help please, everyone!

[cimorene]

so i'm going to apply to the creative writing course, and i hardly have anything that isn't fanfiction that's good because i have been writing fanfic exclusively for a couple of years now. (guinevere33, mamahooch, nemoricultrix, you've read the exception.)

so the professor--who is a novelist-- says:

You should submit a writing sample of no more than three pages, preferably fiction, but creative non-fiction will also be fine. This does not have to have a beginning, middle, and end, but will just give me a sense of your ability with language. More important is a one or two page letter on why you want to be in this course: what role writing plays in your life, what you hope to get from the course, what you can contribute to the class dynamic.

so what i want is opinions. people who've read large amounts of my stuff: what are your favorite stories and your favorite passages? or better yet, what would make a good impression on this professor :-\? we know how i love to go overboard with nature imagery, but maybe he would find that pretentious. maybe he's prejudiced against romance (and i probably wouldn't do a sex scene, even, yeah, because, well, you know).

of course i really don't know any of that. i just know that he's a novelist, so maybe looking at the longer pieces (tennessee, burn, delirium; hitch and implicit) are preferable, but really i'm not even positive of that.

any suggestions at all would be welcome. hit me.

Comments

[carraway54.livejournal.com]

My favorite of your stories, and the one I consider your best--bear in mind I've read none of your *nsync work--is Tennessee: Chattanooga. I can't pinpoint a section off the top of my head, though. I'll hunt for likely passages, if you want.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

that would be nice, just an idea... hm. has the advantage of being more like original characters.

[lush-rimbaud.livejournal.com]

well, I really love "Delirium," because of the stream-of-consciousness narrative and the way you get into Elijah's head, and also because of the beautiful descriptions of Dom. I'll look through it for favorite passages, if you like.

[pandap.livejournal.com]

"Hitch" is the one that really introduced me to your writing.

I thought that the beginning of part 5 (All of Justin is golden) and really, all of part 6, but particularly the fairy tale bit, were all extraordinarily beautiful. so evocative. textured.

[strangelette.livejournal.com]

E-mailed you a few of my favorites : ) Good luck, this is not an easy decision.

[carraway54.livejournal.com]

The Tennessee versions of the actors are most like original characters because it's futurefic. It's not a reinterpretation of an existing text (in lotrips, the 'text' is the time spent in NZ, and its immediate consequences); instead it's one more step removed from reality. Real person fic set in the present is based on a construct of the celebrity's personality as derived from the media, but this story is a projection of what such a construct might do in the future, based on hypothetical past events.

These passages I particularly like; I took care to avoid graphic sex (always an important consideration). Beginning and ending phrases quoted, with ellipses between.

"Orli will be driving again through the dark...Viggo won't have cried in a long time."

"'Have you heard from Orli, recently?' Elijah asks him...It's easy to lose something like that, and hard to get it.'"

[carraway54.livejournal.com]

and because I am Not Very Bright, I posted that before I meant.

"On New Year's Eve they go walking in the woods...Elijah squeezes his hand."

"There won't be anything either of them wants to listen to...'I hope he's alright.'"

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

Tennessee, for definite: the traffic jam. Or the rain storm. (This is not to dismiss your other stories: but 'Tennessee' stuck in my head and won't go away!)