Lets face it

shitmystudentswrite:

So lets face it, at one time we have all been in love and swept off our feet across the mall area.

Mediums of literary expression of feelings (from highest passion to lowest)

1. Poem
2. Lyrical (Musical)
3. Speech
4. Short story
5. Long story
6. Essay 

I’m not exactly sure what this list is supposed to mean—and I definitely don’t know how to concisely title it—but it has something to do with what you can get away with in certain mediums. Poems and songs can be merely depressing if they want to be, and they should be immediately heart-wrenching  because they’re so short; it’s hard to get away with a full story that is all explicit in a short work. If it’s depressing, the hope is subtle and implicit—but it should still be there. And essay should always be hopeful; it’s stream-of-conscious that requires the fortitude of finding a good conclusion that ties the essay together and makes a full circle. Same with stories, generally, but they can have happy and sad endings. But there’s both rhyme and reason—poems have more rhyme; essays have more reason—but both have the responsibility of telling the truth of both finitude and infinitude. The stuff in the middle is the hard stuff to write: speeches and short stories. Makes sense, I think. 

What do you want to do after graduation?

I don’t know. 

I know I like writing and editing. Editorial work is all right, but I’d rather be a janitor and just write on the side. 

I want to write a memoir first, then try a short story collection. Then work on a novel, while I publish essays. But the novel would have to be heavily workshopped and edited. I’d go to grad school or whatever and do my best on it. Then I’ll finish the novel, and after that I’ll gather the best essays and do an essay collection. 

Hopefully by then I’d be at a more interesting job. I could sellout in either direction: I’ll throw out all my #pomowo principles and work at a church; or I can write a screenplay if I get any good at story.

Whatever non-janitorial work I do, I’ll quit that job once I get out of my twenties and try to teach. Or at least work at a school. Something with younger people, where I’d still be a young gun. Find an old mentor and whatever.

And I want to teach high school kids English or math or something like that. I don’t care what. I’d go back to Culver City and bring a girl with me, hopefully. And teach kids how to be cool and how to swear effectively and be subtle and make Dean’s List without caring about it. I’ll be disappointed in them and they won’t like me, but they’ll learn a lot.