My friend, Laura-the-editor, sent this blog link to me. She is also a master cake decorator, but she can still appreciate cake flubs.
Make sure to keep scrolling, and also make sure to click on "older posts" at the bottom right of the screen, because they get EVEN better! The commentary on each cake is worth reading too, as it is just as funny as the pictures. Brilliant blog!
Now I don't feel so bad that 12-year-old me forgot to put frosting between the layers of my mom's birthday cake. It could have been SO much worse.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
really quite interesting...
Still waiting for feedback from my advisor. I hope he didn't croak from reading my story. That would be just my luck.
In the meantime, I've been working on bits of the novel to keep myself occupied and out of trouble. And just to keep working on it in general.
I've also discovered a wonderful thing to have on in the background while writing. QI on youtube. There are tons of clips available (although when you type "QI" into the search engine, you'll get a bunch of Asian film clips and Qi gong clips mixed in too, just so's you know), so I put a bunch in a playlist and let it roll while I'm working. It's funny and intelligent and comfy, and who else but Stephen Fry could host it? I mean, really!
There's even a petition to get it put on American television. And I can see why. It's far better than most of what's on now. I never thought I'd say THAT about a gameshow. Although it's a gameshow in the loosest definition of the term, as they go off on these tangent discussions almost from the start, and points are awarded more for interesting answers than correct ones.
And here's a lovely speech from Mr Fry to buck you up when you're not feeling your best:
In the meantime, I've been working on bits of the novel to keep myself occupied and out of trouble. And just to keep working on it in general.
I've also discovered a wonderful thing to have on in the background while writing. QI on youtube. There are tons of clips available (although when you type "QI" into the search engine, you'll get a bunch of Asian film clips and Qi gong clips mixed in too, just so's you know), so I put a bunch in a playlist and let it roll while I'm working. It's funny and intelligent and comfy, and who else but Stephen Fry could host it? I mean, really!
There's even a petition to get it put on American television. And I can see why. It's far better than most of what's on now. I never thought I'd say THAT about a gameshow. Although it's a gameshow in the loosest definition of the term, as they go off on these tangent discussions almost from the start, and points are awarded more for interesting answers than correct ones.
And here's a lovely speech from Mr Fry to buck you up when you're not feeling your best:
Sunday, August 17, 2008
commence cringing
Icky rough draft is now with thesis advisor. The syllabus says to send it in "in whatever state," so I take that to mean it can be icky right now. At least it's more organized and properly formatted. I've added in a lot of NB notes to myself about places where I could expand scenes or things I need to look up, so at least my advisor knows I know what needs work and revision. Right now, it's 186 pages. I expect to add another 100 pages or so before this endeavor is finished. I'm aiming for about a 300-page finished draft of this novel.
The more I work on it, the more it gets smidgens better. I think the overall story is solid, and my effort will be in the details to tell the whole thing. It's one thing to say a story idea is good. It's something else to lay it all out and prove that it is. That's where the cringing comes in - will others see it as a solid story too, or am I just delusional?
I'm also realizing that I'm not a fast writer when it comes to fiction. Science writing I can crank out at a faster pace, and I can see parts and whole pretty much at the same time. Fiction, however, requires me to slow down and break things down into really small chunks to work on individually to make them complete. I've started putting page breaks between scenes because if I don't, the story starts veering off or petering out, and I get lost and lose steam.
I'm getting a lot of my guided reading in audiobook format as well as paper format. I figure I can listen to the books while I work on my drafts and be efficient. Since I listen to so much radio and TV (rarely actually watch the screen these days), I may pick up things in the stories audibly that I don't catch when I read them. I still need the paper copies to feed my taking-notes-in-the-margins habit, though.
Time to get away from the laptop and crochet for an hour. I'm making a striped scarf out of Caron's Country yarn, which is made in Turkey. I've got four pretty colors of it (chocolate, spice, forest, and charcoal). It's a 12-ply yarn, and I'm using a smaller hook than I normally use. However, I like the drape and smoothness of it, and even though the skeins are small, I'm getting a lot of stitches out of them. It's turning out well so far.
