Posts (page 2)

I'm reading Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, and it's spot-on advice for people who need structure behind their creative output.  This survey is supposed to help me figure out what drives me to be creative.  The book is a wonderful, articulate read for people who aren't dancers like she is.  She is super ritual-driven, and she believes that is what has helped her become successful.  She gives out her own answers to these questions after you've filled out yours, and here are mine.

1.      What is the first creative moment you remember?
In 2^nd grade, I remember drawing a landscape with wax crayons, and I colored in the spaces very lightly instead of pressing on the crayon and getting all that thick, dark wax onto my drawing paper.

2.      Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it?
To witness, yes, but no one appreciated it—my teacher got mad and told me to start filling in with more crayon.  I didn’t want to, because my hands would’ve gotten dirty, and I liked it the way it was.

3.      What is the best idea you’ve ever had?
To drop chemistry and having picked English/writing

4.      What made it great in your mind?
I still don’t think I’m a lightning-like natural, but I enjoy the process, and it’s satisfying once I get work done.

5.      What is the dumbest idea?
Not breaking up with people sooner

6.      What made it stupid?
I refused to see things at real value.

7.      Can you connect the dots that led you to this idea?
One would think that my career choice as a writer/observer would help me make wiser choices in my own life, but in fact, I am completely blind to my own life and am blindly optimistic.  Even though it's caused me to not come to terms with the truth sooner and to waste time, I secretly wish that I continue to not be a complete nihilist and that I will stay a quasi-romantic with my own life.

8.      What is your creative ambition?
To become a respected writer

9.      What are the obstacles to this ambition?
My own laziness and fear of not succeeding (IOW: failure)

10.  What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition?
Write every day, have a routine, and flush my head of unimportant, materialistic things

11.  How do you begin your day?
Lie in bed for 20 minutes and think about a dream, if I've had one

12.  What are your habits?  What patterns do you repeat?
Browse online for interesting things to read, eat cereal and drink water while watching the Today show, run, shower, watch the Martha Stewart Show and eat lunch, get ready to leave the house and write at Starbucks or library, come back home to prepare dinner, lounge and talk to family or A

13.  Describe your first successful creative act.
Attempting my first poem (I don’t even remember what it was)

14.  Describe your second successful creative act.
Getting published in a small journal

15.  Compare them.
One act led to the other, and the second one wouldn’t have been possible without the first

16.  What are your attitudes toward:  money, power, praise, rivals, work, play?
money:  a necessity, but I know I’m never going to be wealthy, so I might as well get used to it now
power:  important, usually comes with money, but am probably not going to end up with either at the end of my life
praise:  flattering but must keep my mind on what’s more important—writing more and better
rivals:  hate it when people are better than me in a workshop, but it provides a good incentive to work harder
work:  I want to work and enjoy it, not suffer through it, but that cannot be...
play:  playing includes good food and good company—that’s it

17.  Which artists do you admire the most?
Margaret Atwood, Sharon Olds, Junot Diaz, Chuck Close, Chopin

18.  Why are they your role models?
The first four because honest reality with no frills is important and is the most accurate portrayal of life I can comprehend, the last one because everyone needs a little romantic tinge in their lives with fluff and the trills of piano keys

19.  What do you and your role models have in common?
We love and respect our craft, and we write/paint/compose in an attempt to bottle everyday life.

20.  Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you?
Loved ones and their/our triumphs and troubles

21.  Who is your muse?
The people I stare at on the train, in coffee shops, walking in the street

22.  Define muse.
Who move me to write

23.  When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond?
Acknowledge that they are better than me but work to get to that point myself

24.  When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?
My first response that goes off in my head is to react back with whatever negativity they shot first, but that is also probably the dumbest choice I can make.  My second, outwardly response is to move on.

25.  When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond?
At the threat of failure, I cry.  I cry hard until I find out the true turnout of events.  When faced with impending success, I get excited, but I know it’s just temporary before I have to go back to work again (for example, when I received my first admission letter from a grad school, I was excited for the first 15 minutes after I received the news until I started worrying again about where to live, how much will it cost, etc.)

26.  When you work, do you love the process or the result?
I love the idea of the process only after I’m faced with a fleeting first impression of the result.  But the process is where everything happens.

27.  At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?
Knowing that other writers at my age have published more or just know more, period.

28.  What is your ideal creative activity?
Writing and reworking a poem until it’s something surprising but believable, tweaking the turn of words

29.  What is your greatest fear?
Going unnoticed as a writer, being unremarkable

30.  What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening?
It can and will happen in my lifetime (to both)

31.  Which of your answers would you most like to change?
29—the truth is that while writing is such a solitary activity, what others think always matters.

32.  What is your idea of mastery?
The ability to always pump out refreshing, different works, knowing one’s craft inside and out

33.  What is your greatest dream?
To be able to write, to work, and to have a fulfilling personal life, all at the same time

A:  Hey, how big is your laptop?
me:  Um it's as long as my arm?
A:  Yarg can you just give me the specs or a model number...  JUST SOMETHING
me:  ...it's a Presario V2000*
A:  A "V" or a "B"?
me:  "V" as in ..."vagina"
A:  *in chorus* ..."victory"?

