I suck….

I’ve been very bad. I know. I honestly haven’t even looked at any of my writing in a like…two weeks….

I’ve been swamped with my research starting and studying for the GRE. I also have family from out of town staying with me and frankly, I’m really more interested in them right now.

I will get back to writing soon. My first shot (and hopefully the last shot) at the GRE is in two weeks so I’m hoping to have more time after that.

Also, I’ve been thinking about revisiting older pieces of mine and maybe revamping them. Any thoughts on that?

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back with a real update soon!

Ciao readers!

Mental Stalemate….

So I’m stuck…..this is the part of my writing process I really, really hate. I’m having some problems with the details of my current project (part one of the asylum stories), so I was hoping that some of you out there in internet land might be able to help.

As stated in my last entry, part one (which doesn’t have a title yet, so it’ll be part one until then) is about a teenage boy whose mother is trying to have him admitted into a substance-abuse program.

The only problem: Homeboy doesn’t really have a drug problem…..

To be clear: I’ve never done any drugs myself and I find them vile and disgusting BUT I am not the main character of my story and therefore my main character does not reflect my views.

Anyway, back to the story. We start out in the waiting room of the clinic/facility while the narrator/main character (mc) explains why he is here. I’m attempting to make subtle references to what may or may not be going on with the mother, but it’s proving a little difficult. I’m thinking that maybe I should scratch substance abuse for now and change it to something else. But that would also involve completely redoing major parts of the story. Thoughts?

This section will be relatively short as it takes place in only one visit. Other sections will be longer and will contain more serious subjects.

Sometimes when I’m writing a story, I write scenes that I know won’t be in the story but they help me understand what the characters are like. I subscribe to the belief that stories and characters can have a life that even the author is not aware of, as most of us don’t think about every detail of a characters life. That’s why even though I have a basic idea of where my story is going, I don’t believe in rigidly outlining every detail.

Unfortunately, none of the characters have actually taken over yet. In fact, details are my current problem. I have no trouble seeing the inside of the doctor’s office but I am having trouble describing them.

I hate having constant arguments with my brain.

I’m headed up to school either tomorrow or Wednesday for work,  so I’ll take a picture of the hallway that inspired this series. You can tell me if I’m just being cuckoo cachoo (pun completely intended)

music: nothing special. Live at the Electric Factory album for The Fray (great album if you’re into The Fray! But it’s all stuff from their first album)

research frustration level: Um…sort of high? I’ve been exceptionally lazy really busy and haven’t done a lot of my readings. And I need to meet with my mentor in the next two days….whoops.

fun factoid: I really want a fish and I want to name it Farquad. It’s just such a great name!

Until next time, dear Readers.

The Hurricane in my Brain

Hello Readers!

I’m glad the poem I wrote was well-received and I’m really glad to get that out of my system. Now, my next project is something I’ve been thinking about for months but I’ve never actually gotten around to writing until now.

This next story is going to be in multiple parts. I’m thinking it’ll probably be in vignettes. It’s definitely not going to be in a chapter format but all of the parts will have one common theme: mental hospitals

Tentative Title: Inside the Loony Bin.

Yeah….I know…..

Okay, so first things first: how I came up with this idea.

Well, despite being a psychology minor, I had never been inside the psych building at my school until very recently when I went to turn in a form. It had rained that day so when I got into the lobby, I was more concerned with getting my umbrella closed than what the place looked like.

And then, I left the lobby and entered One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. All I saw was crisp, white walls and doors lined up in a cookie cutter fashion. There were no windows apart from the doors on each end of the floor and the doors in the front lobby. I was scared to go inside any of the rooms, so I don’t know about them.

As frightened as I was by this crazy (PUN!) place, as soon as I left I couldn’t shake the feeling that this would make a great story.

As much as I wanted to go home and write ASAP, life took control of my brain for a while and I wasn’t able to do anything with it but make occasional notes of what I wanted to happen.

Once, I finally got time to think about it, I had no clue what I wanted: serious or funny? one shot or series?  long or short?

The confusion was not fun. My brain hurt really badly after that.

Eventually, I decided to take it one part at a time, starting with the one I’m working on now, that’s still untitled.

This one (so far at least) is more humorous than serious and not to be taken to seriously. I’m going to have to ask you, dear readers, to suspend disbelief for a while because I am in no way an expert and these are mostly just first drafts. I haven’t spent a ton of time research and I probably won’t do much more than I already have.

Part one’s sort of summary: A teenage boy’s mother is trying to have him admitted for a substance abuse problem. Insanity ensues

However, if you read it and see something I can improve upon, that is very much appreciated and definitely welcome. And please, don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I want/need criticism. Tell me if you hated it. Tell me if you loved it but hated something else about it.

Tell me if I used the wrong your/you’re.

This part should be up soon. I’ll post a link when that happens. Subscribe to posts so that you’ll know when!