The more I work on it, the more it gets smidgens better. I think the overall story is solid, and my effort will be in the details to tell the whole thing. It's one thing to say a story idea is good. It's something else to lay it all out and prove that it is. That's where the cringing comes in - will others see it as a solid story too, or am I just delusional?
I'm also realizing that I'm not a fast writer when it comes to fiction. Science writing I can crank out at a faster pace, and I can see parts and whole pretty much at the same time. Fiction, however, requires me to slow down and break things down into really small chunks to work on individually to make them complete. I've started putting page breaks between scenes because if I don't, the story starts veering off or petering out, and I get lost and lose steam.
I'm getting a lot of my guided reading in audiobook format as well as paper format. I figure I can listen to the books while I work on my drafts and be efficient. Since I listen to so much radio and TV (rarely actually watch the screen these days), I may pick up things in the stories audibly that I don't catch when I read them. I still need the paper copies to feed my taking-notes-in-the-margins habit, though.
Time to get away from the laptop and crochet for an hour. I'm making a striped scarf out of Caron's Country yarn, which is made in Turkey. I've got four pretty colors of it (chocolate, spice, forest, and charcoal). It's a 12-ply yarn, and I'm using a smaller hook than I normally use. However, I like the drape and smoothness of it, and even though the skeins are small, I'm getting a lot of stitches out of them. It's turning out well so far.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
books are good; bananas are good, too
I'm finally getting back into the habit of spending an evening Just Reading. There are about 20 books on my guided reading list that in some way relate to my thesis, and they are ALL fiction books. So I get to be re-acquainted with some old favorites - Rebecca, Jane Eyre, The Canterville Ghost, The Woman in White - and get into some new things I've not read yet - House of Leaves, Daphne.
Writing is such a wonderful excuse for reading. Even the thesis syllabus says "a writer who doesn't enjoy reading is a contradiction in terms." Right on.
My advisor asked me if I'd read the Twilight series yet. He said he hadn't gotten around to them, but he knew they were all over the place, and I may want to check them out to see if I'd want to add them to my reading list. As it happens, I bought the first one (finally!) at Target last Saturday since the paperback copies were on sale. I figured if I didn't like it, I'd only be out a few dollars, and I could donate it to the library or something.
It's five-hundred-some pages, and I got through it in an evening, which is pretty good, I think. I haven't had the luxury of reading like that in quite awhile. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I didn't care for it or about it or the story or the characters. I got the revulsion-is-the-opposite-of-attraction theme. That made it easy to create the tension between the two main characters. However, Edward's treatment of Bella struck me as rather cold and manipulative and bossy, possibly even abusive. I never got the sense that he liked her as a person, just that he found her blood irresistable and thought of her as his "object" that he must protect, which isn't the same thing. It certainly didn't make me completely suspend my disbelief. Rather, I was in disbelief all the way through it. I can see the superficial attraction, but nothing beyond that. And teenage girls are reading this. This is going to be their impression of what a relationship is supposed to be, and they'll let men treat them this way? Scary thought.
I read just about all the Anne Rice vampire novels when I was in college, so that's immediately where my head went for comparison. Twilight had more of a gloomy atmosphere rather than a gothic one since the story takes place in an area that gets a lot of clouds and rain. Most of the other Twilight characters don't feel fully realized (AR is great at character development). Then again, it's a series, so that may not be a problem. They can come onstage again later.
I've heard the second and third book are decent, but if the writing is pretty much what it is in this one, I'm not really interested. I've also heard the last book is a disappointment, which I may read just to see how bad it really is - you can always learn something, even from bad writing). Apparently, there's going to be another book in the series that re-tells the story from the first book but from another character's point of view. That could be interesting, especially if he really does see her as an object, at least it would be spelled out. We'll see. Dunno if I'll go see the movie, other than the eye candy factor of the actor playing the main vampire. I can always wait until it's out on Netflix.
