Roustabout

A Roustabout is someone who lives by chance.

I learned this from a guest speaker in my Professional Writing class, a man that told us his crazy life story with a banjo, a guitar, Polish bagpipes, a love flute, and a stick of hobo signs.

While I'm not quite at the point of applying for a grant to learn bagpipes in Poland or sitting in a sweat lodge to earn the right to learn to play the love flute, I like to think that I've kind of lived a life of chance anyway. It's not like I've done anything off the charts crazy, not exactly, I've just been incredibly blessed by incredible opportunities.

In two weeks I go back to Oaxaca, Mexico, a place I've come to think of as my 'home away from home' or 'home here on Earth'. It's a place that stole my heart and makes me dream of cacti and rain on dry dirt. It's the place where I'll get to see my family again after way too long, and the place where some of my best friends will get the chance to meet up again. I can't wait to go back, and even though I still have 12 days to wait I don't know if I'll have the chance to blog again before then because finals and projects and Christmas parties.

So here's the facts. Ten months ago (ten by the time I get back in a couple weeks) I left Oaxaca. Since then life has swept me off my feet and carried me across the world. If you had asked me a year ago, when I turned 18, to predict my 18th year, I would have painted an awesome picture, but it wouldn't have come anywhere close to how crazy and amazing this year has actually been.

I have sat through 15 plane rides since that first flight out of Mexico City. Granted, this includes those little connection flights that leave me stranded in airports because they're always delayed. By the time I get to Mexico again there will be another 3 flights thrown into the mix.

I have taken 10 train rides.

Only 5 coach rides (a coach is different than a bus, a coach is for long distance and is usually bigger; buses are short around the city and I am definitely not going to take the time to count those up).

And probably spent more than 100 hours in a car. I wasn't going to add this up either, but on at least 5 different occasions I went on a car ride that was longer than 5 hours, so that's 25 hours, plus countless 2 or 3 hour drives and then all those minutes added up... you get the point.

In 10 months I have stepped in 9 different countries, 7 of which I'd never been to before.

I've also been to 9 different USA states, 6 of them for the first time.

I started college at Champlain as a Professional Writing Major.

I wrote the first 73 pages of my latest novel. (I'm hoping to get it to 100 before I leave. That's just a much better number than 73. We'll see if projects will allow for that.)

I started writing for a magazine, got a job, opened a bank account, saw 5 concerts, practically met the Queen of England, kissed the man of my dreams, finished reading the Bible for the second time, made a ton of wonderful, wonderful friends from all over the world. You get the point. I've done a lot these past 10 months. It's been crazy and fantastic and new. 

I know at least some of this was planned out ahead of time. You can't exactly just hop a flight to London. But so much of my travels has also been spur of the moment, spontaneous decisions to skip class and fly to Dublin or hitch a ride to Pennsylvania.

I couldn't ask for better adventures, better stories I will one day get to write about. It's been a wonderful trip, and I am still in awe of how lucky my chances turned out to be.

The Stonehenge

I have written at least one chapter of Equity Blue this month. Definitely not my most productive month as far as writing goes. In fact probably one of the worst. Like, in my whole life, ever.

But, although I may have kind of abandoned Equity, I've been introduced to a new form of writing--the Stonehenge.

Perks of being a Professional Writing Major in college? I get to study with a professor who made up his own form of writing to help us learn some super valuable skills. He even has a book about this new form of writing- The Stonehenge- and is working on a second, which theoretically I could be a part of and have my own writing published.

Stonehenges are three sentences long. The first two sentences set up the stage, giving some description, maybe a bit of context. The last sentence is *bam* some sort of surprising action. These three sentences together create a moment.

(I definitely suggest buying this book. It gives a better explanation of how to write a Stonehenge and a lot of beautiful examples. And the cover is so... um, soft? Can I describe a cover as soft? I just love holding the book. It's great. Anyway, check out the book.)

So I've had an incredible battle with this Stonehenge project. It's so much fun to scrunch an entire life-changing moment into three sentences, and I love the challenge. But it is definitely a challenge. Which words to keep, which to take out, where to put the ones I want to keep. I must have written this Stonehenge about a thousand different ways now.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with all of this. I guess I just want to make sure everyone knows that I am still writing something, even if my "NaNoWriMo Project" is 50 words instead of 5,000.

2:00 AM

I really should be asleep right now.

A year ago, there's no way I would even have imagined writing a blog post at 2:00am. No way. This is the time for sleeping and dreaming and NOT thinking. I mean, there were nights when the Whisperers kept me up until midnight, but that was a big deal. That was for days of intense inspiration and ink running through my fingertips in place of blood.

Now it's Friday night and I'm still awake, and I feel a strange sense of accomplishment. This is college. This is what college kids do: stay up at all hours of the night for no reason in particular.

