“Life is Elsewhere” is a celebrated sentence of Rimbaud. It is cited by Andre Breton at the conclusion of his Surrealist Manifesto. In May 1968, Paris Students scribbled it on the walls of the Sorbonne as their slogan. But the original title of my novel was ‘The Lyrical Age.” I changed it at the last moment when I saw anxiety on the faces of my publishers, who doubted anyone would buy a book with such an abstruse title.” (From Preface of the Novel Life is Elsewhere).

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I loved this book when I was little for two reasons: it was about poetry and I loved the title. The reason is I wanted to be elsewhere, where life supposedly was! Fortunately I made it, I saw a good chunk of the world, but still can't tell you where life is. I still want to be somewhere else for the most part! Maybe life is in the world of dreams, just like for one of the characters of the book....

I started this blog because I might be going through the most challenging period in my life. I am trying to write a dissertation and can you guess it? I have writer's block! It's either a huge chaos in my head with all these ideas flying around that I cannot put in a logical sequence (for humans to understand anyway), or nothing at all. I sit in front of the computer and feel I have nothing to say. Plus I have nobody to talk to about these random thoughts and I do become more brilliant in the company of others! :) I used to love writing, but now that it's time for my voice to come out as an author, I freeze! I end up spending too much time online anyway, so I thought if I put all these other thoughts here, it might help me to clear up that mess in my head and maybe I will finish that stupid diss eventually.

In a nutshell: this blog is about NOT writing a dissertation!
(And who knows what else. I hate planning and consistency...)