Sometimes, while writing an essay that we don’t quite understand, we freak. It’s understandable. We are mearly nervous about the words that need to be on the paper, words that have not shown up yet. Its like having anxiety while waiting for a friend to arrive. In those few minutes past the “on time” you start to think you got the date wrong, or that your clock is wrong or that your friend doesn’t think you were very important and decided not to show. But after you take a few deep breaths and see your friend coming around the corner, you realize that it is all okay. Well, listener, it is all okay. We are going to get through this essay. 

New year!

Me and Shmogan before graduation!

I have finished senior year and even further, I have become an English major in my freshman year of college. I really liked making this blog last year so I thought, what the hell? I'll keep it going this year. For now it will mostly consist of reflections of classes I'm taking and things I experience outside of class that are story oriented.

This is my school, Ithaca college! It's strange being on the other side of the country, but it's also not over 100 degrees anymore so...

For example! I have gotten started on making a space for nanowrimo here, and have found quite a bit of people interested in trying it out. Which to be quite honest makes me a little nervous but that's okay! I'm ready to try new things and if that includes hosting write ins, then count me in. I'll figure it out along the way, which happens to be one of the things I'm good at.

My classes this semester are pretty much all english oriented and I couldn't be gladder. I have:

• Intro to Poetry
• Intro to Short Stories
• Creative Writing- seminar
• World Religions

Intro to poetry was a sort of gamble with myself because I never really considered myself to be much of a poetry person. Boy was I surprised when I got to my first class and found that I really couldn't keep my mouth shut on my interpretations of each of the poems and each of their deeper meanings. I refrained from taking over the entire class discussion and only shared my biggest opinions, but it wasn't enough and I ended up writing a few pages worth of reflection on the first three poems we read. I have no intention of turning them in but I also have no intention of leaving poems to be forgotten.

 I like to read each poem over a few times to start with. First, in my head twice and then once aloud. You wouldn't believe the difference when you read a poem aloud. It can become clearer and more powerful when spoken, as though poetry is only held on paper, and not meant to stay there. Then I have to write my reactions to the theme, voice and word choices. There is so much to consider in poetry, and there is really no way to be wrong. I think it's very similar to what I would look at during research last year.

Creative writing is quite the adventure. Every session is filled with the feeling of friendly ideas and secrets shared amongst writers. My professor has us share our feelings and read fairy tales and come up with our own. She insists on hikes and baking and appreciating each other between writing assignments. It's like entering another realm for an hour every Monday and Wednesday. Write now we have been asked to examine our names and hear the stories of where they come from. We are to find inspiration from names and present a story next week. 

That's all for now, updates soon on my stories and experiences. 

Last Presentation Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

I am most proud of myself for completing Nanowrimo. It was a really intense experience and it taught me the most helpful things. For example it gave me two of my answers. It also inspired me to pursue writing in college and decide to put more effort into honing in on my writing skills.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.  What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?  Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

AE       P          AP       CR       NC
 I worked extremely hard on my presentation to make it feel as close to what I experienced this past year as I could. I dedicated a lot of time on making my set up creative and easy to understand. I believe that I deserve the AE because of all of this and more. I think that while not everything went as smoothly as I could hope, I still made a well informed, organized and creative presentation.

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project? Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

AE       P          AP       CR       NC
I think if you look at my blog alone then you can see that I have been putting a lot of dedication into my senior project. I have put in the mentorship hours, gone to see authors and tried to extend myself as much as I could, into the world of storytelling.

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?
I loved that the EQ did not have a specific design, it made the experience much more enjoyable because I was comfortable with my EQ. I also really enjoyed my mentorship because it gave me a reason to go outside of my comfort zone. The interviews were also incredibly helpful and they pushed me out there into the open so I could experience new things surrounding my topic. 

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your senior project?
I would go back and push myself to do more interviews, because they were so helpful.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

It has taken away my fears of having long presentations, that's for sure. I don't think I'll ever be nervous for presentations anymore. I mean, I wasn't really very nervous to begin with but from here on out there's nothing I can't handle. Also, it taught me knew ways to connect the information I have gathered from multiple sources. Especially when there are a lot of them.

Things every librarian needs to know

Working in the library every week has taught me some truly valuable things. Among them are:

- How to obtain that perfect "constantly pleasant" smile without becoming "creepy"

- How to balance ridiculous amounts of books and avoid tripping over children simultaneously. 

