Posts Tagged ‘reflections’

Rose: The Chapter That Might Need a Special Tweak

Posted: January 17, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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So I’m working on Rose, my latest novel as well as my thesis, and I’m working on a chapter that I finished earlier today. However, this chapter was special, because it’s the first of two chapters that take place away from the titular character’s point-of-view. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Rose is told from the first-person point-of-view, and it’s told in the present tense, which originally I had difficulty with but eventually became easier with practice. However, as this chapter takes place away from Rose’s POV, I did it in the third-person POV, and I did it in the present tense.

Needless to say, it was incredibly awkward writing. I don’t know many stories that are written in the present tense, and those that I do are written usually in the first-person, like someone is narrating their life (who actually does that, I don’t know, but whatever). I don’t think I’ve ever read one that is present-tense and told in the third-person though. Maybe John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse, but I can’t remember that one as well, so don’t take my word on that one. Anyway, writing this chapter in such a way is incredibly awkward for me. And I think it shows throughout the chapter, all six pages of it.

Well, my advisor M, my fellow writer/thesis worker P, and I are trying to arrange to meet sometime next week. I’ve already sent the chapter to them, and I’ve already suggested some changes I could make to this chapter in the second draft. I’m hoping they let me keep it in third-person but switch to past tense, as that would be much easier for me to write. But whatever they feel or whatever suggestions they give, I’ll definitely take them into account. They haven’t steered me wrong before, and I’ve learned a whole lot working from them.

In any case, I’m taking the night off from writing. I’m going to do some reading for homework, practice Torah reading for my cousin’s bar mitzvah next month, and if there’s time relax in front of the TV or with a good book. Stay warm and have a good night, my Followers of Fear. I know I am.

JK Rowling and What I Learned About Being Brief

Posted: January 14, 2015 in Reflections, Writing
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Boy, do I owe her so much. Even today, I’m getting so much from her books. I’ve got to read her new novel one of these days.

It’s been a good day for me. Classes have been fun (I almost wish they’d last longer), work’s been going well, and I’ve already finished one chapter of Rose (six more to go!). And I’ve recently gotten another lesson in writing.

I’ve been listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks lately and I’m currently on Book 4 (Harry’s currently dealing with most of the school and his best friend hating him for being the fourth champion. Hang in there, Harry!). This was the series that made me want to be a writer in the first place. And you can get something out of the HP books at any age, I find. But I also remembered something that I’d forgotten about JK Rowling’s famous series: she can build such amazing images in our heads and do them with such few words.

I forgot about that, how every word is picked to be useful and poetic and not a single one seems wasteful. That sort of economic use of words is hard to come by, and she wields words so well in her books. I used to try to imitate that style when I was first starting out (I also was trying to write my own version of the Harry Potter series with a female protagonist, but that’s another story). Sometimes I didn’t use enough words! Though in my defense, most writers under the age of thirteen are very visual and we don’t always consider that our readers might need a few more words to visualize the story in their heads when we can see it just fine in ours.

As I grew up though, as I got better and I started getting published occasionally, I started using more, bigger words. I think that’s common with plenty of writers at many different ages. We want to sound smart, intelligent, eloquent with words. I’ve done it just now! Eloquent. That’s a word a lot of people know, but wouldn’t it just be fine to use “good with words”? And I used “economic” in the last paragraph. How about frugal? Or choosy? Or maybe even thrifty?

And we do it just to make ourselves look educated and verbose (there it is again). Sometimes we worry that our readers will get lost along the way, but we’re too afraid to stop! We’re afraid we won’t live up to people’s images of writers. Is it our vanity or our fears of how people look at us? Is there a difference? I’m not sure.

But I’m listening to the HP books, and it’s so precise with the words. And it’s a good story. Scratch that. It’s a great story (my mother would kill me with Avada Kedavra if I didn’t make that distinction). Maybe because JK Rowling wrote the HP books with kids rather than adults in mind, but she’s never worried about the words she’s using, about sounding intelligent or loqacious (again!). She just puts down the words as is needed.

