Insecure Writer's Support Group

Well, it's the first Wednesday of the month, which means it's time for May's IWSG.

I always feel like I have insecurities during the month, but then when IWSG comes around, they're gone and I'm feeling pretty good.

I think, as always, I'm still worried about my workload. So far the MFA is going well and I haven't had any troubles keeping up. But I think there's always an underlining of fear. What if THIS packet I have troubles finishing? Our next residency is in early July (YAY! I'm so excited!) but that means I'll have to switch mentors (Sniff. I love working with Anne Ursu). And while I'm sure whomever I get for second semester will be fine and awesome, what if the change is enough to make me lose any momentum I've had?

Also, I wish I was further along in my WIP. I'm over 30K now, which is great. But that's 30K over four months, which is not great. Usually it takes me about 2-3 months to write a whole draft, but the MFA has really slowed things down.

While I'm in the MFA, I'd like to try my hand at writing a Picture Book, or a Middle Grade (especially the latter) and it seems like the perfect time to do it, when I'll have a mentor who knows what they're doing and can help me. But I don't necessarily like the idea of setting aside an unfinished MS to start another one.

So, you know, timing. It always comes down to timing.

I'm sure everything will work out fine and I'll figure things out, but nonetheless the feels creep in. As they always do.

How are things going for you?

In Which I Talk TV Shows

I watch a lot of TV.

Not as much as I used to, but I put in maybe a few hours everyday. Part of that is because we work out for an hour in the morning, and we watch TV shows from Netflix then and then usually an hour of two of TV during and after dinner, depending on the day of the week.

Sometimes I'll also watch an hour of something during lunch, but that depends on what I'm reading at the time (true story: you can read a lot of books if you read during lunch instead of watching TV)

I always love when I catch a TV show that I think is a good representation of YA literature. You know, the type of book where you think, this could be a YA novel, if it were less serialized.

So today I'm listing 3 shows that, if you're a YA writer, you should watch.

2 od the shows are competed, and available in their entirety and one is still on the air.

In no particular order:


Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars is a teen private detective, which, when you say it like that, you may be like "I don't know..." but trust me, it's a premise that totally works.
There are 3 seasons total (and an awesome movie due to the successful Kickstarter drive, of which I was a backer)
Each season focuses on a core mystery. The first season, Veronica is determined to find who murdered her best friend.

Why this is a show you should watch: Clever dialogue aside (and it is so clever and so funny and awesome) the things that make this worth watching if you're a YA writer are the relationships. Veronica's relationship with her Dad is perfect and one of the highlights of the entire series. And Veronica's relationship with bad boy Logan, and the kids who hire her to solve mysteries are the true driving force of the narrative.
I don't know anyone who has watched VM and didn't like it. I think it has a sort of universal appeal.



Friday Night Lights

Most people are familiar with the movie featuring Billy Bob Thornton, and while some of the actors are the same as well as some of the filming techniques, the show is very different.
Following a small town's football team and the new coach hired to get them to state, FNL features a large cast of characters, each one fully developed regardless of whether they play football or not.
There are 5 seasons and all of them are available on Netflix right now, and even if you're not a fan of football (*shifts eyes*) you probably will be by season two.

Why you should watch: Much like Veronica Mars, FNL takes its strengths from its characters. Even when they're doing dumb things (and Julie, I'm looking at you in season 5) they all make sense in regards to their characters.
This is also a show where  many of the characters don't have parents, or the ones they have aren't great, so watching how those characters handle their lives is something every YA writer should watch, since "not having parents" is a frequent occurrence in YA lit.
But I HAVE parents in my novel, you might say. Then there's plenty of that in FNL for you too. Eric and Tammi Taylor are the central characters in the show and they have a teen child and often play parental figures to other kids.


Teen Wolf

I know I know, a lot of you are rolling your eyes. Or if you're not, you're picturing the 80s movie with Michael J Fox.
There's pretty much no relation to that movie and the show, other than a few character names, and the inclusion of a sport (lacrosse instead of basketball, and even that takes a huge back seat starting in season 3)
This one is currently still on the air and season 4 airs this summer. The story of a teen who is bitten by a werewolf and then has to deal with the repercussions, including homicidal tendencies, werewolf hunters (one of which is his new girlfriend's father) and trying to find, and kill, the werewolf that bit him, this show brings back the tried and true formula of Buffy and the likes, having each season focus on a big baddie or a big mystery while the characters continue to age and grow.

Why you should watch: I'm really biased in regards to this show. I love it. It's frequently surprising, doing things you wouldn't expect both for the paranormal genre and for a TV show with teens. But outside of that, we're back to the relationships. One of the things I LOVE about Teen Wolf is that all the characters have at least one parent. And those parents play large rolls in the show and the teens relationships with their parents are never forgotten. Details are not forgotten in this show, so even when MC Scott is dealing with werewolf crap and girlfriend crap and other crap, his grades begin to suffer and suddenly he's in danger of being held back a year unless he can get his crap under control.
Also, the best friend relationship between MCs Scott and Stiles is worth the watch alone. It helps that the actors are best friends in real life, because that really comes through, especially in later seasons when it starts to get darker (and scarier. There are some great episodes if you're a fan of horror)



So! Any TV shows you think I missed?

Wednesday Weird: The Aluminum Wedge of Aiud

In 1974, a group of workers discovered three buried object 35 feet under the sand of the Mures River, 1.2 miles east of Aiud, Romania. Two of the objects turned out to be mastodon bones, but the third was a wedge-shaped piece of metal.

