FINALS WEEK!

Goodbye 2009!

Well, 2009 is drawing to a close. And I gotta say, this year, I'm glad to see it go. It's hard to classify this year. On the one hand, I want to say the year was a success. After all, I met the girl i want to spend the rest of my life with--something I never thought that I would do, but especially not so young. And yet, I have, and it's fantastic.

With that said, in the same year that I met my beloved, I almost lost her. Twice. I met her at the beginning of the year--one year ago today, as a matter of fact--and I almost lost her in April. A tornado hit and destroyed a good portion of my hometown. Several months later, I was in a horrific car crash that my girl and I are still recovering from.

So where does 2009 lie? Is it a draw? Or should it be packed up and shipped out with a "good riddance" to follow it out the door. These are questions I don't have the answer to.

So I talked about the bad things--a tornado, a car wreck, various drama's a college involving regime changes, major drama in the summer from my fiance's crazy family--now I need to talk about good things.

I met my beloved. We began flirting, and the first several months of dating-but-not was awesome. We talked on the phone for hours. It was amazing. We started dating, which was even more amazing. We had tons of fun over the summer, despite drama, and our relationship grew. We went to college, where things were nearly perfect. I was fortunate enough to come into a bit of money so that I could some things I've always wanted and a new car. I got engaged. I began planning the rest of my life with my girl. My fiance has made a dramatic recovery from the wreck. The doctor's said she's 3 months ahead of schedule. She's doing amazing, proving, once again, how awesome she is.

I think if there were a theme to 2009, the theme would be change. So much has changed this year. My brother is in his senior year, I got engaged, we both got new cars, friends moved across the country, others drifted away, some drift back and forth. I got a bit of money to start planning a life with. I walk with a cane. My town has been rebuilding itself. Hundreds lost their homes, and yet, I've heard some say that the tornado saved a drowning town--now many of the companies that had no work have work to do again.

Whether they're good or bad changes, they were changes nonetheless.

So, goodbye 2009. I really won't miss you that much. You gave me some tough love, and I'm not sure I've forgiven you for everything you've done. But you brought me some really good things, too. I extend a firm, curt handshake to you. Welcome 2010. I hope you bring twice the fortune, with none of the tragedy.

A Little News on Goings-On and Musings on Plans for the Future

So, over the past few weeks, I've been procrastinating. I have (or rather, had) three essays to write (two now). One for Mythology, one for British Literature, and one for Women in Chinese History (due the day before yesterday). I did get the Chinese one in, but I have yet to start on the other two. This procrastination can be blamed on two things (besides laziness, which should be obvious).

Number the first: I have had an absurd amount of drama at my dorm. My girlfriend and I ran an amazing campaign for such short notice -- we were only told two days before the election that the election was coming up. Usually, we have two or three weeks, this time, we had only just signed up to run when it was already time for the election.

After some amazing campaign posters done by yours truly, and some good promises, which we intended to keep, we sat back and waited. I got the position I wanted -- Vice President. However, my girlfriend did not win President. Then, we discovered a series of fishy circumstances where ballot boxes may have been stuffed and the Resident Director may have rigged the results to put one of his friends in office instead. Regardless, we decided to stick it out. Until we saw the rest of the results of the election...or rather..the consequences.

The entire government was outrageously one-sided, with virtually every position filled by one of my Resident Director's friends. No matter what any of my fellow government members decided to do, it was vetoed instantly if my RD didn't like it. Beyond that, he began lying to us, making threats if we didn't do what he wanted, and doing things that were way beyond what power his position as RD is capable of.

I have taken steps to report him to the people in charge of all of the dorms, and I would like to start an anonymous letter writing campaign of complaints, but as of yesterday, I have also resigned my position. I refused to be berated by someone who was my equal in power and an underclassman and had no idea how the dorm community worked.

Number the Second: I might have stumbled upon one of the greatest things in the history of my entire life. A video blog on YouTube known as Brotherhood 2.0. They're known as the Vlogbrothers now, and they're fans are...Nerd Fighters. How cool is that?

I decided, one day, to start watching from the beginning up to now. I'm only about a quarter of the way through, I've already experienced so much with them -- new jobs, new books being published, having to move, the drama of your house almost being sold out from under you, and through it all, they greet these challenges with a great sense of humor.

Beyond that, though, they do more. They realized, after a few posts, how popular they were becoming, and not only set up a "scholarship to decrease world suck" which went to help one of their friends' family who died of cancer, but they also began donating money to help people in poverty stricken nations start up small businesses. They share many of the same causes I do, but they also differ from eachother enough to have actual, and interesting, discussions.

The thing that has me hooked the most? One of them is a literary aclaimed YA author. John Green, author of Paper Towns, An Abundance of Catherines, and Looking for Alaska.