But see, you've got to understand that I'm not forcing myself to stay awake to write a blog post just to say that I fell into the college stereotype of not getting enough sleep. I mean, for one, I can sleep in tomorrow. It's Saturday, my plans don't start until 1:00pm. See, this week has been a long one, and really hard. I've found myself curled up in bed fighting back tears almost every night, wishing I had someone to talk to, and yet knowing that whenever my boyfriend or sister did write to me I wouldn't actually tell them everything. I felt drained throughout the week, angry at myself for not feeling happy but too tired to do anything about it.
I started reading the Bell Jar and found my emotions put into words beautiful, way better than I ever could. And then I saw the character move even further, even deeper, and the easy, smooth transition terrified me. I felt stuck in a life that is so unclear right now and could go anywhere. I don't think I'll ever be able to comfortably go to New York City anymore, and I'm not sure I want to finish reading the Bell Jar.

But today something clicked. I guess God just decided that I had been sad enough, that it was time to answer my prayers of the week and give me a smile. He even gave me the snow I'd been asking for, and time alone when I prayed for it and friends to talk when I complained about being lonely. My God is a great God.

So now it's 2:00am and I feel more awake than I have all week. I feel alive again, and energetic, enthusiastic. I feel happy, no, not just happy. I feel joyful.

I don't know what happened, honestly. Something just clicked and feeling dragged down is just too much work. So tomorrow, if I can manage to wake up before 1:00pm... which seems a bit doubtful, I'll go for a bike riding in the morning sun. I'll go Christmas shopping and laugh as much as I possibly can and maybe write a poem about keys.

Because the book of my life is a good book, and it will have a happy ending. And if it takes staying up until 2:00am to figure that out, well then... this is college!

Etsy, Corn, and Hipster Fashion

I discovered Pinterest a while ago as I planned out dresses with the other bridesmaids for my sister's wedding. However, since college I've spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for ideas for new hairstyles and cute quotes to write in letters that I send my friends.

Recently, someone told me about the world of Etsy, which normally would be safe, but is such a distraction now that I'm looking for gift ideas for this Christmas. Except, it doesn't work all that well, seeing as I've spent hours searching the site and so far only have a present for my boyfriend. I should probably consider getting something for my family...

So, there you have it. The truth is out that I still have a lot of free time, and while I'm at that point where I may start complaining about having too much to do... it's a lie. After six o'clock just about every day I have nothing to do but stare at my computer screen, either wasting time on Pinterest or Etsy or talking to people on Facebook or Skype or just repeatedly punching the orange StumbleUpon button or choosing one hundred songs to listen to on Grooveshark even if I know I'll only listen to about twenty of them.

I do have a few projects now, and have actually been writing for school, which is exciting, seeing as I am a Professional Writing Major... It's nice to, you know, finally write.

Someone keeps stealing letters from my College's Welcome Sign. It's rather obnoxious, really.

As for corn and hipster fashion, both of them pretty much just go right back to my missing Mexico. I love corn, and miss having a freezer always stocked with a bag of frozen corn that I could mix in to basically any meal. And corn tortillas, I definitely miss corn tortillas since they're the base of any good Mexican Meal that I could consider cooking over Thanksgiving Break when I'll have to make my own food again. Ah, I miss corn.

I got to Skype one of my best friends the other day, who told me that my old school was busy with Spirit Week last week. So of course I asked what the theme for the next day was, "Hipster/Hippie" and decided to dress up like a hipster for the day.

Unfortunately, I go to a very hipster school and fit the hipster definition given by Google Images when I searched hipster fashion. So I just wore my normal clothes and blended into the crowd. I don't think that counts as hipster anymore.

But, speaking of new and non-mainstream, I now have an article written for our online magazine which will be super cool and original when it actually becomes a thing. But now I officially will have something to contribute. So that's cool.

Now I just need to be cool and get back to this blog and update it more than once a month. That would be good. Plus, then I can actually give specific details about cool things in my life, like the snow that will hopefully come soon and I am so stoked to write about, rather than just vague updates.

I mean, I didn't even write a thing about Equity Blue in this entry. Then again, I also haven't written much in her story lately. However... I've been having a blast writing little snap stories of the Whisperers in the future, so maybe someday something will come out of that... Who knows, only time can tell. 

A Bit About Books

I have way too much to say and don't know how to say it all, so instead I'm just going to take a challenge from the Young Writer's Society and answer some questions about books instead of rambling on about the complexities of my life. 

1) Who is one of your favourite authors?
Cornelia Funke, C.S.Lewis and Markus Zusak. I know, I know, it's more than one... but they're all so good. I couldn't decide just one.

2) Ebooks, Paperback or Hardcover?
Paperback. I like hardcover as long as it doesn't have the dust jacket. That extra paper cover thing is so annoying!

3) What is your favourite genre and why?
I like young adult fiction, which I know is super broad. Fantasy is fun, but only if it's really good fantasy.

4) Why/when did you start writing?
My family reads. I learned to love reading from all of them as soon as I could.

5) Why/when did you start to love reading?
I don't think I've ever not loved it!

6) If you could enter a fictional world for a day, which would it be?
The Inkworld. I would love to spend a day in the Inkworld. Inkheart captured my heart (ha, get it? Inkheart, heart... yeah....) in ways that I can never fully understand. I would love to follow Maggie through the pages.