Made from an alloy of aluminum and encased in a layer of oxide, it resembles the head of a hammer.

Since it was found in the same layer as the mastodon bones, it indicated that the Wedge was probably around 11,000 years old.

The issue is, though, that Aluminum isn't naturally found in nature and wasn't discovered until 1808, and wasn't put into mass-production until 1885.

An aeronautical engineer remarked that it looked surprisingly similar to the landing foot of a flying vehicle, like the lunar module or Viking probe.

Because of this, some people think that the Wedge was part of a flying object (of extraterrestrial origin) that fell into the river.

Thoughts, theories?

In 1974, this is a wedge-shaped object found 1.2 miles east of Aiud, Romania. It was discovered on the banks of the Mures River. It was reportedly unearthed 35 feet under sand and alongside two mastodon bones. It looks like the head of a hammer and is made of an alloy of aluminum encased in a thin layer of oxide. It’s strange because aluminum was not discovered until 1808 and not produced in quantity until 1885. Since it was found in the same layer as mastodon bones, it would indicate that this wedge was at least 11,000 years old.
Many people believe that this wedge is evidence that aliens visited earth, since there is no way that humans created such an alloy so many thousands of years ago

Read more at http://www.viralnova.com/unsolved-earth-mysteries/#xfkIthJU58SIhfpW.99

In Which I Hit A Stride

Here we are, Monday again. I hope everyone had a good weekend, and a good Easter if it's a holiday you celebrate.

I had a good writing week last week. I put out 21 pages in three days, which is great. It helped that I hit a scene or a point in the MS that makes writing fun. One of my characters suffered an injury and I frickin love writing injuries and recoveries. So, yeah. I hit that point and the pages just flew out of me. I mean, heck, I even put out 4 pages on Friday, and I rarely write on Fridays.

I also like writing romance scenes. I almost always have romance in my novels because I think romance inherently adds conflict and tension. But also because it's fun and frequently cathartic and yay kissing or something.

From my WIP Inspiration Pinterest Board

And sometimes action scenes fly out of me too, but sometimes it's like pulling teeth, it does so slowly. There's no rhyme or reason as to whether an action scene is going to be easy, or hard either.
I want them to be exciting and fun. I expect them to be fun to write, so then, when sometimes they're not, it's an extra pain in the ass because I'm all like "really? Shouldn't this scene be flying out of me easier?" Frustrating.

So anyway, I'm super excited to get back to my MS tomorrow (still dealing with the injury) and I'm hoping that pace and excitement carries through the rest of it. Because that would be awesome.

I'd love to hear from you. What type of scenes are always easy and fun for you to write? And what type of scenes are a pain?

Friday Fun

Woo!  It's time for the weekend, ape-friends! Which means another opportunity to start it off right, with some fun.

The snow has finally melted, which means soon the grass will be green again!

Here we go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really wish I had trained my ratties to do some of these awesome tricks

 

Wednesday Weird: The Woman From Lemb Statue

Though there are many different objects that have been considered haunted or cursed throughout history, few are said to bring on as much death to its owners as the Women From Lemb idol.

Nicknamed "The Goddess of Death," The Women from Lemb is a statue carved from pure limestone that was discovered in 1878 in Lemb, Cypruss. The item dates back to 3500 B.C., and is believed to represent a goddess, similar to a fertility idol.

The first owner was Lord Elphont. Within a six-year period after becoming the owners, All seven members of the Elphont family died in supposedly mysterious manners (there's no real record for what their deaths entailed).

The next owner was Ivor Manucci., whose entire family died within a four- year period. Then Lord Thompson-Noel obtained the idol, and also lost his family in a four-year period.

After this time the statue fell into obscurity for several years, but mysteriously was found in a cellar cabinet from where it had ‘disappeared’ from before.
        
Sir Alan Biverbrook was next to purchase the statue. Shortly after, his wife and two daughters died from a strange illness, followed by Sir Alan Biverbrook a short time later. Sir Biverbrook had two remaining sons and though they weren't big believers in the occult, they were scared enough by the sudden and strange deaths of four of their family members that they decided to donate the statue to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, where it remains today.
Though the curator claimed not to put stock into the idea of curses or haunted objects, the chief curator where the statue was placed took ill and died within the year. No one has handled the statue since and the item is safely under glass and protected from human hands

Some people theorize that the statue contains a poison or a disease-based fungus or virus on or within the limestone, which I think is always a possibility. But who really wants to test it, amiright?

Thoughts? Theories?

In Which I Work Work Work

I'm back to blogging after my two week hiatus. But the two weeks off let me get done what I needed to get done, mostly finish up my two papers for my MFA packet.

Of course, now I'm working on packet #3, which means more writing, more revising and another paper. The work: she never ends.

My mentor this semester is Anne Ursu.

Have you guys read this? Because you should. I love it so much.

And she's been awesome. She's great to work with, and really gets what I'm trying to do with my WIP (because right now, it's in the "fumbling" stage. You know, where you keep going forward and you know things are wrong and will need to be fixed, but you can't fix them now because you don't quite fully understand the story or the characters yet? Yeah, that stage.)

I'm only 80 pages in. I wish I was further. Honestly, I wish I was done with my first draft at this point, but obviously I've had to slow down for revisions and other MFA work. I'm not worried or anything, but, you know, a completed draft is much more fun than one just barely started.

Anyway, yeah. Back to the grindstone I go!
But I'd much rather be doing this kind of work, and writing, than pretty much anything else. So, you know, yay!

How about you? What are you working on right now?