- How to stay concentrated for long periods of time

- How to control your rising distress when you realize you misread a number on a nonfiction book

- How to look busy while taking a well deserved break

- How to keep your cool when a 4 year old decides to remove every book on a shelf you just finished organizing

Interview 4

My interview #4 is a little bit late, but it definitely happened! I interviewed Mrs. Maricel Edwards and it was absolutely delightful. Here is a piece of what we talked about. The rest of the interview is to the right in the links section.

Interview

My topic is Storytelling and my essential question is how does an author communicate who they are through their stories

Oh thats good and there’s so many different ways to approach that, okay

Ok, so. 

Q: How did you end up in your field?

A: Teaching… I ended up teaching because I was originally working in public relations in marketing which I enjoyed. It was an internship that became a job right after college,it was up north and my dad got sick. And we all needed to converge down here to Southern California so I quit my job, came down here you know. And I didn’t have any prospects , all my prospects were up north. My sister says, you have a BA, why don’t you become a substitute teacher? All you have to do is take a piddling little test which is like cake and then you can sub. And subs, honestly I say this to everyone with a BA, if you have that degree and you just take that test, they take like a hundred bucks a day just to babysit. And so that’s what I did, I became a sub. And I said “wait I don’t like these lesson plans, these lesson plans are stupid” So I became that sub that changed the lesson plans on the teachers and I said “wow I like teaching” and therefore I became a teacher because I liked to write my own lesson plans and not follow somebody else's. And that’s how I became a teacher.

Q: Now, I know that you love books, and stories. But did you always love books and stories? Or did you just fall on it later in life? 

A: Oh my god, since I can remember I’ve always had a book in my hand. Whenever we had family gatherings, which was a lot, I was always the kid who sat in the corner and didn’t play any of the games and just read books. And people knew “for birthdays and christmas just get her books” which was difficult in the Philippines because the books that I wanted were American. And thank goodness that my family went to America often because their pasalubum “gift you give when you come back from a trip” to me was always American books. So I had an entire collection of hardback Nancy Drew, Secret Garden, Little Princess. The classics that I would get and I was just … I loved books! I lived breathed, I just. Books!

Q: Have you ever felt a particular connection to a book or story or quote?

A: Always. It depends on what I’m currently reading but I will always become either that writer or that character for whatever book. Like currently, in fact just last night I finished Code Name Verity . This is a young adult book about these two girls, its a dual perspective, they're best friends. And this author Elizabeth Ween made them sound completely different. For first person, that’s amazing. And after I finished reading the book, and I read it all in one shot, I’m writing a good reads review, I took on the voice of one of the characters. Just because that’s what I do. Once I become sort of engrossed by the story, that’s sort of what I become. For me to pick one character or one quote or one book. It’s impossible. A, I’m old and I’ve read many books. And also B, it really just depends on the current read at the time.

Q: What about in your past phases of books that you’ve read?

A: Well, because for a long time I stuck around with the fantasy, the writing style. I liked the long eloquent sentences, I liked the diction of high fantasy. Any British author. I love the way British writers sound ten times more intelligent than American ones. It’s all their diction, it’s the words they use. So yes, every single British author and every single British character. That’s who I relate to.

Q: What made you want to write?

A: Nothing makes you want to write. You either write or you don’t, and I think that’s what makes it so hard to be an english teacher because I can’t even fathom people not needing to write. You write because you have something to say. And if you can’t write then that means you have nothing to say which means your not human or you’re dead. So I’m always writing. I’m writing letters or I’m writing inquiries or I’m writing stories or I’m writing lists. I knew I wanted to write well when I would share my pieces with people and then I would watch their faces just light up because they wanted to know more. And that’s also why I don’t think that authors don’t write in a vacuum. Whether you’re writing for school or writing for people you have to whore out your pieces because your pieces only come alive when other people are reading them. 

Q: Okay, what do you find inspiration from?

A: Good writing. Just solid, well crafted writing.  And what I mean by that is language and diction. I love words. I love putting words together and making new meanings out of old words. I love juxtaposition where you take one word that means one thing and another… synesthesia . You know when you say “I smell purple”. That’s amazing! Because you don’t really smell purple but just putting it together, all of a sudden BAM you’ve just got this huge image! People don’t understand about the magic and beauty of words.

Q: What do you write about?

A:  The last piece that I was working on, which was like 100,00 words of my manuscript. And that was only halfway through the story was of course fantasy. I like fantasy best because it’s what I grew up with, it’s what I grew up on and it also allows me to be as imaginative and creative as possible.

