so much for brevity. har har.

I chose to reread "The Specialist's Hat" because I couldn't remember if the hat actually bit someone or not; I needed to settle my mind on the issue. After rereading it twice? The groundskeeper, I think? Still can't remember. Unlike my first reading--which was quick but awesome because it was one of my favorite--I just plowed through the internet readings, hoping to actually finish reading the story without my eyes bleeding from staring at practically the same spot on my monitor for so long. I don't think I retained much.

The problem with reading online is that I am mostly online when I'm at work and so there's more than internet distractions. There's work distractions. Work distractions for me include rousing games of ping pong where I DOMINATE (well, not really, but I have the swagger and trash talk of someone who does) and occasional bouts of actual work. It took me about three hours to read and it was difficult to stay focused. I mean, I made two moves on this Scrabulous game I'm playing that's taking about eight years to complete, checked my e-mail a handful of times, and left a friend a Myspace comment. So I tried again earlier tonight in the comforts of my room in front of my own computer.

And it still wasn't very fun. I cheated, I guess, and downloaded the PDF as it looked more like pages instead of huge blocks of text that the HTML version gave me at work. It was easier, the simulation of pages, to get through. The fact that I initially wrote "get through" instead of "read" sort of bothered me. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just don't take reading that much in one sitting at the computer as seriously or enjoyable(-y?) as I do with an actual book. I mean, I do enjoy reading things on the internet; I read Brevity, McSweeney's, a few other online lit journals, and more blogs than I can count, but those are are quick reads that often don't demand much from me as a reader. I'm stuck on the nice tangibility of having a book, as mentioned by Katie, that acts as a trophy of sorts that helps inflate my ego so I can subliminally say to everyone when I place it on my shelf, "See, I READ. This book here? Read. Have you read it? Well, it doesn't matter because I have and I don't have to tell you because it's on my shelf, thus implying that it's been read." Reading from a book has this nice sense of accomplishment; you can actually feel the pages go by until all of sudden you're at the end. Staring at my computer screen? Endless.

I like my books as books

I hate reading things online. Especially stories. I tried rereading "Water Off A Black Dog's Back", and I honestly couldn't even get through it. I ended up skimming through parts, I got confused a lot because my eyes kept crossing or something. With all the pronouns, I was like "who's what now?"
Skimming was a huge part of why I couldn't take in the story. I'd see these huge blocks of single spaced words that never seemed to end and I just felt like I had to get through the story. With an actual book, I can physically turn the pages- there's an end in sight. I could close the book after a story or chapter and set it down with a bookmark. What do you have online? There's no bookmark, except the one you used to mark the website that holds the entire story on page!
I don't understand this new technology, it's called Kindle, and it's like an iPod for books. I guess it can hold a whole library, and you read these books on your screen. Even in theory, I don't like the idea. Part of the book experience is having them on your shelf, in your library! They're like little trophies or something. You read them, you've lived through the characters, and then there they rest until you want to pick it up again. But maybe I'm just being old fashioned.
I'm getting off the topic, but I guess what I mean to say is I like my books as books, not as online documents.

Reread of Water Off A Black Dog's Back

I reread Water Off A Black Dog's Back online just like we were assigned. As I was reading I kept thinking of other things I needed to do, clicking off to check my email, etc.

My eyes also started to hurt after awhile. The type wasn't double spaced and everything seemed so pressed together. There's only so long I can concentrate on a computer screen.

I'm easily distracted when I'm reading online as well and it was no different with Kelly Link's story. I just think it's too lengthy to be something read online. I started to get frustrated with having to reread this again in a less comfortable manner.

I can see why she would put her work online for people to access freely, but I think it would be better to print it out. That's a lot of ink though and I don't know how many people would be willing to do that. I also don't know how many people would be willing to sit there and read the whole collection online.

I'm not a website moron!

Okay so today I decided what the hell let's start making StickBall for real. I registered at wordpress and got down to business. So, me, the one with all the questions about design and how do I do this just started messing around. I picked a template, I made my own header and started making pages. After about an hour or so I really liked the way it was looking. Not gonna lie I'm kind of proud of myself. Earlier in the semester it seemed like something so foreign, something that I was incapable of doing and now I have the page all set up. I really like the way it looks right now, and I might just leave it for good, but I think I'm going to try and personalize the design a bit more. Go for the original idea that I had about the mixed skyline. The header I chose now is an actual photo that I took driving along the BQE with my parents. So it's original. I don't know if taking photos of skylines and cutting them up from online and making my own would be copyright infringement. Do any of you know if it is?

