Week 4

I can't believe we're already about a quarter of the way through the semester. It's absolute madness.

Well, I've just begun to sink my teeth into Clockwork Angel which is good and unfortunate at the same time as the library website isn't letting me renew it and it's due on the 30th... Ah!

I'm always in awe of science fiction and those that create fantastical worlds or worlds within or along our own. As much imagination as I think I have, I'm not sure I'd have something that amazing in me. So I am content to partake as a consumer in this genre :)

We read the short story "Dawn" by Tim Wynne-Jones for class and I was floored. Short stories can be iffy for me because I feel like they can be rather abstract sometimes. "Dawn" wasn't very up front but it was still incredibly deep in my mind. I can't even find adequate language to describe my reaction to it past having my mind blown so I recommend you read it for yourself and see what you think. It's when I read pieces like this that I have to make sure I keep my perspective because it can be easy to feel utterly dwarfed by writing and talent like this. But hey, as Anne Lamott [Bird by Bird] quotes from Natalie Goldberg [Writing Down the Bones], the best way to improve your writing is to write. More proof that there is truth in simplicity. :)

If we had had class today I would have liked to bring The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley. I can't remember the first time I read this book but I know I've read it since then so many times that I can't count them. I am worthless when it comes to summaries so here's one from a Google search:

Corinna is a Folk Keeper. Her job is to keep the mysterious Folk who live beneath the ground at bay. But Corinna has a secret that even she doesn't fully comprehend, until she agrees to serve as Folk Keeper at Marblehaugh Park, a wealthy family's seaside manor. There her hidden powers burst into full force, and Corinna's life changes forever..

I can't say it any better without spoiling it, but I think I can safely say it's unlike anything else you've ever read. And if it is, let me know, I'd like to read those books too :)

The biggest thing that draws most people to books is being able to form an attachment to the main character. Now, I can't say that I have too much in common with Corinna but her strength of will and cutting mannerisms frame a vulnerability that I help but admire and care about. The art of developing a character is something I'm still working on but I believe Billingsley really created a life in this book.

So I've been spending a lot of my time on possible character developments which means that what I'm sharing today is more of a theoretical musing but hey, I think most of my writing is, haha.

Countless people have voiced the idea that college is where you find yourself. It's where you become and adult and make lifelong friendships and find out who you really are.

I myself have said this very thing at least once because it's true that while you're studiously learning about statistics, physics, literature, music, and llamas [yes, llamas] you are simultaneously and, generally, subconsciously studying the subject of you.

High school is the survival test. college tests your identity out of its nooks and crannies now that it's apparently that you will live.

My question is: when does the finding stop? Do you ever manage to find all of yourself? And once you've found a part of yourself, does it stay found or are you perpetually chasing yourself, just with a better idea of where to look from then on?

And what about people who never go to college? According to this idea, do they never even begin to find themselves? Do those who drop out only find part of themselves and the rest is left in a dusty storage box in the back rooms of the Lost and Found, never to be retrieved?

Does every graduate student in fact create 2 thesis, one of academic study and the other of self?

Considering one needs a PhD to teach at college, do professors, with a presumably greater understanding of self, teach students the art of finding oneself as well as the art of the Baroque period and other subjects?

Week 3

Today's post includes Picture Book reports! Yay!
Assigned to read 10 picture books and analyze them, I headed to the Provo Library and found these gems:

Piggy Pie Po by Audrey and Don Wood

Summary - This is a book about what Piggy likes to do, his accomplishments and his mischief as a young pig.

Analysis - The book rhymes but the rhythm was inconsistent and pulled me out of the story. Also, it may have just been more simple than I was expecting but there was no conflict and therefore, for me, little interest.

Ghosts For Breakfast by Stanley Todd Terasaki

Summary - Neighbors come to the door with a tale of a ghost encounter. The father takes his son to inspect these ghosts and they find out it was just a bunch of vegetables that had been hung out to dry.

Analysis - There is a bit of the rule of three here [three neighbors] but not consistently presented or ordered. It's not as generically relate-able as most ghost stories might seem because it's pretty heavy on the Japanese culture like the names they play on as well as the vegetables themselves. Things that many children would not recognize.

The Great Montefiasco by Colin Thompson

Summary - Montefiasco is a magician whose tricks all go wrong. People think he's hilarious but he wants to be taken seriously as a magician, not a comedian. After considering other options, he is persuaded to put up an assistant wanted add in the hope that one may improve his act. She doesn't. However, the two do fall in love and live happily ever after.

