writing the review update 1
aurgh! i've lost the ability to write criticism! why did this have to be the show i return to writing for? it was great -- but so hard to write about! this sucks!

ok, admittedly, i struggle like this all the time when i try writing reviews. but it's still hard -- and it's so nice outside and i'm tempted to go outside and find something to do ... i always try to find ways to procrastinate when i write reviews. it's a way of torturing myself, i suppose ... postponing the inevitable writing that comes to me at random points. it's waiting for the points to arrive that sucks. but, nonetheless, it always comes ... this makes me remember the writing process in the past -- lounging in spencer's room at actf, drinking my screwdriver and laughing as alex freaked over his writer's block -- me asking the room how to spell "durge" and asking if a funeral durge was an adequate way of describing the music at romeo and juliet. sitting in my dorm room at conn college, staring at the blank computer screen (blank because every time i'd start to write something, i'd get pissed off and erase it, freaking out that i would never finish the review or, worse, i'd finish it and oversleep the next morning and not be able to hand it in in time, thus ruining my chances of impressing linda winer. choosing instead to sit on my bed, listen to some dave while i munch on my box of frosted shredded wheat ... hearing the knock on my door at 1 a.m. while trying to write an actf review as jenny slept (because whenever i was back in my hotel room, jenny was asleep, so i would sit in the uncomfortable wooden chair at the kitchen table) and jumping for the opportunity to order late night chinese with rhiannon, who figured she wouldn't make any headway with her review until at least 2:30 or 3 anyway, so why not do so with a content and full stomach? then, later, sitting outside the hotel with rhiannon, wearing our pajamas as we lounged on the warm concrete walkway, chowing on lo mein and cursing daniel, who had already written most of his review and had decided to check out the bar scene a bit as a way of rewarding himself, fully aware of the brilliant wit he had dashed off in his latest piece, baiting us with the fact that he had made a twinkies analogy that made complete sense.

aurgh. it's a process, it always is a process, and it's one of those processes where you have to focus and think and throw things out and beat yourself up in order to squeeze out the proper words and descriptions. writing criticism is the one form of writing where i agree with a literary quotation i read somewhere -- it's something like "writing is easy -- you just stare at the blank paper until you sweat blood onto the page. and that blood is your writing." granted, i'm paraphrasing, but that's the basic idea. and that's how it is. which very well could be why i enjoy it so much -- it's not easy, and you never know if what you're putting out there is brilliant or utterly wretched. you'll never really know, no matter who you have to discuss it with -- a small group of fellow college critics, established critics (for instance, my o'neill experiences with linda, dan and the michael's -- phillips and feinstein) or a friend you beg to read your work. it's so subjective there's no way of knowing if what you're writing is any "good." which is frustrating and great at the same time.

ok, enough blathering. i'm going to continue my typical writing process by thinking, pondering and, while i do so, finding myself some lunch. oy vay.