Short Fiction Profile Assignment

Good news: thesis is done. My theory is officially outlined and backed by various sources and literary evidence blah, blah, blah...

Unfortunately, I am not yet a graduate. Nope, thirty pages proving a somewhat original theory on the hero's evolution does not get you a degree, apparently. Sorry, guys. It's not that easy, and it should not be that easy. If it were, then we would be handing out degrees to every idiot who can't hold a job because he (or she) prefers to sit around and "think."

Anyway, I have one more paper to write for my undergraduate. I have to do a "Short Fiction Profile." That is, I have to write a 4-5 page essay on a short story that we have not discussed in class. Guess what story I picked! Never mind that, there are way too many short stories in the world to make an educated guess. I picked "The Pipe" by Jack Pendarvis. He's definitely one of my favorite short fiction writers (I haven't finished his novel yet), and in case you missed that blog, I met him and introduced him to an audience of my peers! He's really swell. Needless to say, I thought this essay would be easy!

I was wrong. In our essay, we are supposed to answer questions such as, "Whis is characteristic of your author's fiction?" Jack (I call him "Jack" because in my crazy, mixed-up mind we are really good friends) told us during his presentation that one characteristic of his work is that he writes about losers, but since he said that, does that mean I can write it even if it's not necessarily my opinion? I mean, I follow the man's blog, so there is so much I feel I know about him, personally. I'm supposed to judge his short story from the context of the story, not from my knowledge of the author. For some reason, this is hard.

Argh! I really shouldn't be stressed about this...I think I have senior-itis. It's a real disease, and it might be fatal to my future. Again, I'm over-exaggerating, but only slightly.

Well, enough venting, I'm going to write my paper now. Hopefully it will ramble less than this blog. I need coherence.