Analysis - I thought this was an intriguing idea with a fresh perspective on the theme of coming to terms with yourself and realizing that it's not so bad even if it's not what you envisioned. The MC doesn't really solve his own problem though because this lesson is taught to him by his assistant. Also, I felt the problems were solved disjointedly and in a hurried, unexplained manner towards the end of the book after the big build up. The illustrations were...interesting. I'm not sure if they added or detracted from the story.

The Secret Science Project That Almost Ate the School - by Judy Sierra

Summary - A girl needs a great science project to compete with her classmates'. She orders one online and when it arrives, ignores the instructions. Chaos and the consumption of family, friends, and even the teacher ensues. The girl remembers the directions in the nick of time and gets rid of the monster. She still has to clean up the mess left behind though.

Analysis - The book rhymed in a comfortable and fun way with the word choices. I enjoyed the story line as well as the conclusion and felt that it wasn't too preachy in having her clean up afterward.

Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

Summary - A peddler has his caps stolen by monkeys while he naps. He tries all her can to get them back and eventually does so on accident.

Analysis - There is the use of repetition in the peddler's attempts to regain his caps. He does solve his own problem, if accidentally. The monkeys are an unexpected twist and what makes the story fun - kids love this idea of "monkey-see, monkey-do." The illustrations are simple and bright and fun to look at.

Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin

Summary - An old lonely man tries to keep his one joy, birds, from flying south for the winter. Squirrels ruin all his plans and then the bids fly south anyway. The squirrels try to make the man happy again. In the end, he likes squirrels as well as birds and isn't so lonely anymore.

Analysis - There is a lot of repetition throughout the story. The funny subject and resolution make it an entertaining read though I had a hard time distinguishing who was supposed to be the MC, the old man or the squirrels.

Silvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner

Summary - A lonely dragon makes unexpected friends with a bird but she still feels left out because she's a dragon, not a bird. She decides to see if there are other dragons on the moon and the bird says it will go with her but it can't fly that high and the dragon has to rescue it. The dragon realizes she doesn't need to be with other dragons to be happy.

Analysis - The conflict here was too quickly and too simply solved for my taste. A case of enjoying the illustrations enough to pick it up and then being disappointed by the story itself.

Flora's Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall

Summary - Flora thinks her little brother is a nuisance and decides to let the wind carry him away but she goes after him. The wind tries to find places for the brother to get left at but Flora declines all of them because she deems her brother not enough of something or unable to fill the positions suggested. She decides to bring him home after all.

Analysis - I loved the illustrations for this book. Absolutely delightful and, in my opinion, perfectly matched with the story. The MC solves her own problem [conflict with the brother and how she feels about him] through a series of events that give nice repetition and rhythm to the story.

Saying Goodbye to Lulu by Corinne Demas

Summary - A young girl dealing with the upcoming and then past loss of a beloved dog.

Analysis - There is a good deal of repetition in phrasing and scene order/presentation that gives a nice regularity to the structure. The topic isn't a very general one but it does a good job of portraying how such a loss can affect someone for a while, especially how the grieving process can be hard/different for children.

Iggy Peck Architect by Andrea Beaty

Summary - Iggy has had a passion for architecture since the age of 2. His teacher had a traumatic childhood experience that resulted in a hatred of buildings and architecture. She forbids Iggy to build anything in class. Disaster strikes on a class picnic and Iggy saves the day, enlightening his teacher to the virtues of architecture.

Analysis - The book rhymed which worked at times and not at others. There were clever end rhymes that fit but the internal rhymes were most often a stretch and didn't flow. Also, the rhythm would get comfortable and then be off track and then repeat the cycle. The MC solved several conflicts, the disaster as well as his teacher's dislike of architecture. Iggy is an industrious little boy!

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Author Visit

We had the pleasure of listening to Dean Hughes today on the virtues of brainstorming, character development, and outlining in the writing process. The development of plot and a sequence of events that actually made sense if something that I've struggled with and am currently struggling with so his advice was well timed indeed and I plan to attempt it in my own writing process.

What have I read?

Too many picture books to count, haha. Mostly all good though. It has been fun to go back to childhood and realize why I liked the books I liked.

I'm still keeping on with the Merlin series [just picked up the last one today!] and I've liked Merlin more and more as I watch him grow and learn about himself as well as the skills he's developing.