Have to stop using words like I’m pulling them out of a thesaurus just because they’re big and fancy. It might be detrimental–darn it!

In my Business and Professional Writing class, we’ve been looking at how businesses and corporations and even school districts use lots of big words in order to sound like they’re qualified for their jobs. What it really does is sound like a robot has produced a lot of inpersonal and indecipherable terms (again) and let’s be honest, nobody likes an inpersonal robot, whether in real life or on the page.

It’s a crazy coincidence that it’s all happening at the same time, but JK Rowling and my class are teaching me something: that perhaps all those words are unnecessary, that instead of making me sound intelligent and articulate (trying to stop) they’re making me sound less like a person and more like a machine. And even though I do a great impression of a Cyberman, I’d rather not be mistaken for a robot.

So I’m going to try being less long-winded, switch to simpler words and get my point across in half the time. Heck, it might help me finally get a short story written in less than forty-five hundred words, something I’ve been trying to do for ages. And maybe it’ll make for a better story overall. We’ll see what happens.

For the present though, I’m certainly exhausted my patience for the overuse of ample language in the pursuit of resplendent storytelling and will henceforth cease such unreasonable actions for the betterment of my vocation and for the beneficial enhancement of my readership.

I’m done.

State Fair: Finished

Posted: January 12, 2015 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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A picture from the Ohio State Fair, which was a big influence on my own “State Fair”.

Well, it took me a day longer than I wanted it to, but I got it done. This is my final short story for winter break, and I got it done. This one’s called State Fair, and it’s about a ghost haunting a state fairgrounds who becomes infatuated with a girl he sees one day. It’s different than some of my other short stories, very literary but also very ghostly. I also think that this short story’s first draft is much better than my usual first draft, and I wish I could have submitted this one to my creative writing class to critique. I think they would’ve liked this very much.

From the moment I had the initial idea for this short story, I knew this one was different, that it was special. It’s probably why I decided to work on it over winter break. I also got to integrate many of the lessons I got from last semester and from some books I’ve been reading recently with this story, which I think might have contributed to the quality I feel this first draft has (though I still can’t keep a short story under forty-five hundred, it seems).

I’m still deciding what to do with this short story. My ultimate goal for State Fair is to submit it to a contest on campus for short stories. The deadline’s in mid-February, so I have a little time to edit and maybe get another person to take a look and give me some feedback. I got an honorable mention for my submission last year, so I think that this year I’ve got a pretty good chance with State Fair. Whatever the case, I’ll keep everyone posted and let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, I’m watching my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes take on the Oregon Ducks, and I want to see how this game ends. Tomorrow I get back to working on my thesis Rose, with the hope of getting that done by late February. I’ll keep everyone updated on what i’m doing and how things are going. Wish me luck and have a goodnight, my Followers of Fear.

Meditation and My Idea Process

Posted: January 11, 2015 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that I do a kind of meditation called Sahaja Yoga, and I have to say, it’s been an amazing influence on my life. Not only is it really relaxing, but it’s invigorating and I feel calmer and more balanced and focused after meditation (though nothing can ever seem to take away my wild, silly side). And, during the three years I’ve been meditating, I’ve been given a lot of ideas for stories or on how to modify stories that I’ve been having trouble with.

The first time this happened was after I started learning Sahaja Yoga. I was having trouble trying to figure out this short story I was working on and make it flow as a story. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t figure out what. At one point I just sat down, started meditating for five or six minutes, and then went out for a walk. During that walk I felt much calmer and more open minded, and I found a way to make the short story work. I went home and finished the short story within the week.

It’s been like that a lot since then, especially during classes on Sundays. I’ll meditate and while I’m cleaning chakras and relaxing, my mind will go into a very different state, in which ideas just come much more easily to me. It’s amazing. Today, I was having trouble figuring out which direction to to go with this short story I’m working on, and I was hoping that today’s class would help me figure out where to go with this story. I put myself into a meditative state and let my mind go. And about ten, twenty minutes into the class, I had it. I knew how to make this story work. And after we finished the meditation, everyone looked very happy to hear that I’d had my idea (everyone in the class is very supportive of my career, and one woman has even read all my books and reviewed one of them). I also had four other ideas for stories today, which is a bit more than usual (don’t know if they’re all related to my class, but I like to think they are).

