Letters to the Dead

In my YA fiction class, we just finished a book called Love Letters to the Dead. I didn't care about the book much, but our blog assignment for the week was that we could write our own letter to the dead.

In the book, the main character wrote her letters mostly to famous people - singers, actors, etc. Which is a good option, if there is a famous person who influenced you.
But maybe a loved one died. You may want to write a letter to them.

Or maybe it's someone that you never got to meet.
What I did was write a letter to both of my grandfathers. I never met either of them (my Grandpa right now isn't technically related to me, but he's been the best Grandpa).
What would I say to them if I could meet them? How would we get along?

This is an activity I'd recommend. Write your own letter to someone who is no longer among the living.

Letting out the Air

So, as you may have been able to tell, I spent most of the last two months frantically trying to get my project ready to graduate.
But that's not going to happen. At least not this semester.
So much for all of that insane work, and complete lack of most other activities/socializing.
I have to take another semester, so that's going to cost a lot. I'll have to find out what I'm supposed to do now.

I guess I'll wind down a bit. I wonder if I should actually try Nanowrimo this year.
I actually got to work on Katani's story last night. First time in months. Maybe even half a year? I don't even remember. It was so refreshing.
Maybe I'll do more of that tonight. I've been looking at Ashes too much. And making weird changes to it that shouldn't be made.

Also, Ellen and I went to a Quincenera yesterday~
Our friend and her Mom were crying XD The little baby has all grown up. ^-^

Music of Poetry

I like both poetry and prose, and many novelists also write poetry. But I know that's not universal among writers.
During creative writing class this semester, my teacher mentioned a link between poetry and prose, which I think is worth talking about.

If you write mostly prose, you obviously want your writing to sound nice. If it flows nicely, it can be more enjoyable to read.
Poetry has a musical quality to it. Learning this can help make your prose more musical too. It helps you find the rhythm of words. You learn about what the word sounds like - if it's soothing to say, or more jarring. It helps fit the tone you want.

Writers are also told to "cut it down." Get rid of any excess words, phrases, or scenes. When you see deleted scenes in a movie, and usually you can tell why they were deleted. The movie was more streamlined without them.
Poetry helps you tighten up the language. You can fit an image or idea into a couple lines, or a couple words, in the course of a poem.
And since each word has a different feeling to it, even if it means something similar, you learn to pick a word that's perfect for the image and tone in your head.

Movie

So, there are possible plans to make a Hollywood movie about my uncle.
The script is written. But if there is a movie, it wouldn't be for several years. There hasn't been a definite "yes" or "no" yet. But Uncle Rob knows the actor Robert Redford. So if they can get him on board, the movie might be a go.

Whoo, that would be pretty amazing. I hope it goes through~

Wicked Hill

I haven't written about my other class yet.
It's about science fiction and fantasy.
So far, we've been reading a lot of older short stories. The foundation of the genres (especially scifi). It's interesting to see how things have changed as these kinds of stories got more popular, and as science improved.
During class, we discuss the stories, and the era they were written, and the authors.

The teacher wrote a book called Wicked Hill. I had him sign my copy, because I don't have very many signed books. This is the second novel I have by one of my teachers.
I'm almost done reading it. It's pretty short, and I like it so far. Maybe I'll take 20 minutes to try to finish it tonight.

Though I still have stuff to check for my project. Ugh.

Ineffective Silent Treatment

I really don't want to talk to people involved in my grad program. Bleh. But I've already ignored my project for a full day, so I better spend my last hour of the day on it.
Refusing to respond to an email for a day isn't really much of a silent treatment. I'm not very good at those anyway.

I want to see everyone again. TT^TT

I just finished another long-term art project today. For the past couple months, I've been slowly going through the photo gallery on my computer. That doesn't even include the photos I took before I got a digital camera.
I've been picking out all the photos that are the highest quality, to make a sort of photo gallery for myself. Although some of them are funny or weird too.


There are several pictures of animals. Some of plants and landscapes. And even a few of people. I showed it to my parents, and we tidied it up a bit. Of all my many thousands of photos, some of them turned out really nice XP
It was fun going through all my old photos too. Lots of memories.

