corvus

That's crazy!! As paya said, there are only 365 days in a year... On the other hand, you look pretty happy running. I've not gone to the gym nearly as frequently as you have, but I've been getting better returns than in the past after I started taking some protein powder. But then I'm building up vanity and not mileage.

This title interested me, because my guy is so anti-religious it's almost a religion: his parents - mother especially - are hardcore Catholics, and I honestly think he's been hurt by the experience. So I don't mind when he goes out of his way to be a bit iconoclastic. (I myself am not religious - I do find the stories and metaphors to be powerful and real.) I don't know on what terms the two of you take religion and each others' religion, but it might be helpful to relate it to one's personal history, for example, if one is used to certain traditions, if one had a powerful experience in a temple, etc. That works better than these isolated images and words and terms. I'm glad, also, that you've found a guy you like.

I'm sure you know the Korean group The Wonder Girls? Their " " song was quiiiite a hit when I was in Singapore this summer. Can't help you with boybands - apologies - and I'm generally lost in my world of classical. But, I quite like the Swedish Laleh ( ) and the American indie Bon Iver ( ).

... Why is December plot writing month and November the writing month? It seems a bit like the case of Immaculate Conception being on Dec 8, and Christmas Dec 25 -- either they want us to have great hindsight, or a very long gestation. I've written 3 long (100,000+ words) fanfiction novels, 2 mid-length (~50,000) novellas, and many mini-novellas (~10,000). I of course still have no idea what the secret to plotting is! But I have managed to produce a lot of words with my own method, which is not nearly so systematic as what other people here have advocated. I generally have a feeling in mind that defines the opening and the end, and the middle is full of plot events that manipulate the feeling so that it changes. Falling in love, for example; or falling out of love. I tend to have ending firm when I set out, but I only plot a bare outline. I don't write every day, but I think every day. In my opinion, it's useless to write without having a grasp of the feeling from which the writing should come out of. I, in any case, am more interested in the emotional and philosophical universe of the story. If I've outlined an event, but writing up to it, the event seems out of place, the outline must change, not the organically growing story. (I guess I trust my writing too much!) On a more practical level, it helps to have a superstructure or pattern that helps the story have rhythm. The Harry Potter stories, for example, are defined by the school year, classes, tests, day-to-day events. A story with sports at its heart could be defined by practices, games, etc. Martial arts epics and tales of gallantry (Jin Yong, King Arthur) have a rhythm of fighting and duels. All these "events" are really a framework in which to manipulate the emotional world, but identifying the framework makes plotting much more practical. JK Rowling might have thrown in a few more detentions in order to have Harry get nervous about Snape; Tolkien might've tossed in some more orc encounters to give Gollum more time to be schizophrenic.

Wow, congratulations! Good luck to everyone involved, including the 18 eggs. I appreciate your sharing your adventures with us. For me, it's an inspiration as well for what is possible in my future.

This poem starts with such great rhythm. The first four lines are all two-beat lines, describing the death of a relationship. The funneling into one beat with "Yes" provides great impact. The poem goes on with the same rhythm and the same sentiment, sealing what seems to be an inexorable end: "Eternal turns infernal. / Disbelief confronts relief." But a wonderful turn comes with the next line: "You are so beautiful" It succeeds because it's so disarming, it's something that even the bitterness of "infernal" and "disbelief" can't quench. And the long 'o' sounds ("so" and "beautiful") have echoes from before -- eternal, infernal. The next line is another one-beater, "I wish," and the wish is so modest after the Dickinsonian stretches to the "forever" and "eternal": "I wish / We shared a home." But where can this "imagined" wish go? It goes to the "muse" -- the inability of the speaker to drop the thoughts of "you" lead him seek recourse in the muse. But another wonderful turn happens here, in the characterization of the "muse" -- she is "a curse for now," and a "sound that pounds." I think this poet has great governance in the introduction of the suddenly erotic -- it's great. The final two lines wrap it up with an enjambment and caesura: "The second beat of two / Missing, my life thru." It's as though this poem has framed an entire life -- loss and love, beauty, eroticism -- and now it's "thru."

Paul Ragden takes his family on a summer vacation. The unexpected almost occurs.

THE REST STOP corvus The Ragdens always went to a horseback-riding ranch in Strawberry for their summer vacation, and Paul Ragden always drove. It was a four-hour trip that began in farmland, and quickly became wide stretches of dust and dried grass, brittle beneath the California sky. Sally Ragden, eleven and restless, was scanninga travel brochure in the front seat. Her mother sat behind her, keeping a large straw hat angled against the midday sun. "How do you spell ‘mesme

"Old wounds have a way of opening when they should have healed. Nick Raimondi isn’t too fond of his mother’s love life, and even less fond of some of his more stuck-up classmates, particularly one Darius Wigglesworth. He feels a lot more warmer about Alec, a junior he rescued from a rabid cheerleader in the school parking lot. Life, though, has a way of dealing the most unexpected cards."

5. Up until that moment on the couch, I'd known that I liked Alec. I'd be the world's densest bloke not to. But while kissing him and feeling my whole body singing with hot sparks, my feelings definitely moved up a notch. I can sort of imagine it: a yellow sticky with the word "NICK" detaching from a shelf with the word "LIKE," and fluttering up to a higher shelf, emblazoned with the words: "IN LOVE." I wasn't really aware of it then, of course. I wasn't aware of anything at all,

4. Melina called after I'd got back from my morning run, but before I'd made much of a start on breakfast. "Are you busy right now?" "Well, I just broke open two eggs." "Oh, pancakes? Can I come over?" "Eh... Just scrambled eggs, actually, but if you're making pancakes, you can come over." "Great! I'll be over in ten minutes. Um, that's okay, isn't it? Your mom won't mind?" "My mom's not here. See you in a bit." We hung up, and I put the bowl with the egg

3. I didn't like any of my mother's boyfriends. The closest I ever got to any of them was an occasional "hello" and some half-assed questions about school. Nelson suggested several times that I beat them up. I kind of agreed every time that it was a good idea, but it never happened. About a year and a half after my dad left, my mom started spending a lot of time with my middle school History teacher. Call me slow, but it wasn't until I saw him kissing her cheek in the driveway that I

2. Melina was the sort of person who’d talk your ear off if you let her. It was probably a good thing, then, she wasn’t the sort of person to wait for you to respond, as I was tuning her out while eating the sandwich I’d made for lunch. Something she said, though, pitched me back to earth. “What?” “I heard,” said Melina, “that you had a fight with Darius Wigglesworth’s girlfriend.” “Who?” “Darius Wigglesworth.” “Yeah, who the hell’s that?” Melina’s eyes got rea

1. Senior spring was one of those things that you were supposed to look to forward to starting from preschool. Four glorious months that would make up for twelve years of misery. That’s what everyone said, at least. Things have a way of not working out the way they should. That Monday afternoon in the school parking lot, I was thinking about something else entirely. I was thinking about my mom’s birthday—which was today—and the fact that she was going to celebrate it with her boyfriend, St

"Bud doesn't know who he is anymore, and Foster just wants his music. Both are going home for the summer after two years at college. Neither knows if the home they've always known is still the home they've once known."