An added benefit of a reading binge like that is that it takes the place of a food binge, which is good for my middle. Therefore, it was a good enough book if it kept my attention and kept me from mindlessly eating.
Right. Back at it. On to Rebecca.
Writing is such a wonderful excuse for reading. Even the thesis syllabus says "a writer who doesn't enjoy reading is a contradiction in terms." Right on.
My advisor asked me if I'd read the Twilight series yet. He said he hadn't gotten around to them, but he knew they were all over the place, and I may want to check them out to see if I'd want to add them to my reading list. As it happens, I bought the first one (finally!) at Target last Saturday since the paperback copies were on sale. I figured if I didn't like it, I'd only be out a few dollars, and I could donate it to the library or something.
It's five-hundred-some pages, and I got through it in an evening, which is pretty good, I think. I haven't had the luxury of reading like that in quite awhile. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I didn't care for it or about it or the story or the characters. I got the revulsion-is-the-opposite-of-attraction theme. That made it easy to create the tension between the two main characters. However, Edward's treatment of Bella struck me as rather cold and manipulative and bossy, possibly even abusive. I never got the sense that he liked her as a person, just that he found her blood irresistable and thought of her as his "object" that he must protect, which isn't the same thing. It certainly didn't make me completely suspend my disbelief. Rather, I was in disbelief all the way through it. I can see the superficial attraction, but nothing beyond that. And teenage girls are reading this. This is going to be their impression of what a relationship is supposed to be, and they'll let men treat them this way? Scary thought.
I read just about all the Anne Rice vampire novels when I was in college, so that's immediately where my head went for comparison. Twilight had more of a gloomy atmosphere rather than a gothic one since the story takes place in an area that gets a lot of clouds and rain. Most of the other Twilight characters don't feel fully realized (AR is great at character development). Then again, it's a series, so that may not be a problem. They can come onstage again later.
I've heard the second and third book are decent, but if the writing is pretty much what it is in this one, I'm not really interested. I've also heard the last book is a disappointment, which I may read just to see how bad it really is - you can always learn something, even from bad writing). Apparently, there's going to be another book in the series that re-tells the story from the first book but from another character's point of view. That could be interesting, especially if he really does see her as an object, at least it would be spelled out. We'll see. Dunno if I'll go see the movie, other than the eye candy factor of the actor playing the main vampire. I can always wait until it's out on Netflix.
An added benefit of a reading binge like that is that it takes the place of a food binge, which is good for my middle. Therefore, it was a good enough book if it kept my attention and kept me from mindlessly eating.
Right. Back at it. On to Rebecca.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
i'm a pro at 'crastination
Right. So I had planned to do some document clean-up on my novel-thesis today, and it never happened.
The grocery shopping got done. Some housecleaning got done. And there was an unexpected afternoon-of-beauty offer from my sister - hair trimmed, eyebrows waxed and colored, nails manicured (OPI's Shanghai Shimmer is an awesome color; and they come up with the neatest names for colors). I also attempted to install a DTV converter box, and made a mess of it, so I took it out and went back to my old set-up. I have until February to fix it anyway.
I made noodles for dinner, and I'm now lounging on the couch with the cats watching the Olympics and blogging. We've made a nice little nest for ourselves. The windows are open, and the A/C is off.
This means I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow. That's fine, though. Nice way to spend a Sunday.
I had a great chat with my advisor on Thursday. He said it would help both him and me if I was clear on what kind of novel I was writing and what I wanted it to do for readers. I did a re-skim, and I also put to a litmus test (namely, I sent a couple of chapters to my mom to read). I said before I was working on a modern gothic novel. Now that I've looked at my draft again, it's more accurate to say that I've got a mystery novel with gothic overtones and epistolary elements. I think that sounds more fun anyway.
I also had to make a choice between focusing on genre fiction or literary fiction. Frankly, I don't think I'm a strong enough writer yet to do literary fiction, so I'm sticking with genre for this one. Basically, I want it to be a juicy read for a rainy afternoon - I think that's a respectable goal for a first novel.
