Goodbye

Well, I finished illustrating my short story Shelf J-K and gave it to my little cousins. I also wrote another short story, though that only made me realize how much I miss writing novels. In four years, I will write another novel, but for now... it's short fiction, poetry, and plays--yay for creative writing classes! Which brings me to the topic of college. Two weeks from today, I will be driving down to PA. A good thing, too; I'm sick of waiting. After waiting for August 25th (orientation) since last November, you can see why I can't stand it anymore.

It's kind of weird, thinking that in two weeks I'll be at UArts. Goodbye, waiting for UArts to finally happen. Goodbye, hanging around YWO for hours and critiquing all the time. Goodbye, days spent writing novels and nights spent thinking of plots.

This summer ended with a bang. Saw Catch Me If You Can the Musical on Broadway a few weeks ago. Amazing actors. Amazing show. Fitting song (by Aaron Tveit, with his awesome voice).

Update: Writing

On 6/611 I finished my novel Mind's Prison.

Yeah, yeah, ten days ago I finished my eighth novel and didn't write about it. I was busy. (And I didn't feel like blogging.) I knew how the novel was going to end for a few weeks, and I suppose it didn't feel like a big deal when I finally wrote the final sentence. In the back of my mind I was worried I wouldn't finish it, or wouldn't finish it by August 25th (UArts' orientation!), so I kind of felt relieved when I finished Mind's Prison. (I don't know why I worried. I've written seven before, and I always finish them when they're so close to the end.)

Mind's Prison is 78,000 words, and is extra special to me because it is my last novel before I go to college this fall. It might even be my last novel until 2015, because I don't intend to write any more novels while in college. Yeah, I'll write short stories (all my liberal arts electives will be in creative writing... fiction, playwriting/screenwriting, and even poetry--how's that for exciting?), but I don't want to wreck my grades just because I was writing a novel. (Not that that would ever happen. When I have a paper due or something, I can't write my novel. I have to write the paper, even if it's due in a few weeks. I get it into my head that the paper needs to be finished before I write my own stuff. *shrug*)

I've been writing Mind's Prison on and off since December 4th, 2010. I took a month long break at one point, while I rewrote my very first novel, then picked MP back up, though I continued slowly, not wanting to rush it. Usually I finish novels within three or four months, so I'm actually surprised I could stick with MP for so long.

I kind of thought that--once I finished writing MP--I would take a break for a bit. But no. Now I've gotten it into my head to edit one of my rare short stories into a semi-children's book for my nine- and five-year-old cousins. I've even drawn four pictures to go along with the story (though I think I need at least two more). It's kind of fun. I also might write a short story this summer. I've got an interesting idea in mind, but I don't think the plot could be a novel--a bit complex if I had to go into detail like a novel would require--so I might be good. (Though, knowing me, I'll want to turn it into a novel anyway. Maybe eventually.)

So my plan for the summer: 1) finish illustrating a short story for my cousins, 2) possibly write a short story and have enough will power not to turn it into a novel that I won't have time to finish. That's the writing plan, anyway. The dancing and getting-ready-for-UArts part of the summer is going to be hectic.

Goodbye, SUCO.

I've been waiting for this day the entire year: the day I take my last class at SUNY Oneonta.

Being homeschooled, it sounded like a good idea to take some college classes before wasting so much money going away to college and realizing I didn't like it. Plus, some conservatories let you in without SATs if you passed college COMP 100. So I took a few classes, then applied to dance schools. I got accepted to the University of the Arts back in November/December, and so then had the problem of what to do during the second semester of the 2010/2011 school year. I didn't need to take any other classes, but I would be so totally bored otherwise. So I took COMP 200 (yay for more essay-writing /sarcasm). I love writing--as any of you who know me even the slightest probably realize--but this class was pretty hard. Not that I didn't like it--I've decided I like harder classes much better than easy ones. Yeah, yeah, an easy A and all that stuff, but I don't like easy As. I'd rather get a B and feel like I learned something from the class.

So COMP 200. I'd have to take First Year Writing I and II at UArts anyway, and composition classes are one of the few things that will transfer. So to make a not so long story shorter, I took composition 200; the final was today.

We had to write an essay about a quote the professor gave us--we saw it for the first time today. (I actually like the quote: "We all are born originals. Why is it so many of us die copies?" by Edward Young--I think. I'll check if that's the exact quote when I get my essay back sometime this weekend.) I don't like writing essays in class because I worry I won't be able to write enough, or have enough to say. I've never written an essay in an hour and fifteen minutes before--blame the homeschooling; it's one of the only bad things about having my parents teach me--so I had no idea how I'd do. Go figure, I had more than enough to say, wrote for an hour and fifteen minutes (pretty much nonstop, except to every once in a while do a bit of planning), and it was actually the best final I've done (this makes my fourth). I should have known I'd kind of enjoy writing for a final exam.

So now the day I've been waiting for all year has arrived (well, okay, the second day I've been waiting for. Number one is the day I go to UArts), and it doesn't feel the way I thought it would. It doesn't feel like any other day when I have COMP 200. It doesn't feel like I'm done and I'll never take class at SUCO again. I suppose over the summer it will start sinking in. UArts will start sending more stuff--like room and roommate info, class schedule, I'll have to buy that Mac they keep telling us we need, get things together like books and dance stuff, eventually pack...

Maybe by then it will sink in that I'm really done with SUCO and I'm going to UArts next year.

Rate My Professor

I don't really use the site ratemyprofessor.com. The comments are usually absurd, and the teachers that everyone likes I end up disliking. The teachers everyone hates I love. Still, I check the site just to see what others are saying about my professors, or professors who I might take classes from next year. I don't care about their opinions, but sometimes the comments are ironically funny.

