Laura's blog

It might seem a bit early to start planning for April's Blogging A to Z Challenge, but then again, people start planning for NaNoWriMo in August. Usually I have the same reaction to that as I do to stores putting up Christmas decorations before Halloween. Seriously? Can't they wait? But if I'm going to do this challenge, I need to start planning now. I did the #atozchallenge once before. While it was good for making me write, I didn't enjoy it very much. The novelty of seeing letter-themed blogposts in my stream also wore off pretty quickly. So I wasn't planning to do the challenge this year. BUT THEN I had a shiny new idea! What if...I did book reviews A to Z? "But Laura," you shudder, "why would you do that to yourself? You have a senior project to do, college to attend, papers to write, and a recital to prepare for -- not to mention all those wips you keep having to put off. Why? " Well...just because?   Really, though, one of my...

Tonight, I, my classmates, and people in my town participated in a candlelight march around town in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There was chatting, some singing, some hand-shaking and meeting of new people. Many pictures were taken with phones and many candles were blown out only to be re-lit from a neighbor's. It was a relaxed atmosphere.  We had a police escort. Let me reiterate: we had a police escort. We felt safe and relaxed walking down the streets of town. No one made threats or shouted rude comments or even so much as honked their horns because of blocked traffic. It just made me realize how lucky we are. In King's day, the police didn't show up at marches to escort people. They weren't there to make people feel safe, but to make them feel afraid. To beat, discourage, shame, abuse, arrest, and silence them. It didn't work.  It didn't work, and in 2014, here we all are walking down the streets of a Southern town with the police to e...

It's that time of year again! Outrageous Fortune is a literary magazine that publishes outstanding undergraduate work from colleges all around the USA and beyond. It has twice been featured in the national anthology Plain China   for artwork.  Outrageous Fortune is student-run, a literary magazine run by undergraduates for undergraduates. And it's currently accepting submissions for publication in the Spring 2014 issue. Outrageous Fortune is accepting submissions in... Short fiction Nonfiction and essays Novel excerpts Poetry Plays and one-acts Dramatic monologues Artwork Submission guidelines here. I encourage you to submit in any category -- but since I'm the Art and Drama Editor, I especially encourage you to submit in Art and especially particularly encourage you to submit in Drama. :)  I've had the privilege of working on the magazine as an intern since my sophomore year of college. I regret having to take a semester off last year, but overal...

The good news: Contracted just passed 100k words.  That means that I finally reached my NaNoWriMo goal, which was to add 50k to this wip. It also makes me look back and laugh at when I thought it would be a quick and simple short story. That also means that Contracted is the most words I've written on one project in the least amount of time.  The other good news: My rewrites for Part I of the The Book just ended at 32,431 words. I think I may have added more to this section instead of cutting -- but whatever the wordcount difference, I managed to resolve some serious plot and character problems. I now have a solid foundation on which to build the rest of the book. The rest of The Book which was originally 100k to begin with. Now for the bad news: Contracted just passed 100k words and still has more to go. Part I rewrites on The Book are nearly at 33k.   The bad news is that I CAN'T WRITE ANYTHING SHORT. I am the person that people roll their eyes at when t...

I was nominated for the College Writer Tag by Patrice of Whimsically Yours , whose blog you should totally read. There are owls all over it, if that makes you more inclined to do so. (I like owls.) Oddly, I don't seem to know as many college bloggers as I knew high school bloggers. Several of the blogs I used to follow in my age group dropped off the map during college. Luckily, this hasn't been the case for everyone! The Questions: What year are you? I'm a senior. Ack. It's senior project and senior recital year. It's also "finishing up all the gen eds I didn't take before" year. I should have done the gen eds back in freshman or sophomore year, when I still thought that every class was a life or death matter. I recently got my grades in, and they were a lot better than I had expected. I really want to go on to grad school. I want to focus my studies in the area that I know I am interested in and good at. Unfortunately, I still ha...

I like the new What's Up Wednesday banner -- winter wonderland edition. What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop hosted by Jaime Morrow. What I'm reading I'm wrapping up Proxy and Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder. The first is for fun, the second was for class. I'm also frantically reading my history textbook as I study for my exam in...let's see...an hour. Gulp. What I'm writing Even after NaNoWriMo is over, it's hard to get out of the NaNo mood. I wrote a post about dealing with NaNo burnout. I wrote a review of MILA 2.0. Other reviews are in the works, but have been put on hold while I handle finals. I had to write a manifesto proposing a new aesthetic movement in theatre for one of those finals. Ack. And that was just one part of a three-part final. I have also been trying to get back to writing normally as I work on Contracted. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not "done" with it just because NaNo is over...and that I...

As happy as I am with my word count for NaNo 2013, there's still a "but." The same thing happened last year -- I'm suffering from NaNo burnout. It's not as bad this year because I'm not sick as a dog like I was last year. Still, I'm definitely feeling the burnout factor. I opened up Contracted the other day, noodled a few plot notes, wrote a beginning of a scene and tried halfheartedly to continue it, but stopped. I could have pushed through and written more -- like I had to do for NaNo -- but, just, ugh.  Part of the issue is that the motivation offered by NaNo is gone. I now have to self-motivate. I'm still very much invested in this wip, but I have no tangible goal to work towards. Perhaps this is why so many people quit writing -- with no reward in sight, they aren't as motivated to continue. Perhaps this is why NaNo is so helpful: it stresses finishing, and it gives you a reward when you do.  (I'm glad that NaNo doesn't offer ...