Well, another month has come and gone. I thought that as I start a new month, I would give an update on my progress as of late.
Life - I moved to St. Louis, quite successfully I may add. So far it seems I have only forgotten my birth certificate (thanks for moving that, Mom) and a pair of shoes (which I hadn't actually missed) and I've only had to deal with one dent in the furniture from the move. All in all, the move itself went smoothly and I am loving my new apartment. We're still lacking a couch, but hopefully we will have that in the next few weeks.
Publishing - I had three separate people contact me from Openings, a literary magazine I have contributed to in the past, to submit a fiction piece for publication...after their announced deadline. I had very little notice for this, but I sent them a few options and should hear back on them shortly. I'm also hunting around for somewhere to submit my poetry and flash fiction, at least until I have a more sizable piece available.
Novel - Slow moving as of late, but still around. Mostly what I've been working on is planning and working with the timeline, since that tends to get a bit tricky with a time travel novel.
Short stories - I'm currently working on a piece regarding the day before the end of the world, which will be published in an anthology later this year. Once this project ends, a second one is beginning, which will likely be a straight-to-ebook free release, regarding travel between other worlds.
Writing groups - While I'm sad to have moved away from such an amazing writing group, I've been able to stay a part of Journey through the magic of the internet. In fact, I am currently heading a small group as part of Journey for those interested in working on finishing their novels, as opposed to writing or publishing them. Additionally, I'm on the hunt for a local group that I can meet in-person with, to have a more immediate support system.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Thoughts from Chicago: Recycling
When I lived in Chicago, recycling was second nature. I had always considered Chicago a very green city, especially for being such a large, industrialized city, but I never fully comprehended just how eco-conscious Chicago was until I moved to St. Louis.
In Chicago, we had a recycling program combined with our trash pick-up at both my mother's and my father's houses, as well as in every school I had ever attended, and most businesses I frequented. Wal-Mart and Kohl's had recycling programs in store for plastic bags and Target had an amazing recycling center that accepted aluminum, paper, glass, and plastic. Recycling was everywhere. Now I'm actually having trouble recycling out of my own house. We don't have regular trash pick-up, just a dumpster, and we are not even offered the option of recycling. I attempted earlier this week to drop-off a box full of aluminum cans and a few glass bottles at a recycling center and despite what their website suggested, they were not very open to taking donations from the public. And they don't have any of the convenient drop-off locations in stores that I've become so accustomed to in Chicago.
While I am frustrated by how little of St. Louis even considers green options (let's not get into the lack of public transport), this predicament only serves to endear me more to Chicago. One of my very favorite things about Chicago's high level of effort to support and sustain the environment were the trash bins downtown. I realize how ridiculous this sounds, but I am just so impressed by these smart bins that every time I walk downtown, I comment on them (much to the chagrin of my friends).
The "smart" bins (formally called "BigBelly Solar Compactors") are placed all around town, primarily in busier/touristy areas, such as Millennium Park and Grant Park. First, they collect trash like any other bin, but when it senses new trash, a compactor is triggered inside the bin which condenses the waste before it is shipped, so that the bin can accommodate more waste before a pick-up, which lessens the number of times a truck needs to drive across town, reducing the amount of fuel used, as well as the carbon released into the atmosphere. Additionally, the truck needs to make less trips because they do not work on a once or twice-a-week schedule, but rather on an as-needed basis. The bin--powered by solar rays, I might add--is smart enough to send a ping to the trash company when the bin is full, which is when the truck comes by for a pick-up. For a garbage can, it's pretty high tech stuff, but it positively impacts the environment—or at least decreases the negative impacts—in so many ways that it makes a noticeable difference. All because someone in Chicago looked at a trash bin on the street and thought "this could be a little greener."
And I think that's what's so great about Chicago, is that we make a conscious effort to be green. We place plants all over town and create laws about open spaces and gardens, even within the city limits, and we try to improve things wherever we can, even with something as simple as a trash bin on a street corner. It's something I have rarely seen or heard of outside of Chicago and it's something I already miss dearly.
