Tis been quite awhile since I've updated this ol' journal, and so I thought to myself, what better time for it than on a lonely Sunday night when there are a million other things I should be doing?

Anyhow...
<begin rant>

I haven't really gotten a chance to do much reading/critiquing/viewing/commenting/whatever of other people's stuff lately, which is rather annoying, considering that since my muse has apparently taken quite a long sabbatical, it would have been refreshing to see others at work. But, alas. School, the overpowering monster that it is, has sucked up all my time, as usual, and this has become quite impossible. But I shall, in good time, return to my usual habit of gracing your wonderful works with insubstantial critiques and praises.

Ho-hum. As you may have guessed, I've reached a bit of a block in my own writing. Not so much as a block, really, but a mirror. I've taken a good long look at all my work, grown quite frustrated really, sat down to write something decent for a change, and given up.

Really. I've gone through my entire gallery and all my poems and stories on my computer and am thoroughly and completely dismayed. I've found poems from middle school that were about up to my current standards. Perhaps it is because I am not in the brightest of moods tonight, but looking through my present gallery, such as it is, I can find nothing that redeems itself in any way, nothing that would give me the right to call myself a writer. Now, granted, I have for the most part refrained from putting up prose here, and that, I believe, is where my true talent lies, but rereading that, too, has been a source of utter despair on my part.

Of course, I was accepted last week into one of the two writing programs I applied too (the other I had attended already and was rejected because, as they put it, there were too many new applicants worthy of the recognition), and will be attending a two-week program at a wonderful Southern university that shall go unnamed, but still, I feel far from redeemed.

I have been writing for God knows how long, and my lifelong dream has been to be a novelist...among other things, of course, including, more recently, archaeologist, movie director, and world dictator, but in terms of actually writing a full-length novel, well...let's just say my muse, the fleeting little bugger, has an attention span of no more than a chapter, and as such, that is as far as I've ever gotten. And, at this rate, likely ever will get.

And don't even talk to me about poetry. No flow, no imagery, no voice, no nothing. As far as I can tell, everything I've written has been flat, dull, and completely lifeless. It's depressing, really.

In other news, I have read quite a few good novels recently.
For school, I reread The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which I enjoyed even more the second time around, and was completely delighted by The Great Gatsby. For an American authors research project, I'm doing an essay on Chaim Potok, one of the greatest modern Jewish writers, and finished rereading The Chosen today and started rereading The Promise a few hours ago. I wrote a prose poem based off the carnival scene at the beginning of The Promise, which is eerily wonderful, but the poem mis complete rubbish. Potok is brilliant, however. I'm also working my way though Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By, a fascinating book I borrowed from a friend the beginning of fall and have yet to get a chance to really sink my teeth into due to school. I really need more time.

Potok's novels really get me thinking, about religion and human nature, how God and science can coexist, how people can be so good and yet so cruel, so full of love and so full of hatred...it's a strange feeling. He's a brilliant writer, despite what some critics say, but they're certainly not light books.

Well...I suppose that's out of my system now. Spring is finally here, and the dark musings of winter can fade away with this journal. If you actually read down to here...cheers? And now, I bid you all a goodnight.

</endrant>