Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Miscellany...

A friend remarked to me today that my blog looks incredibly frum--every post so far has been about something purely God-related. So, in order to bust that impression, I am now writing a post of a different sort. Actually, that's not why I'm writing this--I would love to have a supershtark blog. But I'm in a bit of a mood, so I decided to just talk a little, and let some of my often-strange personality shine through in an all-new blog post of randomness.

I am currently working on a short story for my creative writing class (as I have been and will be for the rest of the semester--my crazy teacher assigns a new story every week). I am having particular trouble with this one though. I have started about five different stories, but have yet to come up with an actual plot line for any of them. One of my various beginnings has even developed into the majority of a story, except that I am still lacking an ending. The only problem now is that a story without a good ending is not a story. It is a pet peeve of mine to read stories by amateurs which, though they may contain vivid description and characterization, often end in a vague or abrupt manner. Come on Dude, where's my ending? I want resolution! I want a feeling of completion, of satisfaction! I want a pint of ice cream! (Ok, I won't insist that you provide that last part.) I definitely relate to the temptation to trail off with a vague "And no one has heard of him since" or "And then she saw it, and knew that she would never be the same" or "He heard a thud, followed by a silence as eerie as the ending of this story" but I know that I do my readers a disservice if I don't provide them with a concrete, well thought out ending. So I keep thinking, and I keep coming up with new plot twists to lengthen the story, but still no clever conclusion crosses my cranium (I like alliteration, btw). Ah well, there is no rest for the striving artist.

I guess I just need to relax a little, to get the creative juices flowing...for some reason I feel like I didn't breathe much today. Though that might have had something to do with the dress I was wearing. True Story: I was sitting at my computer a few hours after I woke up, when I suddenly started getting sharp pains in my lower ribs. I thought it was rather weird, and didn't know what was going on--but then I figured it out. I untied the sash of the funky brown dress I was wearing and *poof* the pain disappeared and I found myself able to breathe again. Yeah, I know, how dumb am I? But really it was strange because I hadn't even tied it that tightly! Makes me really feel bad for my olden-day sisters--I can't even imagine what it was like to wear a corset. Ouch.

Last random thing: I was typing an email about how an engaged friend of my family is going to a fitting for her wedding dress and I looked up and realized that I had capitalized the word Wedding. As a grammar geek, I believe that the way we use words reveals a lot about who we are. It occurred to me that my typo accurately reflects the importance that all things marriage-related assume for an (almost) twenty year old girl in today's Orthodox Jewish society. But I really can justify having weddings (or Weddings) on the brain--my ex-roommate just got engaged yesterday. Mazal Tov!

Alright, time to call it quits for the evening. Over and out!

4 comments:

Ezzie said...

Just kill everybody off. :)

kasamba said...

Mazal tov on your roomie!!!

I don't remember whose blog it was that recounted the most embarrasing story of the mother of a Kallah who fainted during the chuppah and could only be revived when they removed her girdle!

I hope that gets your creative juices flowing!!!

SJ said...

Ezzie - if only it was that easy...though my teacher likes anything grisly, so it might not be such a bad idea.

Kasamba - wow, your comment managed to unify all three aspects of my extremely random post! Shkoyach!

That story definitely has creative potential...I'll have to work on it. ;)

Anonymous said...

SJ,

Just catching up on your blog---Good posts!!! Keep them coming! Hope school and whatnot is going well for you.

Hila