The Fine Print I

Today two of my friends asked me to join them (as well as a group of other people) to read through the Fine Print submissions. Every year the little college I attend collects students' short stories and poetry, a bunch of nerdy people read them, and eventually some get collected into a book-bounded form. It was the best thing EVER. It reminds that I totally want to be an agent, even if none of them screamed PUBLISH ME NOW, but there were a couple that said "I actually know how to write, I have potential, please read more of my stuff." Especially the one dude. I probably upped his scores a little bit, just 'cause his was so much better than anything else I had read. There were just a couple of parts I think he could have written stronger, and I know he would agree, so I don't feel bad posting it on the web. Especially because no one knows who I am talking about. (Raspberry Moose!)

This is a moose. He is made of Raspberries.

The thing with poetry is either I love it, or I hate it. There was one poem that I loved, and the other person who looked at it did not love it. So we passed it around. And around. And there ended up being a whole discussion about whether or not it was good enough to put in the Fine Print. My opinion? If you can write anything that gets people choosing sides and trying to persuade others to agree with their point of view, you have done something special. No one else discussed any of the other works. Just that one. So I say publish it. If it gets us talking... Well, you just did something no one else achieved. I take my invisible hat off to you.

This is the antipode of an invisible hat

There was one thing disturbing about the whole event. The one dude and I kept scoring things scarily close. For poems there were four options: clarity, content, form, and impression. I freaked out when we did the one EXACTLY THE SAME. Very weird.

Also, I decided today that I need a new college. [Because as far as I am aware one cannot become an agent without having some form of degree. Sad face.] As depressing as this sounds, it is true. I am tired of being one of the smartest kids in class. Ugh! Disgusting. I am not that good people. I am bored. I can pass a test I did not study for. I can get A's on papers I finish right before class. I refuse to get a degree simply because I can. I want a degree because I worked for it, because I slaved over it, because I nearly died from pure stress in order to achieve it. Maybe that's what graduate school is for? I don't know, it just seems that a senior in highschool is at a higher education level than a freshman's first year at college. What is wrong with that picture, I ask you?

Seriously, what IS wrong with this picture?

Moving on to actual writing things: Today I wrote 4,ooo words. Hoorah! I wanted 8,ooo, but we all knew that wasn't going to happen, so I kept my hopes at 2,ooo. I beat my score! Hopefully this means I can finish the sequel before the month ends, but I don't know. I still got a ton left. I still have about half the novel left. Sadness. Despair. Lack of cookies.

This fish is sad he has no cookies

The kitten is sad he has no brains

(Take THAT EB! I have your kitten trapped, trapped I say, bwahahahahahaha >:)

In conclusion all I have to say is that I MUST send out a query this month, I must, I must.

Let Me See...

Today was a bad week in writing. It was chock-full of good things, nonsense, and white noise. (White noise is for the parts of this past week that I know happened, but I can't remember anything but a white fuzz. You'd think I took drugs or something, but I hate even sudaphed, and I never take advil or tylenol. They're of the DEVILLLLLLL! Ok. Not really. But if in the end they do end up being of the devil, I totally called it.)

The closest I could find to devil tylenol. Sadness.

All this to say my word count is low. I forget exact, but I'm pretty sure I haven't hit 20,000 yet, and it's pretty much half a month over... Wait.

I promised myself I would not be all whiny-whiny, I'm a baby! I hate my life! Kill me now!

Stormtroopers hate their life too. We will commiserate together!!

So here is the good news: 22,038 is my word count! yay!

Here is the bad news: 30,362 is where I am supposed to be. FAIL.

Good news again: I can write today!

Bad news again: 8342 is how many words I would need to write to make it up. That's at least 17 pages.

So what am I doing here instead of writing like a banshee?

This is a banshee.

What I am doing is waiting to tell you a story! Just a quick one...

I was scrolling through what I had written last night when I saw one of the *gasp!* red squiggly lines letting me know I had spelled something wrong. Death! dying! Destruction! Yeah, no. Writing fantasy or anything fantasy-related means that there are squiggly lines all the time. it doesn't matter if Nadra, Cynferth, Cenweard, and Braeden are all real names (Afrikaan, Welsh, English, English) the dictionary does not recognize them. And in order to make my book more friendly all curses are in a language that doesn't exist, so there are squiggly lines under Yila! Kriev! Yuksiy! etc. (Although Yila doesn't count, I just like saying it).

So when there was a squiggly line I wasn't too worried, but I read it anyway just to make sure. And it was a good thing I did. It turns out my one character, Damaria, was sitting on a pile of plankets.

Yup. Instead of soft woolen blankets, she was resting on a whole bunch a' slabs of wood. How comfortable.

Wait! Wait! Wait! Plankets are REAL! Check this out:

I just had a #8 E-o-M experience

The description is hilarious, so check it out here. Oh my puppy dogs and windshield wipers. Incredible.

Another Contest!

Elana Johnson is a new author I learned about through Falen. I think. Yes. And she is having a contest! Yay! Through confetti everyone, just throw confetti. And then check out her blog and enter and stuff. (Oh, and mentioning Falen Formulates Fiction, she is cool, and stuff, so you should check out her blog. Unless you already do. Then you beat me. And. You win. An invisible hug. From my invisible friend Ted.)

Oh, and the contest involves Post-it notes. Who doesn't love Post-it notes?


