A Year in Review

Now, most of these reflection-type posts happen around New Year's Day, but Wednesday was my 24th birthday, and I always associate September with the beginning of the new year anyway, so I'm gonna take this opportunity to look back on 23 and see what kind of year it was for my career, my writing, and my academic life in general.

Synopsis

This time last year I was just beginning my second semester in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. After a bust of a first semester, I was determined to get the most out of my money. My goals were fairly straightforward, but very important if I ever hoped to realistically consider a career in writing:

1) Continue to perfect my craft.
2) Develop more disciplined writing habits.
3) Meet more people who were interested/working in the industries I was hoping to break into (comic books and poetry, mostly, but writing is writing).

Last Fall I was retaking an intro class that I was forced to drop the previous semester for work reasons, as well as a Children's Literature class. At the time, I felt that the Children's Lit class was helping me make headway on goals 1 & 2, but when I look back on that semester, the idea of writing children's books was more of a sidetrack that took me away from the writing I should have been doing. I didn't take it very seriously, and never followed through on any of the projects that I hoped to send out to publishers. If I look at my "craft" as comic book and/or poetry writing, then I wasn't doing much to perfect my craft, and I don't consider finishing homework assignments to necessarily be developing more disciplined writing habits. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot, but what I learned wasn't immediately applicable to my career goals. The intro class that I was retaking, however, turned out to be much more exciting than I could have hoped. Having gone through much of the class the previous semester, I was initially dreading the course, but I hadn't considered the fact that the Fall semester meant new students, most of whom were in very similar places with their own writing as I was with mine. I was able to meet a ton of new writers, many of whom I expect to view as my peers and competition in the writing world for many years to come.


So 2008 ended in a strange place. I was working in the film industry for a company that I'd then been with for over a year, but which didn't have any direct relationship to my writing goals. I finished the semester with group of new contemporaries, but without any real progress made towards my writing itself. When the time came to make a New Year's resolution, goals 1 & 2 were way up there.

Enter The Daily Genoshan.

Over the Christmas break, I had read the Gabriel García Márquez masterpiece 100 Years of Solitude, but knew few others that ever had. Having loved the book more than almost every other book I'd read up until that point, I needed an outlet for my overflowing praise. None of the literary forums I had found felt like the place to just be really excited about a book, so I decided to come up with a place of my own. I started The Daily Genoshan hoping that every week I would have a new book to review, honing my writing skills while simultaneously developing good habits. It didn't take right away, though. The first few months were inconsistent at best. Weeks would go by without a review. What had been set up as an outlet for my reactions to books I'd read was slowly turning into another idea on the "someday" pile.

Around April that began to change, though. I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with my day job, and knew that, if I were to leave for any reason, I wouldn't want to jump into something else that wasn't writing. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn't being a writer. So I started writing more proactively, instead of the reactive way that I'd been doing it for years. I started up another website, fivebyfivehundred, which I began writing for every Tuesday. I began taking TDG more seriously, making sure that I had something to review every Friday. I was also taking classes that helped me with all three of my goals. Things started really picking up.

And then I lost my job. At the end of May, I stopped working for the company that I had been with for almost two years. Instead of freaking out and rushing around to try to find a new job that I didn't want, though, I took a breath. I examined my finances, the money I had been saving while I was working, my expenses, what things I could do without, and I dove into the world of writing as a career. I began writing articles and reviews for local newspapers while I looked for other writing jobs or assignments. I started disciplining myself to the point where I now keep strict office hours for my writing, to make sure that I keep up my level of productivity. When the decision came up, I opted not to continue my cable service so that I wouldn't have the unnecessary daytime distraction. Most importantly, I kept writing.

Now, I don't make any pretenses about the fact that, were I not still a student, this would absolutely not be possible. But I am a student, and, for now, it is possible. When I graduate in May and have to begin paying back my loans every month, it's going to be a lot different. Luckily I have an amazing support system and have people around me who are proud of my accomplishments and don't discourage me from following this dream. As long as I can pay my own rent and don't have to move back in with my mom, my family understands that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. My friends, most of whom are lucky enough to be on their own way to careers they can be proud of, have been incredibly enthusiastic about my writing, which is always helpful. I'm also lucky enough to have an amazing girlfriend who helps keep me motivated and isn't afraid to let me know if I'm being less than responsible with my time or money.