Last week, I went though the Japan photos - and the photos of the Nagasaki atomic bomb museum. And that week in my science fiction class, we read a short story that described the "shadows" an atomic bomb will leave on the wall. The story is called "There will come soft rains" by Bradbury. I think you can find it online. it's pretty short. There's a scene where they describe a burnt wall that outlines the shape of people. A woman bending over the garden, and two children in the middle of tossing a ball to each other. And I got shivers, because I've seen that myself. I'd just looked at the pictures of it a couple days before.
During class, they asked how we knew that it was an atomic attack. I raised my hand and told them about the wall from the bomb museum. There is a shadow of leaves on the wall, because the bomb burned so hot and so fast that it left their outline.

Disturbing the Universe... Accidentally

In the young adult fiction class, we're reading a book called Disturbing the Universe. Which basically analyzes a lot of themes in YA literature. The title comes from the desire of young adults to affect their surorundings. To "disturb the universe."
For example, refusing to do somthing you're told to do at school.
I think it was originally a quote from something else though (I didn't find the book too helpful most of the time).

But I think I accidentally did that yesterday...

Last week, during my creative writing class, I turned in a poem. I kind of wanted to share it, but I kind of didn't want to share it. So I turned it in without my name on it, just to see what would happen.
And this week, it appeared in the usual poetry packet, to my surprise.

Then the teacher said that she didn't like how it didn't have a name, and asked if it belonged to anyone. I was kind of curious to see if it would get read anyway, so I didn't say anything.
And then all these theories started flying around. The title of the poem was "Hidden from Myself." And Steve said that it was ironic as a title, because the author was hidden.
And then Natasha asked if someone didn't feel comfortable with the class, and this went on for a couple minutes.
And I still didn't say anything because I was starting to feel really stupid. And I started thinking about that "disturbing the universe thing. And "holy crud, why is this going so far? I just didn't put my name on something!"
I said we should just skip it.
Finally Claire said that the person probably was probably absent, as opposed to this being some elaborate act.
It was no longer an elaborate act. It was just embarrassment.

So, in the end, people probably decided that some dumb, absent student just hadn't remembered to put their name on their assignment.
And it didn't get read aloud, or discussed. But I suppose some people read it during the 2-minute panic.

So, I felt pretty dumb.

But I also read a short story later in the class. I haven't turned in another Ashes chapter, so I thought I'd bring something different. It's a 2-page scene from Katani's story (actually, it takes palce 10 years before Katani's story), which I've read in class a couple times as an example of enviornmental fiction.

The same person who said she didn't like Ashlyn said that she didn't like Shanka. It seems to be that she doesn't like people who fight to protect important stuff, because other peopel want to get that stuff?
And then I realized that I don't particularly like her characters either. I kind of wanted to say it, but that would have been a jerk response. I'm not sure why she keeps bringing it up though. She's told me at least three times that she doesn't like my main character. I get it. We don't like writing the same characters.

I'm starting to whine. I think I'm getting tired. Once again, the evening was spent on my project. Maybe I'll go read some homework instead. That way my brain doesn't have to think as hard for a little while.

Inktober

So, if you're on an art website, like Deviantart, you may have heard of Inktober.
Basically it means that the month of October is for drawing in ink. Marker, pen, ex.

~

#1 Preparing for Halloween by Picolo-kun on DeviantArt ~

I kind of accidentally started it.
During one of the books we read for the young adult fiction class, the character had a journal. Not not the kind of journal I generally think about. He didn't record events. He just wrote down thoughts and his state of mind and such.
I thought it might be interesting to try something like that.
So I went through my large stash of notebooks, and came across this pretty leather-bound one. It's the kind of notebook you get because it's pretty. Except it's so fancy looking that you never want to use it, because you don't think you can do it justice. I have a couple like that... this one must have been in my cabinet for years. I have no idea where it came from. Probably a gift. So, I finally decided to crack it open.
On every page, I write something I think about. Like how I almost never really notice what people look like on a given day. I don't pay attention to outfits, makeup, hair, ex. Unless it's something really uusual. Therefore don't ask me how you look... I'm much more interested in how you act.
A friend in my creative writing class, Claire, thinks this is funny. Or maybe she's annoyed that I never notice when she puts a lot of work into her outfit? She's a lot mores stylish than me...
But basically, I think that everyoe's pretty.

