Living and Learning

It's just me.  I am back.

So, my corner of the world did not explode as I had suspected that it would.  Instead, school work piled up around me and I was buried in the ensuing landslide of papers and books and all the various other school-related things that were there.  Basically, school has consumed my life for the past four months, and in just three weeks, it will cease to consume me for at least a solid month.  I am counting down the days until I will soon be able to feel more like a human and less like a slave that is always bare inches away from a mental breakdown.  Sanity-shredding workload aside, I really am enjoying school, despite the fact that it kills any semblance of a social life that I once had, never mind getting any writing done.  But I'm still ready for a break.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've always been a reader.  Maybe it's because my parents read me a story every night before I went to bed.  Maybe it's because my grandmother used to send me home from her house with stacks of books that were taller than me, fully expecting me to be able to tell her about them when I came back on my next visit.  Maybe it's because most of the Christmas presents that I got--whether I liked it or not--were books, and I was determined not to let that money go to waste.  When I got older, I watched my grandfather get sicker and sicker, and through it all, he was always reading--escaping his circumstances in the pages of the latest book we'd brought for him.  I guess after all of that, I was kind of doomed to love reading, and though I've been teased and bullied because of my "bookworm" image, I've never regretted.  I especially never regretted that when I got older and started to read books with amazing characters that made me feel like I could actually make a difference. I was reading books about people who changed the world--whether it was their fictional faery-tale land or the one that I was living in every day--and I wanted to be like them.  I wanted to change the world.  I still want to change the world.

As much as I complain about school--which is quite frequently, I'll admit--school is giving me that chance.  I look at the people that I'm working with, and they're benefiting from working with me.  Yes, I realize that this sounds completely narcissistic, but bear with me.  I'm making a difference to these people; admittedly, it isn't something huge, but they're walking out of our room happier for having been in there.  They're thanking me for my patience and for helping them, and it's kind of an amazing thing.  No, I'm not writing Pulitzer Prize winning books, and no, I'm not finding cures for diseases that kill thousands of people each year, but I'm still making some kind of difference.  I'm helping people hear again.  I'm helping people learn to read again after they've lost that ability. So, no, I'm not like the heroes that I've read about since I was old enough to do so, but I am making some kind of difference.  And school--while also killing me--is letting me make a difference. 

When I think about it like that, life doesn't really seem so bad.

Don't be alarmed.  My head didn't really explode, it just feels like it's going to.  Since my last update, I have:

1. Started back to school.  School is now consuming my life and I'm only two weeks in.  It's most of the reason that my head feels like it's going to explode, because I just don't think that anymore information is going to fit in there.  It just won't, and since I'm supposed to be in school for another five semesters, this is a seriously huge problem.  The other problem is that it has taken away most of my time for working out and writing and updating this horribly-kept blog.  That's the real problem with school; it keeps interfering with the truly important things in my life.

2. Realized that I am nearing the end of a nearly year-long story on FF.net.  I'm getting to the end of my submit-your-own-tribute thing in the Hunger Games section, and it's really strange.  The characters feel like living, breathing people and when I have to kill one off, it keeps breaking my heart.  Even the characters that I don't particularly like, I understand, and that makes it so much harder to kill them.  It's hard because once they're gone, they're gone.  They aren't coming back.

3. Read a lot more books.  Some were good, others were just okay, but I'm slowly making my way towards 150.  New additions to the list are:

1. Bitten, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 1)
2. Stolen, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 2)
3. Dime Store Magic, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 3)
4. Industrial Magic, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 4)
5. Haunted, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 5)
6. Broken, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 6)
7. No Humans Involved, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 7)
8. Personal Demon, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 8)
9. Living with the Dead, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 9)
10. Frostbitten, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 10)
11. Waking the Witch, Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld, book 11)
12. Tales of the Otherworld, Kelley Armstrong (Anthology set in the Otherworld universe)
13. Men of the Otherworld, Kelley Armstrong (Anthology set in the Otherworld universe)
14. Dead Reckoning, Charlaine Harris
15. Eve, Iris Johansen
16. Quinn, Iris Johansen
17. Split Second, Catherine Coulter (FBI series, book 15)
18. Whiplash, Catherine Coulter (FBI series, book 14)
19. Z is for Zombie, Adam Troy-Castro and Johnny Atomic
20. V is for Vampire, Adam Troy-Castro and Johnny Atomic
21. Blood Song, Cat Adams (Celia Graves, book 1)
22. Siren Song, Cat Adams (Celia Graves, book 2)
23. Blood Secrets, Jeannie Holmes
24. The Girl Who Was on Fire, edited by Leah Wilson
25. Perfect Harmony, Nora Roberts
26. Dead on the Delta, Stacy Jaye
27. The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
28. An Artificial Night, Seanan McGuire (October Daye, book 3)
29. Late Eclipses, Seanan McGuire (October Daye, book 4)
30. The Greyfriar, Clay and Susan Griffith (Vampire Empire, book 1)
31. Divine by Mistake, P.C. Cast (Divine series, book 1)
    32. The Affinity Bridge, George Mann (Newbury & Hobbes, book 1)

This brings the total to 69.  I'm saving the special number 70 slot for One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire, which comes out on Tuesday!!!!  I'm super excited about it and hope that my head does not explode before I have a chance to read it.

