i enrolled this semester in what i thought was a poetry workshop, but it turns out that it was a fiction workshop. there wasn't any other poetry workshops offered, and since i want to get into an mfa program i thought i should just stick with the fiction class.

my first story is hugely derivative of the books/ebooks/poets that i had been reading, i wasnt sure if it was something that i wanted to share because i felt like i borrowed too much. it was mostly an experiment to see how successfully i could write like this. i composed a lot of this on different drafts on my phone i think this story is a lot more "put together" in that sense

story1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/129532354/Professor-Xavier-is-a-Jerk?secret_password=1x5bn358gq5nn8iustmj



my second story i had less time to work with. w the first story i had the general idea of the story after the first day of class and didnt have to workshop the story until 6-7 weeks later. after that i had been working on my poetry manuscript etc. and didnt really think about fiction until i found out my workshop was in 2 weeks. i wasn't really sure how the story was going to turn out (at one point it was written in the 2nd person, in primarily future tense, at another it was in the form of a "liveblog") and i ended up with 2 or 3 notes in my phone on the story, no actual text, and so i holed myself up in a hotel all day and just wrote/felt anxiety/drank 40s until i was done. in this way i think the second story is less successful and i am less satisfied with it.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/134819529/johnkeats2k13?secret_password=xbrdivz0uoed820ds08



id appreciate comments/criticisms because a lot of times i feel a little "lost" about what's successful in my writing or not. i have a lot more experience writing fiction than i do poetry, but i feel like the traditional elements of short storys and fiction etc. aren't things that i am good at writing or enjoy to write, like plot, characters, dialogue, etc.

one thing i would want to point out beforehand is that writing in this way in terms of style is something that is "difficult", at times "physically painful", and also causes me to feel a greater amount of "anxiety" when i write or think about writing. my experience so far in writing like this is that the first thing that people tend to do is attack this aspect of the writing, so before you do please consider that A. i am aware of myself writing in this style, B. i am capable of writing in more traditional and conventional "literary styles", C. i work very hard stylistically in writing this as well as shaping the content etc. to be consistent and be reinforced/enhanced by the nuances stylistically and D. it is a very conscious choice that i make to write in this way.

thank u in advance if u read my story (even if u dont respond with any criticism/comments etc) and as always if anyone wants to talk about anything literature/poetry/craft/etc related these are things that im really interested in and get really excited about so feel free to jump in even if its sort of, or completely, unrelated.