don't you know the kingdom's under siege

I just finished the reading for my creative writing class, and I have no idea what I'm going to write in response. This week's assignment was the first thirty pages of Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD, which won the Pulitzer in 2006 and is currently being made into a movie starring Viggo Mortensen. Whenever it comes out, I'm seeing it even if I have to go by myself -- Viggo Mortensen in a post-apocalyptic world is like a nightmare-dream come true for me.

But really -- wow. I've never read anything by McCarthy (he also wrote NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which was one of the hits of last year's Oscar season), but now all I want to do is go out and buy THE ROAD and finish it. Instead, I'm going to have to somehow craft a creative response to this, when it's so far away from my writing style (and by 'away' I mean both 'apart from' and 'above' -- it's far more literary than romantic, but he is also just incredibly talented and I would kill to write like him). So hopefully I'll have some nightmares tonight that I can turn into a suitably dark, metaphor-laden story in time for Saturday's class.

However, ignoring the fact that I am screwed for class, I did have some exciting news -- I got another request from an agent to see the first segment of my book! This request came from one of the agents whom I queried via snail mail last week; I've checked my mail every day this week even though I usually let it pile up, and I was rewarded tonight with a letter in my SASE asking to see a synopsis and the first three chapters. She also wants to see a market analysis, which is a bit weird -- so I need to come up with something about the book's target audience, initial thoughts on marketing, etc. before I can send it back to her. I put it aside for tonight, though, since I knew I need to do the reading for my class, so I'll get back to it this weekend.

Other than that, I have nothing of real interest to report. I'm taking tomorrow off, which is fantastic, but I think I'm going to go to bed right now despite the fact that I technically don't have to wake up early tomorrow -- it will be better for me if I still get up early, drag myself out to a coffeeshop, and write my story assignment even if it kills me. Wish me luck!