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Camp NaNoWriMo!

So, as promised, here’s my new project – another novel. Sort of.

Last summer, I finished a novel that I’d worked on with Brian Morton, who is an incredible author who teaches at my school. It is extremely first-draft-y. June is going to be my month to write a second draft.
True, it’s not a completely new novel that I’m writing utterly from scratch, and perhaps the men and women at Camp NaNoWriMo would object that I’m not quite following the rules, but honestly? I don’t think they would. Because the point is to write, to work on your writing and commit yourself to it for a month. And gosh darn it, that’s what I’m doing.

I’m currently reading the novel that I wrote. It’s a strange experience. I’ve tried to do it a few times before, but I never could. It made me cringe, or it bored me. But now, now that I am actually in the process of preparing to edit it, I’m able to do it. Or maybe I just needed to wait for nine months to be able to deal with it. Writing a book in a month is possible – but rewriting it takes a bit of cool down time.

There is so much I’m going to change. So much that simply makes no sense to me. I have the characters so firmly set in my mind, and have had them there for the past year and a half, that I can’t understand how I wrote some of what I did. One character, for instance, is painfully shy in my head, but in the novel as it stands, she is an RA at her college. This is absolutely ridiculous – she would never sign up to such a job. True, she’s become less painfully shy than she once was and she has friends, but her retraction from others is still her default state. Why on earth did I make her a bubbly RA in some scenes? Strange, indeed.

I’m excited about this coming month’s project, even though I will also be working, once again, at Hebrew Book Week (third year in a row!) and as a result will be stressed between June 6 and 18 (yes, it’s much longer than a week, I am aware).

Just to be clear – I am still going to complete the 50,000 words in a month part of Camp NaNoWriMo. And I’m so excited about this whole editing business, that I’m going to actually ask you all to sponsor me! The Office of Letters and Light are a wonderful nonprofit that organize NaNoWriMo and thus help more people to overcome their fear of writing, and, even better, they organize writing programs for children in some 2700 schools around the Unites States.
Here’s the link where you can donate, if you’d like. No pressure! You can donate as little or as much as you like, or not at all. If you do, though, and would like to be kept abreast of my writing, let me know! Here’s the link to my fundraising page:

http://slightlyignorant.stayclassy.org

A (Slightly Ignorant) Update

Hello all.

I’ve been remiss in updating you on some of the recent happenings, including the reason for my very on-and-off blogging during the past few months. As some of you know, I was deeply involved in my sophomore year at college since September of 2011 – this past semester has been especially hectic and crazy, which is why I’ve been blogging less frequently. Here are some highlights of my semester:

-I assistant stage-managed for a production of Macbeth.
-I played the part of Cynthia in Tom Stoppard’s play “The Real Inspector Hound.”
-I read a few incredible books, including: “Cousin Bette” by Balzac, “Sons and Lovers” by D. H. Lawrence, “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy, “The Brothers Karamzov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Snuff” by Terry Pratchett and “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White. Not all of these were for class.
-I spent time with amazing people who I love very, very much and who I currently miss with an ache.
-I discovered that I enjoy writing in screenplay format. (There’s so much white space!)
…and, last but not least:
-I got into a study abroad program and will be spending next year at Oxford University in Oxford, England.

See? Busy.

I’m currently back in Israel with my mother and my childhood friends. Home base is strange after spending such a good year in New York and school, but I’m slowly getting used to it again.

And, I have a new project. Which will be the subject of my post tomorrow.