I also read Missing in Action by Dean Hughes in preparation for class today. I generally don't enjoy reading middle grade material as much as older or younger geared books but I really enjoyed this. It was fairly simple as the writing and plot went but the idea was intriguing as well as the various conflicts associated with it. Also, I was just excited about the setting because my fiance is from Delta, UT and now everyone in class will have heard of it! Haha

A quick blip of my own writing

I've gone through a couple rough patches lately but in the last day or so I've taken off again and I'm excited to see where I go.

The entire space was laced so deeply with magic that the air hummed with it, its power tangible as it brushed my arms in passing like a gentle breeze.

But the beauty of it was not for my eyes, as everything I saw reminded me of the aching absence of the powers I had once wielded. I knew that the spacious and furnished mansion and the plentiful gardens of the estate would only serve as permanent reminders of the hole that had lodged in my chest.

I realized that I was cursed to live without magic of my own, instead subject to and dependent entirely upon the magic of this place. Magic that I could instruct but which most definitely had a will and mind of its own.

Week 2

Hello again! We've been working on our picture books this week which has been a bit of an exercise for me as my writing tends to go on and on and such practices are not conducive to writing picture books that will actually be read. Anyway, it's been an adventure and I've loved seeing the wonderful stories my classmates have created and been pleasantly surprised that some even seemed to like mine! Haha.

What have I been reading since last week?

Well, I have, of course, been continuing the Merlin series as there are 5 books in all. I am just starting the 4th [the 3rd was one of my favorites so far, Merlin is less obnoxious and there are dragons!].

I also managed to squeeze in a sort of cursory reading of The Yellow Wallpaper in the last few days. I say cursory because I didn't have time to sit down and really analyze it but, having never read it before, I consider this a step in the correct direction.

What have I learned?

Writing about the process of going insane from the afflicted person's point of view would be a fascinating endeavor. As quickly as I read it, I can't claim to have really delved into the various intricacies of this piece but I enjoyed it, largely, from a psychological standpoint - the idea of almost reconstructing the path one follows down to madness and how their perceptions of the world and its inhabitants change along the way.

Also, I'm always up for an overbearing male figure who thinks they know what they're doing much better than their female counterpart and in their obnoxious know-it-all way, cause the protagonist to worsen.

I am also reminded of the sad lack of the elaborate vacation due to illness that our culture has been experiencing ever since departing from mother England. I would much rather receive a prescription to go lolling about on the beach for a few weeks than to swallow nasty tasting pills that have altogether alarmingly questionable effects.

All in all, as much as I love fiction and a taste of fantasy, it can be rather refreshing as a reader and a writer to dabble in something different. Whether or not you decide to pursue that track doesn't really matter because it can be a wonderful stretch of talent whatever you decide to do from there.

What's next on the reading list?

The Mirror of Merlin

Clockwork Angel

Bird By Bird

Missing in Action and Nutty the Movie Star [both by Dean Hughes who's visiting next Tuesday]

When We Were Friends

Everything is Fine [by our very own Ann Ellis which I nabbed at Borders a week or two ago]

2 picture book versions of Beauty and the Beast

10 assorted picture books

Basically, I was reveling in the absolute book-wormy-ness of walking out of the library with an arm-load of books this afternoon. With all my other commitments to school, etc, these will probably take me a while to get through but I accept the challenge. I'm going to see just how much of a voracious reader I can be this semester without completely sacrificing my school work and sleep.

The moment you've all been waiting for

Or not, that's my response anyway, haha. Yes yes, personal writing time! I unfortunately discovered that my favorite journal writing for this week is just as, if not more, depressing than the selection I made last week. I apologize and promise that happier things should surface soon.

On a bright note, this might actually work into something I'm dabbling with.

I'm calling this piece "Perhaps."

I found myself questioning my own existence. Was I really there? Can a shadow-less being be considered real? Because, even as my body cast shadows when a rare ray of sun or moon ventured down to alight on my solitude, ones self does not cast shade on the ground.

I doubt this would mean that ones self never exists, but the trouble with a shadow-less self is knowing when it's left you. If there is no absence of visual footprints to use as an indicator, how do you know at all if your self is still with you? And if it isn't, how would you know the moment you lost it?

Or how to get it back.

Yes, my husk of a body still breathed, but the empty ache that I had begun to notice in my chest made me wonder where I went.

Disembodiment is not, I've learned, a feeling only for the dying. Every day left me feeling more and more a living wraith, cursed to wander this mountain - to see the lives of others but never to take part as I once had.

But then there's another trouble. How was I to say if I was not dying or not? Perhaps I was.