Why does meditation make me so much more creative? Like hypnosis, meditation puts you into a different state of mind that helps you unwind, relax, and sometimes make you a bit more suggestible. I think that state of mind allows me to hold onto passing thoughts and twist and turn them into workable ideas for stories. In any case, usually after meditation I’m pulling out my little notebook and writing down my ideas, making Sunday one of my more creative days of the week.

Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that, in addition to all the other benefits of meditation I receive, Sahaja Yoga definitely makes me a much more creative person and gives me several more ideas for interesting stories. I never know when I’ll write any of them (that’s how many stories I have and how busy I am trying to get through just one story at a time), but it definitely means I’ll never run out of stories. And it’s another reason why I won’t be giving up meditation any time soon.

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Tomorrow’s the first day of classes, so I’m going to finish up and call it  a night. I’ve got a busy first day (2 classes, a shift at work, and a phone conference, plus Buckeyes take on Oregon tomorrow night. Go Bucks!) so I have to get as much sleep as possible if I’m going to get up tomorrow and take it all one with my usual chipper temperament. Wish me luck, and goodnight, my Followers of Fear!

Secrets of Ohio State University Part 2

Posted: January 6, 2015 in Living and Life
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I’ve been meaning to do this post for ages, since I wrote the first one nearly a year ago. Well, better late than ever. Also, I needed time to find out some more secrets about my beloved alma mater. So I took the time, and I got what I was looking for. Here are two secrets you probably didn’t know about The Ohio State University, courtesy of one of its stranger students (they’re still proud to have me though).

Jeffrey Dahmer is an alum of OSU. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Yes, the serial killer who killed and ate the male lovers he brought home was an alum of Ohio State. Well, not actually an alum in the traditional sense. He was only a student for one quarter. He was kicked out after missing most of his classes due to his excessive drinking. Still, he went here for a little while, and some have never let the university forget it. In fact, I think a couple of years ago they showed a documentary about Dahmer at the nearby movie theater. Wish I’d gone, now that I think about it.

The Vietnam protests made OSU a more open campus. This is another thing the Ohio State big shots would rather people forget about, but my American history teacher from this past spring, who is also an alumnus of OSU, thought it would be good for us to know. So I’m passing it on to you.

Back in the sixties, there was a huge protest movement against Vietnam at Ohio State, just like at many other universities across the country. At that time, Ohio State had a fence around its campus, so that people could only get in from certain places. During one protest, the OSU students went to the gates and closed them from the inside so that the faculty and staff couldn’t get in and do their jobs, effectively shutting down campus. The National Guard was called to open campus back up again, with mixed results if I remember correctly.

There was a summer break, and when students came back in the fall, OSU didn’t have gates or fences around campus anymore. So remember kids, you can change the world around you. It might not be in the way you expect, though.

 

That’s all for now. I’m getting to work on a short story now, so I’ll get right on that. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

Spring Semester 2015: The Pre-Game Show

Posted: January 5, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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Well, it was bound to happen. It’s been a long time coming. I’m not surprised that it’s here. I’m actually looking forward to it ending (provided that I have some sort of job by the end of it all). But still, it’s pretty amazing that I’m here. My last semester as an Ohio State student.

I’m going into this coming semester, which starts a week from today, with a lot of emotions. Hope for a variety of things to happen, as always. A tiny bit of nervousness about my grades, though that’s expected. Excitement that this’ll be my last time around this block. Fear that I won’t find a job before the semester is over (God forbid). Impatience over just wanting to get it over with. At least I’m not feeling the apathy of senioritis. Or maybe I am but I don’t realize it. Can you have senioritis if you know you still have to work very hard to get good grades and still intend to?