Alrighty, wrap-up time:

music: A well done cover of Hey Soul Sister and Anyone Else But You by The Moldy Peaches. Hey, I had to listen to something insane to get in the mood….

research frustration level: meh…mild. Lots of paper work right now and that just blows.

fun factoid: I hate red roses. Not just because I think it’s really superficial for people to think that giving someone something that everyone else says is a romantic, loving gesture is a good idea, but also because they’re ugly. I really think they’re one of the most u attractive flowers ever. If someone wanted to be romantic and loving, they’d find out what the person’s favorite flower is. Not use the universal code for “I’m hot water and I don’t want to be”.

Ciao for Now!

An experiment of sorts

As the title suggests, I performed a bit of an experiment with this particular piece of writing. I was looking through my writing journal (yes, I have a writing journal, don’t judge me) and I realized I hadn’t written any poetry in almost two years. For a long time, poetry was my main outlet of expressing EVERYTHING. Granted, a lot of it wasn’t good but honestly, you don’t learn to write well until you suck for a bit (That’s paraphrased from Maureen Johnson, a young adult novelist :] ).

But, I didn’t want to write a poem for the sake of writing a poem. That would be useless and absolutely no one would benefit from that. I like to think that everything I write has at least one beneficiary (generally myself) and that everything I write has a purpose. So instead of writing something contrived and washed out, I took a dive into the deep end of my mind (not always a pretty place, my friends. Right now, it’s very concerned with Specific Language Impairment) and tried to find something trapped in my head that was itching to come out.

This is what I’ve come up with.

Okay, first things first: this is a very rough FIRST draft. I don’t even know if I’ll ever revisit it. And it is an experiment.

Second: This poem isn’t in poetry format. It’s something called ASL gloss. This is basically the written form of American Sign Language. I started taking ASL almost two years ago and fell in love with the language and the Deaf population. I wanted to write something from their perspective in their language.

Third: I’m sorry if this post is rambling. I’ve had nothing but school on my brain for days and I’m not really sure what’s wrong with me at this point.

Also, a few house keeping things. I THINK that you can subscribe to my posts through the comments section, but I’m not positive about that. If not, I can work something out where I can send out email alerts when ever I update. Let me know what works and I’ll figure it out.

Second thing on the agenda. I’m using Fiction Press to publish all of my stories and poems. The page I’m using is specifically for this blog and it has the same name, so you can search it on there if you need to. I have activated anonymous reviewing since I figure that most of you don’t have/ want to get a Fiction Press account. That works fine for me but I’d love to know who is reviewing, so please leave your name on the comment if you choose to comment that way.

Ok! Back to normal writing blog stuff. As promised, the three things I ensure I’d do on every blog when possible

music: I’ve had the song Falling Slowly (from the movie Once) on repeat for about two hours. But I hit up three different versions of the song (even though they’re barely different) to make myself not feel like I’m obsessed with it.

research frustration level: pretty low since I’m focused on acing my classes first.

fun factoid: um…..uh…… I have no idea. Maybe…..no, that’s no good. OH!….wait, I don’t want you to know that.

Can my fun factoid be that I am undecided on a fun factoid for today?

Here’s the poem itself. It’s called ME HEAR DIFFERENT Leave your thoughts here or on the poem. I’d prefer if you didn’t email me or message them to me, it’ll be easier for me to keep track of what people think if they’re all in one place.

Alright children, enjoy!

Ciao for now!

For All The Potential Readers…

I came up with the idea to start a blog about a month ago but I wasn’t sure what it should be about. Eventually, I got to thinking that it “might” be cool to write a blog about my writing: the process, the frustration, the triumph, and the overall ridiculous-ness of how certain things come to mind. I suppose readership will determine whether or not this is actually a good idea.

So! Here is how I think this is going to go. I’ll probably update every two weeks (current gestimation of how long it will take for me to actually get this done) with some information of what I’m writing and how it’s going. I think two weeks is a reasonable time for a couple of reasons:

1. I’m going to be doing research this summer and probably won’t have time to write enough in less time than that.
2. But this isn’t so much time that I won’t stay motivated. Especially since I’ve fallen off the writing bandwagon lately.

So now that we’ve established a time frame, let’s delve into blog content. I’ll start off with a very basic, cliché blog thingie: music. Music is a HUGE part of my writing process and my mood so I’m definitely going to keep my potential readers informed about that.

Second thing: How frustrated I am with my research (at least for the summer) . I just decided that about ten seconds ago because I anticipate getting frustrated.

Third: A factoid. I don’t plan on giving out a ton of personal information on here (where I’m from, who I am, what’s my number) because I…..don’t want to. I think that’s a legitimate reason for not giving out personal info. But, I do want to some connection with you guys out there so I do want to just tell you a fun factoid or answer a question (that isn’t over-personal) if you have any.

Of course the rest of each entry will be about what I am writing. If it get’s finished I’ll post a link you can go to a read my story/poem. If it isn’t finished, I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

……I need a good sign off.

For now, I’ll say Ciao