string cheese theory

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:05:57 GMT

Okay, this is pretty cool.

Writer's blog

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 03:18:22 GMT

Just a reminder: my writer's blog is now See Girl Write. Musings on writing, editing, publishing, etc.

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 19:07:19 GMT

NaNoWriMo has turned my GPA into a disaster.

That is all.

Wed, 17 May 2006 17:01:06 GMT

Wow.

As of this moment, I have 25 classes left until classes end. That's about 24 hours of academics left.

Wow.

Graduation

Fri, 12 May 2006 18:30:16 GMT

It's odd, what a disconnect impending graduation creates. It no longer feels very important to stick around at school when I don't have classes. We're allowed to leave campus anytime we have no classes, which doesn't exactly encourage stick-togetherness, but still, I expected myself to grab onto school and hang on for dear life, just for fear of the Big Change. Instead, I find that I'm eager for college to come - I'm living my life right now just waiting for college to begin.

My motivation is shot - my own fault, I know - and though I'm still getting some writing done (mainly a short story that's been bashing around in my head), I haven't gotten excited about any idea enough to send out a query. And what I definitely don't want is to send out a query I don't care about, sell an article, and then deliver some drivel piece that no one in their right mind would pay for. That's not the way to build a career, and it's no fun either.

On the music front, looking forward very much to the upcoming Arctic Monkeys concert (right before my blasted English and science finals). The Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to town over the summer, and I'd love to go...but tickets are $65 apiece, and that's just too pricey for me.

My wishlist for this summer:
-Find a way to go to the Willamette Writers' Conference (volunteer again for free admission, perhaps?).
-Take some road trips during the summer and write. Somehow I always write best when I'm in a new location.

Thoughts on the most recent movies:

I'm not a ravenous Tom Cruise fan, particularly not after all his media attention (why I hate America's obsession with celebrities - I hate when what I know about an actor intrudes on the character he/she plays in a movie). However, I used to adore Alias, which was created by J.J. Abrams, who was majorly involved in MI3. I could definitely see his influence, particularly when MI3 used the EXACT same plot twist as a recent episode of Alias, but the movie was good, diverting fun. I'm not generally in favor of actors writing or directing the movies they star in - Garden State being a notable exception - because I think it leads to a sloppy script, and that was confirmed in MI3, which had some lines that made me literally wince. And it's wrong that I had the most fun in the entire movie watching Jonathan Rhys-Meyers go wild during a helicopter chase scene at the beginning. If you don't care about money, it's worth theater admission; otherwise, wait for it to go to video - and then do see it.

I took my 14-year-old brother to this, because...it was after school, we were bored, we wanted to see a movie, the only other thing playing was Silent Hill, and we hate horror movies. I was pleasantly surprised. Now, I'm not saying it's super-deep, but it wasn't painfully predictable and went neither the heroine-wins-everything nor the heroine-loses-but-learns-a-good-lesson route, THANK GOD. Yes, it's a movie about girls' gymnastics, and yes, the previews show girls doing dance moves in a major competition - but thankfully, it's a lot cleverer than the previews make it seem. Added bonuses: actual emotion, some pretty good acting, plausible explanations for major plotlines - the sort of thing you rarely see in teen sports movies. Go see it. It's fun.

Enjoy your weekend, y'all. I'm off to shop for a graduation dress with a friend (and what's with needing a dress for prom AND a dress for graduation? I may go to a private school, but I do NOT have $200 just sitting around!).

Nora

Books books books

Tue, 02 May 2006 21:27:51 GMT

Lately, the library has been my favorite place to be (books, wireless internet, no cell phones), and I'm slowly working my way through all the new YA fiction with particularly interesting covers or premises. Thoughts on the two most recent follow. These are only my opinions, based on what I enjoy reading

Wrecked, by E.R. Frank. The book's plot was what really grabbed me - while the main character (Anna) is driving her best friend home from a party, they're in a head-on collision with Anna's brother and his girlfriend, and the girlfriend dies. Sure, it sounds a tiny bit soap-opera-ish, but the way that E.R. Frank wrote it, there was no melodrama. It's just a quiet, sad story of a girl and her family trying to put their lives back together. The descriptions of the accident and Anna's reactions to it (long after she's physically healed) are spectacular, and everyone in Anna's family is very realistically written. Definitely recommended.

Side note: I also got E.R. Frank's first novel, Life is Funny, but I didn't enjoy it as much. The story is told through the POV of quite a few different characters, which I thought made it hard to follow - I would get invested in one character's story, and then all of a sudden it was a totally different character's story, with a few mentions of the first character. But that's a stylistic choice. I still finished it in about an hour, so I must have liked something.

Sweetblood, by Pete Hautman. It took me awhile to get to this book, actually. The title caught my eye right away, and I pulled it off the shelf at Borders (yes, I occasionally go to chain bookstores - don't kill me!) to start reading while my dad bought a calendar or something. But I had no money with me, so I stuck it back on the shelf, made a mental note to get it from the library, and promptly lost the mental note.

Two weeks later, my mom put it on hold at the library and I stole it from her. What really caught my eye was the fact that the main character, Lucy, has juvenile diabetes (as I do). Her theory about vampires - that the original vampires were diabetics with severe ketoacidosis - seemed very cool.

There were parts of this book that made me laugh, a lot. I loved the characterization of the other diabetic in school - that rang very true. The story was fun to read (I say this as a Buffy fan), and quite entertaining.

