Day 12 - 7:36 am - word count: 17,860 (crap!)

Yesterday, I got stuck in that writerly way....

So, I did some research and I sorta got unstuck but now I’m sorta just writing aimlessly until I find my way… it’s very uncommitted…

I learned a lot about the 70s though or rather I was reminded of a lot of the 70s which facilitated a few openings and connections for me. It’ll be interesting to see where I go today. Especially since another excerpt is being critiqued in workshop today. (!)

I don’t think I mentioned it earlier but I did bring a few books with me to serve as guides during my residency: John Irving’s Cider House Rules, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River and Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. ACA also has a pretty good library – I picked up Calvino’s Italian Folktales and Geek Love by... ?

I read a bit of these books right before I go to bed and last night I picked up Middlesex and paged through it. That book is fascinating to me. His way of maintaining that first person narrative is provocative and fascinating to me. I want to stay with the narrator, Cal, the whole way through even though I don’t like him all the time and I don’t like his story some of the time…

So, I’m just leafing through and I wonder if there is a small bio about the author at the back of the book. There’s nothing, just the end of the book. But, halfway down I see the words “New Smyrna Beach”. Three of the characters retire to new Smyrna Beach. The narrator informs us earlier that the family were on the run from the Turks in the 20s. They left their small island town by way of a harbor town called Smyrna on a boat headed for America.

I can’t help but wonder if Eugenides did a residency here.

Jessica’s reading was a success yesterday. There was a good sized audience and there were actually some Filipinos who came all the way from Orlando. She read some poetry and then she read from Dream Jungle. We all went out to dinner at this Italian restaurant. I still smell and taste garlic…. Yummmmmm….

Ok, I have to get out of this and write…. Goal for today: at least 20,000 words.

FRACK! I locked myself out of my room!!!!