Organizized

With all my submissions together and set, I've run into the next problem: organizing. All the stories fit into the theme of my journal, but I'm growing more concerned with how to order them within the pages. Logic will suggest alphabetical order, but that same logic makes me want to avoid it, if that makes any sense. Maybe I'm just getting to a point where I'm stressing about every minor detail.

I'M ALMOST DONE!!!

GOT ALL THE SUBMISSIONS.

LOOKING FOR PRINT QUOTES? MAY ALREADY HAVE AN IN WITH A BUDDY.

CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT I REALLY WANT IT TO LOOK LIKE...

WAITING FOR THE START UP CASH.

AUDIO8.COM

OH BOY

So over this past weekend I read through each of my submissions. Some of them were okay and well one I refused to accept and work with the guy on editing. It was really just awful. The five others were all pretty good. Only three needed full rewrites which I told the authors why, one was too dialect heavy for my taste, the other needed something brought to the forefront much earlier and the last just had a lot of filler that didn't need to be there. If she doesn't take it out then I think I just will. The other pieces just need some editing stuff which is fine by me.

I was really surprised by how different each of the pieces were though. All of them fit the theme but in different ways and I loved that about reading them. The Cubana is a great piece about a Mexican wedding and the guy being obsessed with his cousins ex-wife and The Wrong Side of Candyland is an awesome piece of flash fiction about the seedy underbelly of Candyland. I also got a great flash fiction piece about a bum on the El. Only one piece that was written seemed like, "here take this just because you asked me and I'm being nice," and I told that author that it needed a rewrite.

Now, onto the Kelly Link interview.

I love what she said about fantasy writing and the quote she used by John Updike. The idea that everything needs to be realistic is ingrained in us as Americans and it tends to be what the American public enjoys. So why can't a story about pirates with magic maps and rejuvenating treasure be just as good as that? I feel like sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and don't have enough fun and that's why fantasy has such a terrible label placed on it.

I also feel that same way she does about being a literary writer. I don't really like to call myself that either. I just write, whatever comes to mind and I write it. In a way she's saying the same thing even though she'd rather be called a science fiction writer. I definitely agree with her saying that people are almost afraid of the genre books and I don't really understand why. I thought reading was about Immersing oneself in a different world. So why do Science Fiction and Fantasy have such a stigma about them? I don't really get it. My favorite book of all time is Peter Pan and in essence it's a fantasy story, but why is that such a bad thing? I love it. I love reading about things that couldn't possible happen but seem like they could. That's what Kelly Link is saying to me. Read these outlandish stories because what else is there? Writing fiction is about engaging the imagination.

I feel like Kelly is talking to me in this interview especially when she mentions her fear of boring people or that writers get stuck using particular themes or types of characters. I know that I do that for a fact and that I tend to enter my comfort zone and stay there. I've recently been trying to break that I definitely understand where she's coming from with this statement. I'm always afraid that something I've written isn't engaging or has no real moment that the reader gets hooked on the story. I don't think that fear ever ends, and hearing that from Kelly Link tells me that it really doesn't.

"Writer's should lead quiet boring lives, but be sure to have friends with interesting and difficult ones." I'm not going to say that my life is boring or quiet, but this completely makes sense. Most of the time I prefer to stay home and just watch a movie. I'd rather not go to a club, bar or party, when I'm home I just want to watch T.V with my parents or visit my grandfather with my mom. Kelly Link takes details of her friends lives and uses them in her stories, making them grander and more fanatical. I believe that all writers do that just not in the same capacity that she does. She creates a fantasy world out of real happens. Autobiographical points in a story make them something better then just having them be completely fiction, for me anyway and to know that even though Kelly writes strange, awkward and completely out there fiction but draws from real life makes me adore her writing even more.

What Kelly says about writing YA fiction makes total sense. I wouldn't like to be talked down to or to be lectured. I didn't like it when I was fifteen and I'm sure I didn't like it as a kid. I also have to agree that in order to write a book for a certain age group of readers you have to go back and remember everything about what it was like to be that age. I think those are the best YA books. The ones that tap into that time in the author's life even though they might be telling a vampire story or something like that.

Kelly Link made so many good points in this interview, so many things that really got to me as a writer, things that I do or don't do, or things that I even think about. As I read it I was going "Oh yeah, yes I know what you mean." She was dead on with almost everything she said. I actually want to read more of her work as well as some more interviews.