So, over the past month, I've come to the realization that I'm actually about to enter the adult world, and it's kind of scary.  Yesterday, I left the job that I have now so that I can go to graduate school.  It was a day that I've known was coming for quite some time, but now that it's happened, it doesn't seem real. I'm still waiting for the full force of the realization to hit me. 

I've had my job--I work with kids; some good, some...not so good--for two and a half years, and I didn't realize until now how very much it has seeped in and become a part of me.  My job has truly changed me as a person--I'm pretty sure it's for the better--and to know that I'm going to have to leave it behind in a few days is really scary and a little bit painful.  I'm realizing right now how much I'm going to miss the kids.  I'll miss the funny things that they say (ie, "You're too old not to have a boyfriend!") and the sweet things that they do (ie, color you pictures and make you necklaces and invite you to their birthday parties) and the way that they always manage to make my day a little bit brighter.  And now that I've said goodbye to them--and cried like a baby while doing so--I'm realizing that they can break my heart in a way that no one else can.  I'm going to miss them more than I've missed anything else in my life to date.

These kids have truly been a joy and a blessing in my life and I'll thank God every day for giving me the opportunity to work with them.  I only hope that my next job is as rewarding as this one has been.

Since I've started seriously writing and trying to finish a project of my own, I've realized one very key thing: I over think everything.   Really and truly, I mean everything.   I think this is because I'm one of those people who likes to have a plan for everything.  I mean, I would plan, schedule and diagram how to butter my toast if I had the time to do it.  I love schedules and plans because it tells me where I need to go and the steps for getting there.  So when I come up to a dead end, when I don't know where I'm going or have any plan to find out where I'm going, I find myself completely at a stand still.  This is where I found myself three days ago.  I remember my creative writing professor telling me that she always found free writing to be a really helpful tool when she got writer's block, and--having no other, better, plan--I decided to sit down and see where it could take me.

Where did it take me, you ask?  Why yes, I am going to tell you, because I know that you're all breathlessly awaiting the answer.

Nowhere.  It took me a big, fat nowhere.

Why is this, you ask?  Because every time I put my pen to the page, all I can think about is Where is this going to go?  How is this going to fit with what came before it?  Is the tone the same?  Is my narrative voice changing?  Why is it changing?  Is that the right word...?  And the list goes on, and on, and on...

I know that free writing is supposed to be an exercise of just writing without really thinking about the mechanics or the grammar or anything other than the words that are coming out of your pen (or pencil, if you prefer), but I just can't seem to push past that.  I focus too much on the technical aspects, and it interferes with any potential progress.  This would explain why I will sometimes sit at my desk and write a grand total of three hundred words in an hour and a half.  Just for reference, this little rant of mine is a grand total of 395 words, and it took me all of fifteen minutes to type. 

This is hardly encouraging.  Suggestions, anyone? 

Since I updated last, I have read -- more books, bringing my total to [33+__].  I enjoyed each of these very much, but at the moment, I would highly recommend Deadline by Mira Grant.  It is the second book in the Newsflesh Trilogy and it is amazing.  It's the kind of book that makes you curse the fact that you have to wait an entire year for the next (and final) installment to come out.  Most of the time, I'm not a big fan of second books in a trilogy because I feel like I'm reading filler.  The author hooks you with the first book, has something huge planned for the third book, and the second book is just them passing the time in between.  That is not the case in Deadline.  It gave me all the action and zombies that I loved in the first book, and most importantly--it has heart.   Despite the fact that they are fictional characters, I feel for them as though they're living, breathing human beings that I've known for years.  So, if you take nothing else from this post, take this: Go out, get Feed and Deadline, and rise up.

