a slightly different New Years resolution (subtitle: questions)

well, technically it's slightly late for a New Year's Resolution, so maybe I'll go a little deeper than that, since it's a little later than that, with yet another insanely long blog post. (tho'... I wanna see in writing the precept that says blog posts are short...) =) With the college program I'm doing, one of the things they highly recommend doing (and I would also HIGHLY recommend this to all my readers) is a short life purpose planning course. Now, coming from the family I come from, I already had this sort of mindset trained into me, but with going through some practical exercises of this mindset, a deeper look into who I really am, and the grace and guidance of my Lord preparing me both before, during, and after this course, I've come out of said course looking at things a little differently. I don't have time to go into all the details, unfortunately (I've got two huge goals for this year: finish my gen. ed. credits, aka, first 2 years of college, AND publishing my novel, so I'm quite busy and lovin' it =), but there is one thing I've begun to do that I wanted to share with you. It's very simple and helpful. When you sit down to plan ANYTHING (especially your 2010) ask yourself this (I like spreadsheets, so I make a column for this or add it in italics under anything I plan in a document) :

To What Purpose?

(In simpler terms... why the heck am I doing this? *wink*)

If you think about the answer for even a few minutes, you may find yourself reevaluating your activities a little bit. Or at least thinking more deeply about them, which is always a good idea. Life is waaay too short, my friends. I'm suggesting that, if we want to really 'go places' (and hopefully it is your goal as well as mine to surrender your idea of 'going places' to the SAVIOR's idea of 'going places') we MUST consider carefully the things we choose to fill our precious time with. What do we really want to be about (and this will be different for everyone)? What does that practically look like? And how will we get there? These are three key questions, especially for young people who will shortly be making important decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. I recommend you ask them to yourself and God. But on the smaller scale, let us carefully evaluate our every step along the path of life. Why do we do what we do? What's the point?

And perhaps most importantly: Where are we going? And why?

Always been one for questions myself. *grin* Hopefully these will intrigue and not scare you. *wink* With the Lord as my teacher and guide, I found the search for these answers to be a very enlightening and edifying one. (and yeah, definitely check out that link. it's only one reasonably short book that you can go through on your own time, but it's incredibly insightful and helpful)

Here's hoping yours will be as well, matey-o. ;)

mE

US History I

Nearly aced my Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP last Friday! I was thrilled! With the successful completion of that and my Survey of Economics class at Wake Tech, I now, at age 16, have 21 college credits to my name. And, Lord-willing, I'll be earning another 3 this Friday. Which is what I really wanted to talk about.

The upcoming CLEP is US History 1, covering early colonization to 1877. (and this must be brief, because I haven't had all too much time for studying so far this week =P) It's been truly fascinating for me to read this overview of our country's history. Fascinating... and also kind of sad- to see where we started and where we've ended up. Even, for instance, the compromises that were fairly common in the 1800's. It was almost a foreign concept to me to see the political parties working together like that to try to make a solution for the common good AND to see them actually (for the most part) ADHERING to the political promises we made. Now, granted, hindsight IS 20/20, and I'm sure people back then were less than pleased with their government. But still... it does make ya think. Think... and pray for a revival of the good, old-fashioned traditions, principles and- dare I say it- morals this country was founded on.

ok. there. I said it. Now back to studying. (ask my 2yr old sis sometime what she thinks of 'Mémé' having to do so much schoolwork nowadays... >.< ) =)

Macified.

Well. For starters, I slew the ginormous 50K-tall dragon... again... Phew. This guy just seems to come back every year... necessitating a month of early mornings and late nights in order to stop him from destroying the world. *shakes head* The things I do for this world that noooo one knows about... ;D So anyways... now I'm really looking forward to getting back to work on Ahrn! =) In other news...

I, the contented PC user, have now joined the ranks of the condescending, ultra-biased Mac users. ;) Disclaimer: I BEAR NO ILL WILL AGAINST PCs OR THEIR USERS. My philosophy/stance in the Mac VS PC debate- a computer is a computer. If it does what you need it to, it's completely FINE. After that, it's a matter of taste. In my case, I actually NEED a Mac (because of my preference towards its music-recording software), so... ;) Anyways. Macs totally rock. I must say, that, so far, I'm enjoying it a LOT more than any PC.... but I digress. ;D

Well, gorra run again... college student here with basically only a couple hours of freetime in the morning- period. O_e

Ciao!

mE

phhhhhhew... waaaaaay too much to write about and NO time. Maybe that's because I just started college and am struggling to keep up with NaNoWriMo... hmmm... =) I've had several insights that i've considered blogging... have updates and rants on my NaNo progress... want to talk about my college stuff... buuuuuut i've got no time to do so. So I'm writing randomly for the sake of writing a blog post... golly. That's kinda sad. Then again, I never was quite the blogger. Ah well. Maybe twill happen that, one day post-November madness, I shall fly once more to thee, faithful blog... my one leaf upon the great tree of Internet... *cringes* Yeah. Sleep. I could use some of that too... hmmm...

