November 23, 2014

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.

November 14, 2014

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!

November 9, 2014

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.