Spring Break, 2012

In one hour and twenty five minutes, I will have zipped up my suitcase, locked my windows, showered, made sure that I have my passport and boarding pass, packed up my snacks for the airplane, eaten a yogurt to fortify me for the drive, dithered about whether or not to have a cookie right then or bring it with me and made a decision. I will also have finished writing my seven hundred and fifty words for the day, and completed the nineteenth consecutive day of writing a fresh batch of such words.
In four hours, I will be boarding a plane of a design that I’m unfamiliar with because I’ve never flown this airline before. I might already be sitting in my seat, in row sixty-something, seat C, which is an aisle seat on the left side of the plane and had, when I checked in a few hours ago, two empty seats beside it, thus giving me a slight chance of having the entire row to myself (although I’m not holding my breath for such good luck).
In a little over ten hours, I should be – knock on wood – landing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and disembarking from a – hopefully – pleasant flight and into an airport I’ve only been in once before and which I don’t remember at all even though it was only several months ago. I might be landing in a different terminal altogether because the United States, while it is a different country, may not be lumped along with the rest of the international flights.
Although Spring Break, 2012, officially started yesterday, some twenty-six hours ago, it won’t be until I arrive in a place far enough away from my daily routine that it will sink in that I am actually on vacation. Only then, upon seeing my aunts and curling up in a bed not my own, will I be able to understand that I can relax, and will I feel the ever-clenched muscles in my shoulders, neck and back begin to soften.
During the next two weeks – or three hundred and thirty-six hours – I will need to make a final decision of whether or not to attend Oxford next year. Yes, buried almost four hundred words deep in this post is this announcement. I got accepted to attend Sarah Lawrence College’s abroad program in Oxford University in England. Yes, that Oxford, the one that we all imagine as a collection of old castles, old English men smoking pipes, High Tea and scones. Of course, only some of the stereotypes are still relevant, but what hasn’t changed as far as I know is the quality of education in this centuries-old university.
The program is too good to pass up, and is part of my reason for attending Sarah Lawrence in the first place. I will be there for three terms, and in each term I will have two classes. Each of these will be almost tailor-made to fit my academic desires and wishes, and will probably be a one-on-one meeting with a professor. I will meet with each professor once a week, receive a reading list from them, and spend the next week completing it and writing a five-to-ten page paper about said reading. Then I will come in again, discuss my paper and the reading with the professor, receive a new reading list, and do it all again. Each term is eight weeks, in between which are four-to-five week breaks. During the terms I will be living in my own room within a five-person suite. There is a gym and a grocery store across the street, and London is only an hour’s train ride away.
What all this means, basically, is that I would spend a full academic year in England, at Oxford University, and more specifically, in libraries, doing my reading. I would read and read and read some more, and I would write paper after paper and hone my skills of writing academically while also writing fast. I would, if I get my way, take mostly literature courses, and thus would get to read novels and novels. The study is largely independent, which is perfect for me because I’m very good at organizing my time and knowing how much I need to study. I would also be significantly closer to Israel, my mom and my friends there.
The downside is leaving SLC, where I’ve had one of the best years of my life. I’m already feeling my heart breaking at missing out on a year’s worth of happenings here.

750 Words and a Description

Seven hundred and fifty words doesn’t sound like much, but it accumulates over time. There are thirty-one days in March, and I’ve pledged to write seven hundred and fifty words each and every single day of this month. Of course, nothing happens to me if I fail – except that my name gets put on the Wall of Shame on the website 750words.com. The real consequence, though, is that I won’t be writing. And that’s not a good thing for me.
I realized why I felt so disconnected from last night’s reading. There are two primary reasons. One of them, and I know it sounds silly, is that the man who organized the event confuses me and makes me feel very strange. He is a poetry teacher, and as such, I suppose I expect a certain amount of sensitivity and emotion from him. But he’s absolutely blank – he has no expression on his face, he has no tone to his voice, and his body language conveys the boredom and discomfort of a teenage boy. During the reading, he kept checking his phone in order to check the time. At first, I thought it was because he wanted to make sure that everyone was staying within the time limit of six minutes, but now I’m not so sure. I do think that he was genuinely uninterested. Or maybe I’m just being overly sensitive. My eyes kept being drawn to him throughout the evening, and I couldn’t help feeling like there was something wrong with the way he was acting.
The second reason I felt so strange about the evening is that I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I want to be. And that’s not a good feeling. Being so removed from my own, personal, fiction writing made me feel like I was an impostor of sorts when I was up there at the podium, reading a story that I hadn’t even reread in its entirety before deciding to read from it.
It’s odd, but through all the things that have happened to me this school-year, nothing caused me to be quite so moody and aggravated at my therapy appointment as this removed feeling that I had last night. I think that it upset me mostly because I couldn’t figure it out. It took a good half hour of talking through things to figure out why I was so confused and bothered by the event.
Once I did figure it out, though, I felt almost immediately as if a weight was being lifted off my shoulders and out of my chest. So that’s that.
Now, because I feel like it, I’m going to use up the rest of my words for the day in writing a description of something – I won’t know of what until I get going. Well, here goes:

His mind was a strange and crowded place. His childhood seemed constantly to be on the surface. It was the shore from which he began all his journeys, and it was littered with broken bottles, shredded rags and lonely people spread out, each sitting alone and not making eye contact with any of the others.
From the shore, his thoughts would board a variety of vessels. Sometimes they took rides in small, rickety sailboats. Sometimes they walked along an extended gangplank to reach a vast, well-manned barge, complete with minstrels.
On their voyages, the thoughts would encounter islands of differing splendor and population. At first glance, each seemed unique, absolutely one of a kind, but from a bird’s eye view they looked similar, populated by the same kind of people, all containing trees and animals of some sort or other. One of the qualities that all the islands shared was the presence of orphans. Not all the orphans were sad; in fact, some were quite cheerful, but the fact was that there were too many parents who were dead or gone on all of these islands, and although the thoughts sometimes wondered themselves why this was so, the man they belonged to never seemed to dwell on the fact overlong.
Perhaps this was because his thoughts always returned to the shore where he awaited patiently with the others. This shore, too, was populated by ragamuffins, running around with their palms extended, asking for a penny, please sir, just a penny, just so that I can get a roll. When the man asked where their parents were and why they didn’t feed them, the children – some of whom were really quite grown up and could perhaps have found work if it wasn’t for their presence on the isolated shore – looked bemused, as if they’d never even thought of the option of parents.