In Chicago, we had a recycling program combined with our trash pick-up at both my mother's and my father's houses, as well as in every school I had ever attended, and most businesses I frequented. Wal-Mart and Kohl's had recycling programs in store for plastic bags and Target had an amazing recycling center that accepted aluminum, paper, glass, and plastic. Recycling was everywhere. Now I'm actually having trouble recycling out of my own house. We don't have regular trash pick-up, just a dumpster, and we are not even offered the option of recycling. I attempted earlier this week to drop-off a box full of aluminum cans and a few glass bottles at a recycling center and despite what their website suggested, they were not very open to taking donations from the public. And they don't have any of the convenient drop-off locations in stores that I've become so accustomed to in Chicago.
While I am frustrated by how little of St. Louis even considers green options (let's not get into the lack of public transport), this predicament only serves to endear me more to Chicago. One of my very favorite things about Chicago's high level of effort to support and sustain the environment were the trash bins downtown. I realize how ridiculous this sounds, but I am just so impressed by these smart bins that every time I walk downtown, I comment on them (much to the chagrin of my friends).The "smart" bins (formally called "BigBelly Solar Compactors") are placed all around town, primarily in busier/touristy areas, such as Millennium Park and Grant Park. First, they collect trash like any other bin, but when it senses new trash, a compactor is triggered inside the bin which condenses the waste before it is shipped, so that the bin can accommodate more waste before a pick-up, which lessens the number of times a truck needs to drive across town, reducing the amount of fuel used, as well as the carbon released into the atmosphere. Additionally, the truck needs to make less trips because they do not work on a once or twice-a-week schedule, but rather on an as-needed basis. The bin--powered by solar rays, I might add--is smart enough to send a ping to the trash company when the bin is full, which is when the truck comes by for a pick-up. For a garbage can, it's pretty high tech stuff, but it positively impacts the environment—or at least decreases the negative impacts—in so many ways that it makes a noticeable difference. All because someone in Chicago looked at a trash bin on the street and thought "this could be a little greener."
And I think that's what's so great about Chicago, is that we make a conscious effort to be green. We place plants all over town and create laws about open spaces and gardens, even within the city limits, and we try to improve things wherever we can, even with something as simple as a trash bin on a street corner. It's something I have rarely seen or heard of outside of Chicago and it's something I already miss dearly.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Thoughts from Chicago: The Bean
First off, The Bean's real title is the Cloud Gate. It's another Gateway, much like the one I am moving towards (which coincidentally is also represented by a large metallic tourist trap). I know this name, and yet, like millions of others, I call it The Bean, because that is what it is; there is no denying it. It is a large, reflective bean, in the middle of Millennium Park, overlooking Michigan Avenue. But it is just so Chicagoan to simplify something so complicated as this (you don't think it's complicated? Please keep reading, I'll get there). We do it all the time. The Corn Cobs. The Tower. The Lake. The Marilyn. It's practically second nature and it makes the most sense with the Bean. There is only one Bean and everyone in the city can point you towards it.
But this is what I love about the Bean: its complexity, despite being so simple. It is a Bean. It is a sculpture. It is a tourist trap. It is a piece of art. But it is so much more in all of that. What I love most about this piece is that it holds the city inside of it. It is in part a sculpture, but it is also in part, a mirror. The city of Chicago exists in the reflection of its surface and so within the Bean lies the city, but more than that, it also holds the people of the city. The amazing thing about this piece is that it invites the viewer to become a part of the art. If humans are anything, they are vain. You give them a giant reflective surface and they don't think wow I wonder how long this took to make and how did they shape the metal in this way—they immediately look for themselves and anyone they know.
This art is literally a reflection of the viewer, and so the viewer becomes the art. And to me, that is just so indicative of Chicago. We are a city of tall buildings and bipolar weather, a city of art and culture, but we are also a city of people. And more than that, we are a city that opens its arms to people all around the world. The Bean doesn't only show Chicagoans, it shows people from Bangladesh and England and Mexico, from D.C. and L.A. and middle-of-nowhere, America. The Bean welcomes those people and says come here, be a part of what is happening here, in this city, in this moment.
