Monday, September 01, 2014

Things Have Been Busy

Scenes Rewritten: 1/20
Scenes Written: 1/8

One of my three months is already gone and I've barely made any progress. I've rewritten and written one scene and started writing a third.

However, August was a whirlwind of oral surgery, school, choir, seniordom, socializing, and catching up on sleep. Now, while September is still guaranteed to be busy, I've gotten in the groove.

This month, I'm kicking revising into high gear. I have to if I want to post my first chapter on Oct. 31st. No more "just write something." I need a more concrete, more motivating plan. So I'm aiming for five hundred words a day every day in September.

For estimation purposes, I'm saying each scene will be completed at one thousand words. Some of my scenes are longer, some are shorter, but one thousand words is a fairly accurate average. If I write at least five hundred words every day, I will have finished fifteen additional scenes by the end of September.

This leaves eleven scenes for October. While this will still require plenty of work, it's doable. And if I have to start third revisions on my first chapter before I'm entirely finished with the second draft, it won't kill me.

Also, the wonderful Madeline has finished the new blog banner! This means the blog will be getting a new look very soon. So, if you stop by and everything's funky, don't judge too harshly. I might not be able to finish the layout in one sitting. But I promise it'll look beautiful in the end (along with my new profile picture -ahem-).

13 comments:

  1. Good luck with your goals in the upcoming months. :) I am nowhere near as organized when I plan!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Keep at it. You're going to do well in accomplishing your goals.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank both of you ladies for the encouragement and the faith. ^^ I appreciate you taking the time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. things have been busy for me, too. I definitely get it...I'm sure you'll reach your goals.

      Delete
    2. :) How is college going this year? Where exactly do you go? I've been looking into schools lately so I'm curious. lol

      Delete
  4. For some reason, I keep trying to reply and it keeps erasing my comments...or perhaps they *are* showing up for you, but not me, lol! Anyway, I went to undergrad at Mary Baldwin College and majored in Theatre with minors in Music and Spanish. I do NOT recommend a double minor. :P I also did all the prerequisites for the BA/Master of Letters program, which was like having yet another minor or a double major, almost. It was a pain. My original plan was to double major in Theatre and Latin American Studies, but they didn't have a Latin American studies program when I entered (they got one the year I left, haha). I graduated and am attending graduate school there in the Shakespeare program. I hope to do the three years and get my MFA. I'm really enjoying it so far, though of course there is a lot of reading. As for undergrad, Mary Baldwin is a very nice place to go if you're an English major. I had some really great professors in that department. I also got to be an editor for Outrageous Fortune, which is the national literary magazine run by MBC. They solicit and accept undergrad poetry, short stories, essays, novel excerpts, art, and drama nationally.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope. It only showed up once. :) Thank you for sharing all that information with me! It sounds like you've put a lot of thought and effort into your college education. I'm glad to hear you're so successful and that you enjoy MBC. However, I definitely want to go to a co-ed school and I'm not sure about Virginia. lol It's a long way from home for me.

      Delete
  5. Yeah, I remember only applying to co-ed colleges except for MBC and one other one (I forget which). Basically, they just called me and let me apply over the phone as long as I mailed in all my scholarship and essay applications, so I was like, "yeah, why not?" It was the interview and overall atmosphere of the college that did it for me, though. I also interviewed and spent the night at a coed school in PA which was fine and all, they clearly had a lot of resources and good programs in my areas of interest, but I didn't like the lecture or the rehearsal I sat in on, our tour guide spent half the time talking up the greek life on campus -- which while fine was not something I prioritized, and said so (but they kept talking about it), and the students supposed to be watching me and letting me sleep overnight in their room stayed up all night talking and ignoring me (the night before I had a big scholarship audition and could have used some sleep. It was extremely rude). Whereas in my campus visit at MBC, people were very polite, friendly, considerate, and welcoming; it felt like they wanted me there or that at least they were going to make my stay pleasant even if I didn't decide to stay. I am glad I went to a women's college as I had experiences, opportunities, and classroom discourse that would not have been available or would have probably been shut down at a coed institution -- but that's not the main reason I went there. I definitely recommend visiting the campus and the area if you're at all able to; it can be a deal-breaker or help you make up your mind if you're on the fence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do plan to visit the colleges I'm interested in. Figuring out which ones those are though is hard. I'm slowly developing a list.

      While that first experience sounds rough, at least you then knew that that wasn't the school for you. Glad you found your match. :)

      A college's diversity is pretty high on my priority list and I feel like going to a women's only college cuts out a rather large group of people. That's mainly the reason I want a co-ed school.

      Delete
  6. Hope the list-making goes well. Have you started getting all the mail from colleges yet?

    As for diversity, I found the opposite to be true. Of course, there were a few guys in my classes; they just couldn't live on campus. I understand your reasoning, but I also gather that seeing a classroom full of female science majors and such is somewhat of a rarity elsewhere, and I value the opportunities a women's college affords young women in their fields. It varies, of course, but my school was very diverse. The LGBTQ community was very out and active, more so than I have seen at other schools. This may have had to do with the gender imbalance removing the idea of straightness as the presupposed norm. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we had the conservative Christian and Muslim students who attended the single-gender college for different reasons. For the most part, they got along and didn't bother each other. They weren't BFFs or anything, but in a tiny campus community like that, they had to coexist somehow; it wasn't big enough to just ignore each other's existence. My college was also very racially diverse, which I gather isn't necessarily a women's college norm but which made it a good choice for other reasons. I guess I bristle at the idea of men being needed for diversity because I guarantee that a lot of feminist discussion and open classroom talks would have been sidelined by the "what about men? we can't talk about feminism without paying extra attention to men" line of thought that I see happen all too frequently. At a women's college, there was no need to apologize for being a feminist, or have to explain why feminism is important to both genders, or why it's OK for feminism to focus on women's issues more than men's because of the power imbalances of centuries of inequality, and all those derails which people (by which I mean the kind of men who try to dominate a conversation abt feminism because it makes them uncomfortable) try to use to silence or dominate feminist discourse in the classroom. Which was EXTREMELY gratifying. Like with the LGBT+ community, I think this honesty and openness about women's issues may have been a result of the gender imbalance removing our ingrained cultural ideas about maleness as the norm. We didn't *exclude* men's issues; we simply never had to apologize for or justify *including* women's issues. But, that's my two cents. Mainly I went because I like feminism, I liked the cello teacher and the atmosphere, and I was interested in the Shakespeare program. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I've been getting general mail from colleges for about a year or so now. I've just recently stopped throwing it away though. lol My list is still slowly developing. Right now, I'm narrowing down Texas schools.

      I completely agree that that line of thought shouldn't have a major part in feminist discussions and I'm not saying that women aren't diverse in themselves. However, gender is a big factor that sets people apart and I feel without the full spectrum (because gender is a spectrum) some perspectives are lost.

      Delete
  7. True about gender as a spectrum. I think back to my child psych class and the topic of, say, how young boys and fight play are treated in schools, or the effect of circumcision on infants. Or when talking about developing gendered play in boys and girls. It would have been beneficial to have had a guy in the class who could share personal experiences (like with some of my other classes that had guys) rather than just reading about it or watching a film. But I see the advantage in single-group environments as removing the power dynamic that generally leads to the one group's (usually the historically disadvantaged group) perspective being lost, dismissed, or devalued anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Me saath diya ho,aur dusra vojisne musibat me saath chhoda hoplay bazaar Food and dinner can make you best tip, kirana beverages are helping to Pepsicosatta king Insan apani jindgime kbhi nhi bhoolta, ek vo jisne musibatgame.

    ReplyDelete