I think I'm procrastinating because sending a draft to my advisor makes me nervous. What will he think of it? I know it's a rough draft, and so does he. But still...
So, back to China on the parallel bars. And is it just me, or does the vault apparatus not look like it used to? I think it looks like a stubby surfboard.
The grocery shopping got done. Some housecleaning got done. And there was an unexpected afternoon-of-beauty offer from my sister - hair trimmed, eyebrows waxed and colored, nails manicured (OPI's Shanghai Shimmer is an awesome color; and they come up with the neatest names for colors). I also attempted to install a DTV converter box, and made a mess of it, so I took it out and went back to my old set-up. I have until February to fix it anyway.
I made noodles for dinner, and I'm now lounging on the couch with the cats watching the Olympics and blogging. We've made a nice little nest for ourselves. The windows are open, and the A/C is off.
This means I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow. That's fine, though. Nice way to spend a Sunday.
I had a great chat with my advisor on Thursday. He said it would help both him and me if I was clear on what kind of novel I was writing and what I wanted it to do for readers. I did a re-skim, and I also put to a litmus test (namely, I sent a couple of chapters to my mom to read). I said before I was working on a modern gothic novel. Now that I've looked at my draft again, it's more accurate to say that I've got a mystery novel with gothic overtones and epistolary elements. I think that sounds more fun anyway.
I also had to make a choice between focusing on genre fiction or literary fiction. Frankly, I don't think I'm a strong enough writer yet to do literary fiction, so I'm sticking with genre for this one. Basically, I want it to be a juicy read for a rainy afternoon - I think that's a respectable goal for a first novel.
I think I'm procrastinating because sending a draft to my advisor makes me nervous. What will he think of it? I know it's a rough draft, and so does he. But still...
So, back to China on the parallel bars. And is it just me, or does the vault apparatus not look like it used to? I think it looks like a stubby surfboard.
Friday, August 8, 2008
spelling and voice
Joe-the-office-roomie pointed me to this great op ed piece about spelling.
Weren't dictionaries and spell checker created because variant spelling got too confusing? I mean, really!
And this was a neat article on writers' voices. It's perfectly true - sometimes the voice you hear isn't the one you expect. I've heard Dorothy Parker's voice, and it sounds a bit shrill and harsh to me. And Sylvia Plath's has an ever-so-slight warble-in-the-throat sound.
Weren't dictionaries and spell checker created because variant spelling got too confusing? I mean, really!
And this was a neat article on writers' voices. It's perfectly true - sometimes the voice you hear isn't the one you expect. I've heard Dorothy Parker's voice, and it sounds a bit shrill and harsh to me. And Sylvia Plath's has an ever-so-slight warble-in-the-throat sound.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
as the wrench turns
This is a cute show. It's Click and Clack animated - the Car Talk guys.
What I know about cars I learned mainly from this book. I have the home repair book too.
Anywho, pretty cool that you can make a cartoon about car repair.
What I know about cars I learned mainly from this book. I have the home repair book too.
Anywho, pretty cool that you can make a cartoon about car repair.
Monday, August 4, 2008
thesis! (yes, really!)
I know you're all sick of me saying "when I start my thesis," and "I'm going to start my thesis soon." Well, now I really am - today is officially day 1.
I've looked at the syllabus for the thesis work, and it's already got me quaking in my red Mary Janes. There are three parts to it - the first is the thesis itself, which in my case is a novel. The second part is guided reading - 10 to 20 works chosen in conjunction with your advisor to inform, inspire, and challenge your own writing, to be read during the four-month thesis-writing period. Third is a 5- to 10-page writer's statement, which is a lot like an artist's statement and discusses how you approach writing, how your thesis evolved, your ideas on writing, and commentary on your guided reading.
We also have to have bound copies made of the final thesis - one for the university library and one for the department. (And I'll probably get an additional one for myself.)
I'm trying not to make myself sick by dwelling on how much work I have ahead of me through the end of the year. I'm supposed to have a conversation with my advisor sometime this week, so I shall ask him for advice on pacing myself so as not to lose my mind and/or burn out and/or end up hating writing.