The Bean holds the city inside of it. It holds the people and the culture and the open-armed welcomes, it holds constant change, and it holds the viewer. It holds so many complexities of life, so many overlapping edges of the human condition and urban living and growth, and yet it is, in essence, only a bean.
Parting from my One True Love
To most of my readership, this will not be news, but I am soon moving southwards, to the great Gateway to the Midwest. I've always thought of gateways as places or objects or metaphors to pass through, but never live inside of, and yet this is where my life seems to be pointing me. Hopefully this will not end as badly for me as it did for the Doorman, who spent his life in another such gateway. I am very excited to start my new life in St. Louis, where I will live in a lovely apartment with my best friend and play out the dream America has prescribed to every twenty-something in the country, which is to have a place of your own, have a "real job," and hopefully have adventures taken from sitcom scripts. And I have to tell you, as clichéd as these aspirations may be, I am truly looking forward to this move and I have never in my life found hand towels and toothbrush holders and shower curtains so infinitely interesting.
But there is one thing that's bittersweet about it all, and that's leaving Chicago. Deep down, I know that no matter where I live, Chicago will always be my town, my city, my home. It's not something you can take away from someone and I will certainly not let anyone do so either. I have fallen in love twice in my life and one of those times was with Chicago, and that is a love that has lasted. I can't tell you when it started, just that it exists. And I know that no matter where life takes me, I will always want to return to this city, because it's not the people or the places that I will miss, but the very essence of the city itself: its life force, for this is most certainly a city that is alive. I know now that no matter how much I will come to love St. Louis (and I will; it is the only city I have ever missed outside of Chicago), I will still be doing whatever I can to claw my way back to the Windy City. That's my goal now: to become successful enough that someday I can return to Chicago and live here, for real.
I have a massive collection of photographs taken in and of Chicago, and many of them are not the touristy pictures that most expect (though some of those exist, too). I am scrolling through the documents on my computer right now and thinking about how there is so much I need to say about this city, so much I want to express to anyone who has never visited it and more importantly, to the ones who have and never understood it as I understand it. I could write a novel on all the things I feel for this city, it would be my Love Letter. Maybe someday I will, just because I can. For now, I will settle for writing a few blogs that will not come close enough to touch the way I feel, but perhaps close enough to see waving it in the distance.
But there is one thing that's bittersweet about it all, and that's leaving Chicago. Deep down, I know that no matter where I live, Chicago will always be my town, my city, my home. It's not something you can take away from someone and I will certainly not let anyone do so either. I have fallen in love twice in my life and one of those times was with Chicago, and that is a love that has lasted. I can't tell you when it started, just that it exists. And I know that no matter where life takes me, I will always want to return to this city, because it's not the people or the places that I will miss, but the very essence of the city itself: its life force, for this is most certainly a city that is alive. I know now that no matter how much I will come to love St. Louis (and I will; it is the only city I have ever missed outside of Chicago), I will still be doing whatever I can to claw my way back to the Windy City. That's my goal now: to become successful enough that someday I can return to Chicago and live here, for real.
I have a massive collection of photographs taken in and of Chicago, and many of them are not the touristy pictures that most expect (though some of those exist, too). I am scrolling through the documents on my computer right now and thinking about how there is so much I need to say about this city, so much I want to express to anyone who has never visited it and more importantly, to the ones who have and never understood it as I understand it. I could write a novel on all the things I feel for this city, it would be my Love Letter. Maybe someday I will, just because I can. For now, I will settle for writing a few blogs that will not come close enough to touch the way I feel, but perhaps close enough to see waving it in the distance.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
NaNoWriMo 2012: A Summary
It has come to my attention that I never actually blogged here about NaNoWriMo this year, though I did participate and blog elsewhere. I thought I'd give a quick summary of the experience this year, as it is my best to date.
My novel this year is called Inevitable, though you've likely seen my refer to it as "The Time WIP" here. I scrapped what I had originally written and revamped the whole project and was rewarded with a fairly good starting point.
