2012 Reflection

I learned a lot of things in 2012, mainly that I'm really not as smart as I think I am. One of the little anecdotes people get me on is that I really do think that I am an old soul trapped in a young body, manipulated by the idiocy of my generation, blah, blah, blah. I'm really not all that.

One of my childhood friends graduated from high school last year and has always struggled with school. She barely scraped by with C's, and she is kicked out by her parents every other week because of one thing or another. She comes over to my house because she apparently has nowhere else to go, and anyway, it's a lot of drama. She came bawling to my doorstep last night that she had failed college and that her parents were really for reals kicking her out. And I was scared. That's coming up in less than a year. What if my parents did that? When we went to pick up her luggage so that she would have clothes to sleep in, her mother pulled me aside, and smiling cheekily, told me that they needed to be firm, and they were not abandoning her. Her life just needed to begin, and thank you for helping her.

I freaked out. I was genuinely concerned for my friend, yet couldn't she see that her parents were only helping her?

And then I freaked out some more. Am I doing this to my parents, and myself?!

Yep. I realized that all of this stress for the past few months has been for nothing. Yes, getting the rest of my life is going to be really difficult and I'm going to be stumbling around in the dark while everyone else is wearing night-vision goggles. Because everyone else did it, and I'm going to grow up and get experience that will be my own night-vision goggles, and everything will make sense looking back. So I have to keep moving forward, and keep swimming like a shark so I don't go belly-up.

That is one of the biggest lessons I've learned recently.

Besides that, I really, really love books. Yeah.

Note about editing

Editing is different for everyone in the way that they approach it. Some already know what needs to change, and they start there and then dig around from there. But then there are some that already think that their work is perfect and that nothing needs to change. Until it's already too late and everyone's pointing out typos and what not.

I suggest a few things as we start this writing process:

1) Love yourself. I find that if my self-confidence is low for whatever reason, then approaching editing makes me feel even worse. I start battering myself with thoughts like, "Why couldn't I have thought of this in the first place?" or "How could I write this?! I'm better than that!" Thinking like this can--and has always been--destructive not only for the revision process, but for the sanity and self-confidence of yourself. If you love your words right now, just don't make the revising personal.

2) Accept that what you wrote is flawed. The words have made mistakes, but you're not there to fix them, you're there to make them the best that they can be. It's not about what you thought would be your favorite line. You have to be unbiased and uncaring. I know that most of us thought of our books as our babies (SO guilty of this...) but when you start editing, let it go.

I think at the beginning of NaNo, we had to trap out inner-editors in a cage and lock it up tight so that it wouldn't leak out so that we could get our novels done. However, some of us may seem to forget that we have to release them when we start editing. And when we release them, we have to put something back in the cage/box/cave thing. I suggest we put the emotional feelings we may have gained over the month. They won't help us while we're working. As Mycroft said in Sherlock (best TV series...EVER):

"Caring is not an advantage."

Of course make it the best it can be! Just don't make it personal.

3) Go as detailed or as vague as you want. If you just want to switch scenes, or chop every word, just realize that it's all fine. Just like you can write whatever you want, you can edit whatever you want. It's all fine. Just make sure that you catch those typos and punctuation errors, along with reading it aloud to find the grammatical errors.

I might add more as I go along. But that's what I keep in mind.

One Word

In AP Literature, we've been looking at what the differences between a word, a sentence, and a paragraph are. There's a book, Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, that introduces a technique of reading that we've never looked into before. It's close reading. The difference between that and (usually) regular reading is reading verses soaking each word in.

With each word, there is the implicit and explicit definition. The explicit looks like this:

quench

\ kwench \  , verb;

1.

To slake, satisfy, or allay (thirst, desires, passion, etc.).

However, the implicit is something like what it connotates, or what it leans towards when I say it. Usually the connotation is either positive or negative, but words like sinister or toxic have a more dark connotation compared to just negative. There is even neutral or cold, like stigma or beaker. I mention these because I had to include those in my book.