The other, his brother, Hank Green, is a computer programmer, and a writer for magazines like Mental Floss.

It's so amazing, because to see they interact with the world, their jobs, their wives, life...it makes me think about how I'm going to be when I'm they're age.

I will turn 21 in April, and then I really will be a man. I will have earned every right that you can earn in this country with the exception of lower car insurance, which won't kick in until I turn 25. Anyway, I digress. I'm in my Junior year of college. I've taken the Praxis I already. I aced it. I'm that much closer to becoming a teacher. I'll be graduating in a couple of years, and it scared the bejeezers out of me.

I haven't told my mother this yet, because we're a very, very close family, but I'm thinking about moving out this summer as well. I've been looking at apartments. I've been calculating my budget, based on what I'll earn over the summer, my refund check when I return that fall for school, and other things. I've also been looking at where I want to settle down and spend my life. I would like to move to Chicago and experience the Big City Life for a couple of years. I'd like to get an apartment and a teaching job and just teach for a couple of years, and then move to a 'burb somewhere and get started on the rest of my life. I want to go to England sometime before I settle down so I can say I've been to Europe at least once, and I'd like to get married somewhere in there too.

It's very interesting, but I feel like I'm staring at my own mortality. Planning out these steps for what will begin the real beginning of my life -- and not the safe "Real Life" that college creates, but the real Real Life that comes when you've achieved your goal of having a career and now you're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

I think part of the reason this has been on my mind is because those guys, specifically John Green, are how I want to be when I "grow up." He's a full time writer, he's married, he has a few odd hobbies that keeps him busy, and he's also very worldly, intelligent, well-read, etc. His life is pretty much the goals I've been setting for myself since I was in high school. And seeing someone living the dream -- my dream -- has sort of re-focused me on my dream.

Yesterday, I was looking up cities I might want to think about moving to either after I leave Chicago or if Chicago doesn't work out. I found it. It's amazing. It's everything I want in my future town -- MUCH bigger than my home town, and actually even bigger than my college town. It's cold, it'll get lots of snow, it's not too big, either. It'll be a good break from the city life. It's also really close to some cities that will keep me entertained on the weekends. It's basically my dream place.

And between shopping for apartments for the near future and looking at houses for the somewhat more distant future, I've been so excited I can't sit still. I've also been so scared I've had a hard time going to sleep. It's what I want to do with my life, and really look forward to it, but leaving my family and striking out on my own is...mind-boggling, terrifying, and foreign.

Anyway, enough rambling. I just had stuff I needed to muse on for a bit.

The Idea Well

Everyone writer has one. We go to it whenever we need ideas -- whether it be for stories, or characters, or for chapters for novels or whatever. It's the place where all creativity is stored. Sometimes it's called our muse. That's probably a better description when the muse is being bitchy, but for the purpose of this illustration, it's a well.

After I sent my stories off, I was reluctant to get back to the keyboard. I wasn't the first couple days, but the longer I wait for responses, the less eager I am to get back to writing. I don't feel excited, and actually getting the words to flow takes longer and longer to do. I wasn't sure what was locking me up, but I've had trouble sleeping because I keep dwelling on it, and I finally figured it out. It came to me when I was clearing out old files on my computer.

Everynow and then I go through the computer and look at what I've got saved that's been building up and stuff. Obviously, since the virus fiasco, I don't have as much built up, but I'd like to think that deleting some of the crap time to time helps the computer run faster.

Well, I looked through my story folder at stuff that might be a candidate for deletion, when I realized something. I almost never delete anything I write, ever. Everything I've written (with the exception of some one page starts that fizzled before they got going) is still saved on there. I browsed through the files and found stories I started in the sixth grade that are still on there.

I finally got it, what I was afraid of. When I go back to my story, it's the first original idea I've had in a while, something that I just came up with when I was sitting around one day. I was inspired by the movie 12 Monkeys starring Bruce Willis, but it actually has almost nothing to do with 12 Monkeys, but I'm getting off track. The reason I'm afraid of going back to the keyboard and the reason I never delete anything, is because I'm petrified of running out of ideas.

I think part of the reason that I finished only one or two stories in my life and then left the rest to gather dust on the hard drive is so I could come back to them, write on them, improve them, make them pretty, and then leave them. I was always guaranteed to have something to write as long as all those stories were left unfinished, or the ones that were finished could be rewritten every few years as I improved in my writing.

When I sent off my stories, it was the first two I'd completed in a long time, and my mind went through shock. I just sent two ideas off. I can't go back and rewrite those, I can't improve them. They're gone.

The reason I never finished a novel idea was because I was afraid that if by some astronomical chance I got published, I was afraid I would be a one hit wonder. I was, and still am, afraid that if I get anything published, it's dwindling the number of ideas I'll have. I haven't settled into one genre very easily, I don't have ideas off the wazoo, I haven't, until a few years ago, written very much very consistently, and I don't dream that often to get ideas.