My success with reaching 50,000 words, and even more so with reaching 60,000 words, is in no small part due to the wonderful writing community of the Naperville NaNoWriMo chapter (or NaperWrimos). I attended two write-ins this year and was able to write 5k and 9k on those days respectively, thanks to the friendly and competitive nature of the meetings. Tim was a great help by encouraging me with additional challenges, promising me plot critters as prizes. At the end, I was rewarded with a great time at the TGIO Party, as well as a 60k start on a novel.
Afterwards, the NaperWrimo community proved to be even more helpful, by encouraging me to keep writing and work towards finishing my first draft. The forums are still alive, as is the community. Last week I met David, Katherine, and Carly at Caribou and had some fun with some editing and reading exercises. David has set me a goal of writing 2 more chapters (or 8,000 words) by our next meeting on the 26th. I'm already benefitting from having a deadline and accountability, but I also enjoy having writing friends to talk to, learn from, and share stories with, especially in person.
I'm still writing and, unfortunately, this means a lot more research. But I shall persevere!
P.S., if anyone knows of any good documentaries on the Battle of Gettysburg, drop me a line.
My novel this year is called Inevitable, though you've likely seen my refer to it as "The Time WIP" here. I scrapped what I had originally written and revamped the whole project and was rewarded with a fairly good starting point.
The main reason I was so successful with NaNoWriMo this year (I won with 60,013 words) is that I love the characters and even more than that, I love the world I created. I had fun with the idea of the Collective—a future version of our world where many superpowers have joined to create one massive empire—and the way I portrayed time travel in this novel. Time travel alone provided me a lot of room for experimentation and imagination. If all goes well, I will continue the themes in this book and write a three-book series of novels surrounding Jonah, Kevin, and the Historians. Additionally, I also want to write a fourth spin-off novel about Rosie Davis, my 1920s correspondent.Jonah McCameron has known since he was twelve years old that he would become a Historian someday, because he was told so. Ten years later, Jonah meets the stern, yet slightly mad Dr. Miles, a professor and Historian, who soon becomes Jonah's mentor. With the help of Dr. Miles, Jonah learns the truth about the Collective Historical Society: that the men and women who make up its body do not simply research history, but experience it first-hand, with the aid of time travel. As an Apprentice Historian, Jonah learns the tricks of the trade, but is soon plagued by questions regarding fate and free will, with no thanks to the mysterious Kevin Doyle. In this novel, Jonah will relive the past, work to change the future, and learn why foreknowledge is so dangerous.
My success with reaching 50,000 words, and even more so with reaching 60,000 words, is in no small part due to the wonderful writing community of the Naperville NaNoWriMo chapter (or NaperWrimos). I attended two write-ins this year and was able to write 5k and 9k on those days respectively, thanks to the friendly and competitive nature of the meetings. Tim was a great help by encouraging me with additional challenges, promising me plot critters as prizes. At the end, I was rewarded with a great time at the TGIO Party, as well as a 60k start on a novel.
Afterwards, the NaperWrimo community proved to be even more helpful, by encouraging me to keep writing and work towards finishing my first draft. The forums are still alive, as is the community. Last week I met David, Katherine, and Carly at Caribou and had some fun with some editing and reading exercises. David has set me a goal of writing 2 more chapters (or 8,000 words) by our next meeting on the 26th. I'm already benefitting from having a deadline and accountability, but I also enjoy having writing friends to talk to, learn from, and share stories with, especially in person.
I'm still writing and, unfortunately, this means a lot more research. But I shall persevere!
P.S., if anyone knows of any good documentaries on the Battle of Gettysburg, drop me a line.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Pep Talks to Myself
Lately I've had a hard time writing or getting into anything, really. I've been struggling with being stagnant after graduation. Where do I go from here? Why can't I seem to find a better job? If I go back to school, what should I get my masters in? What does it matter if I write or not?
