Independent Study!

So I've made life a little complicated for myself this semester. I ended up dropping my workshop class because--quite frankly--there was no way I could handle the workload on top of everything else I am doing. So I talked to my program director and she set up an Independent Study for me! I'll be learning about Sequential Art (aka Graphic Narrative, Comics, whatever you want to call them) and hosting a weekly blog to keep track of my progress.

I'm still keeping this blog and I'm going to attempt to keep track of both, but that's going to be... interesting, to say the least. I may cross reference them, but subject matters should stay separate. (This is my more informal entire-graduate-life-experience blog, and the other is strictly on graphic narrative.)

That being said, the second week of the semester is here and I think I've finally got everything squared away. My schedule is locked in, my office hours are locked in, now I just need to fall into a rhythm and STICK to it. Which, seeing as it's already one in the morning, I'm not doing a very good job of. :/

I noticed I forgot how to critically read a whole novel in a short period of time. I've been going way too slow, and it's really hurting me. I need to pick up the pace and just read; I can't note every tiny little thing like I would in a short story or a poem. I wish I could, but time isn't really a luxury that I have. :(

Still, I'm optimistic about this new semester. :)

Long vs. Short

So my thesis director posted a link to an essay regarding the absence of the novel in academia. It's a brilliant essay and I highly suggest you read it.

I personally have always had issues with keeping my writing short. I like to ramble. And I like to make things complicated. I just add layer upon layer and before I know it, I'm way beyond the scope of wrapping things up quickly. I know I'm good at creating conflict, I just haven't figured out how to create a nice happy resolution at the end, where the reader feels like all of their questions have been answered. But as a contemporary writer, do I even have to provide that service for my readers? I don't want to piss them off too much; then they'll never read any more of my work. But this is an issue I haven't really been able to work on in my creative writing classes because all we ever workshop is short stories or first chapters. :/ Even in my first thesis, I know my ending was weak. It was an extended personal essay, a string of anecdotes put together to analyze FIRST robotics as a religion, and in the end, it all kind of fell apart. It wasn't the best ending. I knew it. My director knew it. But still, it stands. :/ I'm still not happy with it, and I find that unacceptable. But rather than trying to beat that work to death and fix it, I'd much prefer to work on something new.

For this new thesis I'm working on, I already have kind of an idea of how I want to end it. End with the beginning. Circular kind of thing. It sounds lame when I reread that, but it makes more sense put into context. I know I'm being vague, and I'm sorry. I'm still trying to figure it out. But I want to try and like all parts of my life in this endeavor. Science Fiction. Creative Nonfiction. Writing. Science. Math. Music. Drama. Art. I'm going to try and make this work, but I need to make sure I don't bite off more than I can chew. I don't have a lot of time to get this finished, and since it's going to be a graphic novel, I really need a lot of time for the art part. It's sooo time consuming.

In both theses, there is a common strand. Rather than being long single pieces of work, they are collections of shorter works strung together in a way that makes sense. So maybe all of this training in writing short stories is actually rubbing off. The common string in the first one was a definition of religion, in which each bullet point was a segment I discussed in my anecdote. In the second one, I don't really have a common string. I have a theory that binds them together, but I don't have my story yet. The human aspect. The universality of it all.

I'm working on it. But I don't have much time.


In other news, the website that is supposed to be publishing my work has been down for about a week. :( Hopefully everything is okay, and they're just having mild technical difficulties.

Oh, I turned 22 last Thursday. I didn't really do anything exciting, just painted pottery with a few friends, and the day after, my mom came by and took me out for dinner and strawberry shortcake. One of my friends in aikido got me a cake (which we all shared after class yesterday), and Sensei was reminded that in all my 4 years at this dojo, I have still never had to do my Birthday Breakfalls. (I am expecting them tomorrow, and I am not excited about them.)

For those of you who remember Zombie Apocalypse Training, I've kinda started again. Besides going to aikido on a more or less regular basis, I've also been to the gym twice this week (going to try for at least 4x a week) to work on cardio, because my cardio sucks. So far so good, though. No passing out or anything. Hopefully by the summer I'll be able to graduate to a treadmill from the elliptical, and actually work on running. We'll see.

Backlogging, and Life Update

So after having a discussion with Boyfriend and thinking about it for some time, I've come to the conclusion that I should start putting up some old entries that I deleted, and writing a bit more about my personal endeavors than just simply criticism and strict discussion. That makes this blog a bit less "professional," but it will at least be more "interesting." I hope.

I haven't put any of the old backlogged entries up, but I'll mention it in a new post when I do.

In other news, I've already started on my new thesis. I'm very excited. So far it seems like it's going to be mainly graphic, but I'm really going to try and push some boundaries with regards to craft and form. I finally have a good, strong direction to work in, and for the first time, I actually feel like I'm creating a book, or something akin to it. I just hope that it is completed in the span of this semester to an extent that both my thesis director and I are happy with, and that I can maybe extend in graduate school to an actual publishable work. But no getting ahead of myself.

And speaking of publication, I still don't have any new details regarding my most recent one. I can tell you it's a snippet of flash fiction, and it will be published on an international online journal that showcases student work. (Yay!)

There are a lot of contests open that I'm considering submitting to, but I haven't had time to go through my work and pick anything out. :/ Classes haven't been very demanding this semester, but I've been really busy with extracurriculars and helping with my mom's wedding that's taking up a lot more of my time than I thought it would.

Happy New Year!

I did not get nearly as much done over winter break as I wanted to. My room is a wreck, I didn't get any new grad school applications done (and therefore missed out on a lot of deadlines to good schools), I've hardly written at all, and I didn't really read anything either. :/ Shame on me.

I've got a long list of Resolutions to get me back on the right track, and I was going to post them all, but that seemed kind of pointless. Rather than telling you about what I plan to do, I should just notify you all about what I've already done. For example, today I scouted through the out-of-state schools that still have manageable deadlines, and once I finish packing my stuff to go back to school tomorrow, I'll apply. I have reconsidered applying to all three summer Publishing Institutes, and now I may just apply to one or two. I'm leaning towards U of Denver over NYU, but even so, I know I won't be able to attend either unless I have a full ride, and I know they won't give me a full ride. Not for a short program like that. I might save my money and apply to another MFA program instead. I'll be sure to let you all know what I've decided.

Lately, I'd been thinking that I really wanted to teach after finishing my MFA, to be a professor and stay in academia, but I was looking at SCAD: Savannah and their internships for Cartoon Network and Marvel Comics and other awesome places like that.... and you know what? That sounds awesome. I think I'd love to work in industry, at least while I'm still young. I can teach later, when I'm old(er) and want to settle down. And after I've learned some tricks of the trade. :)

I've been working on a few essays on craft and focus for a couple of weeks, hopefully you'll see them soon. Until then, enjoy the rest of your first week of 2011. :)