When I go to the University of the Arts next year, I won't have to take their First Year Writing I and II classes, because I've already taken SUNY Oneonta's Comp. 100 and 200. SUNY Oneonta students all complained bitterly about my comp. 100 professor, and not too many more like my comp. 200 teacher, though I enjoy(ed) them both. So--being bored--I decided to take a look at the comments for the UArts writing teachers. Some teachers were loved, others hated. One student hated a professor so much he said:

"I've never been told more how horrible my writing was until I took this class. He corrects you on the most ridiculous things"

Ridiculous things such as "more how horrible"? Now, all right, "more how horrible" could be a typo, but it's a hilarious typo if it is. And you wonder why the professor corrected your writing if you says stuff like "more how horrible."

Another person said:

 "i would only take him if you had too."

 "Too"? Really? Basic stuff here, people. Basic stuff.

Comp. 200

My English Professor is too nice. At the beginning of the semester, his class was required to write six essays, a thirty page journal, and take multiple quizzes. We still had to do a thirty page journal. Fifteen for the first half of the semester, and fifteen for the last--minimum. That is, fifteen pages each if you wanted a C. If you know me well at all, you can probably guess that I did way over fifteen. Thirty pages each half. Oh yeah.

For Comp. 200's quizzes and essays, however, the professor was surprisingly nice. He canceled a quiz that was supposed to happen before Spring Break. Now, to make it even better, the quiz that we were going to have this Thursday is "optional." Everyone has to take it, but if you get a bad grade, my professor isn't counting it, so it's like extra credit. And instead of six essays, he dropped it down to five. The sixth essay is an optional creative writing essay, so of course I wrote it (and handed it in today, which is more than a full week before it's due).

And on that note: three more weeks and I'm done with my city's state university--forever. No more taking classes to make sure that I could do it after being homeschooled. No, I'm done with SUCO. Finally. Moving on to UArts. And I can't wait.

Killing Characters

I'm 65,000 words into my current novel, and I just killed my first character.

Well, no. I killed one in the beginning of the book around 16,000 words in, but she wasn't a big character. Obviously, she lasted less than 20,000 words in the story. But today I killed one of the main characters.  

I have four characters who are the focus of the story. One character--Seth--is the MC, and the story is told mainly through first person from his POV, though there are two others who get view points occasionally, and then the antagonist (who gets POV sections every once in a while) and one other character who I think got a section from his POV once. Other than that, there really aren't any other characters in the story. A few small ones, I suppose, but not even many of them: one aunt and a cousin, a woman who died in the first sixty pages, a queen, and that's really it. The main characters are Seth, Jason, Myra, and Gaven (the fifth is a side character). Compared to my other novels, this is a rather small cast, which is a nice change. Sadly, I had to kill one of them today.

When I first realized that one of the main characters was going to die, I had one of those moments where you think the idea is great. Then I thought about it in more detail, and realized that I really didn't want to kill this character. The idea of killing them still sounded good, yet that meant I wouldn't get to write about them anymore, because unlike my other novels, there is no reincarnation in this novel. I grew used to my trilogy The Otherworld Series which is about spirit guides, so needless to say, there was a lot of dying and reincarnation in those three books. Not in this book. Here, when you're dead, you're dead.

Of course, this character didn't just die in any old boring way. Neh. I had to make it interesting. Or so I hope. I'll have to ask someone if they read this story.

Funnily enough--or not; it's not really funny--I had no problem actually writing the death scene. I thought I would. When I get to the point where I have to kill a character that I like, I usually hesitate. I suppose I've been waiting to write this scene all week (because I'm a bit obsessive and had to finish my research paper before allowing myself to write my novel, even though the essay isn't due until Thursday). I'd gotten past the stage where I wasn't certain I wanted to kill this character, and so it was pretty easy.

This morning I woke up, sat down at my computer, and killed the first main character in my current novel. All before breakfast.

I think only a writer can say they killed someone today and not be totally insane.

Being a Writer

My English professor called me a writer today. I've considered myself a "writer" for a few years now--probably since 2008 when I finished my first novel and joined a writing forum to get critiques on it--but I never really thought others considered me a writer. Besides YWOers, my family members, and a few others, I have the creeping suspicion that not too many people read my Facebook updates, and I know not many people read this blog. So most people probably don't realize I'm a writer. Those who do must be tired of my talking about it.

Today in my COMP 200 class, the professor canceled our sixth essay and told us we could do an extra credit essay if we wanted instead. The essay would be creative, using first person from the POV of an object or a non-human. A creative essay? Perfect! Now if only essay number five would go away so I could write number six.

My professor is a bit obsessive when it comes to using fragments. Up until our fourth essay, he wasn't convinced that we knew the difference between a complete sentence and a fragment. Seriously? If you can't tell, Microsoft Word usually can. Or not. Half the time it's wrong. But finally--finally!--we were allowed to use fragments, though only if we bracketed them so the professor knew that we understood what we were doing and it wasn't "accidental." Yeah, yeah, okay, whatever. 

So today, after class, I asked if we were allowed to use fragments in this next essay, since it's creative. The professor pretty much told me yes, I could use fragments because I was a writer (which he knows from reading my personal journal, since it was filled with entry upon entry about writing). My advanced college writing professor called me a writer! I just kind of nodded, said All right, thanks, then got my bag and exited the room.

Fortunately, we'd gotten out early so no one else was in the hallway. I left that class and walked down the hall with a grin on my face. No one's actually called me a writer before.