Shame on everyone who knew the Supersuckers’ “Must’ve Been High” was something I ought to have been listening to for the last eleven years. I even had it hiding in my music collection and didn’t know about it. Shame!

I wish I would have known Beck’s “The Information” came out two weeks ago. I’ve procured it and given it a listen. It’s sort of a cross between “Guero” and “Mutations” I guess, but not quite as good as either. I’m sure it will grow on me, but I found it to be a bit uneven on the first listen. As one of my all-time favs, perhaps I have unfairly high expectations. Average Beck is still better than 99% of the crap currently out there.

And just to make sure everyone knows I am musically challenged, I wish someone would have told me that I would like Cat Power, too. I’ve only heard “The Greatest” once, but I’m impressed.

Friend David Schwartz announced yesterday that he sold his first novel. Yay Dave! His stuff has appeared in Lady Churchill’s, Strange Horizons, and other find venues over the past several years, and now he’s made that broad leap into novelism. Once again, yay Dave!

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“Miss Pavlichenko” was workshopped today in my first real grad critique session. It went fine. Per usual for my stories, the class was divided on which way the story should go: focus more on the war scenes, focus more on the parts between war scenes, or focus on the story after the war. Or write a really long story. The professor originally called this a novel-length story, and he was right. My challenge is to get it working at the 8-10K word range.

One thing I would say about critiques: always start with a positive, even if it’s a stretch. I find that I’m far more apt to hear the criticism if I’ve been warmed up by a few compliments. A few people were really critical of sentence-level stuff, and my overall reaction to this was a shrug. It’s a first draft of a really long story. Helpful to have it pointed out, but no sense in fine-tuning scenes I might be axing down the road.

Today we did a “lightning round” where everyone said whatever s/he wanted for 15-30 seconds followed by a general, chime-in-as-you-wish session to questions about style, structure, whatever. The writer must stay silent, thank God. I still like the two minutes per person routine a la Clarion better but that could just be what I’m used to. That time limits how much a person can say but also compels them to get across their most pronounced feelings. Drafts two and three will be weird, as I usually only put one draft through a critique group.

For my money, Hunt’s knee to Cech’s head looked like an accident. If this means nothing to you, please ignore.

Current Mood: Bleck |
Currently Listening To – The Supersuckers – “Must’ve Been High”