January 29, 2012
"Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."

— William Faulkner, Nobel Prize for Literature Speech

9:30pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ayFbfLeD
Filed under: writing 
August 2, 2011
The Catharsis of Writing

     There were many times over these past few weeks when I realized I hadn’t written anything in quite some time. I suppose being too wrapped up in my own personal affairs and “busy” lifestyle had me give up on writing for a while. Yet, each period in which I have ceased this activity has been filled with mostly bleak days without that wonderful satisfaction one gets after completing a paragraph, or finishing a lengthy diatribe. The rhythm of sentences, commas, semicolons, and all other elements of grammar/punctuation—not to discount the personal favorite em dash—had become a pleasant memory, but were no longer part of the daily routine. For the first time in my life, I began to understand what it felt like to come home from work too tired to write about the miserable day. I had forgotten how cathartic this medium truly is; writing seems to be as human as eating, breathing, sleeping, and all other biological functions. I’m not sure if this is true for all people, but I’ve found that writing allows be to get a better perspective on just about everything. And yes, this is just about the most pretentious essay ever written on this tumblr. It’s a smug satisfaction I suppose.

            Even thought I have probably damaged my credibility with the flowery and highly idealistic prose above, I still believe that writing—in the simplest sense—helps us get over the fact that life often sucks. Words provide a direct channel for us to communicate our emotions. The written word allows this process to be even more intimate and direct. At the moment, I am in the midst of many things, some troubling, and some unbelievably wonderful. The challenge seems to be balancing these two sets of things out; thinking about what sucks when you should be having fun does not fare well. So, with this short message, I return to this tumblr once more for an ongoing experiment: A quest to see whether or not writing can actually improve one’s daily life. Natalie Goldberg seems to think so…

1:25am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ay7p6-CN
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: writing life 
April 30, 2011
Surviving “Hell Week”

I don’t think I ever really knew what it was like to be “busy” until this past week. Typically, I would hear this term, think for a moment, and then assume that whoever was saying that they were “so busy”, was probably just exaggerating. I still stand by this belief for some people who like to moan about having a lot of work, but more and more I’m starting to realize that people really are “busy”.  For a Junior in high school, most of the year is filled with testing ad infinitum: SAT’s during the spring, AP exams in May, and for some SAT II’s in June. I typically don’t think it very fair to compare our academic plight to any historical group, but I would say that students today have it rough—although we have food, shelter, and don’t need to wait on bread lines. Indeed, I often need to stop for a few moments to realize how well-off the greater North Jersey area is. 

Nonetheless, I am one of those unexceptional students who does not deal with a large amount of work well. The panic mechanism tends to kick in, the Apocalypse seems near, and everything becomes murky and uncertain. There is an infantile instinct that exists which causes me to forget everything I have been taught over my long  academic, and instead intellectually curl up into the fetal position. This is why I tend to write extremely mediocre essays on any sort of standardized exam. When it comes to mathematics, I seem to forget some of the most basic principles ; the calculator becomes my brain while my bean rests in a vegetable-like state. Yet, I will then proceed to go home and do some scribbling of my own which tends to be infinitely better than the one I composed on the exam. It is for the reasons presented above that I dread any sort of standardized exam. They lack character, and feel terribly Orwellian in nature. In fact, the word “standardized” seems to be almost offensive on its own. But, I do take some solace in the fact that in the grand scheme of things, the ability to actually write meaningful pieces, and not automaton cookie-cutter essays, will help me tremendously. 

But honest, I don’t like to complain about too much work.

The chief reason I feel terrible complaining about work is that it makes me feel weak and terribly inept . I am surrounded—in most situations— by an exceptional group of very hard working individuals who have enough honor to be jovial even when they are on the verge of collapse due to a heavy work load. In general, I try to hold myself to a higher standard whenever possible. This seems to be a good policy, as it has helped me advance over the years.  I find that some of the finest work is produced when people have way too much on their plates. This goes against the myth that seems to exist in our heads which says that if we had more free time, then we would be able to finally do X, or write Y. Stress can, in some cases, be a great creative influence. At other times it can be the catalyst to a nervous break down. You know that you’re doing good work when 1) you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and 2) you’re scared that you are about to fail miserably. Not very comforting, but it’s the god’s honest truth.

So, I suppose this little piece marks my return to writing for a while. The notion that the written word, and the composition of it, allows for a cathartic experience is very true. I feel infinitely better now that I was able to sit down and string some words together.Natalie Goldberg is correct in her book Writing Down The Bones when she says that it is necessary to write everyday—no matter how crumby the composition comes out to be. Just as a small aside, I highly recommend that anyone reading this run out and buy a copy of Writing Down The Bones. It is one of the best books on writing in existence, with exception to Stephen King’s excellent On Writing. 