I'm absolutely terrified that I've already drawn the good stuff out of the idea well, and that eventually I'm going to draw stuff that either sucks, or that has been done over and over and over.

So . . . now that I've figured out the problem, I have to figure out how I can fix it.

Submission and Opening Pandora's Box

As many of you know, I finally got the guts up to mail off a couple of my short stories for publication. Yesterday, I mailed it off.

I was going to mail them off on Saturday, but we wound up not going to town until the post office had already closed. Since the mail didn't run on Sundays I had to wait until Monday to mail them off. In the mean time, I started researching magazines, because one of the first things I realized was you can't sell a short story if you don't know what market to send it to.

I found some that were perfect, but then I decided I needed to go through one last time and make sure everything was square. Since it was for real this time, since it was for all the bannanas, I wanted to make sure that I had caught all the grammer mistakes, that I had fixed all the parts where the writing was weak, blah blah. What I didn't realize was that, by examining the stories for just a moment, I opened Pandora's box.

I saw one thing that didn't work. No, two. No, three. Now, four. Five? Six? What were they, multiplying? At one point I was so delirious that I swear, when I looked at the page, I saw the words fornicating and creating more and more errors and mistakes.

In horror, I set out with my trusty pen and began hacking and slashing, fixing errors and repairing typos, changing parts of the story that didn't seem to work, or fleshing out areas that needed more fleshing. I must have cost us a small fortune in paper and ink, and I'm sure everyone in my family read them five times, if not more. I apologized to my mom over and over and over again about all the trouble I was putting everyone through. Bless my mom's heart, by the end of the evening, she was probably more frazzled about the mailing than I was.

Finally, I got the last draft done, a few errors had to be fixed but nothing major. Then I stressed on printing out address labels, making sure the addresses were perfect and the right SASE (Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope to those of you who -- like I did -- have no clue what a "SASE" is) with the right manuscript envelope, and finally, I crashed into bed at one in the morning, exhausted from stressing so much.

The next morning, I woke up at around 7:30 -- the usual time for me on the weekdays -- but by 10:00 I was already exhausted. I had hardly slept the night before; I was still worrying about the manuscripts. So I decided to take a nap. At noon I woke up in horror, my heart pounding, because I realized a few pages from one of my manuscripts still had writing on them from errors I had to fix, and I hadn't printed out the new pages to replace them. I flew to my laptop and, in a frenzy, I fussed with it until every page was perfect.

Then, I had another problem. Paperclips! I needed paperclips! Everyone knows you can't mail off a manuscript without paperclips!!! So then I had to search the house for paperclips. We were out! So I called my mom and had to have my brother pick up paperclips from her work so that I could mail them off.

So then, I finally had to go to the post office. The last time I went, I had made a simple mistake -- I thought I had grabbed all the money in my pocket to buy stamps, but I had forgotten a nickel, so then the old, bald man behind the desk had to look at me like I was an idiot and tapped his fingers impatiently after saying, "If you don't have more than that you're not getting any," while I searched for the missing, elusive nickel.

With that event still fresh in my mind, I felt my chest tighten. I didn't know what to buy or what stamps or how many I'd need. What if I messed up? What if I didn't get enough postage and then they got sent back, and then I'd have to wait even longer for a resonse. What if there was a line at the post office and, after running out of patience with my doddering around with my little stories, they rioted and sacrificed me on a table made of postage stamps and Express Mail boxes.

My heart pounded as I approached the desk. I cleared my throat and said, in a pitifully soft voice, "Ma'am, I'm here to mail these. I'll need a lot of stamps."

She smiled at me sweetly and looked at the envelopes. Then, she helped me buy giving me four stamps for the SASE, a book of stamps for home (because we were out) and then weighing and putting the proper stamps and their proper number on each package.

When I finally paid and left, my hands were cold, clammy, and shaky. I had done it. I had finally done it. I mailed off my stories, I submitted a manuscript...something I'd heard on author's blogs and biographies all my life, but never actually thought I'd do.

I drove in a daze, not really taking in anything that I saw as I drove. I got home and collapsed onto the couch.

A short story is only a fragment of what a novel would be. Just the thought of making sure every page of the novel was mistake-free makes me break out in cold chills. Not to mention, all this horror, all the ink and effort and stress and strain, and I still won't hear from them for months, and when I do, it may not (probably won't) be a "yes."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go dig my stuffed tiger "Hobbes" from my closet, fix myself a cup of hot cocoa, and curl up underneath my bed covers and hide from the Big Scary World.

