Immediately I thought of going home and napping in front of the television. I knew that I could start composing a cover letter for a job opportunity that presented itself. I could also format the text of my thesis that will eventually be published by the graduate school. None of these seemed satisfying to me. So here's what I did.
I went to Barnes & Noble, spent two hours perusing the fiction section, and bought $57 worth of books. Upon returning to my apartment, I delved into a Pulitzer Prize winning short novel by a writer who graduated from the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop. This short novel, albeit slightly depressing, is quite elegantly written and awakened a ghost of ambition in me to write my own novel one day.
This week I re-read my senior paper from undergrad. The paper compared and contrasted three books by Southern American writers and their views on the South's history in the United States. I'm not afflicted with any false modesty here. The paper is good. It's well written, uses really creative language, it's fun to read, it uses good quotes and expands upon them. It's a nice piece of writing. The only problem is that it called to my attention how boring and academic my writing has become in the years since. I think I'm still a good writer. But I feel like my writing that was once full of something unique and vivid is now dulled into a very historical based, straight-forward presentation of the facts, and my writing isn't woven together as creatively as it used to be.
I used to consider myself an eloquent writer. I had dreams of publishing poems or short novels, and even though I never finished the stories I began, I constantly was writing, I had prosaic phrases materialize in my brain. Such phrases would be a gift now. It takes practice, and I have not been practicing the art of language. Somewhere hidden back in my mind I think there is some creative intelligence and thought waiting to be used again. Somewhere in my heart I still have a yearning to publish something, but it's going to be an up-hill struggle to coerce my writing back to some semblance of its former self.
Since I started reading this novel tonight, I've had to look up three new words in the dictionary. I'm thrilled to be expanding my vocabulary. Did anyone know that the word "corona" means, among other things,
1) a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light around a luminous body, especially around the sun or moon,
2) a long, straight, untapered cigar, rounded at the closed end.
3) a crown like appendage, esp. one on the inner side of a corolla, as in the narcissus.
4) a chandelier of wrought metal, having the form of one or more concentric hoops.
Well, wow. I certainly didn't. For all I knew it was just a beer.
I've noticed a change in my reading choices. Well, for tonight at least. Two out of the three books I purchased were art historical fiction. One called Pictures at an Exhibition - which I found somewhat fitting as I just curated an exhibition of my own. The second called Pillars of the Earth chronicles the building of a fictional medieval cathedral in England and the details the lives of the people motivated to build it. I'm very excited to read it, as I was dubbed the "Ruined Abbey Lover" from my advisors in Nottingham, but I'm a bit daunted by the size - it's 973 pages and I hope I don't get distracted and put it aside to collect dust. Several of my books have been subject to that fate in the past two years - I start them, get distracted and then never return to them. I have been invited to join a book club, an invitation I believe I will accept, and I think this will be a very positive influence on my reading, writing, and communication about literature.
To sum up: perhaps this blog entry can be seen as a resolution. To read more good literature, to discuss it intellectually, to expand my vocabulary, and to write more. We'll see. I have many resolutions that I would like to establish in my life - mostly relating to the creative side of my brain: make more books, paint, continue with pottery, write, read, join an orchestra, take up some sort of knitting or sewing (I don't know... something I've been thinking about). As for reading and writing, it is a skill that is being lost on our generation, and I think we could all use some practice in the language arts.
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