Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Academic VS Creative

Academic writing is incredibly different from creative writing. My thesis is currently 14 pages and utilizes a good dozen sources, and I've been working on it for months. Months of creative writing gives me five times as many pages. At least. And yet they really aren't all that different. All of it is personal and all of it requires individual thought. But academic writing, at least research based academic writing, requires you to build on what others have said and to incorporate their thoughts into your own writing. Fiction writing )and poetry for that matter) is all you. Maybe that's why it comes more naturally to so many of us. Yes, it requires research, but the writing, the story itself comes from us. Everything we need, we already have. Writing a thesis on the other hand, well, I need a lot for that, haha.
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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Hey there, good lookin'. Again.

I am almost finished with my MA, you guys. I have an independent study class, a comprehensive exam, and a thesis/thesis presentation next semester and then I'm done. I've gotten the first chunk of my thesis done, so I'm super excited. And, for the record, it's on YA dystopias. :) Keeping it nerdy for you guys. I'm on break now, which means it's time to bust out the MS that's covered in dust and catch up on some reading.

I've missed you guys. Sorry I've been MIA, but I'll do my best to catch up on all your lives soon. :) But tell me, how are all of you?
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Time, Excuses, and Writing

I don't know where all my time goes. It's kind of ridiculous. I mean, I get that I'm not the most time efficient person in the world, and I have a tendency to opt for having what I can of a social life or down time when I find a spare few moments, but seriously. There just aren't enough hours in the day. I have so many things to do, and that doesn't even include the things I love doing but that I have to put on a back burner simply because they don't pay the bills or contribute to my classes (I'm looking at you, horn, cello, book ideas, and half finished MSs).

Right now, it's the summer. I can't tell. I'm still taking a class each term, working ~34 hours/week, and trying to do things for my fraternity office, find a PhD program I like (I've figured out exactly what I want to study/teach, so that's a bonus), study for my MA comprehensive exam as well as the GRE English subject test, and research/plan my thesis. In the fall, things are really going to get interesting...

My problem is that I keep thinking about my characters and my stories. I want to work on them. I want to get them finished and sent off to publishers. I want to see them in stores. But at this point all I have is self-doubt. I could carve out time for it; I'm sure I could. Only every time I start going down that train of thoughts I hit this wall that tells me I'm not good enough a writer to be published, that I'll never finish anything worth reading, that I have no clue what I'm doing and I shouldn't even bother, that I should just stick to school because I can actually do that.

Funny how we always want to blame time for the things we don't get done, isn't it? Yes, I'm short on time, incredibly short on time, but if I had the confidence in myself and my work, I'd do a better job of prioritizing and making room for my characters and their stories, for improving my craft. But even admitting that, I don't know where to go from here. I can't write when I feel like every word is crap and that it's always going to be crap. I can't edit when it feels pointless. So I don't. Because I don't even feel like I have betas any more or crit partners, and that's my own fault, too.

*sigh* Balls, this life stuff is hard.
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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Hello there, good lookin'!

I've missed you. And by 'you' I'm not only referring to this blog where I used to pour my heart out but also to you, lovely readers, whose conversation I have dearly missed. School has been out for a few weeks now, but I haven't been able to get on here or Twitter because, frankly, it's a huge task keeping up with blog feeds and Twitter streams. I don't have time for it like I use to, but I'm going to try to at least be a presence here again. I really have missed you all.

I hope all of your writing has been going well and that many of you are landing agents and making book deals. The Universe knows you all deserve it! I've been away from writing for a little while now, trying to focus on school and such, but I think it's time to jump back in and rip TSA to pieces (again) and finish the first draft of my ghostly twins novel. On an academic note, I'll be starting work on my Master's Thesis this summer; I'm super excited because I'll be writing about YA literature, specifically Matched, The Hunger Games, and Divergent. It's all about love in YA dystopias and the difference between older/adult dystopias and YA dystopias. So I've been writing, just for a different audience, haha.

Well, I'm currently at work and must get back to it, but I hope you're all having a fabulous summer. And please, do tell me how you are. :)
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Friday, January 20, 2012

Review: Fracture

Fracture by Megan Miranda

Age Group: Young Adult
Published: January 17, 2012 by Walker Children's
Format: eARC, 272 pgs.
Source: NetGalley

Description: 

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine

—despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.
Read more »
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