On the bright side, this means I am tantilizingly close to a finished, polished, ready-to-be-sent-to-publishers novel. Next year will be my submission year in which I send my baby out to make her way in the world and see what publishers think of her while I start working on the next baby, and there's another one waiting in the wings behind baby #2.
For those who are interested, my thesis is a modern gothic novel. It takes place in an old house that is a composite of two houses from my past - one is a house I used to drive past when I went to visit my mom (this is for exterior scenes). The other is a house I stayed in for two weeks the summer before I entered high school (for interior scenes). Both are just asking to be settings for a juicy ghost story. Letters and journal entries comprise some of the story as well.
The story is told through several points of view of characters who lived in the house, which could get tricky, and is probably what I need the most help with. The other thing I need help with is pacing the storytelling so as not to give away too much too soon. I will be pestering my advisor with many questions about these things.
I'm happy with the two chapters I worked on (and worked on and worked on) in the workshop courses. I have a substantial (but REALLY rough) draft of the rest of the novel. There are definitely gaps and things out of order.
I suspect that the next four months are going to teach me a lot about what it takes to have an independent writing life. If I can get through it, which I'm fairly certain I can despite the quaking and the full-time job, however I feel about writing and producing a substantial work for publication at the end of the year will have a lot of influence on my career direction (and future writing, for that matter).
I don't know how much I'll be blogging (or crocheting) during the rest of the year. I hope to at least check in weekly so you know I'm still alive.
In the meantime, I leave you with this virtual philosophy Web site that is well worth perusing.
I've looked at the syllabus for the thesis work, and it's already got me quaking in my red Mary Janes. There are three parts to it - the first is the thesis itself, which in my case is a novel. The second part is guided reading - 10 to 20 works chosen in conjunction with your advisor to inform, inspire, and challenge your own writing, to be read during the four-month thesis-writing period. Third is a 5- to 10-page writer's statement, which is a lot like an artist's statement and discusses how you approach writing, how your thesis evolved, your ideas on writing, and commentary on your guided reading.
We also have to have bound copies made of the final thesis - one for the university library and one for the department. (And I'll probably get an additional one for myself.)
I'm trying not to make myself sick by dwelling on how much work I have ahead of me through the end of the year. I'm supposed to have a conversation with my advisor sometime this week, so I shall ask him for advice on pacing myself so as not to lose my mind and/or burn out and/or end up hating writing.
On the bright side, this means I am tantilizingly close to a finished, polished, ready-to-be-sent-to-publishers novel. Next year will be my submission year in which I send my baby out to make her way in the world and see what publishers think of her while I start working on the next baby, and there's another one waiting in the wings behind baby #2.
For those who are interested, my thesis is a modern gothic novel. It takes place in an old house that is a composite of two houses from my past - one is a house I used to drive past when I went to visit my mom (this is for exterior scenes). The other is a house I stayed in for two weeks the summer before I entered high school (for interior scenes). Both are just asking to be settings for a juicy ghost story. Letters and journal entries comprise some of the story as well.
The story is told through several points of view of characters who lived in the house, which could get tricky, and is probably what I need the most help with. The other thing I need help with is pacing the storytelling so as not to give away too much too soon. I will be pestering my advisor with many questions about these things.
I'm happy with the two chapters I worked on (and worked on and worked on) in the workshop courses. I have a substantial (but REALLY rough) draft of the rest of the novel. There are definitely gaps and things out of order.
I suspect that the next four months are going to teach me a lot about what it takes to have an independent writing life. If I can get through it, which I'm fairly certain I can despite the quaking and the full-time job, however I feel about writing and producing a substantial work for publication at the end of the year will have a lot of influence on my career direction (and future writing, for that matter).
I don't know how much I'll be blogging (or crocheting) during the rest of the year. I hope to at least check in weekly so you know I'm still alive.
In the meantime, I leave you with this virtual philosophy Web site that is well worth perusing.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)