I hate not writing for so long, so here I am. I'm in Zimmerman Library (the main library at the University of New Mexico), and I have a stack of six books about Oscar Wilde on the desk waiting for me. In the next couple of hours I'll be - I hope - finishing up a paper for my English Lit class that's due tomorrow.

I'm writing about the significance of fractured identities in Wilde's famous "The Importance of Being Earnest." If it turns out to be any good, maybe I'll even post part of it. Lately I've found myself wanting to "publish" bits of my schoolwork that I'm particularly proud of.

I thought about writing on Stevenson's "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" for this topic, but I chose the play because I've never thought of it as anything more than a ridiculous, witty comedy. But, thanks to my English Lit class, I see it in a new light: a biting commentary on Victorian society and ideals, a practical mockery of traditional forms of theatre and character, as well as traditional ideas about romance. Well, I'm not sure about that last part. In my paper, I'm more arguing that Wilde is not saying that love and marriage in Victorian society is shallow and foolish; my thesis is, roughly, that Wilde respects love, marriage and commitment, but the strict standards of Victorian society stifle and hinder his character's achievement of them.

We'll see how it turns out.

In terms of publishable work, I got a pleasant surprise in the form of my graded short fiction story that I turned in for my creative writing class. My professor LOVED it; I got a 100%, and I'm not even sure if it's entirely possible for anyone to get a 100% on a paper, especially a piece of creative writing, but it's nonetheless flattering. Aside from some minor suggestions of paragraph placement, sentence editing and perhaps one or two paragraphs added in to expand on some ideas, my professor thought it was great. He told me I should submit it to be published when I'm done revising it, and that he can help me do so.

The shocking thing about all of this is that I felt like my short story was crap. Well, not complete crap, but I certainly wasn't intensely proud of it. It was really challenging to write; I feel that poetry comes much more naturally to me. But that's the funny thing I'm learning about being an artist, of any form; you never know how your work is going to be received, which is a good and a bad thing. I may hate a piece, but my professor turns around and adores it. On the flip side, though, that leaves the possibility for me to love a work of mine, and others to think it's not that great.

It's so tricky with writing. There's definitely a line between good writing and bad writing; if something's bad, you know it's bad. But on each side of that line, there's a very large gray area in which it's hard to say, especially, I find, when I'm critiquing my own writing.

And, of course, what constitutes "good" writing has changed throughout the centuries, as well as with different cultures. For example, when the Enlightenment swept through Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, good writing was concise, rational, an adequate representation of life and society and, above all, a criticism of the foolish. Think Alexander Pope, Moliere, and, of course, Descartes, who famously split the mind from the body.

Then along come Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the rest of the Romantics, and they turn the focus to the emotions, to nature, to spirituality, and that's the stuff that makes good writing.

So the fact that my creative writing professor loved my short story is both encouraging and discouraging. Well, it gives me pause, at least. Maybe it's just because I'm new at this, and I'm still developing myself as a writer, but I'm not sure what to make of the fact that art is so subjective in one sense, and yet in another sense it's entirely objective. Like I said, there is good art, and there is bad; it's trying to find the distinction that's the challenge.

Coffee, music, and artsy thoughts

I feel a little sick to my stomach, as well as a little jittery. It's like I can't sit still; I'm tired, but I don't feel like I can rest. It's probably the coffee I had earlier. Maybe I need to eat something, or drink some water.

One of my new favorite stations on Pandora is my "Philip Glass" Radio, especially as background music for doing homework. Last semester at Biola, Paul Barnes, a musician/composer and monasticism advocate, came and did a lecture about minimalist music and monasticism. I have the notes from it somewhere, but at the moment I can't remember much of what he said. I do remember being incredibly impressed by his preview performances of some pieces he'd be playing at a concert later that night, which I couldn't go to because I had to read Dante's "Purgatory" for class, and I was visiting my sister Rebekah in L.A. He had some really cool stuff to say about minimalism; I'll try to dig up my notes and post some more about it later.

Anyway, it's Paul Barnes' lecture that introduced me to Philip Glass, because Barnes and Glass have been collaborating on some huge composition project for something like eleven years now. If you're a fan of excellent piano/orchestra music, and if you get tired of the typical classics like I do, check it out on Pandora. I get tired of the normal, and sometimes I need something a little more abstract to keep me refreshed and interested.

I haven't sat down to play the piano in a long time, which is sad because I have a piano all to myself here at my parents' house. When I'm not taking lessons, it's so hard to keep in practice. But Philip Glass' music makes me want to drop what I'm doing and go play piano. And to me, that's a mark of good music - that is, music that makes you want to hear/play/create music.

The same goes for any kind of art form, really. I think that art - be it music, literature, studio, theatre - should inspire the study and creation of more art. And it seems like it always does, because the thing about art is that there's never just one way to do or interpret something, so people are always coming up with something new and different.

It can be frustrating; I think we've all had times where we throw our hands up and say, "It's so subjective! What the hell is art, anyway?" That's a real aspect of it. But what I love about the subjectivity of art is that it means the conversation will never end, the creation will never cease. Artistic expression will never be exhausted. Humanity will never come to a point where we say, "That's it. We've seen and learned and said everything there is to say, and we have expressed it in every way that we can. We have completed our endeavors in art."