Hey, look! It's Kevin!

Two books I received as gifts!!

Hey everybody!

I know, I know, you're probably thinking "This kid's alive!?" Well, yes, I am!

It's been a wild ride, this semester. I know I have been in hiatus, but this hiatus is officially over! I plan on writing this blog like never before! (Which means, I'll be posting regularly, and I'll be doing Road Trip Wednesdays, as well as book reviews and what not!)

I do want to apologize for being gone for so long. I went through a lot of personal things in the past six or seven months.

But on the bright side, here are some good highlights!

1. I graduated from SIUC! College is done!
2. I am moving to California in four days!
3. I attended my first writer's retreat! (Four friends eating brunch while writing counts, right?)
4. I started a tumblr! (click if you want to check it out)
5. I was Senior Co-Editor of the lit magazine at my school!
6. I got a short story and a poem published!
7. I won the CURCA award at my school for my short story!
8. Did I mention I graduated?
9. And I'm sure something else I can't remember as of right now.

Those are some highlights of what I haven't been writing about, but no more! My adventures in California and trying to get published will be documented here for you all to read.

I will stop rambling now!

Happy to be back everybody!

MFA Ranking, Applying, and other nonsense.

2013 GrassRoots

So I'll start off by telling you guys, I'm not sure if I already have, I got the Senior Co-Editor of GrassRoots. For those of you who haven't read this before, it's the job I applied for a while back that is co-running the undergraduate literary magazine at my college. I really wanted this position and for me it's like a dream come true!

I think of this job as, it has always been my dream to see my name in a book and if I can't do that, I want to make others come true and give that to them. (My name does appear in this book through, twice on two of my works and once under staff, a smaller position.) I want people to feel that same feeling I had when I found out my name would be in print! So here's hoping to a great year.

On top of wondering what all is going to come with that job this Fall (my senior year might I add) I have been working on my MFA applications. As anyone out there who has ever applied to MFA programs, you know how stressful this can be. There are so many questions you have to take into account. Do I take the GRE? How much money will I need to apply? Is this program right for me? Will I want to shoot myself living in such a small town, even if their program is ah-mah-zing!? (Yes, there is one of those on my list.)

This is proving to be even more stressful than I had originally thought, and trust me, I thought it was going to be EXTREMELY stressful. I'm now worried that even if I do get into a program what if their stipend isn't enough money to survive off of? What if I end up living on the streets? I can't live in a cardboard house! Urgh!

Only time will tell.

Exhausted like a... kitten?

picture owned by Ella Mullins

So I've picked this picture for two reasons. One: I LOVE cats. Who doesn't? Look at it! Sleeping there! Two: This is how I feel right now. I would like to apologize for not posting yesterday, but as most of you know, I'm sure, sometimes life throws your curve balls. It's really not anything to do with writing or such so I'll just go ahead and jump back into the groove of this blog!

I'm very excited to say I've been asked to read at the open mic on campus for the literary magazine that is going to be publishing me in May. I plan on reading a poem, which is nerve wracking, because I don't consider myself a poet. But it's an adventure!... right?

Another thing is, I've never read my work in front of a group of people before, so this ought to be interesting. I will either stutter, vomit, or cry. Possibly all three, you never know! I'm also not sure if I want to read something I've already written or something new. They don't want me to read what I'm getting published because they want me to read that at the release party! So many readings, so little time!

Besides all that news, I'm about 10k into editing my WIP! I want it to be ready to be sent out to beta's within a month of two. We'll see if that actually happens! I'm very determined to get it done though because I want to start querying to some agents soon!

How is everyone else's writing/editing going?

Facing the Facts

Photo owned by Scott Beale

So I found out some news about my stuff being published, and I guess I should have seen it coming, but why didn't I? I was walking around in a perfect little world where nothing could touch me or my writing. Wrong!

It turns out that the literary magazine that is publishing me gets to decide what to edit in the story and what to cut out. I don't know why this surprised me, but it did. Then I read the changes they made. It wasn't anything astronomical, but one little line they cut out just got to me. It's still bothering me, almost a week later. I plan on emailing them right after and asking them to put a line back in, but it's just weird. It's weird to think that someone else has domain over my writing; someone that isn't me.

I've accepted what they've done and just plan on asking for that one line to be added back in, but then my poem came up. They added in an entire stanza. A stanza I'm not particularly fond of. I'm going to tell them to take it out or it's not being published. Some of you may say that's stupid of me, but it's my work and now it just feels like a frankenstein baby! When an entire stanza I did not write makes its way into my work, it's no longer mine.

But I have to face the fact, that if I want to get published there will be an editor and a publisher that ultimately has say in everything that goes out there, and as much as it sucks, that's my life. I'm okay with it though, people are reading what I've written and that's all that matters... right?

Happiness Is A Warm Pen

Hello all!

Late Thursday night, and Friday morning, were both just full of awesome things for me. Thursday night I finished the first draft of my work in progress, which I have mentioned before. I am very excited to be able to say I've written a novel all the way through. I know it has a lot of work and it will take a long time, but that doesn't mean I didn't finish.

Then on Friday morning, while brushing my teeth, I opened an email that basically led to this GIF.

My happy dance. (Also my best friend reacted the same as Amy Poehler.)
Picture own ed by SNL.

My school's undergraduate literary magazine, Grassroots, emailed me to inform me that they are going to be publishing one of my short stories and a poem! I was in shock at first, then the rest of the day I was Tina Fey. This will be the first time I will ever be published and that's, just, pretty exciting, haha. There's no other feeling like being told that your work is being selected to be published.

This really set the wheels in motion for me and I have fallen back in love with my writing. A little thing that bothered me was, I had JUST edited the short story they chose a few days before so now I feel like they don't have what was really meant to be seen! But that's okay! Happy dance^^^!!

So, because I'm happy, I am going to post another excerpt for Divided We Fall. I would like to remind people that everything posted is subject to be changed, and most likely will! Enjoy!

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          Then something caught my eye. Five stories up I saw her, standing in a floor length window that was on the far side of her office. Helen stood, arms crossed, staring down at us. I couldn't see what expression she was making, but her stance looked guarded, almost angry. As I stared at her, the ground started to shake. I grabbed onto Winnie and the violent jerks beneath us continued. I heard yells and screams from the other side of the wall, telling me we weren't that far away from other people.

          “Fi, what's going on?” Winnie whimpered. He his voice cracked with fear. I felt Adler as he wrapped his arms around us, trying to protect us.

          “Just hold onto me, okay? I won't let anything happen to you.” I looked up at Adler who looked just as confused as I felt. Behind him on the wall the chimeras ran back and forth frantically while the harpies batted their wings as if they were about to take flight. Some of the looser bricks began to fall off the wall, crumbling as it hit the grass below. Then it stopped. The ground stopped trembling and there was no more screams. I turned to look up at Helen but she was gone.

          “What is she?” Adler asked to no one in particular.

          I gazed at the window. “I don't know.