It’s roughly a month and a half now till I start the MFA program at Goucher. The program formally starts with the on-campus residency. I think I’m ready, although I still have a fair amount of reading to do before I feel like my brain will be full of enough literary journalism, memoir, biography, autobiography, crime writing, and general “true studies, well told,” to use CNF’s catch phrase. When I was last in Jersey I went to an “everything you can fit in this bag for $5” book sale, and among the titles I bought was Gay Talese’s Fame and Obscurity (1986 printing, I should add, the kind of musty book you pop a Benadryl before you read lest the decades-old dust ravage your sinuses). So now that’s on my stack.
Okay, so I’m doing a bunch of reading. Not enough writing, I think. Well, I have deadlines this week on a couple pieces, but I mean writing just to exercise my writing muscles. I journal every day, but most of the time that’s just me whining about my life (including a lot of cursing, I’m ashamed to say, but there’s no one to offend but me, and the doc is password-protected). I should probably try to make the journal a literary exercise as much as a free-form litany of complaints, anxieties and fears.
Then, as I’ve mentioned before, there is the logistical aspect, since it will be Ramadan and the days will be long and I will be getting up at around 4 a.m. and etc., etc., etc. And without a laptop I’m going to be working on how to write and access my documents, but someone recently recommended Dropbox to me, so if I don’t use thumb drives I will use that. Okay, everything’s to be all right. Just chill.
Ruth Nasrullah 