I was almost going into a really in-depth concept, but skipping along, the moral of this story is that one word can change the entire meaning for the novel. We can look at a sentence and get the general meaning just by skimming and assuming because of subject and verb that this is what they're thinking. But what they use to describe those two things (or even the verbs themselves) can be the polar opposite of what you had been thinking. Like this from the Abandoned Farmhouse by Ted Kooser: 

a tall man too, says the length of the bed 

in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man, 

says the Bible with a broken back

on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;

Now, the rest of the poem deals with the sudden disappearance of a small family from a farmhouse, and the reader is left to put all of the pieces together to why they left. But this part particularly intrigued me. 

Initially, you would see a couple of cliches (good, God-fearing man) and automatically because of our experience in life, we've gathered that God-fearing doesn't actually mean fearing, but it is a way of saying that one is really religious. However, when we see broken, we may also think that it is just used overly. But what good, God-fearing man would describe the bible's binding as broken? That connotates pain, fervent searching, maybe even throwing it across the room. Then we realize that God-fearing may actually mean God-fearing. Then we see that this man may not be good, it may be sarcasm. He could be the nastiest man alive. 

All from the word broken. 

The power of words is one of the strongest forces in the world, pertaining to the mind. You put one next to the other, and they both create different colors together. Then string thousands of them together, let them dangle, let them hog chunks of space, let the introverts remain by themselves. Each word was placed there for a reason. Soak it in. 

Character

Name: Stem

Age: 23

Physical Description: 6'1", brilliant blue eyes, white short hair. She's as skinny as a stick, and her skin is unblemished white (She's freaking pale). But it's not translucent, it is solid, which is her own personal style and taste. No one has skin just like her. Her favorite appearance to look in is a white professional suit, pencil skirt, jacket that reaches all the way to the back of her hand in a point. She is short for her ethnicity, but she doesn't let it ruffle her. She doesn't let anything ruffle her.

Location: She lives in the lab housing in the main science building. Not very many actually live in the building, but her research is important enough that she needs to be near it all the time. Her apartment is small, but she only sleeps there.

Goals/Desires: to keep her job as a Bioweaponist in the higher class of Scientists. She does what she loves, and although it is terrifying, she loves the science behind it. She also wants to keep her biggest secret a secret.

Weakness/Insecurities: She is insecure about all of the politics. She's stayed single for that reason. She  doesn't understand why it's so important for her to fall in love with someone in particular. All of the games and fuss about it makes her sick. She would rather go into the high caves without a mask for the rest of her life than get married. So she avoids parties and the public eye at all costs.

Pet Peeves: too much noise, which is why she prefers her own lab. When there's too much noise, she'll call people to attention, even when she has nothing to say. She also can't handle others stupidity well. She'll get impatient and sarcastic, and sometimes make the problem worse. She also hates when the stupidity of her interns makes her tests invalid.

Strengths: her mind, her determination, her self-control.

Fondest/Saddest memories: Stem's fondest memory is of her first time out in the field. She got the same opportunity as Acaia. She got to the caves after her first hike, and seeing  how bright it was...it changed her. That's why she dresses in white all the time. The light from all her gadgets don't feel real to her anymore. So once a year, she takes a trip to the high caves and basks in the light.

Religion/World Philosophy: Her philosophy is that she has to kill the Aztecs before they kill her, and she is willing to do anything in order to wipe them out, including creating horrifying weapons that rip apart the body with bacteria.

Habits: Stem is really still. The only reason she moves is to do something important. When she is stressed, she shakes, shivers, like she's freezing. Same when she's angry. She's calm when she's afraid. She's serenely scary when she's under extreme pressure. She doesn't want to change anything about her appearance because she's a DNA specialist and she has already changed everything she wants.
She speaks slowly and deeply, with purpose and high education. Her presentations are powerful and moving. When she's angry, her voice shakes, and may get higher and quieter. She also knows every single language that they have. Including some Aztec.

