Another B Work? Probably

My creative writing professor looked more distracted than usual.

I stopped by his office during office hours. I could just tell something was wrong. "Are you okay?" His office reminds me slightly of how the Adivsor kept his. There are lots of papers and books, and an eccentric mess. I use to walk into the room to see the Advisor, and be comforted by his disarray. It wasn't military neat (even though the Advisor was in the military); it was normal, human, most of all.

"No," he says while looking at the computer screen. "My father died Saturday."

I had heard stories of his father, how he was starting to lose his wits, and seemed to display some odd behavior. "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. How are you dealing with the news?"

He seems even more despondent. "I can't concentrate. You know, I start to read something, and then my mind wanders..." After we talk for a while, he asks me what I need help with. "You said you wanted to talk about your 99." He assigned an essay that could only be 99 words.

"Yes, I know. I got a B."

"A B is good."

"Yes, but I want an A in the class...I wanted to bring by my short story to see if you had any hints to help me get an A on this assignment."

He reads it, and says flatly, "Well, it's not finished."

It wasn't. I would later finish it, and it would end up to be nine pages (the max. was only supposed to be seven pages). It was about my grandmother, and the more I wrote, the most disgusted I became with the work. It's impossible to explain my grandmother's situation (while she was alive) and her relationship with her kids and her grandchild (me) in seven pages. Somehow, at the end, I'm supposed to put it in perspective, and write some great revelation or at least end it on a good note--like, Grandma died in piece. But she didn't die in peace. She died alone in that awful house, and no matter how many times I say it or write it, that painful thought never becomes any easier to swallow. In many ways, it becomes worse. My parents can't relate to my guilt. They don't understand it, and they don't share it. So, I thought if I wrote a story about how sad she was, how sad she made me, maybe people would realize that she was suffering, and no one did a damn thing about it (including me)--in the story, there's the conversation that I have with her doctor where the doctor told me that Grandma was not suffering. She did, and she died a few months later. (If anyone wants to read the short story titled "But a Whimper," they can, but honestly, the blog entries are better.)

"You need to flesh out the conflict," he continues. "I mean, you say right here, 'I tried to convince my grandmother to move.' "

In the final draft, I deleted that sentence because after nine pages, that part was obvious.