June 25, 2009 at 8:50 pm (Random, blog, writing)
Tags: contest, link, short story, writing
Quick post to link you over to Mariah’s blog: http://www.mariahirvin.blogspot.com/.
She’s just hit 100 posts and is hosting a contest to celebrate. You can check her site for more info, but the gist of it is to post a funny scene/example/story using deus ex machina, with the winner garnering an illustration. I don’t often post work online or participate in contests, but this one was too much fun to pass up and I thought I ought to spread the joy. So keep an eye out for entries and consider posting your own! Everyone needs a little funny in their lives once in a while.
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June 24, 2009 at 4:55 pm (Random, Reading, YA, fantasy, writing)
Tags: book lists, movies, plot, puppy, reading, research, thai, writing, ya fantasy
Letters of the alphabet, that is. I’m not quite popular enough to get real mail. Well, excepting requests for money. I don’t want to think about tuition right now, thanks very much.
But I’m well plugged into meeting my summer reading goals. I’m working on three books right now, all of them pretty different:
Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, which I’ve been meaning to get to for a while now, and which is fascinating. Very much recommended for anyone looking for non-fiction.
Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, which was lent to me by a friend and which is a refreshingly easy read. Lovely prose and straight forward.
Chris Wooding’s Storm Thief, given to me upon leaving Scholastic. The concept of probability storms is interesting. It reminds me of Douglas Adams’ Infinite Improbability Drive except not funny because it might make your heart stop.
Other than reading, I’ve actually buckled down and started teaching myself Thai. I was doing awesome until I got to shapes. Rosetta Stone why must you be so cruel? You speak far too fast and I can’t decipher the words in your complex geometrical statements. Ah well. I’ll get it eventually. I also watched Everything is Illuminated with my brother last week. Without subtitles. Don’t do it. It’s a complex film, made totally confusing if you can’t speak Russian. We argued about it for fifteen minutes when we finished, then looked up the plot and found out that we were both wrong. Maybe Russian should be next on my language-learning list.
And of course I’m still working on my next novel. I want to take a really gritty look at what exorcism means in the modern world, and see how YA Urban Fantasy fares under a more traditional/historical view of demons and possession. I’ve been researching intensely, and I’ve got a new book coming in the mail next week. I just finished Malachi Martin’s Hostage to the Devil a few days ago. Intense! And he’s a spectacular writer. If possession and exorcism interest you at all, go grab a copy.
I’ve been developing my plot while reading Hostage to the Devil. I now have a tiny notebook full of scribbles and lots of graphite in the margins of my paperback. I hope to sit down soon and get something a little bit less nebulous on notebook paper. My brother runs a writing/art group at a nearby library (I know, I’m such a proud sister!) so I may go sit in this Friday to show my support. With luck, I’ll start laying out my foundations during that time. Since I missed NaNoWriMo last November, and since deadlines are the only way to get me to do anything, I’m going to self-impose 30 days of writing in July. I think I’ll start on the 10th, after sending my revised draft of Grim back to Scholastic, but I haven’t really planned that far ahead yet.
So that’s it for me. Oh and one of my best friends watched The Proposal and then went out and bought an American Eskimo Dog puppy. Oh. My. God. Google it. Such an adorable breed. It’s like a baby polar bear clothed in cashmere.
5 Comments
June 15, 2009 at 5:53 pm (P/S Novel Contest, Random, editing, new york, travel, writing)
Tags: book lists, editing, family, friends, new york, novel, oklahoma, summer, writing
So I made it home okay and have been taking a few days to settle back in. It’s funny, because I wasn’t all that excited about leaving NYC, even though it meant that my relaxing summer was beginning. Then, as the plane was skimming down over OKC, I got this huge wash of emotion. I was happy to see things that felt familiar, and excited to see my family in the terminal, and even relieved to feel the long-lost pressure of humidity as we deplaned. I knew two things: It was good to be home, and this was going to be the setting of my next novel.
Since then, I’ve spent time cooking and visiting people and talking to my brother. And taking my dog on walks. And gathering books from my to-be-read list. Oklahoma really makes me appreciate the simple things.
I’ve also finished up edits and sent out copies to a bunch of friends. I need some time away from the novel, and I need a pool of feedback to draw from. I hope to get comments back by July so that I can rewrite again and send the second draft back to NY. Until then, I think that I’m going to take a few days off from writing to do things around the house and digest some new books. Then I may get started on my new next novel. Yes, that does mean that the last new novel is being put on hold. But that’s okay. I think that it’s one that deserves more tact and time than many.
So just a quick post to keep you updated on where I am. More news within the next few weeks, I’m sure.
2 Comments
June 8, 2009 at 8:08 pm (P/S Novel Contest, editing, new york, writing)
Tags: editing, friends, hostel, new york, novel, scholastic, st. paul, writing
I’ve been posting more often than usual, but I suppose it can’t hurt since who knows whether or not I’ll go underground after getting home from New York? It looks like it’s going to be a pretty literary summer though, so maybe I’ll stick around.
Anyway, today after work I went to Chinatown to buy souvenirs and food, armed with a single dollar and a debit card, intending to withdraw from an ATM. And then Chase rejected me. What the hell, Chase? Not cool. So I bought a dollar’s worth of fried dumplings, which was actually a decent deal–they were good dumplings and surprisingly filling–and took the subway all the way back to Harlem. My hostel’s ATM machine didn’t reject me! Take that, Chase! But because I didn’t by the croissants I intended to, I decided to just give up on the tasty sandwich I was planning. So now I’m eating a pint of AmeriCone dream, trying to ignore the calorie count. For my stomach’s sake, it’s a good thing I’m leaving NY soon. I need green things. And natural sugar from fruit. And fish that isn’t canned in tomato sauce.
