Weird, awesome day. Yesterday K told me that there was nothing wrong with taking a day off, and today, unexpectedly, I did. Spent the morning (the early morning) recording with Where Roots Run Deep. After three hours, we had a seven track EP, which I dubbed The April EP. Our recording engineer, Anthony, was a trooper and a saint. I think even J would agree that Anthony epitomizes what it means to be a true gentleman. I doubt he’s reading this, but big ups to Menz Room Recordings regardless.

Spent the afternoon in a car with my fellow staff members, talking about the ethics of lawns, academic prose, and how our parents met. In between we played laser tag in St. Cloud, at which I fairly well wore holes in the knees of the only pair of jeans I have that fit right now (must begin exercise once semester is over).

Finished up the first crappy draft of my paper of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which, at this point, is sort of about history and narrative and ghosts…and stuff. It’s a first draft, it sucks, but now I have something work with rather than just a blank page.

Car tested the April EP tonight, Once-style, with J, Anthony and K. Turns out the headphones we were using to playback the tracks during recording had no bass response, so the whole record is everyone else quiet and in balance in the background, and me on the booming bass, overpowering everyone. And since I’m the one who knows the songs the least, this was not an ideal situation. Plans are being made already for the May EP.

Nearing the end of House of Leaves, and wish I would have read it faster. I still think it’s great, but reading it over such a span of time (almost two months) sort of killed the momentum. I can tell it’s something that I will want to read again, but there’s a stack of awesome books at home waiting for me when I finally grab my diploma (is that even what they call that piece of paper at the college level?)in four weeks.

Now, bed, because I had to get up so early to rock, and my legs feel like pudding from all the rolling around shooting people with laser guns that looked like barcode scanners.

Good stuff’s happening lately. On Sunday, I got unstuck with The Beacon, and now have a pretty good idea about how all five layers (!) of the novel are going to be working. Now it’s just a matter of getting back to the scribbling, but I’m excited about it again. And after a week of being blocked and disinterested, that’s a good feeling.

Also, found out that an abstract I proposed to the MnCUEW (Minnesota Colleges & Universities English and Writing) conference was accepted, so, in addition to the Undergraduate Research Symposium on campus in late April, I’ll also be presenting “Talking Across Our Boundaries: A Case for Creative Nonfiction” in front of real-live professors and academics next week. Kinda freaky, actually, but I love that paper and the ideas in it. That’s coming up on April 3rd.

My window faces the southeast, so in the morning, if it’s clear, I get sunlight through my blinds.  It usually never is bright enough to wake me, but when my radio does–usually the thick, syrupy intonations of a Pentacostal preacher–I can tell immediately if the morning is clear or cloudy.  This morning, the sun was bright, intensified by the fresh coat of snow.  I pressed snooze several times, sleeping until my lunch meeting with J.

Spent the first few hours of my birthday late last night watching episodes 1×08 and 1×09 of Dexter.  Man, I’m really digging that show.  There are so many interesting themes and patterns happening, and it’s so much fun to keep track of them.  If the show had kept the equilibrium is had set in the first few episodes, I don’t think the show would have been nearly so successful.  But Dexter is changing, and the way that he’s adapting to that change is incredibly interesting.  1×09 dropped a bombshell that upset my entire view of one of the characters, and adds yet another layer of murk to Dexter’s already murky back story.

Spent much of the birthday proper doing homework and laundry, the former not as much as I should have.  More or less, my presentation for Sem on Thursday is set, so now it’s the small matter of actually giving it, making revisions on the larger paper, and handing it all in.  The stress, mostly, is gone.  What I have left is not insuperable.

Got some very nice emails from family and friends, joked with my father about the AARP calling me soon, and my pressing need for a power scooter.  Some very thoughtful gifts from K’s parents–they know how to treat a geek.

Tonight, reading stories for last workshop of the semester, and doing my last two composition readings for the semester.  There is something melancholy about that.

Finally, this, because I thought it was funny.

I was talking with JP today, and she had some interesting thoughts about stress.  She, like me, is preparing for a senior sem presentation, but she’s been anxious and stressed about it.  But she said that, instead of dwelling on that stress, she’s actually trying to enjoy it because she’s so close to being done with college.  She says that she knows that in a few months she’s going to look back and wish that she could do it again, stress and all, so she’s trying to appreciate this feeling and the work that she is doing.  I really liked that idea.  It’s something that I’ve been trying to remind myself of when the stress ramps up–even though it’s the cause of a lot of strain and anxiety, I still am in a position in which my major responsibility in life is to read books and write intelligently about them.  In that sense, where I’m at is pretty good.  So, if I have any advice to other students who are going slightly mad, enjoy it.  Take ownership of it, live in that feeling, soak it up.  Love it and appreciate it.  Because in a few weeks, it’ll all be done.

Today in fiction class we were working on beginnings and endings.  Since the story I’m working on right now, a novella called “All Our Imaginary Friends Are Dead,” is nowhere close to having an ending, I brought in a story I wrote six months ago called “Nothing’s Faster Than Light.”  I showed it to my instructor, and he ended up reading it to the whole class.  We’ve done workshops before, but today was the first time I ever felt like I was a primary source.  My story was a friggin’ example about how to begin and end a story.  He called it “textbook,” whatever that means.  I took it as a compliment.  He asked me about my revision strategies, and if I would transcribe the first draft so he could compare it with the current draft.  And, here’s the crazy part, he wants to potentially use it as an example of revision in future classes.

All of this got me thinking about submission again.  I’ve submitted stories to a few journals: the literary magazine of my first college, and, ambitiously, Hayden’s Ferry Review.  They sent me a form rejection letter and a nice bookmark.  Oh, and Weird Tales rejected me as well.  But I keep hearing about how part of breaking into this profession of writing is piling up rejection letters, and I’ve been able to more or less insulate myself from that idea by simply saying that my stories aren’t done.  And they aren’t.  I have a huge stack of first drafts.  “Nothing’s Faster Than Light” was fun to revise because it was short, only a page and a half single-spaced, but it became apparent after looking back at the first draft that the second draft really was a lot better.  It makes me think then of that pile of first drafts: four novels, two novellas, a short story collection–that could be made so much better, but I just have to sit down and do it.