Perhaps the most painful death is not the physically torturous or struggle-strewn one. Perhaps death of the worst kind is the slow, apathetic deterioration of a soul deprived of a life they proved unfit to live.

Perhaps the worst agony is really the absence thereof, the absence of any feeling at all except, perhaps, a vague sense of fear and bitter regret dulled by the absence of your own self, too disgusted to stick around even out of principle.

Week 1 and Q&A with Rick Walton

Snaps for the first official journal post of the semester! And yes, I promise I will never use the term "snaps" again.

What have I read?
This last week I finished the first book in The Lost Years of Merlin series, one that my fiance has been regaling me with tales of ever since we discovered we have similar taste in books. It took me a while to get around to it but I definitely glad I did. These books aren't challenging reads but that never diminishes the experience for me.

What have I learned?
One of my favorite things about this series, right off the bat, was the topic T.A. Barron seized upon. I am personally very interested in re-written fairy-tales so The Lost Years of Merlin is pretty well up my alley. I go back and forth on whether it is harder to create an entirely new world/space or to write creatively within an already defined and somewhat destined space as T.A. Barron has. I'm not sure there's a right answer to that particular question though I do feel like there are right and wrong ways to go about both. In my opinion, Barron has, thus far, done an enchanting job. I'm excited to read the rest of the series!
In reading the first book of this series I was reminded of a fact that I stumble upon on occasion. For a book to be good, in my mind at least, the main character does not have to be lovable 100% of the time. As a writer, this is something I can feel myself grappling with in the same way I would grapple with playing a character that I don't like or agree with in a drama class. I want to enjoy my characters and appreciate them and that's understandably difficult to do sometimes. I have noticed that there are a lot of paradoxes in good writing. We love stories that give us characters that are real or relate-able or dynamic. Oddly, the thing that generally makes all these characters so good is that they aren't terribly likable all the time. They go through struggles and times when they are whiny or egotistical or stubborn or ignorant or just plane stupid. Times when you almost get so sick of them acting that way that you contemplate putting the book down. Or throwing it through a wall. I know that at the end of the 5th Harry Potter book I would certainly have been happy to have the series end in both Voldemort's and Harry's death, he was so mule-headed and self-centered.
I guess, to make an absurdly long paragraph short, I have learned that sometimes, the most interesting topic areas one can address are the holes in our favorite stories and legends. Such explorations take research and a special kind of consideration because your ending, in this case especially, is already well established, but can be very rewarding. I also plan to work, in my own writing, on developing characters that are real and sometimes unlikeable.

As a small aside, as part of the Picture Book portion of the semester I had the privilege of spending an hour and a half in a Q&A type session with Rick Walton. [Don't worry, I didn't know who he was until a week ago] Rick Walton is known, for our purposes though not limited as such, as an author of picture books. Lots of them. His enthusiasm for humor and word play are evident in his books which makes them a pleasure to read. It was awesome to hear his perspectives and advice on writing and the process of getting published. The man knows his way around and he had great words of wisdom to share with all of us budding authors. Some of them were things we'd discussed in class with some common sense mixed in. Others, though, were completely enlightening [at least they were for me!] without being discouraging [something I've decided can be harder to do than it sounds].
I am definitely looking forward to the other author visits that we'll be having throughout the semester.

Now for some of my own writing.
This "piece," if I dare call it that, is an excerpt from my writing journal [as all posted pieces will be]. I'm still getting a feel for what should go up here but for now I'm selecting the one that I like the most, even though it's more intense than I think I planned on beginning with.

What if you're whole life you've been a lie? Not that your life has been a lie [except by extension], but you have been a lie.

What if you answered "yes" to all their questions because that's what you knew they wanted and expected? You didn't mean to lie of course. You wanted to mean it. You still want to. You just wanted to make them happy, proud, more than you wanted to be sure you meant it first.

What if your motto was "fake it till you make it?" All in all, not a bad suggestion. But what if, after all those years, you realized that maybe you were simply faking it and never making it?

What if you became that lie without meaning to and now it's the skin you wear, the air you breath, the smile on your face, the dreams you dream and, of course, the clothes you wear?

What if you become so much the lie that you don't know if there was ever any truth in you, that you are anything but this paper skeleton?

How do you find truth again? How do you find truth in yourself again, if ever it was there, when all you expect from yourself is lies? How do you recognize it if you stumble across a piece of truth, of your real self?

And how do you keep from despairing that the lie is all you've ever really been and all you're ever going to be?

What would truth ever want with a creature like that?