But the bigger news is that we went over another section today! About eighty pages. Most of the work I’m doing is on character development. Going deeper than before and filling in small plot holes. I’ve been getting into my characters’ heads in a more direct way, which is proving interesting. I’m glad, because the story is very character-driven and revealing more about them to the reader is giving the novel far more strength overall. Luckily, my muse seems very willing to rise to the occasion, so I’m trying to humor her. Hence the ice cream dinner. Or at least this is how I justify myself. To myself. Yes, I have issues, I know.
I’m also about 10,000 words into the project I have planned for this summer, which I’m super excited about. The first few pages don’t really match up with where I’m heading right now, but I can always go back and edit. I’ve decided to take notes on discrepancies and just focus on getting the thing on paper, since my goal is to have a workable draft by August. I have a few basic concerns, but we’ll see what happens. After all, things may get changed around a lot by the time I hit the gut of the story.
Also, when I get back to St. Paul for my fall semester, I may end up taking a day trip to Fort Snelling for research. Intriguing, I know.
Oh and I saw Up this weekend! So good! Big themes! I think that Disney is trying really hard to break from the criticisms that it’s received in the past, but I do believe that the break is good. They don’t have everything pinned down yet, but they’re working hard, and their stories are all the better for it. So kudos to Disney. And to Pixar, of course. Everyone is infatuated with Pixar.
3 Comments
June 4, 2009 at 6:40 pm (Random, new york)
Tags: food, new york, Random
Why do I feel as if the weather gods are mocking me?
All last week it was beautiful out, but I took it for granted and carried an umbrella in my bag. Then on Sunday I finally bought sunglasses because reading in the park wasn’t working without them, and it immediately became dreary. Clouds and rain for days and though I keep the sunglasses with me in the hopes the weather will break, I seem to have misplaced my umbrella.
Leaving the office yesterday was a great experience:
Me:Oh no, it looks like rain! But I don’t feel like cooking eggs and spinach in the hostel again, so obviously I should wander around until I find a cheap pizza place.
Young comedian in SoHo, armed with a flier: DO YOU LIKE STAND-UP COMEDY?
Me, distracted: No thanks.
Comedian: Oh. Well how about Puerto Ricans?
Me: Annnnd now you’re creepy.
Comedian: I LOVE YOU.
I dash for the subway, get off at 96th, and try to find a pizza place. They’re all over NYC except, of course, when I’m looking for one. And then it starts to rain.
Me: Maybe I should just give up and eat eggs and spinach.
Pizza Craving: NO.
Me: It would be so much easier.
Craving: YOU NEED MOZZARELLA.
Me: Oh man, I really want mozzarella.
Weather Gods: BAHAHAHA.
I did find one eventually, thank God. But the rain had picked up by the time I left the shop, and the pizza was cold by the time I made it to Harlem. Oh the things I do for a New York slice.
Out of curiosity, what are the crazy things you’ve done for food?
3 Comments
June 2, 2009 at 7:51 pm (P/S Novel Contest, editing, new york, writing)
Tags: editing, internship, new york, poetry, scholastic, short story, subway, writing
Lost track of time a bit and so it’s been a while since my last post. Things are going well. The move was… interesting. But fairly smooth. No longer effectively in a single, but it isn’t bad. I’ve discovered through this trip that I’m perhaps a little too comfortable with being on my own, so maybe it’s good for be to be in contact with people outside of Scholastic again. It’s amazing how easy it is to slip into anonymity.
Speaking of Scholastic, I do believe we’ll be starting in on the next few chapters tomorrow morning. I’ve been working on finishing up some short stories that I began last semester, as well as starting in on a few new ones and knocking out a bit of poetry that’s been caught up in the rafters of my mind. And since I’ve become an office nomad once more (for “trimming” the internship program, Scholastic has certainly seen a burst of new ones–I’ve been switched out of a desk twice already haha. I think that at least five new people started this week.) I’ve found that writing on the patio upstairs frees up my muse much better anyhow. Yay for revelations!
To stymie this productivity (because productivity always needs stymieing), a friend from home challenged me to write something without a sad ending, and I plan to take her up on that. I’m not a depressing person, honestly, but I have noticed that depressing stories come to me more easily than happy ones. I’ve been asked more than once why the world makes me so sad.
Truth told, I usually just wait for a setting or character to come to me and then try and follow that thread through to its source and find the life that it’s trying to tell. I don’t actively control these threads, or at least I don’t feel that I do, so changing a story to make it happy or sad would kind of be like changing the ending of a film that I’m watching. When I write, it’s almost as if I’m pulling out something that has already been said–as if I’m piecing together something with a beginning, middle, and end already in place, if only I can find them. It’s common for me to make mistakes when I’m puzzling out how a story is supposed to be, but when I finally put it together correctly, it feels as if that’s the only way it could ever properly be told. I say “correctly” and “properly”, but of course those definitions change every time I run something through an edit. So, in the end, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Perhaps the other writers out there can put in their own two cents about finding stories.
As for me, a happy ending is in the works, even if it is a bit clumsy right now.
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