Moving Madness and a Meme

Whoo, man has it been a week. I've been scrambling around trying to clean the house (especialliy my room which looked like a bomb had been set off in my garbage can) and packing for THE BIG MOVE. It's coming, and I'm terrified. I'll have a room mate, but that doesn't mean that I'll like him or that he'll like me. He could be a royal jackass, or I could have a whole series of horrible misadventures. For a list of things that could go wrong, see this post.

Anyway, so we've been scrambling around like chickens with our heads cut off for the past couple of days and it'll only get worse as we get closer to THE DAY of THE BIG MOVE.

So, because I'm bored and because it looks like fun, I got a meme off of MerylF's blog which I will now do. Instead of doing it about me, I think I'll do it about The Dark Lord Sauron from the Lord of the Rings (before he was turned into a crazy, fiery eye), just because I'm crazy like that.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Yes, it just so happens that I'm named after my Great, great, great grandfather The Dark Lord Marian-Stacy...he wasn't Dark Lord for very long.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
I always get a little teary eyed during Leo's death scene in Titanic. *sniff*

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
My handwriting is horrible. It's hard for your handwriting to improve when you have people to write your letters and death threats for you. The only time I write is during December when I have to send thank you cards to my grandmother.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Hobbit. If you fry them in a pan with some onions and then put them on a couple of slices of sourdough bread, I swear, you can hear angels sing.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Unfortunately, no. It's hard to go out and find a girl when you're busy taking over Middle Earth...and when you do get to go out, the girls are always afraid of my spikey helmet and black armor. You'd think they'd understand that Dark Lords get have feelings, too.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Of course. I don't know anybody better than me.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Noooo! Not me! I'm always straight with what I'm saying.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes. To tell you the truth, I'm a little afraid I might need them out sometime soon. My dad was 562 when he got his tonsils taken out, and I'll be 562 next fall.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Hell no! I'm terrified of heights and amusement park ride supervisers.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Sauron's Cinnamon Swirls. I ordered my best men to create that for me.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
No, I wear metal boots.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Well...I don't like to brag, but take out an entire force of men in one swing of my mace.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Oh, Rocky Road is to die for.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Their shoes. If they're not Italian or Dwarvish, they're just not worth wearing.

15. RED OR PINK?
Oooh, that's a tuffie. I like red...it's the color of blood and fire, but I think I'll have to go with pink, because it brings out my eyes.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I care too much. I only maimed a family of Hobbits because they were having a birthday party.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
My stuffed teddy bear, Mr. Fluffums. I lost him last week and haven't been able to find him.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO LINK THIS BACK TO YOU?
You mean with a chain, Why would I want someone to chain themselves to me by my laptop.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS (Or Kilt) AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black leg armor, black leggings, and spaceship underwear.

20. WHAT WAS The LAST THING YOU ATE?
A salad. I'm trying to watch my figure.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The dying screams of the tortured...and a Yani cd.

22. IF YOU WHERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Robin's Eggshell Blue. They're so beautiful in the spring!

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Fresh grass, rain, flowers, baking bread, and the rotting remains of my enemies corpses.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My mum. She called to remind me to brush my teeth after my reign of terror.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO LINKED THIS TO YOU?
Again with the linking. Look pal, whips and chains and stuff is okay for some people, I'm just not into it.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Hobbit squashing and golf.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Well...technically I'm bald.

28. EYE COLOR?
Bloodbath red.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Duh, did you think the eye color was natural?

30. FAVORITE FOOD(S)?Hobbit calves, Dwarf tricept, and chocolate moose

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Our orc training video: "Working like an Orc: How not to piss off your boss and die in the first week."

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Black

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer. I like warmer (or even hot) weather.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs!

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Chocolate moose

37. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
"Be a Better Leader, Take Charge of that Army of Doom"

38. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Hello Kitty!

39. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
The Shire, Middle Earth, yes, I'm 1/4 Hobbit. I just had a growth spurt, and then a run-in with a mystical, disfiguring gem.

40. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
Gandalfs! He's such a riot. And Bilbo if he has time to do this!!!

The Plunge

Well, I'm taking the plunge and putting some real writing online. It's kinda nerve wracking. I know it's not my best, I already established that, but the thought that a whole bunch of strangers from all over the world could be looking at and judging me because of what I write is a little jitter-inducing. I can't imagine how I'd feel about a book being published. Even still, I'm glad I'm doing this. As Jaye Patrick said, "We learn by doing."

A while back a wrote a detective-type story that I thought about sending to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. This is making me think about taking that thing back out and seeing if it's worth sending off, and if it's not, maybe I should try writing another to send off.

Anyway, enough rambling, I'm just stalling because I'm nervous. Here's Battle of the Wastelands. I'll be posting it as a link on my sidebar so anyone who wants to can read it, download it, etc. It's free, and free is my favorite flavor, I'm sure it's other people's too.

(Small update: I've also changed my template because I like this one a lot better. I wasn't very fond of the light blue.)