I am Student. Hear Me Type.

I Am Student

How Fiction  Life Works

The most well-thumbed book on my desk is 'How Fiction Works' by James Wood. A rather brilliant teacher gave it to me last year and it's quickly become the most useful text ever suggested. I even agree with the FT that it should find it's way onto 'every novel-lover's shelf' because I've used it for everything since. Even if not directly relevant, there's a little bit of inspiration that just leaks out of the pages. Maybe it's passion. Maybe it's the fact that I can't help but agree with much of what is said. Whatever it is, this book is sort of like my bible. 

Tomorrow, you see, I have a midterm. Balzac, Dickens, Flaubert - these are the great writers that I've somehow to analyse and assess and place into a coherent essay in one hour. The Black Sheep, Hard Times, Madame Bovary - these are the 'realist' texts that must be interpreted, word by word, sentence by sentence, metaphor by metaphor. So I'm reading James Wood and taking inspiration from the dog-eared pages that are almost as tea stained as the inside of my bright yellow mug. Flicking through, I've calmed down, the nerves are settled even though I'm woefully under prepared (having a weeks notice tends to do that to you). But this is no book review. As much as I love lauding the inky fingered answers that Wood gives us to the questionable relation between artifice and verisimilitude, I feel I should save that for another day when perhaps I have more interested readers.

No, this entry is about the fact that I am a student and reading this book whilst my thoughts collect like dregs of tea that's steeped too long, has reminded me again of how much I enjoy this. Thoughts connecting, drawing lines, curling like letters to make words; having nothing to distract you; being carried away by a stray idea and then returning to the original concept with a new perspective, a counter argument; feeling interested and being taken on a wild journey inside your own head. Brilliant. 

Sometimes I can just sit here, books open with their spines broken and pages straining shut but held open by strategically placed odds-and-ends (ie. tweezers, lumps of blu-tack, dry tea sachets), and think that actually, yeah being here in America is stressful in a way that's only just short of the IB, but I'm still doing what I love. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
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