7) Who would be your fictional boyfriend/girlfriend?
Well, my current boyfriend is already better than any fictional guys. But for the sake of answering the question. I've always been a bit in love with Rudy from the Book Thief. Oh, can I say Mortiod from my own book? He's pretty cool.

8) What is your favourite classic book?
Hm, tough question. There's so many great books, and I can't think which ones count as classics. Secret Garden? I read that years ago but remember loving it. Anne of Green Gables? It's a classic in my mind. Lord of the Flies? So good...

9) If you could only read series or standalone books for the rest of your life, which would it be?
Standalone. I get tired of authors quickly and need to take breaks between books in a series.

10) If you had to burn three books in the world because they were so bad, which would they be?
Textbooks, I guess. I don't think I could burn an actual book- it just feels like murder...

There you go. Now you've learned absolutely nothing about college or my writing or anything like that, but you know more about my specific taste in books. I hope you've enjoyed. 

Write Write Write

What? Does this thing still exist?

I really haven't been gone that long. It's just that there have been so many time where I have every intention of looking at this and posting something... and then... life. Or distractions. Or laziness. Or food. Most often laziness, to be honest. Not actually life.

Despite what I attempt to trick you all into believing, life isn't all that exciting and demanding. But it is awesome; I'll give myself that much.

Writing in a Tree. Because, why not?

First big news, I was hired this week by my school's Publishing Initiative, which is this really neat thing that I don't exactly understand but sounds really cool. So my professor recommended me to the woman in charge of the Publishing Initiative and told her that I should be a writer for her. So I am going to write for their online magazine, which is pretty darn exciting. And it's, like, a job. Wow.

On the same hand, though, I've never written for a magazine. No idea what I'm doing. I'm totally going to play up on my professor's theory that different is better and this is going to be a like-no-other-totally-exciting-not-at-all-boring magazine and I'm just going to do my own thing and hope they like it, or at least don't hate it.

Also, I'm mentoring for kids in the middle school through a program called Word Play. The main goal is basically to get them super excited about reading and writing, which I can definitely do. "Hey, you guys are complaining about writing one page? Yeah, I wrote a novel in eight grade. But whatevs. A page is a lot."

What else? I'm also in a class called Literary Magazine, and we read submissions and decide whether or not to put them in this other magazine which is called Willard and Maple and is pretty cool. So I'm, like, an editor for that magazine as well.

And my Intro to Professional Writing Class is awesome, and our homework assignment for this week is to submit a project we've been working on to yet another magazine. Hm, I'm thinking my college really likes magazines.

Chai Tea, Music, Friend, Writing. Life is good.

Basically, life is crazy as a writing, so exciting. I can see myself moving forward. Like, this is happening. I'm not just some crazy kid in my room writing novels that no body ever reads. I am a writer. I feel like a writer. I feel like I can do anything.

Quidditch and Questions

What does it mean to be a college student? I would have thought that being in college would make it possible for me to answer that. Unfortunately, I still have no idea.

Life right now still feels so unsettled, so crazy. I feel like these weeks have been full of roller-coaster changes and I just don't always know how to deal with them. The silliest things set me off. Today the issue is whether or not to go to the first meeting for the Quidditch Club. I really don't have any good  points for either side. I don't particularly want to do anything at all right now; this last week has been full of people and classes and homework and card-games and I would really like to take the rest of the day to myself. Besides, is "oh, Harry Potter!" a good enough reason to run around with a broomstick between my legs avoiding dodge balls? I'm really not sure. Then again, this is college. I'm supposed to go have fun and live  my life and not sit in my dorm room alone all day. The week has been full and a bit overwhelming, but not busy. I have a lot of free time, a bit too much, and would like some way to fill it. Just... not today.

Besides, not going to Quidditch would mean I'd get to talk to my dad sooner. This week has also been a little bit homesick, as I'm starting to realize just how far away from everyone I really am. I can't say that I don't know anyone here anymore, I have a lot of friends and acquaintances and everything else. But there's definitely no one from 'home' here no matter which way I try to define that word.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, though. College has been great. We spent two full class periods in Media and Society talking about books, and it was awesome. And for my Intro to Professional Writing class my assignment is to listen in on people's conversations. I do that all the time anyway, having it given as an assignment is great.

Plus, the novel material here in college? Every kind of character I can imagine is here, such a variety of personalities all merged together into one place. I kind of have a theory that after a while people will start blending together. Humans have a way of wanting to fit into the crowd, and while I imagine that a lot of these college students are trying really hard to stand out in a crowd, I bet before too long they'll slide together a little bit. Then again, maybe not. I'll find out, I guess.

I don't know what else to say. There's so much I could say but I'm not sure how much is worse immortalizing on the written page. Maybe as I head into this third week I'll get into some kind of routine and find a way to post on here more often. To be honest I kind of forgot that I had a blog until today, when I needed somewhere to write without working on my novel, because I can't quite focus on Equity Blue right now. Anyway, college life begins, or continues, or whatever. This is the first day of the rest of my life, right?