*I have that sorry excuse for a laptop bc in my family, we have a twisted musical-chairs laptop exchange (musical laptops?), and I received the Presario V2000 after my dad fixed it, AFTER my sis abused it to its premature death with LimeWire downloads and by letting it heat up on the shag carpet at home.  And now, I have my sister's laptop, my sister has my mom's laptop, and my mom has my old laptop.  I'd rather not explain to you how that happened, because it would require diagrams, Powerpoints, and a conference meeting complete with cookies and juice to really drive the point home.  And I am too broke to provide snacks for you folks.

Yesterday night, I went to my 2nd writing group for the week, and I was underwhelmed.  Yes, it was a simple monthly open mic group (with no advertisements or false promises about a constructively critical critique group), but COME ON.  They later let me know I can pay a 65-dollar-a-year fee to join their critique group, but I'd rather not.

One guy who went before me read a poem who wrote about "the semen of existence" and "orgasms of despair."  Good god.  I wanted to leave right then and there, but I didn't want to be rude to the people whom I would never have to see again ever.  Stupid, polite southerner me.

Or maybe I should've left around the time that this woman yammered on a disclaimer about how her "novel" is a "story," not nonfiction.  ISNT THIS A GIVEN WHEN YOU JUST SAID IT IS A NOVEL.  Nooo, she had to keep repeating herself to distance herself from her work as much as possible, saying the speaker is not her.

Given her lengthy explanation about how her fiction work is strictly fiction, they probably thought my poems were all confessional, autobiographical poetry, because a. I'm a woman and b. I'm a woman.

And the cherry on top was the same lady who read (co-organizer of the group), and she kept blabbing about this "smashwords.com" and at first I was like free Smashbox products what? but supposedly, it's an ebook store for "independently published authors" (code word for "I got duped into putting my own money to get published").  This was the final tip off that made me realize that I can never come to this B&N on any third Thursday night from this day on.

I know to know that if no one's picked up my novel or collection of poetry, it's because it's not ready to be published but needs to be polished, rewritten, or completely scrapped and I need start from scratch.

So it looked like I was dealing with a group of older people who do not give good critique and probably won't like mine either.  Why are these people so afraid of constructive criticism?  One does not have to take everything to heart and make every single revision that is suggested by all, but it does sting a little when someone tells you that they have no fucking clue what you just said in your poem (yes, it happens to everyone, and that is why the money's in revision revision revision).

I've started on an entry like this (about the road trip/moving to the bay area) a bunch of times before running into so many obstacles:

1. It's hard to wrap my words and thoughts around how I've been feeling lately--while I'm not surprised I fucking love California that I wanna take her to the back of the middle school and get her pregnant, I didn't know I would cry every morning for a week after A left for Dallas.  (Yeah, in the morning--it's rough waking up from dreams about family and the boyfriend and realizing I'm thousands of miles away from them.)
2. After writing like 3 goopy, sentimental sentences about missing family and junk, I decide picking up Chinese food and eating it in bed while watching I Love Lucy is much better than having to write about missing family.  (A and I Skype often, and one night, he noticed a bottle of Sriracha next to my bed, and I was like, "Why yes, that IS a bottle of delicious hot sauce on my fold-out TV dinner tray/bedside table.")
3. I get disappointed in myself for not being about to out-write Teddy Roosevelt and like a gazillion other nature enthusiasts when trying to describe the magnitude and the awesomitude of the Grand Canyon.  (SERIOUSLY, GO--I CANT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH, EVEN WITH ALL CAPS)

So my days are spent here, in Union City, hanging out with the toddlers and oldies at the library, hanging out with the unemployed professionals at Starbucks, or picking up an endless list of things one needs in a house but doesn't have because she just moved halfway across the US.  Really, I forget that I actually need to buy toilet paper instead of picking off from a seemingly abundant supply of Sams Club TP from my parents' house.

And when I'm not outside of my house, pretending to be busy and important, I eat and watch TV.  Same as always!

A:  Hey I just got NCAA 2010--what should I name my new player?
me:  Min Kang?
A:  Good choice.  How tall do you want to be?
me:  Tall enough to be a quarterback
A:  Sorry, that's boring; you're gonna be a running back..  and 6'3'' sounds good.
me:  Sigh, okay...  then can you make me black and fast?  And FINE like Reggie Bush?  (note: he hates Reggie Bush)
A:  Har har...  I can give you a big butt so you can run faster
me:  Like Pronk's booty?
A:  I like it when you make sports references

Stories like this one on Reddit make me want to go on first dates again.  I'm awful about romanticizing things I actually dread in real life.  Being nervous, the mystery of exactly how much he's into me, wanting to smell his neck for the first time--does he smell like feet or a new batch of laundry?  Or nothing at all, which is also fine, as long as I get to keep cuddling.

(Oh yeah, and me and A's first date did not end with a sweet kiss at the end like the date story on Reddit but rather with a very awkward hug...)

