I’ve been writing my thesis (which is a novel) and a short story. Here are rough “notebook” excerpts from both. Let me know what you think. First, the opening paragraph of my thesis (which is a novel):

The kids, they come out at night, in groups that dot street corners and collect outside the pizzerias. By midnight, they’ll amass in The Square, where too many of them will squeeze on wooden benches, where they’ll lie sprawled on lawns of yellowing grass. It’s always the same ones. The same ones, but they have new faces. There’ll be the ones strumming guitars, their friends popping bubble gum, others will be telling stories with excited hand gyrations, there will be overt laughter and hormone driven outbursts. And there’s so many of them. That’s why I hate them, the kids.

It’s early: for both the evening and the season. Somewhere, the sun is setting and the feeling is unmistakably late April. I ease my foot from the gas, leaving it to hover, to pounce when ready.

“Slow down,” says Eddie through a smirk, “Slow down so I can savor it.”

To my right, cars pass like pages of a flipbook; they’re splurges of color as we approach The Square. Horns behind me honk. The brake is tapped with relish. Mom’s borrowed minivan jerks hysterically as if its laughing fit has already begun.

Next, the opening of the short story (which has already changed drastically, but may change back):

It was the night before summer ended. We were sitting with backs pressed against a headstone as we passed a joint between us and listened to the crickets. Sporadically she went on about The Talking Heads’ new album, something about its significance to our generation. I was more interested in trying to hold her hand. My fingers squirmed nervously. Eventually, when the pot kicked in, she let me rest my palm over her bony knuckles, but she wasn’t passionate about it. I felt like I was pressing on an empty promise.

“You know I still love you,” I said, balancing the joint on my lower lip as if she could see. Traffic whooshed somewhere below making suburban life seem distant. Down the hill, tombstones rose in black silhouettes – clumsy and vague – but nothing more. She’d been my girlfriend once, but now I didn’t know what to think. So I tried not to think at all. I felt her blink and look away.

“You’re smarter than that,” she said finally and removed the joint from my mouth.

"What?" I asked, staring up at the moonless blackness. She shuffled with a sigh that ended on a sad note. Leaves rustled, giving voice to a breeze that felt distinctly autumn. A strand of her inky hair wisped over my face just long enough for me to remember things about her.

Julia’s hair was long and straight and fell over her eyes in a way that could look either very sexy or very dumb. Tonight she wore black rimmed glasses, which gave the impression that she was a girl who thought too much. Her mouth was thin, often dark with lipstick, and even more often pursed in suspicion.