Every time I talk to Corey he asks me if I've written anything new on my blog. So, I'm trying. I've been falling asleep early lately (ten o'clock!) on top of CJ or my writing binder. Thus, no blog posts.
Do you know what time it is? Eight fifty-five! I know! So early! Although we set the clocks back last night, so it feels like nine fifty-five.
Remember my excitement over Cuesta? Blech. I have two really good teachers: Frank Ha (sociology) and Victor Krulikowski (political science). My English teacher is annoying, which is of course hard for me to deal with because I'm blessed with an English-teacher mother. I got an eighty-six on the paper I just turned in. An eighty-six! Not that eighty-six is a bad grade, but writing is my thing! It's the one thing I can do! Every time I raise my hand in that class I feel like an idiot. Arg! Maybe I just need some humbling, but it's NOT FUN. The grade on my paper bugged me because I think he just didn't get what I was writing about. That sounds lame. I mean that I was arguing learning for the sake of learning (one of my favorite topics), and therefore disputing the pragmatic form of education that is so widely adopted, but he's all for pragmatic education. At one point I noted that classes on western civilization are now frequently replaced with classes on world civilization. That's a problem. The events of western civilization cannot be covered in a semester, much less the events of world civilization. In response to this, my teacher explained that the choice was made by educators to emphasize breadth over depth in this aspect of education. Thank you? Yes, you have just proved my point.
I don't feel like complaining about my environmental biology teacher. That is for another post.
I have done quite a bit of fiction writing since last posting: a children's short fiction entitled Weary Angel. Here's the inspiration/leading up to/etc:
Eventually I would write a story about a bat, because I absolutely love them. This stems from "the bat lady" coming to my preschool with a cat carrier full of the cutest little winged kittens you ever saw. Instant love. Later on the PBS cartoon Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat (based on the book by Amy Tan) became one of my favorite programs, primarily because of Fu-Fu the bat. One of my favorite picture books was Stellaluna. The reality that many people ardently dislike bats probably had some influence on my innate root-for-the-underdog tendency. Anyway, bats are amazing.
The first idea of my bat story popped up while I watched the twenty-fifth anniversary Phantom of the Opera show. Creature makes friend, but doesn't want friend to see it because it believes friend will be afraid of it. Perfect creature? Bat. So that lingered in my head a few months. Then I go to camp as a counselor and meet a girl named Kaelana. As we rifle through stickers with which to decorate our name tags I find that I have two bat stickers left. "I'll take one of these," I say. "I love bats." Suddenly Kaelana's already enormous brown eyes swell up and she says, "You do? So do I! No one likes bats!" Thus a friendship is born. Kaelana talks to me constantly about bats. What she says the most often is, "bats are so innocent. People don't like them, but if you look at them, they're just so innocent." I asked her if there were a boy's name she particularly liked: she said she liked Biblical names, but other than that she had little preference. My bat story still had little going for it than an idea, but I obviously know who it is dedicated to. A few weeks later, when I counsel again, I meet a girl named Angenae. I still don't know how to spell her name, and I can't find out how, but I told her that she had a beautiful name and that I would eventually have to steal it.
On our family vacation to Oregon I wrote the following introduction. It was a good way to get me started, but I don't know if I'll keep it. Here it is, for posterity's sake if I kill it.
"No one likes bats. Well, I guess I can’t say ‘no one,’ because I like bats, and have a good friend who likes bats. Not many people like bats.
Chances are that you don’t like bats. You probably think they’re nasty little creatures with skeletal faces and shrill voices; wide, bony wings and dripping fangs. You think bats only show up in frightening places: creepy houses, damp caves. You think they must be scary, because they only come out at night. Nice things come out in the day.
However, I must tell you, this is not so. At least I’ve never met a scary bat. Granted I’ve met only a few, but they’re all dear friends. One, Asher, has allowed me to write out his story for you. Which is quite an honor because he’s terribly shy; it took _______ months of coaxing before he managed to tell me!
Gracious, I ’m getting so ahead of myself! Enough of my chatter--you must be fairly desperate to hear the story now. Just one warning: if you are determined to dislike bats forever, you will want to close this book. You will love them once I am through."
After I came home I let my story go a while. Then I remembered it, and over a few days the idea expanded until I could write it down. My mum helped me straighten a few story details out (namely my girl character's family situation), and then it wrote itself over a week. The name 'Angenae' worked for my character, but I couldn't find how to spell it. While looking (again, with my mum), we came across the name 'Angelea,' which means "weary angel." This was so perfect I had to use it for the name and the title!
