Since last I posted, in the month of May 2005, I've graduated. It was a rather anticlimactic graduation, even the part where I bound two copies of 120+ pages of my work. A Masters degree in creative writing is a somewhat furtive passage, a convenient excuse to stay home many a night and day, but hardly something that will change the course of your life once you're done the way, say, an MBA or doctorate in psychology would. That's not to undercut the past two years of work. It's just to say, well, it feels much more like a beginning than an ending. I've got some stories I'm not ashamed of, or not entirely ashamed of. I've read my work aloud a whopping two times and feel like I'm building courage to do so more frequently. I have about half of a short story collection written and am ready to focus some of my effort towards getting published. Da DUM.
What sticks with me most, though, is the blurb in The Onion: Masters In Writing Fails to Create Master of Writing. "Despite completing all the requirements for a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing...Jeremy Craig Kessler somehow failed to become a master of creative writing, sources reported Monday. 'Mr. Kessler's short stories show little more than excellence in spelling and grammar,' said literary agent David Conrad. 'Somehow Kessler advanced to the very highest level of the academic program and has only an average body of work to show for it.' Photocopies of Kessler's short story collection can be purchased at jckessler.com."
In other news, the weather's fine and May is a lovely month to walk the dog outdoors. And then there's a business to get off the ground if Manhattan commercial real estate would cooperate, income to consider (like, how to get some), a boatload of triathlon training to keep up with and a healthcare bill to dispute. I've also become the co-manager of my dog run, don't ask me how. What I want to do most is stay home and hide, because somehow the days are still too full, always too full.