Other books read include: 

• Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire (October Daye, book 1)
• A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire (October Daye, book 2)
• Counterfeit Magic, Kelley Armstrong (Novella, part of her Otherworld series)
• Edge, Thomas Blackthorne

On the fanfiction front, I have just finished one of my multi-chapter Supernatural fics, "The World As We Know It."  I have to admit that Cason is probably my favorite OC that I have ever written in that fandom, and it's hard to part with her.  That's why I'm writing a sequel.  So if you care, be on the lookout.  I also have another chapter of my Harry Potter story, "Not Fade Away," typed up.  I'll be posting it soon after it goes through revisions.  A new chapter in "Don't Fear the Reaper" is in progress, and if any of you are reading this, the next chapter will be from Monty's perspective.  Shoot me a PM on FF.net if you read this, and I'll give you a surprise. =)

As I'm sure you're all aware [if there are readers actually out there--I know I have one, because I now have one single friend on livejournal!]--I have been absent from this blog for the past five months, zero weeks, zero days, four hours and a couple minutes [not that I'm counting or anything].  I'm sure that you were all sitting at home in front of your computer and eagerly awaiting my next update [in a dream world where what I post here actually makes some sort of difference to someone other than myself], so I apologize for keeping you waiting.  I am truly sorry.

In my last post, I wrote about my three New Year's Resolutions.  On that front:

1.) I have not quite made it to 150 books, but I am making a decent headway on that front.  So far I have read 33:

• Cry Wolf, Patricia Briggs (Book one of her Alpha and Omega series)
• Hunting Grounds, Patricia Briggs (Book two of her Alpha and Omega series)
• Moon Called, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book one)
• Blood Bound, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book two)
• Iron Kissed, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book three)
• Bone Crossed, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book four)
• Silver Bourne, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book five)
• River Marked, Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson, book six)
• Feed, Mira Grant (Newsflesh Trilogy, book one)
• Clockwork Angel, Cassandra Clare (Infernal Devices, book one)
• City of Fallen Angels, Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments, book four)
• White Cat, Holly Black (Curse Workers, book one)
• Allison Hewitt is Trapped, Madeline Roux
• The Russian Concubine,  Kate Furnivall
• Chasing the Night, Iris Johansen
• Storm Cycle, Iris and Roy Johansen
• Shadow Zone, Iris and Roy Johansen
• In the Woods, Tana French
• The Likeness, Tana French
• Faithful Place, Tana French
• A Brush of Darkness, Allison Pang
• Red-Headed Stepchild, Jaye Wells (Sabina Kane, book one)
• Mage in Black, Jaye Wells (Sabina Kane, book two)
• Green-Eyed Demon, Jaye Wells (Sabina Kane, book three)
• World War Z, Max Brooks
• The Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks
• The Mischief of the Mistletoe, Lauren Willig (Pink Carnation series, book seven)
• The Orchid Affair, Lauren Willig (Pink Carnation, book eight)
• All Just Glass, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• Dead Witch Walking, Kim Harrison
• Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
• Equations of Life, Simon Morden
• Girl Meets God, Lauren Winner
• Notes on this list: There are some books that I would highly recommend (Feed, Allison Hewitt is Trapped, anything by Tana French) to anyone because they're just that good, and then others that are very specific to your tastes.  My tastes are pretty varied; admittedly, I will read almost anything that you put in front of me if I'm bored enough.  If for whatever reason, you want more information about a book and can't find it online [or suffer a temporary lapse in judgement and believe that asking me will be better], let me know and we'll chat.  I love talking about books.

2.) I have not yet finished any of my original pieces that I have been working on, but I have finished a few long-running fanfiction pieces, which is a huge relief for me.  I finished two of my Supernatural fics, my Harry Potter fic is drawing to a close, and I have most of my Hunger Games plotted.  I am also proud to report that I have nearly 30,000 words on one of my original pieces, and that is very encouraging for me also.

3.) I am completely ready for a zombie apocalypse.  This topic has been thoroughly researched [if you couldn't tell from my reading list], and I already have a plan of action.  Very proud of myself, indeed.  I can now run two and a half miles without dying also, which is something that I'm actually proud of, especially considering that I could barely make it a hundred yards when I first started back in January.

So, a less than brief update on my New Year's Resolutions [which I'm sure was very thrilling for you].  Since I clearly am not doing a very good job of updating this thing every day and I am now working forty hours per week, it is my goal to update this thing weekly.  Hopefully, it will be on the same day of the week, but that might be pushing it.  But then, I've been doing a lot of pushing recently, so maybe this time it'll actually happen.

Oh, and for your listening pleasure, my current favorite song:

So, clearly maintaining a blog is a hell of a lot harder than I thought that it was going to be.  However, I am now back and have made a resolution to be more diligent in my blog maintence.  So, a brief overview from Max's life for the past month in which I have been horribly neglectful of the whole three people who probably and potentially read this blog. 

I finished the first semester of my senior year of college with a 4.0 GPA. This is pretty exciting considering that I am in the process of applying to graduate school and need all the GPA boosting I can get.  Plus, this is only the second 4.0 I've gotten in my college career, and I am exceptionally pleased with it.  I apologize to those reading this--all three of you, if I'm lucky--because I realize that I'm starting to ramble and it's starting to sound like a lot of bragging, so I'm going to stop there. 