Going to try my best not to become this guy.

Anyway, I’m taking three classes this semester, something that I haven’t done since my first year at Ohio State when we were still on the quarter system. Normally I’d take four to be considered a full-time student and receive financial aid, but my English advisor and my thesis advisor got together and changed how much my thesis counts for credit so I can still be considered full-time. I don’t mind; I get a bit more time during the day to work on my thesis Rose and maybe watch a little television in the evenings. And after this past semester, with five classes and a thesis to work on, I could use the rest time.

I have some very interesting classes this semester. First is a Restoration and 18th-century British literature course, which should be challenging in a good way. I don’t normally care for stuff written in that time period, but I’ll give it a shot. I might even grow to like some of what I read and use it in a future story. I’m also taking a Business and Professional Writing class, which I hope might be useful when I get a job. This class is being taught by a teacher I’ve had before and whom I absolutely love because she’s such a funny and sweet woman. Plus she’s a huge science fiction nerd, including Doctor Who (her husband actually saw the very first episode in 1963 and knew right then and there it was something special. Maybe he had a time machine too).

Those two courses will fill out my English major. As for my History major, I just have one class left, and I have to say this one will make for a great last course. It’s History of Witchcraft in Medieval Europe, which is a new course and is being taught by a new teacher. As soon as my History advisor, who knows of my writing preferences, mentioned it to me, I was like “Sign me up!” You can bet that something I learn in that class might make it into a future short story or novel. My dad and one of my friends though are concerned it’s a how-to course. They need not worry; I already know how to do all that. Mwa ha ha ha!

As for my thesis Rose, I’ve seven chapters left to write, and I hope to get back to working on it by Monday next week. Right now I’m working on two short stories, one of which I hope to submit to a short story contest held every spring in the English department, so I want to get those done first. But I’m hopeful that when I do finish Rose (and I’m hoping that it’ll be done by the end of March at the very latest, though I’m aiming for late February), I bet it’ll be great. I just hope my advisor and the people who read it prior to my thesis argument think it’s great as well.

At Ohio State, graduation takes place in the Ohio Stadium. I’m looking forward to it. More on graduation as time goes on!

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll update you on how the semester’s going about eight weeks in, when it’s halfway over. I’m hoping that I’ll have some good grades and maybe I’ve finished Rose by that point. We’ll just have to wait and see! Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. To make sure I graduate on time, I might just need it.

Self-Pub Authors: Writing a Series

Posted: January 2, 2015 in Journalism, Writing
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My first article of the new year from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. This one is Writing a Series, which is a pretty self-explanatory title. A lot of authors write series or want to write series, so I thought an article with some tips might be helpful. A good way to start off the new year too by helping others as well, if you ask me.

If you get a chance, please check out the article. It’s got some good points and if you have any tips for writing a series, we would love to hear them. In fact, I’m hoping a lot of people will comment with their own tips. Maybe I could put together a “Readers’ Tips” article or something.

And if you get the chance, please check out the rest of the blog. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is from authors, written by authors, and for authors. Whether you’re indie or traditional, fiction or non-fiction, published a hundred times or just starting out, there are plenty of helpful articles on this site to help you with your career.

That’s all for now. Have a good weekend and Shabbat Shalom, my Followers of Fear.

2014: A Year in Review

Posted: January 1, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Another year has come and gone. And what a year it was! Personally a lot of amazing things happened to me: I got to go on the study abroad trip of my dreams (sadly one doesn’t exist to explore haunted locations) and make unforgettable memories with amazing friends while learning about WWII. I published my second novel Snake, which currently has an average of 4.2 out of 5 on Amazon. I started my last year of school, which I shall finish in four months and ten days from now. And so much more has happened, so much that I can’t mention them all here or you might get bored. I’m definitely not going to mention any of that stuff WordPress sends in an email about Sydney Opera Houses and whatever. It’s boring, and I usually save that stuff for the anniversary of my blog being created in August anyway.

