Archive for the ‘Samantha’ Category
April 21, 2010
So I’ve updated the main page to reflect the fact that I’m no longer working on Death and Life and instead have returned to a story that has been calling to me for more than ten years—Samantha. I actually made the switch at the end of March, but I wanted to make sure I would make progress on Samantha before I updated the page to reflect it. Since I have now reached 10,000 words in that book, I think it’s safe to say that Samantha is my current project. I anticipate the book being complete somewhere between 60-80k: much, much shorter than Death and Life will be.
There are two primary reasons for making this switch. First, in February and March I was faced with quite a daunting bit of writer’s block (the writing only dribbled, a few hundred words a day). It wasn’t until mid-April that it finally started to crack open. The second reason is that I have been accepted into the Graduate Program in English at the University of Alabama with a Teaching Assistantship. So starting in August, my life will be completely taken over by pursuit of an MA degree. Death and Life is such a large work that I’m not sure I could have finished it by summer’s end—in fact, I never expected to do so. I’m not sure I’ll finish Samantha by August, but the chances are much greater, since it’s likely to be less than half the length of Death and Life. In any case, I should at least have a rough draft.
After we moved to Tuscaloosa so Jenny could get her MFA, I decided to sign up and take the GRE. I’ve thought about returning to school for a long time, but my undergraduate grades were so bad I never thought it was a realistic goal. Having scored fairly well on the GRE, however, I applied to UA (and only UA—I can’t go to school anywhere else while Jenny is going to school here). The next few months were painful anticipation as my life was being decided by strangers (though I’m accustomed to that, having sent out Queries and Manuscripts to hundreds of strangers). In February, I finally got the letter that I was being accepted. Last week I signed up for the classes I will take in the fall. I’m on my way. I intend to eventually try for a PhD., but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
Meanwhile, I will devote the summer to Samantha, and I also have a notion (time permitting) of taking another look at a stage play I started last year (working title: ‘What do you want?’). Jenny will be working an internship in Illinois, while I stay here in Alabama working at the University library and writing—until August, when everything will change…forever.
Posted in Death and Life, Life, Samantha
* * *
|