As far as my goals? This summer I had a poem published in a magazine called Phantom Lips, which isn't the largest publication in the world, but it's something. I've also been recently named Poetry Editor of the Southern California Review, which isn't too shabby. I'm still writing articles and reviews for local newspapers (one of which can be found here), but am now working on my thesis and several other projects as well. One of my new goals is to be published more in the coming year. Another is to clean up and finish some of the projects that I would like to be shopping around and showing to people. Monday it will be 8 months since my first Daily Genoshan post, and I'm glad that I've stuck with it. By my 25th birthday, I'd like to be able to look back like this again and say that I've continued to meet my goals, so I can continue to set new ones. Hopefully all of you will still be reading my humble little book review blog.

Keep reading, Genoshans,

Brian McGackin

100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez is an absolutely incredible novel. It is four-hundred pages of wonderful. Immediately one of my favorite books ever (I say immediately, but it's actually incredibly dense, so it took me quite a while to finish). I highly recommend this book to anyone who: a) has a family; b) enjoys quality storytelling; c) can read and/or be read to.

Synopsis

100 Years of Solitude tells the story of Macondo, a fictional South American town, through the eyes of the Buendía family. Over the course of seven generations, the Buendías experience just about every conceivable problem a family can face—war, famine, industrialization, incest, immigration, emigration, poverty, wealth, alchemy—and discover interesting things about life and themselves along the way. As much as the content of the book is incredibly creative and original, there are several aspects of the writing itself that make 100 Years of Solitude truly unique.

Magical Realism—A term that I was until recently unaware of, magical realism essentially refers to a style of writing in which extraordinary events are perceived as mundane, and often vice versa as well. Márquez himself has said, "My most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic." This is one of the most exciting aspects of the novel. Almost constantly the reader is bombarded with remarkable events in the lives of the Buendías that range from undeniably absurd to borderline unbelievable to mildly quirky. Things like ghosts, fortune-telling, and bicentennial lifespans are accepted as everyday occurrences in Macondo. It's difficult to go into specifics without ruining any of the many, many interweaving plotlines in the novel, so instead I'll illustrate with a relatively ambiguous quote:

A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.

"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.

Here you can see how something completely ridiculous is presented matter-of-factly, a trait of magical realism that leads into the second writing aspect that makes this a wonderful read...

Humor—The book is hilarious. There are times when I was reading that I would come across an amazing phrase or sentence and run out of my room to show the first person I came across how funny it was. All of the characters have their own absurd quirks that distinguish them from everyone else (which is helpful, since half of the characters have the same two names, a recurring theme that the matriarch of the family, Úrsula, points out as a possible explanation as to why all of her male heirs have disappointed her). These quirks and the accompanying circumstances that cause or come out of them really drive the story forward. Everything in this book is connected, usually by a ridiculous event, and all of these events are alluded to frequently throughout the novel. Which brings me to the third aspect...

Time—100 Years of Solitude uses the concept of time like no other novel I have ever encountered. Even though much of the actual history of Buendías is presented linearly, time itself is fluid. Events are often repeated; intervals of time change or move freely between the events; one year often takes entire chapters, while one sentence might encompass half a generation; allusions are made to other temporal events. Much of the novel deals with themes on the cyclical nature of history, while simultaneously presenting ideas towards the idea of the eternal within a person's own lifetime.

I would really like to go further into this book, but am afraid that, in my enthusiasm, would reveal too much, so I highly implore you to read 100 Years of Solitude (then maybe we can talk about it).

If my review encourages you to pick it up, let me know what you think. If you've read it already, feel free to email me or comment on what you like or didn't like about it.

Rating*

100 Years of Solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez

Story—9
Plot Concept: 8.5
Plot Execution: 10
Characters: 8.5

Style—9.2
Thematic Intent: 9
Thematic Execution: 9.5
Originality: 9

General—8.5
Enjoyability: 9
Readability**: 8
Investment: 8.5

Overall: 8.9



*—I am very much interested in constructive feedback regarding the rating system. If you have any thoughts or comments, let me know!

**—Readability refers to the difficulty of the reading, but since a book that is too easy would be as hard to read as one that is too difficult, "Readability" refers to the overall challenge of the read. A high number indicates that the word choice, sentence length, and overall read are seamless, never tripping the reader for reasons of either simplicity or difficulty.