The Final Countdown
I finished my last final for this semester today. I think, when all the cards drop, I will get an “A” in the class. There is a possibility that I will get a “B” but I think that is the lowest the grade will go. Not sure what to expect from the dreaded science class and I believe I will garner an “A” out of the creative writing class. So, semester done.
What this means is that I have 12 more months and I am done with BYU.
This turned out to be an interesting semester. I took some classes that I thought I would like and show up to all of the time, and a class that I thought I would love, and ended up loving the class I thought I would (at best) like, and hating the class I thought I would love.
On top of that, the last several months has been lessons in learning to live with someone else. Not just live but share a bed, share a bathroom, share space and time and a lot of other things. It’s been a good four months and a hard four months. And yet, I think Erin and I made it through pretty well.
Throw into that mix the number of hours a week I’ve been working on top of school, on top of being newly married, and on top of everything else I’ve been trying to do, and I am surprised that this semester has flown by. It’s been rather rewarding, actually.
I started Alicia Grey and my instincts tell me that I need to slow down on this story and become more comfortable with the slog through it.
I have been writing Cassandra West stories and my gut tells me this needs to be something I work on a bit more.
I’ve been working through In Order to Write, and I am planning some additional changes to the application and look of the site.
Going back to Alicia Grey, though, I have found that I am dealing with how to deal with her first days in a new school. Not that I don’t have some ideas, merely that I think some issues need to be resolved before I start putting her (and co.) in situations that surround the area they are in and deal with the people at the school and community. What this means, really, is that I want to take some time to think about what I’ve currently written. It would be nice if I didn’t have to, if I could just say, “The book will be 90,000 words long and don’t worry about the structure,” but truth told, I feel that the structure is important. It is important.
On the flipside of Alicia is Cassandra. I’ve discovered, by working through some pieces that I thought were short fiction (and really are) that the connections between the stories are such that I can’t expect to submit them separately. They are an all together or not at all kind of series of stores. What it does do is make writing Cassandra West a little different, weird. I mean, she’s a girl ripped out of her body and home and placed in the Old West and then made to be an adult, a grown-up. Each mis-adventure has her connecting back to that initial action, as well as events that transpired before she ended up outside of El Paso.
There are good guys and bad guys.
In my head I see each adventure being a new chapter, of sorts. Maybe not. And yet, after writing the Darwin episode, it occurred to me that there was a rather coherent connection that required something more than I was (initially) planning for this story.
Moreover, between Alicia and Cassandra, I am finding myself learning some aspects to fiction that I really need to write about at IOTW. It will come. As the stress of the last several days to two weeks dies down, I will write more over there.
Which really leads to, I think I need to leave IOTW with the flash animation up for another 24 hours. Sad? Yes, I know. But, at the same time I want to make sure that the professor has a good chance to see it.
That’s about it. If I think about it, tomorrow I write about how Anne Coulter is an idiot… and I am not at all in line with the political left in this country.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly