What's on your list this break?

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Hey everyone.I'm sure we're all super excited and happy that Fall semester is almost over. Break is coming! Unfortunately, we still have to live through the agony of final exams, which are coming up soon. That, however, doesn't mean we can't start planning for our break now. Some of you will probably travel to great places while others won't be able to. For those of you who won't be  traveling, you can still visit different places (and worlds; isn't that great?) by reading books. Yes, we have heard that many times but it  is very true, is it not?I thought it would be a good idea to create a list of recommended books. This will help  those of us who aren't sure on what to read at least have a place to start.So, what books do you all plan on reading during Winter break?  If you're too busy for books, what books have you read that you would recommend? It would be great if you would include the author of the book and a small description of what the book is about.

Thanks for the Ideas, Amazon

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All of us have been afflicted with writers block at one time or another. It sucks. Weeks of over-caffeination mixed with imaginational stagnation leads to a downward spiral of keyboard smashing and moleskine burning. However, you don't have too look far for inspiration. Actually, your friendly corporation down the block has some wonderful ideas for characters, just in case you need some help. People say literature is dead, but I think we can bring it back to life with the following character sketches of the modern consumer.I ran across these archetype personalities while perusing Amazon on Black Friday. They're meant for shoppers who are having a hard time trying to find gifts for beloved ones. Said shopper is supposed to label their potential recipient as one of Amazon's helpfully re-invented American demographic categories. Then, Amazon will tell our intrepid yet uninventive shopper what that "character" wants. This prefabrication of character and desire provides great fodder for short stories. Wink wink.Take a gander at the cast of the next great American novel (descriptions are taken directly from Amazon.com):1. The College Student - When newly fledged adults leave the nest and head to the dorms, there's a lot they need to get their lives off the ground: home basics, college survival guides, and, of course, a few toys to make the flight enjoyable. (One of their suggestions is to buy your college bound kid a Guinness Book of World Records. Yes, I haven't touched one of those since fourth grade [Pamela Anderson: most downloaded female <you know what I'm talking about.>])2. The Dude - You know the one: the beer-drinker who would rather change his oil than escort a chick to the ballet. Here's a heap of gift ideas for the guy's guy: action movies, gourmet meats, gadgets, and more. (mmm MEAT)3. The Glamour Girl - Now this is a girl who knows what she wants. Lucky for you, we know what she wants too. Impress her with your up-to-the-minute taste by selecting one of these triple-t hottt gift ideas. Cool by-product: you're awarded instant fashion cred! (Be sure to buy at least two sizes too small to reinforce heroine chic! Ha! Ha!)4. The Geek - To be a geek is now très chic. Gone are the days of pocket protectors (who needs a pen when they have a PDA?) and horn-rimmed glasses. High-tech brainiacs now rule the world--and we've got some gifts to keep them entertained in their downtime. (I like how this implies Geeks must be entertained when they're not working on something... perhaps they turn violent if their geekery is not properly channeled.)5. The Grandpa - Whether your granddad's a wise old soul or a wiseacre, we've got plenty of gift suggestions to bring a smile to his face. (He can whittle away his last days playing with a new bathrobe or staring uncomprehendingly at a brand new genealogy software pack.)Whatever, you get the point. Write a story about a computer wise grandpa with a geeky wife and a community college bound, 45 year old son. The son goes to college and meets the Dude, who seduces him with gourmet meats. Meanwhile, the Geeky Grandma gets so bored with herself that she makes a uranium enrichment centrifuge in their basement with the help of a glamourous slave-girl. There, writers block broken!

And yet another prompt

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Hello everyone. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.  Since today is Black Friday, I'm sure most of you are out shopping. Alas, I was not brave enough this year to wait in line for hours and to bump into someone every other step. So, I'll just experience the crushing crowd (and the impatience I would have had waiting in line) when you write about your experience today.Here's the prompt: Write about anything out of the ordinary that happened during your Black Friday shopping experience (I'm sure there's lots that occur). You can just be a bystander looking at all the mayhem, if you want. If nothing bizarre occurred then still write about your Black Friday experience. Try writing it as  a song, a sonnet, or anything else creative. Have fun with it.

You and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

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We all have bad days: they can ruin our mood for a couple of minutes, for hours, for the entire day, or even longer. Some bad days are worse than others. So, choose the worst day you've had recently (go back a couple of days if you have to. If you're one of those lucky people bad luck can't seem to find, then go back even further.) Try writing a poem or a short paragraph of that day. However, don't write a point by point of everything that happened as if it was a report. Instead write an exaggeration of everything bad that could have happened to you. For example, instead of loosing your keys you could have left your cell on the bus and realized it when you got off. You start chasing the bus, only to slip on a puddle in front of a large crowd. So, the poem or paragraph (more if you want) should be something like "this is what happened but my day could have been so much worse". It'll make you laugh and get over your bad day... hopefully. If not, try some chocolates.

Google Translate and the Infirm of NYC

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Let me start out by letting you know I've changed my sleeping habits this week in an effort to stimulate better writing. For most of the semester I've been operating under a 1 pm - 6 am waking schedule. This was fine, up until the daylight savings switch- 4 hours of sunlight a day does not work. Now I have rigged my alarm so I wake up at 5:30 am and fall asleep at a much more reasonable midnight.I've always heard that writing directly after awakening is the way to do it, and naturally, I assumed this was bullshit invented by some old fart who can't wake up after 8 am because of their arthritic bowel. It turns out that this is not bullshit. My internal critic is nice and quiet, and only gives me necessary advice on grammar. I can take my time and don't feel pressured to impress anyone, since everyone else is asleep, and I can always delete what I've written before they wake up (take that!)Anyways, this new temporal space I've inhabited for the past week has given me some new insights into New York City:1. There is no one in the West Village before 11 am, save for one Chinese woman who feeds the pigeons on 7th avenue.2. There are lots of old women who walk alone with wobbly legs. They putz around with those little wire land-carts for support. Often I wonder why there are so many lonely old women in New York City. I'm assuming their husbands died before they got the chance to. It must be a depressing life, especially in a city full of so many young, spry little bastards like myself running around.3. Kimmel is completely empty, and has amazing pastries and donuts before like 9 am.Ok, so I guess these are the only three things I've learned while waking up early. So to fill up the rest of the post, I'm going to plug in famous first lines into Google Translate.Lolita (English To Turkish To Basque To English)Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. --> Lolita, my life, light my fire back.

Ulysses  (English To Arabic To Finnish To Chinese To English)
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. --> Stately plump Bokemuli roots, and became the first peaceful, foam bowls, more than a mirror, the barbed wire and.
The Sound and the Fury (English To Arabic To Chinese To English [weirdly enough this managed to keep most of its meaning.])
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. --> The fence, between the curling flower spaces, I can not see them beating.
Okay, it seems as if Google has fine tuned it's algorithm since the last time I tried this- these are not as ridiculous as I had expected. Comment if you get any good ones!

The Raven starts filming

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Hello all! I hope each and every one of you had a good lunch today. Big day, Monday. I hope you had a hearty sandwich.How I wanted to title this post something like "The Raven takes flight" or "The Raven gets its wings". I had enough self control not to use these, you see, but once I get hold of lip-smacking, cheesy ideas I really can't stop or rid myself of the cheese. Someone get me a wet paper towel.So this is news to me: The Raven, undoubtedly Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem (and made more famous by The Simpson's stellar Halloween Special version), is being made into a movie starring John Cusack as Poe. Poet + Thriller = ?!Who knows?! I'm kind of excited (read: oooooo). John Cusack of the Lovely Voice playing a decidedly interesting (creepy? married a child--his first cousin?) individual!It's all fiction, of course. They're not even trying to tell anything near what happened in the writer's actual life. But who wouldn't want to watch Edgar Allan Poe running around town trying to catch a murderer? That's the kind of Hollywood stylization I can get behind.

It's... it's...it's the start of---of what?