Well, I gave myself a pep talk the other night that seemed to snap me back to reality, or at least writing. I told myself, J, you can either sit back and stay in this life you hate, or you can fight for a better future. I told myself, you are a fighter and you are going to fight like hell to keep doing the things you love. That means overcoming stagnation, fighting for a position, fighting against your deteriorating health. And it actually worked. I've decided to fight.
Part of that means returning to hope, returning to wishes, returning to dreaming up a better future. What this is means is that I inspire myself to write by thinking about the endgame, what happens after I'm published. I imagine what fans will like or not like, what they will argue with each other about, how they will react. My favorite past-time has always been imagining giving book talks or being interviewed about my books.
If you follow me on tumblr, you've probably noticed I've been in a bit of a tag vomit mood this week. A few of those entries were related to this kind of dreaming, where I imagine how future students looking at my work will imagine me and/or will interpret my books. This comes largely out of the fact that sometimes English majors over-analyze a book and find more meaning in it than the writer originally intended. Anyway, here are the tags, and links to their respective posts.
Part 1: A Response to Leonardo Da Vinci's hand studies
someday if my books are ever published students will study me and my weird (and somewhat macabre) obsession with hands and they will write papers about how I feared nothing but losing them. They will write that I was most fascinated by hands, how they mean losing everything and yet they were the key to creating everything. my hands are my everything. Just kidding. They will write papers about me saying she wrote a lot about hands and potatoes and we're really not sure why. Maybe she secretly wanted to be a farmer
Part 2: A Response to Seamus Heaney's "Digging"
this is the post all the students who will study my works in the future will cite on their essays saying look Teacher she is obsessed with potatoes just like we said. this poem represents how she wanted to be a farmer just like all the generations of her family before her. both sets of grandparents and her uncle had a farm you know. but she didn't work on a farm so she decided to dig with her pen like Heaney did. as you can see I've done my research and I can find you more evidence of why Layman writes so much about hands and potatoes. She was kind of a weird writer but I guess all writers are weird. except this one didn't drink or take opium or anything. she was just obsessed with potatoes and hands I guess.
TL;DR: dreaming about being famous in the future helps me write my novels, because I feel like I have something to work towards. If you're having trouble, maybe this will help you too. Maybe I'm just delusional.
Well, I gave myself a pep talk the other night that seemed to snap me back to reality, or at least writing. I told myself, J, you can either sit back and stay in this life you hate, or you can fight for a better future. I told myself, you are a fighter and you are going to fight like hell to keep doing the things you love. That means overcoming stagnation, fighting for a position, fighting against your deteriorating health. And it actually worked. I've decided to fight.
Part of that means returning to hope, returning to wishes, returning to dreaming up a better future. What this is means is that I inspire myself to write by thinking about the endgame, what happens after I'm published. I imagine what fans will like or not like, what they will argue with each other about, how they will react. My favorite past-time has always been imagining giving book talks or being interviewed about my books.
If you follow me on tumblr, you've probably noticed I've been in a bit of a tag vomit mood this week. A few of those entries were related to this kind of dreaming, where I imagine how future students looking at my work will imagine me and/or will interpret my books. This comes largely out of the fact that sometimes English majors over-analyze a book and find more meaning in it than the writer originally intended. Anyway, here are the tags, and links to their respective posts.
Part 1: A Response to Leonardo Da Vinci's hand studies
someday if my books are ever published students will study me and my weird (and somewhat macabre) obsession with hands and they will write papers about how I feared nothing but losing them. They will write that I was most fascinated by hands, how they mean losing everything and yet they were the key to creating everything. my hands are my everything. Just kidding. They will write papers about me saying she wrote a lot about hands and potatoes and we're really not sure why. Maybe she secretly wanted to be a farmer
Part 2: A Response to Seamus Heaney's "Digging"
this is the post all the students who will study my works in the future will cite on their essays saying look Teacher she is obsessed with potatoes just like we said. this poem represents how she wanted to be a farmer just like all the generations of her family before her. both sets of grandparents and her uncle had a farm you know. but she didn't work on a farm so she decided to dig with her pen like Heaney did. as you can see I've done my research and I can find you more evidence of why Layman writes so much about hands and potatoes. She was kind of a weird writer but I guess all writers are weird. except this one didn't drink or take opium or anything. she was just obsessed with potatoes and hands I guess.
