July 12, 2009 at 4:38 pm (Publishing, Random, Weekend Wrap-Up, YA, writing)
Tags: contest, hemmingway, library, research, scholastic, word count, writing
I think that I’m going to start a weekly wrap-up discussing my own writing progress as well as a medley of random lit-related articles that I found interesting throughout the week. This is mostly due to the recent revelation that HEMMINGWAY WAS A KGB SPY! SAY WHAT?!
Also this idea from the Atlantic suggesting US Congress agree to subsidize the publication of new authors. Max Fisher fears the loss of the next Faulkner in an industry that is increasingly desperate for the Next Big Thing, and I must say that he has a very good point. Publishers are looking for good books, yes, but they’re also looking for blockbusters. As someone who loves literary fiction, I do worry for the genre. But although the call for tax incentives upon signing new authors would be effective due to the current economy, the current economy (or, really, any realistic economy) will never allow for it. Can you imagine the uproar from tax payers? It’s the old opera question. Subsidizing opera tickets may theoretically allow the general public to be able to afford them, but does the general public really care to see opera, even at discount? Probably not.
Also, as evidenced by the fiction bestsellers noted via USA Today, I think that it’s time for Stephanie Meyer to leave a little room for the new kids. But that probably won’t happen since, according to the The New York Times children’s series list, America is still addicted to vampires in highschool.
In other news, Mariah Irvin released results for her Deux ex Machina contest (held in honor of her own blog’s 100th post) and I won an adorable illustration!
Many thanks, Mariah! I hope that you stick around for another 100 posts and many more after that.
Meanwhile, I’ve been plugging along on my own summer manuscript. I took the weekend off from writing, but I plan to send Grim back to Scholastic this evening and then to pick back up my work-in-progress tomorrow. I’m almost at 40,000 words so far! I’m returning to my grandmother’s on Wednesday so we’ll see how much more I can get done over there this time. Research for it is also going well. I’ve finished reading two books on exorcisms that I bought for research purposes, and today I picked up two reserves from the library. I’m prepared for yet another night of being thoroughly creeped out!
Hope that everyone has had a good weekend. I’ll post again soon–I have a small blog update planned and will get it up before I leave this Wednesday.
3 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 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.
7 Comments
May 20, 2009 at 11:57 pm (P/S Novel Contest, new york, travel, writing)
Tags: friends, internship, new york, scholastic, writing
It’s been a good week so far. I got to look around the office on Monday, which is much less corporate than I pictured, but I like it. Books everywhere. Posters. Harry Potter. It’s a good vibe.
After lunch and a quick tour of area eating places, I spent the rest of the day at my desk (I have a desk!). I’ll be doing a couple of days of free-writing before diving into the editing process, and although I set out hoping to get some short fiction written, my muse was just not wanting to go there. After struggling to force words through Monday and half of Tuesday, I decided to just go with it, since just going with it generally allows me to be most productive. And now I’m a couple thousand words into the fringes of a new novel that could either be pretty decent or tragically bad. It’s not what I expected, but I’m willing, for now at least, to just see where it ends up.
A friend from back home came up for an evening; we spent most of the time trying to track down a restaurant that apparently doesn’t exist, and then, for fun, we watched one of the most horribly frustrating and awkward movies that I’ve seen in a while. So bad, in fact, that it was more of an insult than entertainment, though I suspect there are quite a few people who would beg to differ. But I won’t name names; no point in sparking controversy. Though if I had to watch that movie with anyone (and I suppose that I had to, if only to say I survived), I’m glad it was with her. Making fun of movies is always easier when you’re with someone on the same wavelength. Really, it was fantastic to hang out with her—I hadn’t in more than a year, and she’s one of those people who helped me the most in my early writing stages, so it was fitting to come full circle and see her here.
Today I went to Chinatown again to buy some food. Man I love that place. I’m having a picnic dinner in Central Park tomorrow with a friend from college! Excitement abounds. Yep, it’s been a good week.
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