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I, sadly, can't write poems that will leave everyone gobsmacked. I enjoy writing stories; I'm sure some of you like prose more than poetry as well. Well, I'm going to make your day if you do. I'm starting a  round-robin story; that  means you should all add lines (yes, as much or as little as you want. I would recommend writing more than a line everyone.) to the story to make it successful. Try it; make the story as grim, wacky, dramatic, etc... as possible. Later, we can post the entire story and see how great it is.Here we go:Marybelle huffed in annoyance as she hiked up the never ending material of her white gown. Blocks ago, she had thrown  her matching heels away. Grumbling under her breath, she crossed the street to the bus stop. A man walking by stared at her oddly."What? You've never seen a lady walking in her wedding dress?" She shouted at him. Eyes widening, he crossed the street hastily."Jerk," she muttered under her breath and rudely gestured at his back. So, what if she was walking barefooted in her  wedding gown? Who the hell cared if her hair was no longer in a stylish high bun and that her mascara was dripping down her face?Marybelle silently cursed at the people who stared at her like a zoo animal as they passed by. Finally, the bus came. Patiently, she waited for people to get off and ignored their curious faces.  Grabbing her ballooning skirts, Marybelle stepped into the bus.Well? Why don't you all continue and let's see where this goes?

Pay Attention to This: Brad Neely

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Brad Neely is a lot of things. Wikipedia describes him as a comic book artist, although he also writes short stories, creates animations and is probably most famous for his satirical alternative soundtrack to the first Harry Potter movie, Wizard People, Dear Reader. (Protip: This is actually worth it.) Most of his animated work centers around an rich, alternate universe of characters he has developed over the course of several series of animations. I first discovered Neely through his Baby Cakes series, which examines the world through the blunt eyes of a poetic "playboy man-child" named Baby Cakes. The animations are accompanied by epic narrations from Baby Cakes diary, as he comments on love, death, happiness, friendship, therapy, dads, vodka and the Brain Fugglers. (They will fuggle the shit out of your brain.) Another popular series of his is the Professor Brothers. Through the mouths of two incompetent professors, Neely reimagines the histories of Sodom and Gomorrah, JFK, and William Harrison's presidency, amongst other things.These animations seem only tangentially related to creative writing, although I think something can be learned from Neely's narrative voice he supplies to his characters. Baby Cakes' naivety produces all sorts of creative definitions for the mundane objects we take for granted. The Professor Brothers communicate a desperate passion for history, despite the fact that they often hardly understand it. I've often found Neely's work to be useful to examine when my ideas become stale. The free association inherent in the stories and dialogue almost never fails at sparking some new idea. Anyways, if you dig his sense of humor and style, check more of his short stories and videos.

Personal essays, anyone?

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Hi, everyone. I’m Farzana. I’m ecstatic to be a writer for this little blog. I hope you visit often and make sure you harass your friends to visit the blog as well. I’ll be ever so grateful.Well, now that we have dispensed with introductions, let me as you a question: do you like reading or writing personal essays? If not, I hope you continue to read because then you will benefit from it  (meaning you'll increase your knowledge on this topic). If you decide not to give me a few minutes of your time, then I hope you like my other posts better! For those of you who do have some positive feelings towards personal essays, I have a few tips on writing personal essays that I have learned from class and from guest speaker Paula Darrow, the articles editor of Self magazine (she’s the editor of the “self-expression" section).  I thought I should  pass on some of the knowledge I gained on to you.Writing a personal essay:-A personal essay can usually range from 800-2,000 words.- To pick a topic, you should start with a memory--- one that sticks out the most to you because it most likely affected you in some way. Your topic shouldn’t be your best experience or your worst experience. It should be an everyday experience with a larger significance behind it.- Your personal essay should not be an overview of your life (Naturally, you’re not write an autobiography here, are you?) The reason for not including your life from birth to present in a personal essay? Probably because you won’t be detailed enough in the amount of words a personal essay usually contains---that’s one reason among others.- You want your piece to be familiar yet surprising to the readers. I doubt readers will want to continue if they know what’s going to happen. For your essay, you don’t want to choose a situation that is predictable. Paula Darrow mentioned that being counter intuitive is a good thing, the more counter intuitive the better! In your essay, it’s good if you have a shift in perspectives and have some type of epiphany (I’m guessing it’s okay if you don’t; it depends on your story).- In terms of voice, it should be conversational.-  Also, it’s good to set up scenes and characters so the readers can imagine them and relate to them. It’s quite similar to fiction writing in regards to this.For those of us who prefer reading rather than writing them, check outwww.salon.com (it’s the life section).

