Short stories
I've changed the theme of my livejournal once again. Only, this time, I spent ages picking through the CSS document of one of the default themes, tweaking it here and there, changing font styles and sizes. Problem is, now I'm tempted to just keep on fiddling with it rather than being satisfied. As when I started teaching myself basic HTML, I found the entire process really quite enjoyable.
In other news, I've realised recently that I need to start writing/sticking things into my notebooks again, as my creative impulses have been itching lately but refuse to be sated through writing. I think I need that more physical creativity.
I've read a lot of short stories over the past few months; Joyce, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and so on. I used to loathe the form, until a few years ago when in response to my complaints, a wise teacher introduced me to a couple of really good ones. A few by Doris Lessing, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; that sort of thing. These days I am an utter convert, which reminded me of another teacher of mine. I mentioned him in an entry in 2006:
"He openly admits to having gone through a crisis midway through his English degree at Leicester University, when he got sick of reading novels. Nowadays he says he tends to not bother with novels, choosing only to read essays and short stories"
I've not gone off novels to any degree, but I appreciate his point more than ever.
All the writing I've ever done has always been fragmented and in snippets, so perhaps I will toy with the short story form. I've grown to hate the lengthy character descriptions of Dickens and the endless countryside vistas of Hardy. I want the emotion and the psychology, unreliable narrative, free indirect discourse, a blurring of lines between character and narrator, movement into and between minds. Epiphanies, moments of being, sudden self-awareness; whichever label you prefer. That is what catches me, at just over nineteen and a half.
In other news, I've realised recently that I need to start writing/sticking things into my notebooks again, as my creative impulses have been itching lately but refuse to be sated through writing. I think I need that more physical creativity.
I've read a lot of short stories over the past few months; Joyce, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and so on. I used to loathe the form, until a few years ago when in response to my complaints, a wise teacher introduced me to a couple of really good ones. A few by Doris Lessing, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; that sort of thing. These days I am an utter convert, which reminded me of another teacher of mine. I mentioned him in an entry in 2006:
"He openly admits to having gone through a crisis midway through his English degree at Leicester University, when he got sick of reading novels. Nowadays he says he tends to not bother with novels, choosing only to read essays and short stories"
I've not gone off novels to any degree, but I appreciate his point more than ever.
All the writing I've ever done has always been fragmented and in snippets, so perhaps I will toy with the short story form. I've grown to hate the lengthy character descriptions of Dickens and the endless countryside vistas of Hardy. I want the emotion and the psychology, unreliable narrative, free indirect discourse, a blurring of lines between character and narrator, movement into and between minds. Epiphanies, moments of being, sudden self-awareness; whichever label you prefer. That is what catches me, at just over nineteen and a half.