Laura's blog

This July was the first year I "won" National Novel Writing Month. Every year, the same site hosts two write-a-thons on the off-season; one in April, and one in July.  I started with zero words and ended up with 50k+ words. Now November approaches, and the main month-long write-a-thon begins.  My feelings about NaNo are a little mixed. It's not for everyone, and there are some pitfalls to be aware of. However, it can get you started on establishing consistent writing habits and generally getting your own head unstuck from your posterior when it comes to actually putting words down on the page.  The most helpful thing to me were the forums. Here are some tips on how to use them to your advantage. The Forums Are Your Friend If you, like me, aren't super great at structuring your time, then the Word Wars, Prompts, and Sprints Forum will be your best friend during NaNo. From "word war" challenges with other writers to Harry Potter -themed "word cr...

Remember that story I blogged about a while back? The one I wrote with the goal of creating a gender-neutral/gender-undisclosed protagonist ?  Well, I submitted it to a literary magazine online, and it was accepted for their next anthology.  The litmag is called Smoking Pen Press . For inclusion in their next anthology, I will receive a bit of money and a copy of the published book. I'll blog again when it goes live, I suppose.  I've won contests and had submissions accepted before, but I'm writing about this one now because I've never done any of that with short stories. I don't consider myself very good at short stories. For the story I submitted, titled "River Road," I just had a whim to sit down and write a short story -- even gave myself a wordcount of 2,000-ish -- with the conceit of seeing if I could be deliberately vague about the protagonist's gender. When it turned out better than expected, I figured, what the hell? and submitted it.  ...

I received Ghosts of War to read and review. It's the sequel to Virtues of War , my review of which was one of the casualties of the examiner.com site change. (Still mad.) Since this book deals with issues of mental illness, namely PTSD and depression, I'm including it in my Diverse Reads review series. Recap: In Virtues of War, we're introduced to the Terran space military force and the crew of the Rapier, a small fast-attack craft. The team has interpersonal drama as they struggle to do their part in an inter-space conflict between Terran (Earth) forces and the Centauri colonies, who want independence. There's a war, shit goes down, everything sucks, and then they "win." Or at least, until the next book.  Can I just say, I love these covers. Totally badass. Ghosts of War:  Summary After the Terran-Centauri conflict, the different crew members of Rapier have various levels of success adjusting to their new normal. The team is split up: Thomas...

A while back I took an extended break from grad school for medical reasons. Many, many medical reasons, but chief among them being that I was constantly in pain, and exhausted from being in pain, and generally miserable all the time. And being in pain, having difficulty being fully load-bearing on one's feet, having limited motion, etc. is a bit difficult to get around in a theatre program.  In the words of one of my advisers, the group would only be as good as its weakest link. So maybe that was a pretty shitty thing to say to me, but I pursued medical treatment expecting...well...better treatment. Medically. From a professional who would take me seriously instead of insinuating that I was making the whole thing up.  Ha, ha.  I went to the doctor, who sent me to physical therapy (again). However, she was more adamant that I go to psychotherapy. This was because when asked whether I felt "down" or "depressed," I made the mistake of answering honestly.  O...

I signed up for my free month with Audible.com, Amazon's audiobook company. I like being able to listen to a book while driving or doing chores. Plus, there's been a book on my TBR pile for a while: A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliot. I got it and finished listening. I'll review it here in a bit, but for now I'll say it was one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to. The thing that annoyed me was that once I got to the download screen, I noticed that contained under the book information was a little warning box. A warning about "diverse content." Eh? A Wish After Midnight is the story of an African American girl from Brooklyn. One night, she makes a wish at a fountain and finds herself transported back in time to Civil War-era Brooklyn. There, she has to survive and get back to her own time. Also, hooray for introverted protagonists, ordinary people, and others who don't normally make it into fantasy novels. Because they're pr...

This book was another impulse purchase when I was bored and had very little money in my checking account. If you're going to be broke, it's better to have a book.  I selected Stonehill Downs for a "diverse reads" review because fantasy tends to be overwhelmingly filled with white people and settings based on European culture, myths, legends, and figures. Stonehill Downs has a black protagonist, and her experience of the traditional pseudo-European fantasyland is quite different. Summary When the mangled corpses of citizens start appearing among the remote villages and hills of the Stonehill Downs, it's up to Mal and Avani to figure out why. Mal is the newly named Vocent, a powerful necromancer sworn to the king's service. Avani is a shepherdess and weaver with latent powers of her own. Displaced from her island home, she has made her living on the Stonehill Downs. Now that murder and dark magic threaten her new life, she joins Mal in his attemp...

I'm not a very good friend. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm terrible at being friends with people.  I don't text much. I forget to reply via text and messenger until hours or days later. I don't often hang out with people and I feel awkward asking them to. I'm always working or at rehearsal or whatever. Sometimes, it's just too exhausting to try to interact with people.  But, I do still try to be there for people in whatever capacity I can. And I do at least try to let people know I will be there if they need someone to talk to.  Because I know that when I need someone to talk to, and there's no one there, it sucks.  I have a few close (closer?) friends. I'm not a social butterfly. I don't have a giant network of friends to fall back on and my family is also more or less useless in that regard, so being ghosted sucks. It's the worst feeling. I would much rather someone tell me "Hey, I don't want to hang out anymore" and go...