Q: I know that you were interested in Nanowrimo, but I don’t know if you’ve read up on the book and how they make it a user friendly guide to get through it. But there’s a section where it says to make a list of everything that you love and then about what you hate and then write about what you love in a book. So what sort of things would have been on your list?

A: But why not the hate?

Q:  Because the things that you hate are like “ I don't like unhappy endings” or “I don’t like it when there’s a character like this. So if you write about the things that you hate, then you’re not going to enjoy the story and it’s gonna go flat.

A: I love dialogue. Rapid fire, uninterrupted, back and forth authentic dialogue. Uninterrupted by all those qualifiers “he said/she said”. Almost like a script, I like that. I love backstory, if this character is going to do this then I better know damn well why. I want backstory even if I don’t overtly read it in the story, there needs to be hints so that I know that character is alive somewhere, and not just on that scene.

Q: If you could travel to write, would you? And where would you go?

A: Yes. England. Because History. Because Big Ben. Because Shakespeare.

Q: would you go there because you would like to include these things in your story?

A: Yes, it would make my people sound really authentic 

Exit Interview

I feel confident about my answers!

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

"How does an author communicate who they are through their stories?"
1) Setting2)Character3)Weather or not an author communicates who they are depends on why they write((best answer))
#3 is my best answer because even though answers 1 and 2 are true, they can always be disproved by #3. Also, authors are very cunning and it would be very simple for them to disassociate themselves from their stories like wearing a mask.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

 Both of the independent components were a big influence, as was my 2nd interview with Alison Baker.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

Well, I didn't want my third answer to necessarily be my best answer at first. I knew it had to be an answer because there was just so much supporting it, but I din't realize it was my best answer until I was writing my essay and it sort of just made itself known.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The novel Glimmer Train, because it was answering and asking all of my questions for me. It even asked things I hadn't thought about. It gave me both my first and third answer (partially).the second thing would be Alison Baker, my mentor. Her experience as a professor and fellow reader and writer has given me such good resources and insight on my topic. The things I learned from Mrs. Baker I could never learn from Google. Or maybe I could, but it would take forever. 

"Every period in one's life, I saw, bustles with novel worthy passions, dilemmas and energies specific to that age. With each passing era a new novel is possible and a potentially great book you could have written slips away into noveling oblivion."

-Chris Baty, No Plot! No Problem!

Independent Component 2

Independent Component started out as a series of short stories that I would write in different places to try and draw connections between settings and how much they affected what type of story a person writes. Looking back on that original idea, I find it sort of silly. I was pretty much setting myself up for failure. If I went out to write with that Idea in mind, there wouldn’t be a doubt that I would only make the most obvious connections. During the actual writing process I would convince myself to write about where I was and assume I was right about my theories.

So instead of going through with my original plan I’ve decided to take a different path. Instead I’m going to be focusing on a question that has proven essential to one of my answers.

“Why do you write?”

link to full IC 2

Things you learn at the library

Shelf read: Meaning to wander around the library and make sure books are where they are supposed to be.

The quietest spot in the : The L section of the picture book corner.

Favorite thing about the library:

When kids decide to be best friends because they are both in the library

"Sentiment and nostalgia are fatal for fiction. One must go into the territory of the imagination with sure feet, not fainting with glorious misery."

-Lynn Freed

New Link!

I added a new link for The Write Practice. I just found this website, which has become a great source for inspiration as well as research! It's filled with articles of advice and lessons for authors at all ages. It's absolutely lovely and I can't believe I've gone so long with out it. It has been a treasure, and if you are interested in checking it out, its to the right under the links section!

"When I write a novel I'm writing about my own life; I'm writing a biography almost always. And to make it look like a novel I either have a murder or a death at the end."

-Beryl Bainbridge

Camp Wrimo

I recently talked to one of my Nanowrimo friends about writing this April. Apparently there is a Camp Wrimo that let's you set your own goal but is otherwise the same as Nanowrimo. While I don't think I will be participating in Camp Wrimo, I agreed to come to a few write ins! It would just be so fun to be back in that writing environment! I've really missed it these last few months. It's funny, before Nanowrimo I didn't consider myself a writer and I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do. It's crazy how much 1 month can change you! I have no regrets and I can't wait for the write ins.

"The initial draft is for me, a screaming weeping blubberfest where I just want to cry all the words out without any care in the world how they get onto the page."

 -Chuck Wendig

Entrance

My dream presentation has hot drinks and no chairs!