It's been a week and a day since I've arrived in the Bay Area, been 2 days since A left for his normal life in Dallas again.

I say NORMAL because he goes back home where his things belong.  I, on the other hand, must stay back and try to find a respectable part-time job.  By "respectable" I mean IT JUST HAS TO PAY--I applied at Petsmart and Starbucks yesterday afternoon.

I've also reached out to the city itself and applied for a job as a personal assistant to a man with cats.  I mentioned that last part because I am actually allergic to cats.  Already I'm this sad and desperate, and it's only Day 2 of my search.  Perhaps it's the Dramatic Korean gene at work.

I called home to cry about how big of a failure I feel like, and my mom was all, "CHILLAX.  You have about a month until you have to start freaking out."  And then she offered to fly me home during Halloween, and I heard my dad yell in the background, "What in the hell does she have to come home for during Halloween, of all days?!"  I agreed with my dad--I mean if I told a classmate I was going home for Halloween, she'd probably assume we're a bunch of devil-worshiping placenta-eaters.

In about a month or two, I will probably laugh all this off and will wish that I would've wrote more, read more, gotten out by myself more.  Until then, I keep sifting through all the crap jobs on my school's career center website and eat greasy takeout.  And once I get a pt job, I will start worrying about other things, because life is just a series of big ass projects after another...  except for a couple of breaks here and there (for cat-naps and Sundays in pj's, of course) .

I didn't go to sleep last night in order to finish packing for the move.  I got started around midnight and couldn't stop myself because I was on such a roll.  And since I'm a creepy loner who can't write research papers or pack properly during broad daylight, I actually finished the majority of the packing by 8am and took a shower after it all.  I was slick with sweat by the time I finished moseying back and forth from my car.

I guess that's the one thing I will not be missing--80-something degree weather before noon...  But I tend to romanticize things that needn't be romanticized, and later, I'll probably drone on about how much I miss the quaint little town of College Station *gag*

I know this, and every Texan knows this: this +100`F weather is not something to miss.  It is probably something that I have learned to avoid from now on for the rest of my life as long as I can help it.  Texas heat is no fucking joke.  Despite this well-known fact, I will find ways to sentimentally look back on how my steering wheel used to scald my palms everyday after school or how I really miss overhearing ignorant hicks talk about how being gay is a choice while my sweat pools down the small of my back while looking for my car in a huge, endless, steaming-hot Wal-Mart lot.

The weird thing is that I have such an exciting next 2 weeks ahead of me--I'll see the Grand Canyon, visit the San Diego Zoo and Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and finally settle in the Bay Area and go 'sploring with A until he leaves me on July 7th for Dallas again.  Yet all I can think about is how much I'll miss family and friends, and how much work grad school will be for the next 2, 3 years.  I am aware that I am being ungrateful for this wonderful opportunity to travel and not kicking ass at life, but I can't help but keep mourning the end of my life that my parents have made for me in Texas.  I sure as shit better get over my weepies before getting to Flagstaff, because I don't want this trip's possibilities get punctured and obliterated by my whiny homesickness.  Who knows when I'll get to go on a road trip like this again?

Just a week ago, it actually hit me:  I'm moving away, like, thousands of miles away from my parents.

I cried today with my mom because she gave me 60 bucks "just because," and she also claims (iow IT'S NOT TRUE bc I totally try to give her bone-brittling, lung-collapsing hugs everyday) that I only hug her when she gives me cash monies.  I didn't really cry about the random bestowal of money but because she works hard for the money...  so hard for the money.  So hard for the money, that I better treat her right.

But real talk--my parents work their arms off of their sockets at our donut shop, and I will forever be trippin on my Asian guilt trip since Asian parents provide for their children until they have a career (read: late 20's).  I guess those 60 bucks were like a simple trickle of dough they've been feeding me since birth until college and now grad school, and it hurts my pride to know I can't provide anything for them for at least another 3-5 years because of my useless lib. arts degrees.

I guess no matter how confusing my experience has been as a Korean-American, filial piety always sneaks up on me at times like this...

You know that joke in which you stand behind someone and ask him/her to start listing the months of the year?  "January, February...  MARCH," and then you knee them in their ass?  BECAUSE THEY'VE ASKED YOU TO MARCH INTO THEIR ASS.

Well, I just had a flashback to middle school when I used that joke on my mom, because tonight she asked me to massage her shoulders while she slept while standing like a horse, and here was another perfect opportunity to get her.  Why and how did I use that joke on a mom who didn't know English 10 years ago (she doesn't know much English now either)?

Hot Springs, AR, 1997:
After my sister got me real good with her knee upstairs minutes ago, my mom and I were both in the kitchen and I went up to her at the stove and said:

me:  Hey Mom, start counting the months in English, starting from January. Hehehe.
Mom:  Leave me the hell alone; I'm busy.  *stirs mystery Korean stew in pot*
me:  Okay, okay, I'll just start counting for you: "January, February...  MARCH!"  *my knee in her ass*

This was before she adopted a sense of humor to get her through the times when my sister moved out TWICE during high school.  I should've known better...