So, that's the kind of stuff I write about. Things that I think are weird about me. Or stuff I don't udnerstand about society. They're not really secrets, but I don't really ever say aloud them either. It's interesting to think about them and put them on paper. It lets me see myself better.
And then on the back of each page, I sketch one of my characters.

I found this nice black pen, which is really fun to work with, so that's what I've used so far.

And now we roll back around to Inktober. When I saw it was starting, I decided that I'd up my game with my notebook and try to write or draw somethign in it every day. I'd actually started the project a few weeks before Inktober began. I just stumbled on the event by accident and picked it up.

So I invite you to try it! If you have a pretty book (or any book) lying around, pull it out. Try some interesting take on Inktober, to pay homage to art by ink.

Email Shenanigans

I've feared ever since I started my grad program that it would be hard to get people organized.
And now that's exactly what's happening.
For over three weeks I've been sending out email after email, trying to get school people on the same page. I've had to ask some questions three times before I finally receive a response. It's like they're picking and choosing the least helpful parts of my emails to respond to. So I spend all my time waiting on responses. When I met with the two science teachers a few weeks ago, they told me that they had more notes they'd send along of stuff they wanted me to fix. So I've been waiting for that ever since, and I just found out that I probably won't even get them. One teacher hasn't even read my full novel...
I've just had to work off what they told me during the meeting.
And then to top it off, the two of them are hinting that I won't finish in time to graduate this semester. Even though I've been waiting on information from them all this time.

And meanwhile they're changing what they want me to do.
As of last week, the two science advisers decided that they don't want my full novel. They only want the first 7 chapters.
Which is baffling to me and my third adviser (he's the only one in the English department - the other two are in environmental studies). The first part of the story has the least amount of environment in it. It's mostly in the later parts of the story. And the later parts of my story are where all of the most important (to me) content is - the hope of a world rebuilding. That's also where my favorite character is. Heh.
So I met with my English adviser last week, and we commiserated about the weird changes it seems I'm supposed to make. I'm glad I have a fellow writer on my side. I've gotten some helpful suggestions from him so far. And he's the only one who's given me a full copy of my story that's marked up.
But on the flip side, he's the hardest to contact over email.

Some of the suggestions from the other advisers are more questionable. They want me to add a lot more environmental facts/explanations. Well, I can understand that, since this is a environmental studies project. Even if it's rarely good to provide hunks of background info to a story.
But when they want me to add more gore... well, that's no longer about the department. That's about you own personal tastes. Adding gore does nothing to improve the environmental content.

Luckily when I graduate, I can change my story again to the way I want it.

So,everyone is driving me crazy.

But I got the draft of my final project (with cover letter, literature analysis, and everything) sent off just now. So hopefully they'll get back to me soon and let me take my exams. I don't want to pay for another semester just because people won't give me the information I need.

And as I write this, I can't help wondering if they have a link to my blog, and are reading this. O__O
Either way, these guys are nowhere near as frustrating as the teacher who didn't grade my class for almost an entire semester after the class had ended...

Okay, vent done.
I've spent two full days trying to get this done, so now i'd better go and do homework for my other classes...

Dark Moon

I thought it would be fun to write about the super moon eclipse, even though it was a few days ago. I took some pictures, but I'll have to see if any came out decently enough to share.

There were clouds, but luckily the moon rose above them before it broke out of the eclipse. So I got to see it when it was faded and red.
Later I and walked up the street, to go for an evening run. And I saw the moon again. It was still mostly dark and red, but along the bottom was a sliver of bright silver light. It was such an amazing contrast.
After just a short time, you can forget the brightness of the moon. But when it brightens again, it's more amazing than it was before.

The moon isn't always bright. But don't ever forget how bright it can be, on those nights when it's in the sky.