I have also made some New Year's resolutions, which is quite the change for me because I usually refuse to do so.  But this year, I have decided to make some resolutions, and here they are: 

1. I want to read 150 books in the next year.  Any 150 will do, though I naturally would prefer that they be good books because I hate wasting my time.  When I get to the end of a bad book (and I always do because I'm too stubborn to put them down), and feel like it isn't worth the time I've put into it, it aways puts me in a bit of a bad mood.  So far, I have read three books in ten days.  See below for details.
2. I am going to actually finish one of my own pieces this year.  I have ideas swimming around in my head and I never finish them, but I am going to get it done this year. I think it's mostly a matter of forcing myself to sit down and write, even when I'm too exhausted and cranky to do so.  I've finally realized (because sometimes I don't catch on that quickly) that even the most terrible, off-the-wall, sophomoric crap that sometimes comes out of my mind can be edited and edited into something at least semi-useful.  So, my resolve to actually finish something.
3. And on a lighter note, my third resolution is to work out so that I will be prepared in the event of a rebellion a la The Hunger Games or a zombie apocalypse a la Feed.  I have this tendency to let the books that I read heavily influence my life (clearly, considering that I spend way too much time writing fanfiction).  I mean in every way, shape and form.  I mean, I now know way too many things (like first aid and proper maintence of a bladed weapon) due to my obsession with certain books.  But anyway, that is my third and slightly ridiculous resolution.

On the fanfiction front, the games have officially started in "Don't Fear the Reaper: The Fifth Quell," and they've started with quite the bang.  I have also started taking tributes for the sequel, "Teenage Dream: The 126th Hunger Games."  If that's your cup of tea, check it out.  If it isn't, well, I imagine that you skipped that section anyway.  I have also made my first foray into Maximum Ride fanfiction, and continue to work in Supernatural (because I love my boys).  Hopefully my updates will be more regular from now on because I'm getting to the end of my graduate scool applications and will have more time to write.  But then, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...so I guess it's a good thing that I'm a woman.  No seriously.

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 6,024

So, this is my first year participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'm realizing now that when I decided to do this I didn't know what exactly I was getting myself into.  November is a busy month.  The end of the semester is quickly approaching, which means that I have papers and tests coming out of my ears.  Thanksgiving is also coming, which means that I get the hustle and bustle that comes with that, and at my house, there is plenty of hustling and bustling.  The point that I meant to make before I got sidetracked is that I didn't realize just how much time marathon novel-writing takes up, and now I'm starting to feel it.  However, I made the commitment, and I will carry on.

The other thing that I'm starting to realize about myself as a writer is that I am a horrible over-editor.  I have re-written one scene almost five times now, trying to get the voice and flow of it right.  This would probably not be that big of a deal except for the fact that I don't have the whole story finished.  What is the point in editing a scene to death when you don't have what comes after it?  I'm getting too hung up on the small moments and not enough on teh whole story as a whole, which is a shame.  I have the whole story plotted out, I just have to get into actually writing the whole.  Assuming that I can get out of this horrible over-editing funk.

On the fanfiction front, I am hoping to have a lot of stuff to post at the end of the week. In my Hunger Games fic--Don't Fear the Reaper--I will hopefully have the final reaping up so that I can get into the gritty loveliness that is the Hunger Games, complete with blood, misery, alliances and horribly gory deaths. I think that's the part that everyone really enjoys anyway.  If any of my Supernatural readers are reading this, I'm hoping to have a chapter of The World As We Know It up at the end of the week as well.  Hopefully, I'll have time for some other little surprises, too. 

I wish that I had a very witty title to attract attention (and to show how clever and funny I am), but I don't.  Some of that might be because I am writing this at 1:11 in the morning and my brain is threatening to leak out my ears--metaphorically, of course.  So why, you ask, am I awake at this ungodly hour?  Well, I decided to try this livejournal thing.  I won't lie, it's mostly so that I can be more involved with any readers from FF.net who may decide that for whatever reason they want to pop over here and see what I'm up to.  I'll try to update regularly with the status of my stories.  Sometimes life interferes with writing--especially when you're a college student with a job--and if life is going to interfere big time with my stories, I'll try to let you know here.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember; I was that kid in middle school who was secretively scribbling away at the back of the classroom instead of paying attention (Note: I do not encourage this method if you wish to pass any sort of advanced math).  But for whatever reason--my heart or my shoes--I have never been able to finish something of my own.  I'm hoping that in this blog/journal will give me a space to write about my experience while I try to actually finish something for once.  Maybe I'll find some encouragement along the way, maybe I won't.  I'm mostly hoping that if people are reading about my attempts, I'll be less prone to give up because then my failure will be semi-public.  Any encouragement from whoever is out there reading this would be beyond awesome. 
 

--Max