Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #6 - The Pink Institution

I think it's kinda funny how we have a week long break from papers and stuff, but before the break more assignments are given. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a break. Anyhow, for our Fiction Writing class we had to read The Pink Institution by Selah Saterstrom and do a short blog about it. This was actually one of the only things I didn't mind doing for school over the break. I read through The Pink Institution the first Saturday of the break before my shift at work and was thrown off a bit because of it.

The Pink Institution is a story about a multi-generational family and all the fucked up ways they damage their children. If I could give this book a subtitle it would be The Pink Institution: A How-to Guide On How Not To Raise Your Children. There are suicides, attempted suicides, drunken debauchery, children watching sexual events unfold in front of them, and all around weirdness. The Pink Institution is darkly unsettling and it paints a twisted portrait of a dysfunctional, Southern, white trash family, which is I guess the point. I just wish the story was a little easier to follow. There are so many characters that I don't quite remember the names of people, just some of the events.

Overall, this was an interesting read and I wouldn't mind checking out some more of Selah Saterstrom's work.

Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #5 - Literary Blog

Okay, so for this blog assignment I have to post about a literary blog that I've discovered. So the literary community I've found is called Scribophile.

I'm not a member of it but I think I may join. It's cool because you have to earn the right to post your own work by earning karma points. You earn karma points by leaving critics on other writers' work, and you're guaranteed 3 critics on your own work. There are workshops you can take, bulletins you can post, and you can make friends.

There are premium accounts you can pay for, but there are also free accounts as well. It seems like a pretty cool community.

Fiction Writing Blog Assignment #4 - Unassigned Story From Our Book

So, as instructed, my class had to pick a story that was not assigned to us in our collection of short stories and post an excerpt from the story. From there we're supposed to talk about the excerpt we posted in one of three ways. The three things we have to choose from are:

1) a great (or horrible) opening
2) good (or lame) dialogue
3) sharp (or weak) characterization. 

The story I chose to talk about is Thom Jones's (I tried to find a good website to link to find more info about the writer, but Thom Jones isn't all over the internet. So, Wikipedia it is!) "The Pugilist At Rest." Here's the first paragraph from "The Pugilist At Rest":

Hey Baby got caught writing a letter to his girl when he was supposed to be taking notes on the specs of the M-14 rifle. We were sitting in a stifling hot Quonset hut during the first weeks of boot camp, August 1966, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. Sergeant Wright snatched the letter out of Hey Baby's hand, and later that night in the squad bay he read the letter to the Marine recruits of Platoon 263, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Hey, Baby!" he began, and then as he went into the body of the letter he worked himself into a state of outrage and disgust. It was a letter to Rosie Rottencrotch, he said at the end, and what really mattered, what was really at issue and what was of utter importance was not Rosie Rottencrotch and her steaming-hot panties but rather the muzzle velocity of the M-14 rifle.

I feel like this is a great story opening. From the opening paragraph I was hooked and wanted to know more about what was going on and who these people were. I don't really know what else to say about this. Post-Office by Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite books ever and this story kind of reminded me of it for whatever reason. I might have a new book to try to find next time I'm looking for a new book to read.