Day 45, 21 Feb: Stream of Conscious 1: Procrastination

Norfolk Terrace, Day 45. Stream of Conscious 1: Procrastination

I apologize for skipping this day the day of—for reasons of sleeping earlier than later in the post-midnight hours, I decided against the entry then. The day itself had some interest in the creative vein, but I’m trying to make as a rule keeping my posts shorter so as to let the daunting task of catching up not be so cumbersome and also for the purpose of keeping my prose tighter. In fact, I’m on a time limit of 15 minutes to write two days’ worth of stuff. Go.

            This day proved good at the start, waking up as I have been recently with a sense of embracing the day (before, I used to go to bed wishing I had done more in a day). I limited myself to three circuits around the lake for my run, keeping a good pace. I spent too little of the day reading Madame Bovary for Nineteenth Century Writing class, but I made the explicit choice to focus on creative writing assignments today as opposed to the reading. Look at me, even with so little class, I still procrastinate. I think I work best under pressure and yet it’s not something I’m proud of.

            I actually wrote the bare bones of a short story, going off what I wrote in creative writing class last week. That was probably one of the best experiences of writing without knowing what I was doing and suddenly stumbling upon a voice within my work. I had framed the voice to be that of a sarcastic teenage girl’s and somehow it felt natural, organic. I wouldn’t say polished or brilliant by any means, but everything must have a beginning and I feel like I had a moment of feeling a character’s voice in the force of writing furiously. Now today, I felt good on just barely making an end and knowing that soooo much more has to be filled in for it to be a comprehensive and coherent story.

            I let in a rush to 19^th Century lecture and saw a dozen students leaving the lecture amidst an otherwise empty lecture hall. The professor was sick. I never check school emails and this is what happens. I did get to finish creative writing reading articles, though, so that was the plus.

            The actual class today was more causal, more socially comfortable than ever before. I even leaned back my chair a bit in a relaxed position at one point, but I really did feel at home with all these students and a tutor who means well and provides great facilitation to the weekly themes discussed. Today was building a character’s voice (last week was building a character) through internal monologue. One of the examples, the most unstructured one, on the spectrum from structured to unstructured monologues, was from the last chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I definitely smiled and appreciated it. I mean, that’s what this blog is referencing, after all. The Ulyssian? The Ulyssian journey? Yep. Why do you think I have a trip planned to Dublin? It’s all there in plain view but hidden.

            My mind is rushing into a blank—after that…? A surprise skype with Katya over tickets to the London Eye! We don’t usually skype this much, given our inconvenient time zone gap, so this is a plus. Dinner was the same as last night—I should’ve cooked it all last night but oh well. Good day.