What do I hope for 2015? Well, I’m hoping to get at least one book published at some point this year. No definite plans at the moment, but I’ll let you know if something does seem imminent. I’d like to finish up my thesis Rose and get some really good remarks and feedback on it (a lot of reports indicate that the former will definitely happen soon, while the latter depends on who reads Rose and what they think). I’d also like to finish editing Video Rage and get to work on improving Laura Horn, which might happen sometime after graduation. As I’ve got close to 400 short story ideas and only a few of them actually written, I’d like to get some more short stories written, maybe get back to work on another collection or publish those short stories in a magazine. And of course I’d like to grow my readership, get more people reading my blog and my books.

And of course I’d like to get a well-paying job by the time I graduate. That would be very nice.

Anyway, thank you to the many Followers of Fear who show up here to read my many posts and interact with me. You give me encouragement every day to keep pursuing my goals and to make my dreams come true. I hope we can have another fabulous year together, through graduation and beyond.

Also thanks to everyone who bought or downloaded a copy of one of my books during the holiday sale this year. I hope you enjoy what you bought and if you feel like it, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and I’d be happy to hear yours, even in a comment or a review.

Happy New Year, everyone.

My Odd and Inspiring Christmas Walk

Posted: December 26, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, short story, Writing
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As a Jew, Christmas isn’t really my thing. In fact, I’ve been referring to it in a half-joking manner as my month-long headache. But sometimes Christmas surprises me, as it did last night.

After watching The Interview on Christmas Eve and sleeping in much later than I had meant to, I’d pretty much been a couch potato all day, catching up on the shows I’d missed out on this semester. Since I was planning on watching the Doctor Who Christmas special, I went out for a walk and stretch my legs. And what a walk it was! The air was actually much warmer than last year, there wasn’t any rain or snow, and there was hardly any traffic! Hardly any at all! You could walk right into the middle of what would normally be a very busy street and just dance! Which I did, by the way. Several times! And nobody gave me a weird look at all…not that there was anyone really around to look. And I probably wouldn’t care what anyone thought if there was someone there, anyway.

After stopping off at the local donut shop for an after-dinner snack (and for what became this morning’s breakfast), I decided to go for a walk on campus. And it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Everything was so quiet, so empty, and there was a slight mist in the air. It gave everything a strange, magical air, and I kept expecting to see something magical pop out at me (more than usual anyway). With my earbuds popped in, I ended up dancing on the Oval to some of my favorite uplifting party songs, just because I could. I then stopped by Mirror Lake, which at this time of year is lit up with Christmas lights. I don’t normally care for all the lights, but tonight it was enchanting and I really enjoyed myself.

It was at that point that I decided to head home, especially if I wanted to take a shower before the Christmas special began. And it was also at that point that something that I’d been waiting for finally happened: if you recall back in May during my study abroad trip, I began a short story called The Murderer’s Legacy that was inspired by some of the things I’d seen and read about while in London. The story was about a nobleman living in a version of Victorian England where magic is commonplace. The nobleman is being sentenced to death (or at least a very horrific version of it) for the murder of his wife, whom he did not murder. At the end of the story it’s revealed who actually murdered her and why, but by then it’s too late for the nobleman.

Something like I saw last night. You can see how inspiring it is, can’t you?

 

I thought at the time that it was a pretty good story, and that it had a lot of potential. I still do. But I felt that the version I had in the first draft wasn’t sufficient, and I had to do some major editing and rewriting in order to make the story work. This became more apparent to me as time went on, especially as some of the lessons from all the creative writing I did this last semester began to sink in, namely don’t plunge the reader into a fantastic world with a million different parts and pieces to it if you have only ten-thousand words to do it and tell a story set in that world. My first draft felt like starting Harry Potter in Book 4 or 5 and being plunged into this great big established universe, rather than being slowly introduced to that world in Book 1.