And as one last note, I must take a moment to thank Merlin Mann of 43 Folders for giving an excellent talk on being scared shitless. My week would have been hell without his humor and reassurance:

“Scared Shitless”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk0hSeQ5s_k

9:03am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ay4k64qH
Filed under: AP SAT high school work writing merlin mann hotdogsladies 
September 30, 2010
P.G. Wodehouse

It’s often fun to think back to the person  who first turned you on to a life long passion. Most people cite their parents as the source of common hobbies like baseball or soccer, but sometimes we stumble upon things on our own ; a sort of serendipitous experience that blossoms into one of the most fantastic human emotions—passion. In my case, this life long passion was started after I read my very first book by English author P.G. Wodehouse (pronounced “wood house”), who penned some 90 books, as well as a number of short stories and plays. Reading his work today, Wodehouse’s unique voice is as witty and humorous as ever. The comical hijinks of Bertram Wooster, one part of Wodehouse’s duo Jeeves and Wooster, are still incredibly funny and relevant to the much evolved modern sense of humor. Great comedy does not go out of date, or out of print for that matter—a large number of Wodehouse’s books are still available in print. Among them, his Jeeves and Wooster stories and novels are by far the most popular, The Code of The Woosters particularly, followed by his novels and short stories set at Blandings Castle. It is a body of work that is so vast, so widespread, and so prodigious, that no other author to my knowledge (not even Stephen King), has come anywhere near the level of output and quality that Mr. Pelham Greenville Wodehouse managed to achieve in his lifetime.


Wodehouse’s incredible life spanned some 93 years, beginning on the 15 of October, 1881, and coming to an end on February 14, 1975. I would consider such longevity an achievement by its own merit, but Wodehouse’s career as an author produced 70 some-odd years of wonderful writing. He was a man who very seldom felt the need to kick his feet up and relax, and much preferred an exhaustive daily routine which focused on his life’s passion, writing. In a way, Wodehouse wrote in order to escape the realities of the world he lived in. This was especially the case during the late 1930’s when World War Two was raging, and Wodehouse immersed himself in his Jeeves novels, producing one of his finest works, The Code of The Woosters (1938). Here and there, he would mention some topical world issues, such as when Bertie describes Roderick Spode in Code of The Woosters with “His gaze was keen and piercing. I don’t know if you have ever seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with their fiery words on the occasion of opening a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of.” This sort of mention was about as far into matters as Wodehouse cared to delve, and in general he decided to avoid the true evils of the world. For him, the worlds he created were the perfect place to spend his time, where there were no Fascists trying to take over the planet, but just the adventures of Bertie Wooster.

When I try and introduce the works of P.G. Wodehouse to people I know, the first words out of my mouth are “Do you remember that Jeeves character from the search engine?”, and most will pause for  a moment and remember that funny looking butler from askjeeves. Granted, this is a poor way to introduce the world of Wodehouse to the average person, but it at least gives you something to work with. I then go on further to explain that the character Jeeves is actually part of a very large catalogue of Jeeves and Wooster stories written by and English fellow with kind of a funny name, P.G. Wodehouse. By this point, most stop paying attention because most do not enjoy talking about books that are not written by either J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. This is a sad state of affairs on its own, but that is not what this piece is about. The concept of the duo is really quite simple ; Bertie Wooster is a rich, careless English playboy who is kept in check by his venerable butler Jeeves while he participates in a number of hilarious adventures and misunderstandings. Simple, yes, but incredibly versatile and durable at the same time. This explains why Wodehouse was able to write so many short stories and novels using these iconic characters, while at the same time delivering a fresh, brilliant story every time. Even some of Wodehouse’s worst work (which there is very little of), is better than many other failed attempts at humor in the 20th century.

Nearly ever person I’ve ever talked to about writing seems to share the same obsession in finding out what an author’s routine is like. We like to think that there is some method to all of this, and that sheer genius and creativity is not the only factor. Many wonder what secret sauce, or what magical pen and stationary combination an author used that made his or her words so beautiful and affective. The wise eventually learn that there is not secret, and that the only method proven to work time and time again is to write as much as possible. Wodehouse followed this method to an extreme. Still, there were things that  Wodehouse did that certainly set him apart from other authors. Take his time consuming process of drafting a “scenario”, consisting of a careful roadmap for the eventual novel, which he’d often create before he wrote even a single word of what would become the final draft. This allowed Wodehouse to produce novels that had many seemingly unrelated and insignificant events all come together at the conclusion of a work. It’s this sort of magic thing that happens in a Wodehouse novel,thanks to  an incredibly well-thought out plot.