Family: Her family is mostly gone. Her parents are dead since she was the youngest of three children. She wasn't particularly close with any of her family or siblings, but she still loved them of course. When her mother finally had her, she was tired all the time, and that way she learned to love the quiet. Her oldest sibling was a brother, who died in his late twenties in an ambush. She was about nine. It traumatized the entire family. After that, her sister started being unfair and cruel to her, furthering her descent into silence.

Favorite music/movie/tv show: She doesn't like books, or music. She likes to write books, and read them for research. But never for recreation.

People

People. This is the hardest post ever. Anyone else feel that way?

Here we go.

Well, am I supposed to give you my philosophy on what people are, what it means to be human? Should I describe the way that humans naturally tend to? Or maybe I should ramble on about good verses evil. The whole moral compass thing is overused, though.

I think it is funny that although we know that a human generally feels the same emotions as the next bloke, we somehow get the notion that we are completely alone sometimes, that no one knows that we are experiencing or feeling, but everyone does at the same time. It's funny.

While I believe that people become who they are because of how they are raised, I also believe that everyone changes dramatically and that they will find who they are because they choose to search. If something is missing from their lives, they will search, and they will find it.

I also think people are hilarious. Here are some funny pictures to prove it.

YA Rant

I'm in a bit of a trench at the moment when it comes to reading young adult novels. I've been spending a lot of time with a book, Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose (best author name EVER. JEALOUSY). The entire novel focuses on a type of reading that doesn't let a single word pass through our notice. Word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph we break apart a novel and get to what the author was really trying to say. With brilliant classics, this technique is like salt: it brings out the amazingness and why it is a classic. However, with many a young adult read, I've found this technique begging not to be used.

Immediately after a young adult novel gets huge in the industry, all of the aspiring writers out there want to write that book. They are looking to become the next bestseller, the next J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. Literally. I was one of them that wanted to be Stephenie, but when I figured out, oh hey, I want to be a better writer, I don't really care about the fameat all, that was when all of the words started fitting better. I didn't write for me, I wrote to find a precious sentence amidst the muck. Which is really difficult. But anyway, aspiring writers took huge elements from Twilight or The Hunger Games and tweaked them a little bit. And by little, I'm serious. Tiny bits were changed.

A novel that I'm reading right now is exactly like The Hunger Games. It's The Selection by Kiera Cass (Best. Cover. Ever. WANT). I've been hearing great things about this book since before it was out. I was excited to read it. Now that I am, every single thing jumps out at me. Allow me to make two lists.

Hunger Games

• Dystopian World, far in the future.
• Districts, each specializing in some industry, bettering the whole (apparently).
• Competition for fame and power
• Love interest before said competition, although minor. Help each other get food.
• Main character doesn't want to go into the competition.
• Main character can sing.
• Main character goes into the competition.
• An announcer--in a blue suit--is loved by all the people, and is a regular for the competition.
• Interviews before competition.
• Random draw for competition
• Designer and new wardrobe for main character.
• Main character has young sister that looks up to her.

Get the picture? Oh, look, a list about:
The Selection

• Dystopian World, far in the future.
• Castes, each specializing in some industry, bettering the whole (apparently).
• Competition for fame and power
• Love interest before said competition. Main character helps him get food.
• Main character doesn't want to go into the competition.
• Main character can sing.
• Main character goes into the competition.
• An announcer--in a blue suit--is loved by all the people, and is a regular for the competition.
• Interviews before competition.
• Random draw for competition
• Designer and new wardrobe for main character.
• Main character has young sister that looks up to her.

*Cough*

See what I mean? I'm not even past page 65 and all of these things are way too similar. It's a copycat, and it's this kind of thing that I'm super wary of both in reading and writing.