TL;DR: dreaming about being famous in the future helps me write my novels, because I feel like I have something to work towards. If you're having trouble, maybe this will help you too. Maybe I'm just delusional.
Updates (Six Month Hiatus Explained)
Well, it's been six months since I was last here. Sorry about that. Here's a few quick updates, then I'll make a second update about what I actually came here to write.
Health: I learned recently that I do not have carpal tunnel, but that I actually have cubital tunnel, which is somewhat similar, but uses the ulnar nerve and runs through the elbow instead. I'm on anti-inflammatories and some light therapy, but I think the thing that really helped it was just knowing the cause and the things to avoid. But more importantly, the pain I've been feeling is not a result of cubital tunnel syndrome, but is in fact a "more serious issue" we're currently trying to determine. I go in on Wednesday for blood tests to determine whether or not I have RA, which is the most likely result.
Zenith: Has a new intro that I rather like, but other than that, has been sitting ignored for a few months. I really need to go through and do final edits, but I just can't seem to find the motivation lately (we'll get to that in a minute).
Inevitable aka the TimeWIP: If you only follow me here, you don't know about the TimeWIP yet. It is my current project, which involves time traveling Historians. Yep, I gave time travel to one of the most boring professions and denied it to everyone else. Basically, the Collective Historical Society has unlocked the key to time travel and they've found a way to limit access to it. Historians are sent back in time to witness important events and collect facts (and occasionally artifacts) on these events. The MC, James, is told when he's 12 that he'll become a Historian, because in the future he's already one and the CHS needs to make sure this happens. There's more to it after that, but that's where I am at the moment. I really enjoy writing about time travel.
NaNoWriMo '11: I will be participating again this year, partially because I want to get back into the habit of writing everyday, partially because I want to challenge myself with something I'm not very good at (realistic fiction), and partially because Casye needs a writing buddy. Originally I thought about using the TimeWIP, but I had already written pieces of it, so that would be cheating. Instead I'm going to write about a bunch of friends from college who get split up after graduation, which will highlight different kinds of LDRs and LDFs.
Health: I learned recently that I do not have carpal tunnel, but that I actually have cubital tunnel, which is somewhat similar, but uses the ulnar nerve and runs through the elbow instead. I'm on anti-inflammatories and some light therapy, but I think the thing that really helped it was just knowing the cause and the things to avoid. But more importantly, the pain I've been feeling is not a result of cubital tunnel syndrome, but is in fact a "more serious issue" we're currently trying to determine. I go in on Wednesday for blood tests to determine whether or not I have RA, which is the most likely result.
Zenith: Has a new intro that I rather like, but other than that, has been sitting ignored for a few months. I really need to go through and do final edits, but I just can't seem to find the motivation lately (we'll get to that in a minute).
Inevitable aka the TimeWIP: If you only follow me here, you don't know about the TimeWIP yet. It is my current project, which involves time traveling Historians. Yep, I gave time travel to one of the most boring professions and denied it to everyone else. Basically, the Collective Historical Society has unlocked the key to time travel and they've found a way to limit access to it. Historians are sent back in time to witness important events and collect facts (and occasionally artifacts) on these events. The MC, James, is told when he's 12 that he'll become a Historian, because in the future he's already one and the CHS needs to make sure this happens. There's more to it after that, but that's where I am at the moment. I really enjoy writing about time travel.
NaNoWriMo '11: I will be participating again this year, partially because I want to get back into the habit of writing everyday, partially because I want to challenge myself with something I'm not very good at (realistic fiction), and partially because Casye needs a writing buddy. Originally I thought about using the TimeWIP, but I had already written pieces of it, so that would be cheating. Instead I'm going to write about a bunch of friends from college who get split up after graduation, which will highlight different kinds of LDRs and LDFs.
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