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Film Now Casting for Oskar Schell Role

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Jonathan Safran Foer addicts can get their daily Foer-fill from the knowledge that the Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close movie is moving forward in pre-production and currently casting the part of Oskar Schell.Castings posters have been spotted in Foer's home turf of Park Slope Brooklyn looking for 9-13 year old Caucasian boys, so be quick to alert your younger brothers, cousins, and nephews of the news, or maybe you can even try to pass yourself off as kid for a shot at the part.The film is going to be directed by Stephen Daldry who has also directed novel-to-movies like The Reader and The Hours, and is rumoured to be starring Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks. Naturally there's the question as to whether Elijah Wood or Liev Schreiber will make appearances, as both did incredible jobs in Foer's last film adaptation Everything is Illuminated.Since Foer's first two novels are making their way into film, I can only wonder if Eating Animals will be as well, using a more documentary style? Freshmen in Foer's seminar, please do some investigative journalism and get back to us?

Contest Winner

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Congratulations to Sam Selinger, the winner of our first blog poetry contest, "Steal a Little." His poem, "Grace is a Figures Imitation of the Formless" was inspired by the poetry of James Wright. Grace is a figure’s imitation of the formless. Sam SelingerA woman runs though the windwith cupped hands.Gulls rise out of her waylike ashen kites calmly.With wet sand she shapes a cathedral.This is a silent film. Her hands are white gestures.The silk machinery of her face reorders itself,and crinkles into laughter.The ocean is a gray rhythm in the corner.

Thank you to everyone who submitted! We received a number of excellent poems this week; it was extremely difficult to choose just one winner. If your poem was not selected this week, we hope you will continue to submit to the blog and the print journal. We are very excited to read your villanelle's next week!

 

Welcome Writers!

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Congratulations to our new blog writers! The following lovely people will now be joining the West 10th team and keeping you updated on all things literary: Steff Yotka, Michael Chimento, Seamus Mullin, Cate Mahoney, and Farzana Khaleda.In other blog news, we received a number of submissions to the first blog contest--"steal a little"--and are in the process of selecting a winner. The winning poem will be posted on the blog on Friday. In the meantime, you should all get started on our next challenge, a villanelle (in honor of Dylan Thomas' birthday). The deadline for villanelle submissions is Monday, November 1st.

Deadline for Blog Writing Apps

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Hi everyone! We have decided to extend the application deadline for blog applications to Sunday, October 17th at noon. The application can be found here: blogapplication. Email applications to our Community Board Director, Laura Stephenson at  lcs331@nyu.edu.Also, don't forget to submit to our bi-weekly poetry contest. The deadline for the first prompt--"Steal a Little"--is monday, October 18th at 11pm!

Apply to Join the Masthead!

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West 10th is looking for several dedicated blog writers. As a blog writer you will be responsible for posting to the blog at least once a week on topics ranging from local readings to your favorite new writers. The West 10th blog is brand-new so we are looking for people who will be able to bring new ideas to the table. With your application please include a brief writing sample in the style in which you would write on our blog. Also please feel free to include suggestions or topics you would like to pursue as a blog writer. Application Deadline: Friday, October 15th. Application Form: blogapplication. All applications should be emailed to our community board head, Laura Stephenson at lcs331@nyu.edu.
Also, don't forget to keep submitting to the blog poetry contest!

A Life Without Language

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In this Radiolab podcast we are told the story of Ildefonso, a grown deaf man who has never had language. Susan Schaller describes teaching Ildefonso and bringing him into the world of communication. For the rest of the show, hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich take us through a sequence of explorations of how humans use language to organize ourselves. Radiolab is a podcast that should be listened to religiously by anyone who is interested in the craft of storytelling. Other favorite episodes are Placebo, Numbers, and Stochasticity.

Hello world!

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WELCOME to the West 10th Blog! The Community Board of West 10th will be using this blog to keep you up-to-date on readings and events happening at the Creative Writer's House as well as at other venues around the city. Other exciting things you might find on the West 10th blog include reading suggestions, new books by cool people, favorite writers/artists, any other discoveries that our blog writers want to share, and--coming soon--a biweekly writing contest! If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to leave a comment and one of the community board editors will do their best to get back to you as soon as possible.