Another red flag that I keep seeing is that tons of these YA books are being tossed into the market, but none of them are any good. Seriously. They are just published because it is what is trending, or hopefully trending right now. The writing is poor, the idea is somewhat sound, and the genre is perfect. A recent example that I struggled to get through was the Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross. There were typos. Typos. Seriously? Seriously. For reals. And they were obvious ones, like "fist" instead of "first"...which is a whole letter missing. Blaringly annoying. These books aren't being edited, and typos are a huge sign of that. And the writing was ok, but nothing compared to Laini Taylor or Maggie Stiefvater. At least those writers know how to describe a setting. It makes me angry because I want to read good writing, but it is becoming really hard to find without reverting to classics. I know it's out there...somewhere...

Last, but my biggest peeve of all time for this genre.

Freaking love. Love triangles. Multiple love interests. In any genre, this is something that is repeated, and is dry, and is overdone, and put in just for the sake of being there. Especially when it is the main point of the book too. I can vividly imagine the author explaining to her friends (it is usually a her, not surprisingly) in an almost hysteric tone that their main character, which found out she can do x thing because of her ancestors/mystical forest endowed her with it, falls in love with a forbidden person, and they're not supposed to do that, but they find a way, and la de freaking dah.

Please, please. Give me a great YA read that doesn't have a love triangle, has great writing, and is (for goodness sakes) original in some way. Recommend it now. Please.

Teeth of Ice

It was quiet for the afternoon, cold as always, but quiet. Talus tightened the wrist guards, the cloth a bit more damp from his own sweat than he would have liked, but he wouldn't fall out. Once the clamps were almost welded together, he straightened himself at the edge of the building and hoped the hydraulics weren't louder than the scene below.

He gripped the holds, then took a deep breath.

He pushed himself off the edge of the building with a grunt and loss of fear. He hovered a second before his rapid descent almost overcame him. Gripping the holds, he aimed his hooks for the edges of the buildings and squeezed. The violent hiss of the system shot the hooks off to where he aimed, spraying him with air quickly turning to ice from the change of temperature. He let out a solid laugh as the force swung him down, almost to the ground. They lifted him back up in the perfect swing, and he aimed again for another edge. He imagined he looked like one of Darwin's monkeys, swinging from steel vine to steel vine.

He couldn't help it: he let out an exhilarated howl.

The street ahead veered to the left, but he needed to keep going straight to get to his house faster, although illegal. He focused on the point he had only successfully pinned himself to once and promised himself that he would make it.

On the upswing, he raised his right arm, waiting until the rope was all the way charged back up into the mechanism, then shot it at the point: a tiny railing that was nearly hidden from his view, not taking his eyes from it for even a blink. The kicks and constant pulling were beginning to hurt his shoulders, but he didn't let go of it.

The hook flickered through the air, its tail a writhing snake as the weight shivered like he did. It was cold.

The hook hit the railing with an almighty clang, knowing that it would have hurt the ears of whoever was near. There wasn't anything he could do after, so he got himself ready to find a place to land in case he had to make the usual emergency one. A pile of rotted fruit looked better than nothing, and he braced himself.

He started an upswing, to his surprise. The hook had caught, the slick-iced scoundrel!

And he forgot to shoot the next hook. He realized it too late, when the descent started making him turn over himself to go backwards. He swore loudly, scrambling with no place to escape from gravity. He craned his head and saw an edge above him.

It shot, kissing the lip sloppily, then held. An intense and familiar pain shot through his already sore shoulder, and he gritted his teeth to keep from screaming. The slick-iced scoundrel of a hook was slow in going back into the system, but he was safe. He just needed to get his shoulder back into its socket.

After throwing himself to the ground with his arm clutched in his other and successfully restoring mobility to it, albeit painful, he walked the short alleyway to his street, then down a few houses where his very modest one was hidden behind two larger ones. They had a splendid view of the wall that kept out bears. Two rooms, large enough for a very fat family of two. And all the rats he dared to eat, a home fit for the king of streets.

He nudged open the door with the opposite arm, the other was still tender, and let himself flop down on the sofa, which was composed more of dust than cushion. He could trace the footsteps in the rotting carpet, the smaller footsteps of his mother on tip-toe going to their only cabinet, one that he never had access to as a child. He knew it was for later because it was his birthday, and there wasn't any other reason to attempt to hide something.