Semester's End

The regular semester ended last week (i.e., classes meeting during their regular times), and exam week is coming up. Grad students apparently don't do exams (yay!) but they do do papers (boo!). So while an entire library's worth of undergrads surround me, freaking out about which bone connects to the thigh bone or whether Shakespeare meant for The Merchant of Venice to be a satire or taken at face value, I'm working on a text analysis project that so far has delivered nada. So I'm taking a breather to record my thoughts at the official end of my first full semester back in school.

Suffice it to say, it's both been harder and easier than I originally envisioned. I took some good classes this semester, some more challenging than I'd thought. And I discovered something about myself in one of my classes that I never thought would occur, at least not since my undergrad days: I enjoy writing fiction.

Back when I was an undergrad, I took a couple of workshop classes because I thought I could write fiction. Those workshops didn't convey to me the message that I sucked at fiction writing, per se, but they made me realize that it was harder than I was willing to put the effort into at the time, and so my fiction-writing career stalled on the tracks of my own inherent laziness. I was an essay-writing guy, I said (there's probably a word for that, but I'm too lazy to type it up), and my essays would be my route to historical significance as one of the most original thinkers of Western civilization.

Did I mention how much of a pretentious asshole I was back then?

Anyway, before taking a workshop class this semester, purely because I needed a fourth class to fill out my required hours, I thought fiction-writing and I were done. But I started to enjoy the idea of writing fiction, because there's something about it that trumps most non-fiction writing: it can be about whatever the fuck you want it to be. As long as it makes sense (and sometimes not even then: try reading Barry Hannah sometime), it can be good. And something that I didn't really get about workshop my previous run-through in college: it's okay if what you turn in isn't worked out just yet. That's why it's called "workshop," you work on it. The feedback I got for my three stories was encouraging, helpful, and enthusiastic. So they're all to blame when I assault the world with my book of short stories.

Kidding (about the blaming. The book of short stories? That might just become a reality).

I'm signed up for another workshop in the spring, and I'm hoping to work on some stuff over the Christmas break so that, while not being first to volunteer, I can at least be in the second or third week to turn in my first story. Never thought I'd say this again, but I want to write fiction.

Literary theory, however...I recognize it's super-important if you're going to talk about literature and junk. But I have my bullshit detector on at all times when dealing with Derrida, Foucault, etc. That's just how it has to be. I did end up reading Roland Barthes for fun, as well as Walter Benjamin (his name kept cropping up, though we never covered him in class). And I liked being challenged, even if I felt like the challenge sometimes was too challenging.

I'm looking forward to the break, to a chance to read for fun full-time again (I snuck in a few fun-reading things here and there, like someone on a strict diet of fruits and berries might go for the occasional hamburger when no one's looking). One of the books I read when I was supposed to be reading for class was by a friend, Becky Adnot-Haynes. If you haven't bought her debut story collection The Year of Perfect Happiness, do so. Seriously, stop reading this and go to your local bookstore (or if they don't have it, try online) and get it. I can wait...

Okay, so: one semester down, fiction writing a go, reading for fun...oh yes, be sure to have a good holiday season (whatever you celebrate, or even if you celebrate nothing at all). I got stuff to do between now and Friday. And as has often been the case this past semester, that can sneak up on you before you know it.

Oh yeah...how 'bout them Lamecocks, huh? Sorry, I had to represent for my Tigers...:-)