A Good Effort Gone Bad: Excerpts

For 10 days, I tried Writing One (Usually Fictional) Thing Per Day. I made myself sit down at my computer and write something for ten straight minutes. This effort was in the same vein as the following efforts:

--Run Three Miles Per Day
--Bike to Work
--Practice Guitar
--Take Dance Class
--Read Proust

The above efforts have failed. The Write One (Usually Fictional) Thing Per Day effort has not necessarily failed, but it has yielded some odd results. I will excerpt them for you now.

* Day 1 *
The protagonist halts her best friend's wedding by almost fainting during the ceremony: "One of the bridesmaids takes me by the elbow and leads me to the smooth wooden pew, which feels like a cradle or a hollowed-out tree refined by the smoothest lathe and thousands of holy sittings. The wood is cool on my skin, and I rub my arms against it as if to draw off its mystical holiness; its stabilizing force; whatever magic comes from having been a tree first and a church fixture second. The wedding has stopped."

* Day 2 *
The protagonist survives a small hurricane: "I lie awake picturing the various scenarios: Oak tree crashes through window, pinions me to the bed. Oak tree crashes through roof, roof falls on my head. None of them are particularly promising. We are lost, I tell my inanimate objects, lost.... the dresser seems to understand, with its wise, deep drawers. Lost."

* Day 3 *
The writer gets discouraged: .."wondering why I ever thought this fiction thing was a good idea, seeing how people give it up so easily. It is manic, wrought with nothingness.... impure.... from the cells of the brain that give off a manic gaseous panic... "

* Day 4 *
The protagonist is a cliched poor, uneducated child: "Now the heat is gone again, and our dad is gone too. My baby sister and I curl up under the covers, making them into a tent that fills with our hot breath. I do not want to go to school tomorrow because I haven�t done my social studies homework."

* Day 5 *
The protagonist gets philosophical: "What if, instead of remembering things a bit at a time, we remembered them not at all and then all at once? What if we never looked back for fifty years, and then when we turned seventy and our sweet thoughts turned from the present to the past, starting from the day we were born? And from then on, until you died, you lived in memories. And not even everything all back, a replay, but just the things that would�ve constituted your memories before."

* Day 6 *
The writer, normally shy and unassuming, actually worries about her party persona: "I think I may come on too strong now at parties. Like Chandler in job interviews. I think you�re just supposed to smile and look pretty."

* Day 7 *
The protagonist has severe problems with memories: "The years reeled back, dragging along her by the hair, and she cried and cried and cried."

* Day 8 *
The writer envisions future as starving artist, loses hope:

the future is ours

I can almost see it, or wait -- I can see it and almost smell it...
the dirty,
smoke-soaked apartment
where I will live out the rest of my
20s. I
know what will happen.
I will move there,
poor,
and find an apartment
in a hellish corner of Hell�s Kitchen
or Spanish Harlem.
And I will sleep there
and cry every day
out of loneliness and fatigue
at being surrounded
by a crushing number of people

every single fucking day.

* Day 9 *
The protagonist is a cliched homeless person:

i�d jingle my cup more
but hell if you�d notice
your umbrella is open
and the rain runs right off
i would ask for a sandwich
but i don�t even want one
eating would make me
remember the hunger
and who wants to sit here
with an old sandwich wrapper
and remember the time
that mcdonald�s showed up.

* Day 10 *
The writer feels bitter and dumb:

bitter, party of one

okay that's it
thanks but i quit
i'm no deeper
than a doornail
you got me again
you say
'thanks for playing'
i just wanted to win
in-tell-ec-tual
beautiful
sweet proud and
tune-ful...
ain�t none of that
here;
that�s what you�ve
always
been

11/16/2003 07:48:48 PM

I remember reading Sassy magazine on the floor of Janelle's bedroom. We'd lie on our stomachs with a constellation of dog-eared teen magazines spread around us. (re-reading back issues never got old.)

Recently Sassy came up randomly in conversation ... just for the heck of it, I decided to see if anyone was selling any old issues on ebay. (It's a Sunday afternoon, okay?) Someone was indeed selling 28 issues. And I enjoyed this list of highlighted topics from the ebay seller's description. It goes to show you that the adolescent mind is all over the place, and really The Sassiest Boy in America can co-exist just fine with Israeli & Palestinian teens' views on the peace talks. I know SNL parodied the magazine's schizophrenia... but really, when I was reading it at 12 or 13, it just seemed like a pleasant mish-mash of Important Things.

1989 Issue Highlights:
#14 April - A 17 year old drug addict; Cliques; Spring Break; Peter DeLuise
#17 May - Debbie Gibson; Breathe; Myths about guys; female teen bodybuilder; Matthew Sweet
#20 October - River Phoenix; embarrassing menstrual stories
#21 November -Sassiest Colleges; modelling school dirt; New Kids on the Block
#22 December - Save the planet; Natalie Merchant

1990 Issue Highlights:
#23 February - Sassiest Girl in America; Beauty Pagents; Lenny Kravitz; rap music
#24 March - 2nd birthday issue; One Night Stand Prevention; They Might Be Giants
#25 April - 'Our writer becomes a Deadhead; Anorexia ruins family
#26 May - Johnny Depp; surfers
#27 June - Kate Pierson B-52; real story of fan mail; teen rapists tell why
#28 July - Michael Stipe, road trip
#29 August - Kip Winger; your body; how Eastern European teens live now
#30 September - James Marshall of Twin Peaks; Gangs = Sororities; Puppy farms
#31 October - Christian Slater; Queen Latifah; weird careers; Sassiest Boy in America
#32 November - Sonic Youth; 13 Foster Homes in 15 years; fun first dates
#33 December - Reader Produced Issue - Faith No More; teens fight for their rights

1991 Issue Highlights:
#37 April - R.E.M lyrics to Losing my Religion; Black debutante ball; who is killing horses?
#40 July � Hamburger U; Dumping a guy; Photo essay: "My retarded sister"
#41 August - Bill & Ted; our writer as a Gladiator; polygamist in America; long-distance boyfriend
#42 September � Beverly Hills 90210 cut out dolls; Entertainment poll; death of farming in U.S.
#43 October - SASSIEST BOY in America - Israeli & Palestinian teens tell why the peace talks won't work - Milla Jovovich on cover
#44 November - Jason Priestly WET; drugs killed our friend;
#45 December - Reader Produced Issue; holiday with family survival guide; fight sexism

1992 Issue Highlights:
#46 January � Sassiest Girl in America Contest; jealous boyfriends; Owls and logging
#47 February - inside the head of a teenage schizophrenic; 6 sex questions
#48 March � 90210; - Soundgarden; prom remembered; witchcraft
#49 April - Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love; A day with Miss America
#53 August � topless dancers tell why; guys remember their first sex experience

11/9/2003 10:57:53 AM

more: archives