I have seen a good number of senior project presentations before, and one of the things I like is that the presenter has full reign on the set up and location. For my own presentation, I really want to embrace that. 

The environment I want is what one of my writing sessions would look like. This means, hot drinks, pillows and blankets, and definitely on the floor. So here's a sketch I have of what i want to do:

-Have pillows/ blankets set up in the middle of the room in a circle similar to a large nest.

-Have all chairs and tables pushed to sides of the room except for four desks in the back.

-Have everyone enter through the back door towards the desks.

-On desks: Coffee and Tea/Hot Cocoa in already poured styrofoam cups

Idea!: 

• Have EQ on the cup sleeve.
• Have a towel for spills just in case
• Have a large tote for cleanup at the end of presentation
• Choose students to assist in cleanup/setup prior to presentation.

Forth Interview questions

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?
Ahhhh I still don't know who i'm interviewing! It might be a librarian? Or maybe a young adult author? I don't know yet!2.  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

20, that's a lot... ok lets do this

1. How do you think an author best reveals himself to his audience?
2. Why do you write?
3. What made you want to write?
4. When you write, who are your intended audiences?
5. When you write do you think that you create deeper meanings in your work? Things you hope people pick up on?
6. If you could travel to write, would you? Where would you go?
7. How do you think traveling can affect someone's story?
8. Do you see yourself or anyone you know in your characters?
9. What authors writing style stands out to you?
10. What do you think makes a writer?
11. How do you choose the "right words"?
12. What do you write about?
13. How do you feel about analyzing another authors work for deeper meanings?
14. What sort of stories are you most likely to read?
15. What do you find inspiration in?
16. Do you think the curtain was just blue?
17. What advice do you give to other writers?
18. What advice would you give to yourself when you first started?
19. 
    

"Write to be read. Choose words that have flavor but do not overwhelm, that reach out instead of pushing back, that sound right to the ear and carry with them a kind of rhythm. Write with confidence, not with arrogance. Don’t be afraid to play with words. But be sure to let the reader play with you."

-Chuck Wendig

Blog 19: Third Answer

EQ 
"How does an author communicate who they are through their stories?"

Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*
1. An author can communicate who they are through their word choice
or
2.An author does not communicate who they are through their stories

3 details to support the answer  

-From the educational stand point, we should never assume that we understand the author. We can't confirm our assumptions and just because they wrote about something doesn't mean it reflects on them. Sometimes a blue curtain is just a blue curtain.

-When you write, you create a sort of personality. It all comes down to the words you choose, they create a pattern for the reader to interpret. It can be snide, friendly, sassy, whatever the author makes it. It's often a handprint of who they are.

-

The research source(s) to support your details and answer
Concluding Sentence

For my research the biggest sources were my interviews with my mentor Alison Baker and source #42

"The only thing that infuriates me is that I have more unwritten stories in me than I can conceivably write in a life time."

-Howard Fast

Answer 2

Me, when people ask for my best answer. I'm not ready to choose!

1.  What is your EQ?

"How does an author communicate who they are through their stories?"
2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

An author communicates who they are in their stories through setting.
3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

An author communicates who they are in their stories through characters.
4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

Personal experience- Reflecting on my own story from Nanowrimo, I can see now how much I relate to my characters. They aren't just random choices, they are a creation of who I am and who I would like to be. Their worst qualities are my worst qualities, their interests are my interests. even the world they exist in is mirrored off of what I know.

Other author experience- Looking in the book Glimmer Train I see that I am not the only author who has experienced this. There are lots of accounts where authors admit that they pose characters and settings based off their personal life. Sometimes it's harder to find but it's usually there. Lots of the authors interviewed in Glimmer Train will support my answer. 

Obvious Patterns in analysis-Obvious Patterns is another way of saying common sense. Or maybe I mean undeniable evidence. How can you write about something you don't know? How can you escape your experiences and past?

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

Glimmer Train-A book made completely of a wide spread of author's interviews.

NaNoWriMo-What better support than my own experience? I can share what I have felt, understood and written.

6.  What other source supports your answer?

Mentor, Alison Baker-My mentor is an author as well as a teacher. She has had nearly 16 years of higher education. I believe she qualifies as a source. By the way her answers are brilliant! I could pick her brain all day, but I will settle for our half hour meetings every Monday.

7.  Tie this together with a  concluding thought.
I am rather confident in my answers, and I know that there are more possible answers that I should explore. I might do so, just to test out if they are more promising. But for now these are my answers.