=D
mE

interesting thought....

Isn't it funny how, when something good happens, we tend to give the credit ourselves. But when something BAD happens, it's ALWAYS someone else's fault? Hmmm.... something sounds wrong with that picture. Unless, of course, the Bible's wrong and we're perfect beings after all...... ;)

food for thought. yum.

~mE

Thoughts on Writing...

yeah. it's been a long time... >.> I've been hard at work on editing my first book, though, so blogging is incredibly low on the ol' priorities list. However, I sent out an email on the subject of writing and thought I'd post it here, since I have a couple/several "followers" here who write. Hope this is an encouragement to all of you... :)

-------
don't wanna lecture, but I was talking a fellow writer through a certain part in his story last night. At first glance, it looked like he needed to fix something. However, when he talked me THROUGH all the details of the situation, etc, I realized that it was pretty much fine.

BUT... that's not the first time it's happened. I know the flip situation has happened to me several times, and I've experienced it with several authors. And last night just made me think about this, so thought I'd remind everyone of probably THE most important rule of writing:

~Write for the Reader~

If you need to EXPLAIN something to a friend/editor when they point something out as wrong, it probably means you didn't explain it well enough in your book. Or your editor is just plain dumb... which, I know, is a common idea among we imperfect authors, but you have to realize that your editor is PROBABLY smarter/more story-savvy than most of your readers will be.

Always, always, ALWAYS keep the reader in mind when you write. What have you TOLD them? What HAVEN'T you told them? What can they be expected to have guessed from any hints? What will they NEED to know in order to follow you and enjoy your work?

When editing (my own work included), I find that this is probably THE no1 problem of budding writers. They- WE- get so caught up in our stories that we forget who we're writing it for!! We're not (or should I say, we SHOULDN'T be) writing for OURSELVES! Heck, the story's already in our HEADS. We write to be READ, to be ENJOYED and, hopefully, to ENCOURAGE (and/or convict, when necessary).

Always write for the Reader. I shall say it again. Pretend you are a slave and the Reader is your Master, if you must. But WRITE FOR THE READER. There, think I've stressed it enough?

Disclaimer: I'm not perfect. I'm not even published. *grin* Do as I say not as I do (though I try to follow the advice I hand out ;). To those of you who's stories I'm reading/editing, I shall do my best to point this out to you, but I think if we ALL just write with this principle in mind... if we can just get it hammered into our stubborn, hyper-creative little brains, I think we could ALL be capable of the Trophy of Publishment (wasn't a word before? too bad. it is now. *grin*) The trick is getting it hammered in there. And it's not always easy in practice, but it's doable. Definitely doable. =)

So. Charge out into your various worlds. Save the day. Write words. Be the Omniscient, Sovereign Presence over your Dominion. But write for the Reader. You may be the Master in your StoryWorld, but the Reader is YOUR Master in the PublishingWorld. *grin*

May your pages overflow with publishable material!
mE

MILESTONE

Well, world of blogging. I finished my novel. "The Fire and Flame Trilogy, Book I: Ahrn". This wonderful phenomenon happened at 12:27am on 8/27/09. My book has a LOT to do with threes, so I was THRILLED at all the numerical perfectness! =D (27=3cubed [3x3x3], 9=3 squared, 1+2 (12)= 3!!!!) Heehee. ;) It was 413 pages long (I guess I could say 4-1=3, right? haha) and 27 (*squee!*) chapters. (yes, I AM crazy. Nice to meet you)

Next step- editing. I've already begun... Book I WILL need a lot of rewriting and I've already finished the prologue and new first chapter. I'm also a decent way into the first chapter of Book II!!!

AND I"M SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!! I've been working on THIS novel for THREE (yes, 3!! yay!) =D years (not writing this actual DRAFT for three years... I wrote the 413 pages in 13mos...). I am SO excited to finally have a satisfactory draft on my hands. It's thrilling.

wish I could say more, but I've gotta get back to work! ;) College Economics class started in addition to the craziness of devoting my every spare minute to writing, so we'll see how juggling all that goes... not to mention my regular school hasn't started yet... *sigh* But I'll find the time to write/edit. I always do. ;)

TTFN
~mE

(Em backwards, for those who, um, didn't get that...)