That said, the book had a few problems, in my opinion. By the end, the main conflict is resolved, but there's still a creepy stalker guy with Lucy in his sights. Lucy's diabetes burnout seemed realistic - after 10 years, burnout is inevitable - but her intense shame when it came to diabetes didn't make a lot of sense to me. She's supposed to have had diabetes since age 6 - her entire school life. I realize every diabetic's experience is different, but I've only had diabetes for 5 years and I - who was an incredibly shy kid - am completely comfortable testing my blood sugar at school and out in public. I think that was what gave me the most trouble.

Interestingly enough, if Lucy hadn't had diabetes, I might have liked her better as a character. But as a diabetic, I found it difficult to really like someone who would give herself huge amounts of insulin without knowing what her blood sugar was and who would drink large amounts of very sweet alcohol without knowing exactly how it would affect her. Y'all, these are basic things that every diabetic learns about when she is first diagnosed.

So, I'd say Sweetblood is certainly enjoyable and worth reading if you've got some free time, but it wasn't spectacular. I was able to put it down pretty easily.

Other than that...life goes on. Working on putting together a proposal for a novel in one of Puffin's YA series. I've got the query done, but I'd like to have the outline and sample chapters complete as well before I send out the query. I'd hate not to have it ready if I get a "go" from the editor.

Also, I'm getting well at last. Thanks to the miracles of amoxicillin and azithromycin and Zyrtec, that is. Let's hear it for prescription drugs! Woo!

Mon, 01 May 2006 18:52:07 GMT

I'm very tempted to make May my very own National Novel Writing Month - but right now, it's not a novel that I want to work on. Keeping that in mind, I announce the creation of a new month: National Magazine Article Writing Month (NaMaWriMo).

NaMaWriMo RULES:
1. Compose 31 article queries by the end of the month
2. All queries must be ready to mail out by May 31
3. All queries must be for truly saleable articles that I'm eager to write
4. All queries must be directed to the appropriate person
5. All queries must be truly suited to the target magazine
6. Changing the target 31 times does not count as writing 31 queries. That would be pointless.

Ideally, even if I fail at this (likely, considering that May is "hell month" at school), it'll kick me back into writing-and-sales mode and out of write-a-few-words-on-the-MAX-each-day-if-I-feel-like-it mode.

Here's hoping.

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:51:59 GMT

Here's the question that I've been tumbling over in my head for the last, say, week: does the National Writers Union guarantee healthcare for all their members? Or would a "pre-existing condition" disqualify you, like it does with many insurance companies?

I ask this only because, as I prepare to head out for college, my parents are worrying more and more about how I'll pay for diabetes care over the next 80 years of my life. They figure, if I work in a traditional job, my employer will have to give me healthcare, whereas if I'm a writer, I'm totally on my own.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

In other news, I've successfully avoided a "summer job" for the fourth year in a row by telling my parents that I'll spend the summer writing. In fairness to me, this isn't as much of a BS defense as it sounds; I spent the summer before my freshman year and the summer before my senior year working on my second and third contracted books, respectively. But this year, I don't have a book contract and a scary September deadline hanging over my head; all I have is a need to sell some work so that I can make some money and a desire to complete another novel.

Towards that end, I went to Powell's City of Books and bought Writer's Market. True, it's WM 2005, not 2006, but it was a used copy. Here's how I figure it: if I can buy WM05 for $15 or I can buy WM06 for $30, and I have to verify every last detail of all the market information anyway, why should I pay double just to feel like I have the newest thing? Plus, it meant I had enough money left on my Powell's buy-back to get several very pretty journals.

I'm such a journal junkie. I still have my novel journals from the last two Europe trips, with pages ripped out and taped back in, detailed descriptions of the foods everyone ordered, dreadful sketches of the castles and different places that I wanted to use in various scenes...they're so much fun to read. They're also interesting in a purely cultural sense: apparently no one in France has ever heard of the college-ruled spiral notebook. The journals I bought there were always gorgeous.

Right now, I'm brainstorming article ideas. And using the "Avoidance" technique to read Les jeux sont faits, which is depressing but excellent.

I've been seeing a lot of movies lately - I claim it's because I want to write screenplays as well as fiction and nonfiction, but it's mostly just because I love films - and I thought I'd put down a few, well, thoughts.

On Friday night, I went to see United 93 with my dad. Before Friday morning, I wasn't even planning to see it. Then I read the Oregonian review, which called it "A ride that sears your soul", and I figured, hey, strong emotions, right? That's important in writing, no?

Whoa. That movie was so intense that I was sobbing by the end of it and my dad was constantly jumping in his seat. The writing was very understated, very subtle - no melodrama, just everyday people going about their lives until 9/11 happens. It may not make very much money, because it's quite painful to watch, but if I ever write a movie like that I'll be thrilled.

Last night, I tried to drag my parents to Inside Man, which I've already seen. My love of that movie has nothing to do with Clive Owen, I swear. I find it fascinating because it's the most intelligent 'heist' movie that I've ever seen - and because it inspired a 1-hour post-movie discussion with my brother. Usually, we two can tire out a movie in 15 minutes of discussion, max (and if you happen to know about the Great Pirates of the Caribbean Repeat Viewing Festival or the Great Batman Begins Repeat Viewing Festival, keep it to yourself).

Anyway, I highly recommend Inside Man to anyone. It's difficult to describe the plot without ruining some of the nifty little details, but if you've ever liked any heist movie, you'll like this movie. And if you've ever thought any of those movies were stupid...you'll still like this movie. As for United 93, it's a movie that deserves to be seen, but I know that there are plenty of people who won't be able to watch it. It's pretty rough. The Oregonian was right.

I'm trying to convince my parents that they should pay my way to the 2006 Willamette Writers Conference. Their lack of enthusiasm does not bode well for my hopes regarding the 2006 SCBWI Summer Conference. I curse my lack of money.

Cheers, all.