Liana writes...

 Urgh, why am I so fucked up in the head? I have a fantastic boyfriend, who treats me well, good-looking, a god in bed. Why for the love of God can I not get J out of my damn head? He was self-obsessed, boring, unadventurous, but I care so much about why the fuck he didn't fall in love with me? and why the fuck I fell in love with him? I almost got over it until he started dating his new girlfriend Michaela Field. I spoke to him a few months ago and found him uninteresting. I ended up ignoring his replies and never thought about it again. I can't even remember what he said.  I find myself not fixated on J, but on M. I've always been like this; I still stalk the socials of R and Y, the new (now ex) girlfriends of previous crushes N and C. When was the last time I stalked N, C, or J? Honestly, it was so long ago I have no idea. R, Y, and M are stuck in my head though. The girls that got the guys I always wanted.  With N, he was a prick who didn't even bother to get to kno...

Kant, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. All names going in one ear and out the other as I sit in my weekly German philosophy lecture. The class is taught by Lars, a podgy man in his 50s. His cheeks were always swollen with small capillaries bursting on the surface, creating a map of fine red and purple squiggles. Sometimes he rested his hand on his protruding belly like a pregnant woman as he spouted anecdotes about his life in the eighties and how it somehow related to Freud’s theories on sexuality. He strutted up and down the front of the lecture theatre with such confidence. I always wondered how people did that; I struggle to just walk into that theatre and sit down next to someone I’ve known for two years. I guess when you know what you’re talking about and no one is really listening to you, it’s easy to ramble with ease. I’m very good at making sure I look like I’m paying attention. I doodle in my notebook but ensure that my hand is making jagged movements, never failing to take my e...

I preferred a quiet life. One with little happening and a consistent routine. I woke up at 8am, ate a bowl of porridge, took a shower, and headed out the door to work. After an hour or so in the office, the staccato rhythm of the clock would eventually fade into the background. Most days I became consumed by crunching numbers. I'm good at it. My forte if you will.  When I saw her for the first time, it was the dead of winter. The air pierced my nostrils as I stepped out of the office to make my way home. The company has one of those concrete office buildings they erected everywhere in the sixties. Ghastly things. Juxtaposed to that building was a charming Tudor cottage. It was going into disrepair but an investor transformed it into the local coffee hub for housewives with too much time on their hands. Sat in the window, latte in her hands, was one of the most exquisite women I'd ever seen. Maria. 

 So here I am in bed, wrapped in a blanket and demotivated to finish my first thriller short story. The reason being, I'm lost. Obviously, lots of time is needed to go back and edit. Add more character descriptions/developments, play around with the narrator, use the third person? But the thing that has got me really stuck is, where the hell is this going? I know that I've decided on Maria being the real cold-blooded twisted killer, but I need the reader to initially think that it's Marco who's fucked up. I think I have to change it therefore to Marco's perspective. reveal his deepest, darkest thoughts as he observes Maria from afar. Then slowly cast doubt in the reader's mind about Maria. Like Eileenesque narrative. I really need to delve deep into Marco's psyche.  Maybe Maria confronts Marco? Knows that he's been watching her but initially she thinks he's part of the police and spying on her to get her convicted of the crime she's committed. Or...

Investigate cults and communes 

  Chapter 1 "1964" Summary of Chapter 1: Ottessa uses gruesome and violent imaging to introduce the character and her troubled mind. Metaphors and similes tell us that Eileen is a disturbed young woman which an alcoholic father. It is also mentioned that she has a sister who is no longer in the picture. The chapter finishes with present-day Eileen saying that the book will be about how she runs away from home and never returns.  QUOTES "I was thin, my figure was jagged, my movements pointy and hesitant, my posture stiff"- Moshfegh uses adjectives that are not usually used for a person but instead something like a knife or blade. It is the beginning of disturbing imagery.  "It (snow) sat staunchly in every front yard, rolled out at the lip of every first floor windowsill like a flood" "cracking and darting through my breasts, slicing through the thick gristle of my shoulder like bullets or cleaving my brain into pieces" "fruitless"- in t...

 August I had decided at the beginning of August, that every month I would set goals and then at the end of the month I would take time to review what's been going on. What my strengths and weaknesses are and how the completion of goals went overall. One has to keep in mind that things regularly change, life gets in the way and your plans are scrambled. Even over only 4 weeks.  For my study goals, I had set "learn 20 words of German a day" from the frequency dictionary. I did in fact stick to this, besides the few days of illness in the middle. Vocabulary learning became more or less a habit, and it is one I intend to take forward into next month.  For my work goals, I wanted to make $400. This didn't happen. Things came up and it went out the window after a while. I did make about $150 though, so it wasn't a complete shambles. Plus, I now have money coming in from the Erasmus grant so I'm not going to be completely financially fucked. I hope.  For my personal...