deadken posted:
i dunno.... ive hardly done any writing since the new yewar, wrote 4000 words on a new project then instantly abandoned it which i think saved me a lot of time and annoyance so taking the class should hopefully push me to write more.... i find workshops always massively increase my self-confidence as a writer just because of how mundane everyone elses stuff tends to be... as long as its not the kind of workshop that rigidly enforces strunk & white i think its worth a go. although i dont know your situation, why do you not think it would be healthy

hahah, shit man. i wrote 3,000 words today, 10,000 in the past 2 days, 20,000 or so in the last week. nearing the 1/2 way point of my french revolution novel, at about 45k words so far. i think with my writing, especially in a workshop atmosphere, i really get obsessive about how i'm doing and one-upping everybody else, putting a lot of effort into making good critiques while stepping back meanness, etc., and it wasn't a great mental space for me, even though it was pushing me to write like a madman. not that i don't sort of do that already

deadken posted:

"A thousand people pump their hands into the air to Cali Swag District, seemingly unburdened by the knowledge that nobody can be taught how to dougie, that the dougie is a road of self-discovery we must all walk alone."

dont mess around w. my dogie bro

deadken posted:
i didnt sleep with anyone in the last workshop i took.... they were mostly jewish though and i dont swing that way

for not only a goy but an ethnic goy like me jewishness can turn a 4 into a 7, a 7 into a 10. that's how it goes bro. youre a sexy race

Ranulfo Orozco was born in León, a drearily industrial city in Guanajuato State. He did well at school but not exceptionally; he had no illusions about going to university. Faced with the prospect of an unexciting job at the Curtidos Luber S A De C V chemical plant where his father worked, he joined the Mexican Army at the first opportunity. A few months training had him eager to go to war against the cartels; to his disappointment his unit was assigned to a roadblock in the 3rd Military Zone, on Federal Highway 1 between Guerro Negro and San Ignacio; he was a glorified toll booth attendant. At first in his frustration he tried to play the big scary soldier, meeting motorists with a lowered visor and a suspicious glare, acting the fascist, but that was never really in his nature. As he eased into the long quiet nights, as the checkpoint's corrugated-iron refreshment store and scattered park benches and machine-gun nests began to feel like home, he eased up, sharing a few jovial words with the few truckers passing through, carrying his rifle on his back rather than gripping it with clenched fists. Adventure proved an impossibility for Ranulfo Orozco, but he started to realise that he never really wanted it. Then, a truck pulled up near a checkpoint south of Ensenada and disgorged grenades and gunmen like ceropaline grubs from a spider's abdomen. Most of the soldiers on duty were sharing a cigarette, leaning against a tin wall, they barely had time to comprehend what was happening. After that Ranulfo was paranoid again; any vehicle could be a gift from the cartels, carrying bombs or insurgents. But nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen, and Ranulfo started to slip back into a comfortable boredom. When a Nissan Sentra - the interior fuggy with smoke and littered with fast-food containers - carrying four grinning young gringros rolled up to his checkpoint, he waved it through with barely a moment's thought.

Ranulfo Orozco saw me only once; I saw him dozens of times. Each time we shared a few words in broken Spanglish. Sometimes he ordered us out of our car so it could be searched, sometimes he waved us on. Often I asked him if I could take a photo of the checkpoint; he always smiled and refused. I can do Ranulfo Orozco the violence of writing his story, of turning him into an archetype, because I speak only English and he speaks only Spanish, because I was born in the first world and he in the third, because I examine other lives with a dilettante's indifference and he must do it to stay alive, because I am a (more or less) real person and he is a fictional character. Despite the FX-05 Xiuhcoatl rifle slung over his shoulder, I was always in a position of absolute power over him. Given all this, it's a wonder he didn't grab it at every checkpoint and pepper me with bullets. I'd certainly deserve it.