I will be posting tomorrow (hopefully) about the magical appearing words that have saved my sanity.

Odds and Ends

This week I got some exciting things in the mail. They are small, they are pieces of paper, and they have pictures on them. What could they be, you ask? Why! They are these:

Business Cards!!!

I just love moo.com. I heard about them through Rachele and I checked out the website and they gave you ten cards for free. Free, people. I am poor, and free is good. Now, when I actually get published, and when I am not longer poor (these two things don't necessarily go together) I will buy some more. I was quite impressed with the quality. And they let you upload your own pictures. How sweet is that? I will tell you how sweet. How sweetly exciting: #3.

And also I got these:

Books!!

And not any books, but books by Jessica Wagstrom about Xlormp. They're a parody of the Twilight books, and they are absolutely hilarious. She does take some cheap shots by using crude humor (I call it cheap, because anyone and their dog can do it. It takes much more creative juice to be funny without just mentioning something considered 'taboo' by society) but over-all she is so funny I can't help but bust out with snorts and "GHK!" while trying to breathe.

And one day I may tell you what I think about Twilight, but for now I am going to go write a thousand words or so.

Oh! And there is a contest over at: Falen Formulates Fiction. SonshineMusic told me about her, and she is a super cool person, so I thought I'd let you know :)

Ergh

This has not been a particularly good past week. And this week is promising exuberantly that it will be the

same kinda of drag-your-feet-suck-in-your-breath-and-grimace kind of a week. Why? My word count has stayed evenly at 10,000. I still need to write 40,000 words, people! Insanity galore!!

Apparently, this thing is insane too

And if that is not the worst thing known to man I have yet to do ANY of my homework for tomorrow. Oh joy. I think I just died from happiness. NOT. Try dying from -8 on the excite-o-meter.

Me. Dead.

And I'm purple too. Weird.

So as much as I love Akkadian, Koine Greek, Screenwriting, and Storytelling in Communications... I just about want to toss all of my books into our lovely fireplace and watch them merrily burn, and THEN I want to withdraw from college (convincing them to give me my money back, of course), and THEN I am going to tell my boss I quit in a very regal mad-hatter kind of way that I have always imagined.

Whoa! It's huge!!!!

But of course, being (like my sister) the non-confrontational responsible one, I am instead going to bang my head upon this lovely desk.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I did, however, write a query letter on that Wednesday, so no one has permission to come after me with a machette. AND I am working on another query letter. It is my goal to finish Blackburn's Prisoner II and query an ageny by the end of the month. Yes. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Unicorn's and Feedback

So the other day for the first time in my life (kinda') someone other than family members read one of my stories and gave detailed feedback. It was actually kinda' funny, because he was so worried about offending me. I kept saying "it's okay, this is helpful, you're not being harsh, stop worrying or I'll slap you with a fish."

Fish slapped!

Most of the time when I give someone something I've mine to read they look at it, smile, and give it back saying "this is good." This is not helpful and will NOT help me become a better writer. In fact, it will just make me think I am a terrible writer, because I can only elicit that tiny amount of a response to you. It is #-5 on the excite-o-meter. For reals.

So when I gave my short story, Unicorn, to my friend I was expecting the same ol' "This is good" tripe. So I told him repeatedly: "Make marks! Tell me what's wrong! Please, please, please." And hallelujah, he did. I could have kissed a spork.

Mwah!

Even an evil spork with glowing blue eyes eating cookies.

Okay, so there's no cookies, but it wasn't my fault

Anyway, so it was really my first experience having someone tear apart my work line by line, showing me where I had succeeded, where I had completely failed, and where I could do better. I think that was the most interesting comment: "I know you can do better," and probably the most encouraging. Because this dude doesn't know me that well, but he could tell enough from my good part of the story that I could do better. Win! Hurrah! Hoorah! Huzzah!

And can I just say what a rush that was? I mean, afterwards when I actually had to start editing wasn't the greatest of excitement (#), but it wasn't the worst in the world. It kinda' gave me hope, because one of the things I worry about the most is having an editor tear my work apart, but there's a strange rush I got from having that done to my work. Knowing that before I was "uh, this is good" to "Man! My socks were knocked right off I think I'm going to pass out from sheer exhaustion of its super amazingness." Ahem. Or something along those lines.

Woo! Slap my foot, that's a good idea!

Very, Very, QUICK

Okay: I should be doing schoolness related stuff, but I just wanted to give a quick update:

1) I am STILL at 10,000 words and it STILL makes me very happy

2) Tomorrow I MUST write a query letter to this agent dude, or else anyone who reads this has permission to hunt me down and kill me. (Except for my sis Sonshine, because... We have really sharp knives in my house. And my brother Dave has a machette. That's just way too scary for me to handle.)

3) LOST starts tonight. Season 6! Oh my stars I cannot wait. Oh my garland. Sweet muffins, it is amazing. I am just dying because I have to wait a super long time until it begins. Argh! Gah! How can I endure this waiting? (And LOST may seem like it has nothing to do with writing, but it is very... um... Inspiring? And stuff. IT BLOWS YOUR MIND! Almost an 8 on the excite-o-meter. Okay. End of LOST rant.)

And that is everything. Oh! Except for this:

And:

Everything Will Be Okay
In The End

If It’s Not Okay
Then It’s Not The End

Which isn't necessarily ALWAYS true, but it's by some anonymous person, and I just think it's a nice saying.