Last night I read Jeffrey Eugenides' story, "Extreme Solitude," in my most recent New Yorker, and it rocked my socks off. Then today I got the "20 Under 40" fiction issue, and I thought, why aren't I spending all my free time writing short stories? Or at the very least, reading them?
So I wrote this kick-ass opening paragraph to a story whose opening scene I can picture perfectly in my brain. Then I realized I not only had absolutely no plan of where I was going with this opening scene, but that it was neither a kick-ass scene nor a kick-ass piece of writing. I used my middle name for the protagonist's name, for chrissakes. I also was about to have my protagonist sitting in a coffee shop reading Black Boy for her lit class. Uggh, Alison. Uggh.
When I made this realization (about 20 minutes ago), I got so annoyed with myself, I closed my Word doc, picked a new design for my blog, and started watching Mumford and Sons' videos on YouTube.
I've got to get it together. Awake my soul, or some such something or other. Probably, I'll just read this fiction issue and think about my dream world where I'm one of the 20 under 40 published in The New Yorker.
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