The affect of Wodehouse’s wittily crafted comedic prose can be seen in many of Britain’s finest authors and entertainers. Douglas Adams, who penned the hilarious Hitchhiker’s Guide  series, was profoundly influenced by Wodehouse, one time saying “What Wodehouse writes is pure word music…he is the greatest musician of the English language, and exploring variations of familiar material is what musicians do all day.” Actor Stephen Fry, who once played Wodehouse’s character Jeeves on the BBC television program Jeeves and Wooster has said “…one of the gorgeous privileges of reading P.G. Wodehouse is that he makes us feel better about ourselves because we derive a sense of personal satisfaction from the laughter mutually created.” It seems then, with such a profound impact on literature in this century— as well as his own—that Mr. Pelham Greenville Wodehouse has very deservingly earned his spot in the great pantheon of literary achievement and excellence. Thanks for all of those laughs, Plum.

—Steven P. Rodriguez

9:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ay18gIAg
Filed under: P.G. Wodehouse authors books jeeves writing stevenp stevenprodriguez 
May 12, 2010
My Apologies—Update on things

I think at some point, every person who runs a blog, or a pseudo-blog, like the one we have here, will write a post explaining why they have stopped posting. I’ve always thought of it as being  a lame practice, but now here I am writing one. 

The main reason I’ve stopped posting is because I have been swamped with work in recent weeks, and I’ve tried my very best, like that little engine that could, to make it up the mountain. All along, I knew that if I stopped I’d never make it up and begin to role backwards.

HOWEVER,

Tomorrow, I  will be attending the UNA-USA Model UN conference, in New York city, at the United Nations. Typically, these sorts of things are a bore, and it is not worth discussing, but I think it would be interesting to journal the experience. Granted, not all of it is that journal-able, but I will glue together bits and pieces that are interesting. Then again, I’m a boring man, so what I think is interesting is probably less compelling than that junk you put on your toast every morning :)

4:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ayZN4I4
Filed under: model un life blogs writing 
May 4, 2010
"It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work is not only convenient but unavoidable."

— Tennessee Williams

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(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: life theater authors writing 
March 18, 2010
The Short Story

I don’t exactly remember how this started, but all the sudden I found myself wanting to write a short story. Maybe I had been reading some David Sedaris, or maybe it was “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole that got me started. Looking at what I have down now, close to 2,000 words, I can see the heavy influence from “A Confederacy of Dunces” . My main character is similar to Ignatius J. Reilly, in the sense that he lives with his mother and feels like he is surrounded by fools.  As per the advice of Stephen King, I won’t go into the details of the story before it is finished, but I’ll post a small excerpt here. My goal is for a story around 10 pages, or something like 7,000 words. Don’t know if it will be any good, or whether I will meet this commitment, but I like pounding on the keyboard. Makes nice sounds. 

 

         Chester Leone’s six  hours of peace came to an end when the clock struck five a.m., and the raucous sound of the city’s trash collection trucks awoke him. He was dressed in his blue pin striped PJ’s, fuzzy gray slippers, and a night cap that had the words “St. Abundius Preparatory School” embroidered onto its front. For five minutes, he just sat up in his bed mentally preparing himself for another hellish day in academia. Outside the window of his apartment were the usual sights; the weird old cat lady buttering her toast, the rotten kids waiting for the bus, and of course the African-American couple arguing publicly in the street over something or the other. It was a very strange assortment of things to wake up to, but it was, to say the least, very unique. Chester often thought that he was in some vast, expansive mental hospital with all of these precocious characters in his small neighborhood. As if some P.H.D type had set up a massive experiment that put all of these crazies into one area, contained and isolated from the rest of the world. But somehow Chester got put in this cage on accident. It was a sort of “Truman Show” element that seemed to be the only logical answer; Chester supposed this element governed his life and accounted for all of his failure.  Nonetheless, it was the life he chose to lead.
            At 5:10, Chester walked over to the cramped kitchen area of his apartment. His slippers stuck as he walked across the cheap linoleum floor.  The countertop was furnished with the usual appliances; a microwave oven, an old-style pop-up chrome toaster, and a percolator coffee pot. He first greeted the coffee pot by replacing its soggy filter with a new one, and soon shoveled some Choc full o’Nuts coffee grinds into it. The potent aroma of cheap coffee provided the perfect environment for Chester to start thinking about what to eat. His white-washed cabinets were filled with all sorts of popular “5 minute” breakfast solutions he had seen on TV so many times in the morning.  There was the granola bar type products, the oatmeal, the cereal, and the stupid pop-tart. He cared very little for all of these and always felt like a complete fool after having been convinced into buying them in the first place. That was life though, he thought, just one giant, phony commercial.

A small excerpt of the short story I’m working on. Don’t hurt yourself, I don’t know if it is any good. Consult your doctor. 

10:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZHD6ayRIgNA
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: writing 
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