
December 8, 2010 Leave a comment
Good morning
But friends, your dead will live,
your corpses will get to their feet.
All you dead and buried,
wake up! Sing!
Your dew is morning dew
catching the first rays of sun,
The earth bursting with life,
giving birth to the dead.
Come, my people, go home
and shut yourselves in.
Go into seclusion for a while
until the punishing wrath is past,
Because God is sure to come from his place
to punish the wrong of the people on earth.
Earth itself will point out the bloodstains;
it will show where the murdered have been hidden away.
-Isaiah 26.19-21
—
Oh yes.
—
Good morning. My favorite texts in the world are “good morning” texts from Nathan. They’re texts that remind me that whatever happened yesterday–whatever stress, whatever fight or struggle–is gone. Good morning. It’s a new day. It’s fresh. Let’s wake up and sing.
I’ve called grace many things before. I’ve called it a hug. I’ve called it plants that grow in the wintertime. But today, today I’m going to call grace morning.
—
In Iraq, the sun rose at 4:30 a.m. The Iraqi sun is bright; it’s hot; it’s disturbing; it wakes you up.
I think that’s grace. Okay, so I say grace is the morning and that evokes some brand of fuzzies. Aw, it’s like that 1990s worship song: “Though the sorrow may last through the night, his joy comes in the morning. I’m tradin’ my sorrows….” But really, it’s more than that. It’s hard. It’s bright and blinding.
I say grace makes you do something, take action. In the very least, it makes you get out of bed. Morning is here; you can’t stay in bed all day.
For me, morning is planning time. If I am not running late (as I usually am), I think about where I need to go that day, what I need to accomplish, how I am going to do it all. Morning requires something of me.
Grace, of course, is the same way. Grace says that whatever happened the night before, is over. It’s done, taken care of. Any wrong I’ve committed against God is forgiven, and I am washed clean. But, I’m still responsible. I’m responsible for the upcoming day.
—
Isaiah is all about the coming of the Messiah. The prophet warns Israel and its neighbors of God’s wrath, but he tells also of a redeemer called Immanuel, God with us.
Remembering that, I’m trying to make sense of the second stanza above, the one after the exclamation about morning! and singing! and sunshine! The one that says to lock yourselves in your house to escape God’s punishment.
In context, the joyful stanza comes after Isaiah’s description of his people’s current condition: “Oh God, they begged you for help when they were in trouble, when your discipline was so heavy they could barely whisper a prayer.”
I wonder if that final stanza is a “sobering up.” Yes, God is good. God will give you a new morning, a new life, some fresh dew on the ground. But remember what you’re doing right now. Remember your current situation, the sins you’re immersed in, your addictions.
I think of this stanza as a mourning (yes, a nice play on words for us to enjoy). It’s like: go inside your houses and shut your doors and take a while to think about what you did. Give yourself a time out. Keep yourselves from sinning. Watch out. Be careful.
—
I write this post at night, anticipating the morning, anticipating grace.
All you dead and buried, wake up! Sing!
-Ezekiel
November 27, 2010 Leave a comment
Holy the Firm, pp. 60-62
His disciples asked Christ about a roadside beggar who had been blind from birth, “Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Christ, who spat on the ground, made a mud of his spittle and clay, plastered the mud over the man’s eyes, and gave him sight, answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be manifest in him.”
Really? If we take this answer to refer to the affliction itself–and not the subsequent cure–as “God’s works made manifest,” then we have, along with “Not as the world gives do I give unto you,” two meager, baffling, and infuriating answer to one of the few questions worth asking, to wit, What in the Sam Hill is going on here?
The works of God made manifest? Do we really need more victims to remind us that we’re victims? Is this some sort of parade for which a conquering army shines up its terrible guns and rolls them up and down the streets for people to see? Do we need blind men stumbling about, and little flamefaced children, to remind us what God can–and will–do? …
Yes, in fact, we do. We do need reminding, not of what God can do, but what he cannot do, or will not, which is to catch time in its free fall and stick a nickel’s worth of sense into our days. And we need reminding of what time can do, must only do; churn out enormity at random and beat it, with God’s blessing, into our heads: that we are created, created, sojourners in a land we did not make, a land with no meaning of itself and no meaning we can make for it alone.
Who are we do demand explanations of God? (And what monsters of perfection should we be if we did not?) …
—
I think I finally get it, Annie.
November 23, 2010 Leave a comment
Unsaid
Some things are better left unsaid.
November 19, 2010 Leave a comment