Wow...I'm going to have to put my query letter and remaining schpeal up later. I can't keep my eyes open. I wonder if the sleeping dog in my lap has anything to do with that. Goodnight!
Do you know what time it is? Eight fifty-five! I know! So early! Although we set the clocks back last night, so it feels like nine fifty-five.
Remember my excitement over Cuesta? Blech. I have two really good teachers: Frank Ha (sociology) and Victor Krulikowski (political science). My English teacher is annoying, which is of course hard for me to deal with because I'm blessed with an English-teacher mother. I got an eighty-six on the paper I just turned in. An eighty-six! Not that eighty-six is a bad grade, but writing is my thing! It's the one thing I can do! Every time I raise my hand in that class I feel like an idiot. Arg! Maybe I just need some humbling, but it's NOT FUN. The grade on my paper bugged me because I think he just didn't get what I was writing about. That sounds lame. I mean that I was arguing learning for the sake of learning (one of my favorite topics), and therefore disputing the pragmatic form of education that is so widely adopted, but he's all for pragmatic education. At one point I noted that classes on western civilization are now frequently replaced with classes on world civilization. That's a problem. The events of western civilization cannot be covered in a semester, much less the events of world civilization. In response to this, my teacher explained that the choice was made by educators to emphasize breadth over depth in this aspect of education. Thank you? Yes, you have just proved my point.
I don't feel like complaining about my environmental biology teacher. That is for another post.
I have done quite a bit of fiction writing since last posting: a children's short fiction entitled Weary Angel. Here's the inspiration/leading up to/etc:
Eventually I would write a story about a bat, because I absolutely love them. This stems from "the bat lady" coming to my preschool with a cat carrier full of the cutest little winged kittens you ever saw. Instant love. Later on the PBS cartoon Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat (based on the book by Amy Tan) became one of my favorite programs, primarily because of Fu-Fu the bat. One of my favorite picture books was Stellaluna. The reality that many people ardently dislike bats probably had some influence on my innate root-for-the-underdog tendency. Anyway, bats are amazing.
The first idea of my bat story popped up while I watched the twenty-fifth anniversary Phantom of the Opera show. Creature makes friend, but doesn't want friend to see it because it believes friend will be afraid of it. Perfect creature? Bat. So that lingered in my head a few months. Then I go to camp as a counselor and meet a girl named Kaelana. As we rifle through stickers with which to decorate our name tags I find that I have two bat stickers left. "I'll take one of these," I say. "I love bats." Suddenly Kaelana's already enormous brown eyes swell up and she says, "You do? So do I! No one likes bats!" Thus a friendship is born. Kaelana talks to me constantly about bats. What she says the most often is, "bats are so innocent. People don't like them, but if you look at them, they're just so innocent." I asked her if there were a boy's name she particularly liked: she said she liked Biblical names, but other than that she had little preference. My bat story still had little going for it than an idea, but I obviously know who it is dedicated to. A few weeks later, when I counsel again, I meet a girl named Angenae. I still don't know how to spell her name, and I can't find out how, but I told her that she had a beautiful name and that I would eventually have to steal it.
On our family vacation to Oregon I wrote the following introduction. It was a good way to get me started, but I don't know if I'll keep it. Here it is, for posterity's sake if I kill it.
"No one likes bats. Well, I guess I can’t say ‘no one,’ because I like bats, and have a good friend who likes bats. Not many people like bats.
Chances are that you don’t like bats. You probably think they’re nasty little creatures with skeletal faces and shrill voices; wide, bony wings and dripping fangs. You think bats only show up in frightening places: creepy houses, damp caves. You think they must be scary, because they only come out at night. Nice things come out in the day.
However, I must tell you, this is not so. At least I’ve never met a scary bat. Granted I’ve met only a few, but they’re all dear friends. One, Asher, has allowed me to write out his story for you. Which is quite an honor because he’s terribly shy; it took _______ months of coaxing before he managed to tell me!
Gracious, I ’m getting so ahead of myself! Enough of my chatter--you must be fairly desperate to hear the story now. Just one warning: if you are determined to dislike bats forever, you will want to close this book. You will love them once I am through."
After I came home I let my story go a while. Then I remembered it, and over a few days the idea expanded until I could write it down. My mum helped me straighten a few story details out (namely my girl character's family situation), and then it wrote itself over a week. The name 'Angenae' worked for my character, but I couldn't find how to spell it. While looking (again, with my mum), we came across the name 'Angelea,' which means "weary angel." This was so perfect I had to use it for the name and the title!
Wow...I'm going to have to put my query letter and remaining schpeal up later. I can't keep my eyes open. I wonder if the sleeping dog in my lap has anything to do with that. Goodnight!
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