The problem was, I didn’t know how to fix this story so that it was not only simpler, but flowed better and actually told a story rather than introducing the reader to a complicated world they couldn’t take in slowly. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a way to approach this story and edit it. Until last night, that is, when standing by Mirror Lake, something just clicked and inspiration flowed. I finally figured out how to make this story work, how to tell it in a creepy way while keeping the basic idea behind it alive. Not only that, but I had all the research materials I needed at home, so looking up what I needed for this story would be a cinch.

You can imagine the size of the smile on my face as I walked home that evening. I had all the inspiration I needed to rewrite The Murderer’s Legacy into a good story. Then I realized I have no time to work on it, with a thesis and classes to deal with. Oy vey, the life of a writer in college. It’s never easy.

Well, who knows? There may be a chance for me to still work on this story before May. I’ll have an easier workload this coming semester and that means more time for homework and writing. Maybe I’ll be able to finish Rose early and work on this and all my other projects. We can hope, right?

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got plenty of work ahead of me, so I’m going to try and get that done. Have a good weekend and (if I don’t post again before December 31st) Happy New Year, my Followers of Fear.

Autumn Semester 2014: The Wrap-Up Report

Posted: December 22, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
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A look at central campus. Isn’t it pretty?

Well, another semester has come and gone. I finally got all my grades back, so it’s time to report how my semester went.

All in all, I had a pretty good semester. It was busy (I’m still catching up on everything I DVR’ed), what with five classes and a thesis to work on. But I somehow kept up with it all, through weekends that were too short and weeks that went too fast and assignments that ate up time like Scooby Doo with a pizza. Still, things went pretty well this semester. I kept my average above a 3.0, and got decent grades. I also started eating better and look for more ways to exercise (thank you Biology class for scaring inspiring me to take better care of my health) and..what else? Oh yeah, as of today I’ve got twelve chapters written for my thesis Rose. Not bad. Hope to get two more done before the New Year. Wish me luck!

I think the area where I improved the most was in writing. Having constant feedback while you’re working on your thesis and taking the most stimulating creative writing class in your academic career, all at once, can do that to you. Some of the things I learned to do is that, when introducing a story full of characters, if you’re introducing them in a fantastic world, don’t go into too much detail and don’t expand into the whole universe too quickly. You’ll confuse the reader. Also, if said universe is based on religion or mythology, make sure that even the most unfamiliar reader can get into it. And finally (and perhaps most importantly), even if the story is full of werewolves, demons, ogres, and every other monster under the sky (or in it), your characters are human or probably humanoid. It’s a human story, and all the other stuff revolves around that human story, not the other way around. Keep that in mind and you’ll write a waaaaaay better story.

As I learned the hard way.

Well, the lessons were hard earned, but I’m taking them to heart. I hope that for future stories I can implement them and make much better, way-more-likely-to-get-published stories.

Anyway, I’ve got a little under three weeks till spring semester starts, and it should be interesting. I’ve only got three classes plus my thesis for my final semester (yeah, it’s my final semester. Four and a half months till graduation. God help me get a job before then). I’ll have plenty of time to study and to work on my thesis and–dare I hope for it?–relax with some TV in the evening.

The classes are pretty different from each other, and some of them have me pretty excited. I have a Restoration and 17th century British literature course (might prove tricky, but I’ve survived worse, such as 19th century British literature!), I’m taking a business/professional writing course with one of my favorite teachers, and–ooh, this one’s fun–for history, I’m taking a new course, taught by a new teacher, about the history of witchcraft in medieval Europe! Yeah, you read that right. My dad and one of my best friends are scared that it’ll turn out to be a how-to course. No need to worry, since I already know that sort of stuff. Mwa ha ha ha!

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to try to enjoy my vacation as much as possible, watching the Buckeyes in the Sugar Bowl and the Doctor Who Christmas Special (not in that order, though), working in the office, and writing as much as possible. Wish me luck and have a good rest of your night, my Followers of Fear.

Also, there’s about eight days and fifty-something minutes left of my holiday sale. All my books, in paperback and e-book, are on sale through the 31st, so make sure to check them out while you still can at a discount price. You won’t want to miss out on them. Don’t believe me? Then ask my reviewers!

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