Multitasking FAIL

I’m in rehearsal tonight, as I am every single night. And I’m watching Mackers lying with his head on his throne, clinging a bottle and speaking the prophecy he received from the witches and which has now come true.
I feel like my creativity has sapped as my mind has become engrossed entirely in this play.
I keep trying to do my homework or write but in truth I need to pay too much attention to things onstage and so I… just… can’t multitask. Ugh.

Lines

I landed at Newark Airport a week and one day ago, at 6am in the morning. It was a long and unpleasant flight, but it ended, and I arrived at my destination safely, which is important.

Since then, it seems as if a whole month’s worth of events has already occurred.

My first day back, while I was still jet-lagged and hadn’t been on campus for even twelve hours, I volunteered to be an assistant stage manager for my school’s production of Macbeth. That same evening, I also went to the rehearsal of the weekly cabaret show we had. During those first five days, then, I had an average of about six hours of rehearsal a day. This week is a little easier, because I only have Mackers, which is four to five hours a day.

In addition, today was the first day I felt uncomfortable participating in class; I hadn’t finished the reading, which is something I hardly ever allow myself to do.

Then there is also the issue of several of my friends going through very hard time – I’m worried about them and feel responsible for some of them even though I know I shouldn’t.

Ranting doesn’t really help as much as it should.

Break’s Over

People are already returning to my school today. My flight leaves tomorrow night. I should get to bed so I can wake up early and pack.
It’s with mixed feelings that I’m leaving. In many ways, I’m glad to go back. There are good things waiting for me back at school, in all avenues of life. But there are good things here, too. I guess this is kind of the best possible problem to have, right? Leaving one happy place for another happy place isn’t really something I feel comfortable complaining about.

Stuck

I haven’t been writing very well lately. I feel kind of stuck. I think it’s mostly because I’ve been writing last thing before going to bed, when I’m tired and am just itching to get under the covers. Methinks I need a change of writing routine – or, rather, to go back to some kind of writing routine at all, which I’ve shamefully neglected since getting home for winter break.

Then again, I’m on vacation after all. I should cut myself some slack. But even so, it’s not fun, feeling stuck.

Some Thoughts, and My 2011 Reading List

It’s already 2012 in my current time zone and, so far, nothing seems so different about 2012. Just like on birthdays, the actual movement of the clock from 11:59PM to 00:01AM wasn’t a noteworthy experience full of internal fireworks going BANG and making everything in my head rearrange itself somehow. Thank goodness – can you imagine how unpleasant that would have been?

I’ve never made New Year’s resolutions. I judge myself too harshly and obsess over things too easily – if I made resolutions, I’d feel horribly guilty if I broke them, and keeping them would turn into an unpleasant and burdensome chore that I’d learn to despise. So I make small resolutions, daily goals that I can write down in my planner and joyfully tick off at the end of the day.

I also don’t seem to go for introspection. I’ve realized lately that I have a lot of trouble with sitting and thinking. I know some people who consciously take time to think over their issues, to reach decisions, to make sense of what they’re doing. I don’t do this. It seems to happen on its own, in between reading and showering and going about my daily life. I often wonder what I’m missing and whether my insights are somehow less worthy because I didn’t put in the deliberate time to reach them. I think that’s why I don’t manage to write long pieces about my life very often. I get bored with only being able to experience what I experience and think what I think; I suppose that’s part of why I read so much.

My only real resolution for 2012 is to manage to read one hundred books or more. And now I present the list of books I read during 2011:

Reading List, 2011

 

 

January

  1. A Room With a View by E. M. Forster
  2. To the Lighthouse by Virgina Woolf
  3. The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
  4. How the Elephant Got Its Trunk by Rudyard Kipling
  5. Mai: The Psychic Girl Perfect Collection (Volume 1) story by Kazuya Kudo, art by Ryoichi Ikegami [graphic novel]
  6. Mai: The Psychic Girl Perfect Collection (Volume 2) story by Kazuya Kudo, art by Ryoichi Ikegami [graphic novel]
  7. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot
  8. The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis
  9. Mai: The Psychic Girl Perfect Collection (Volume 3) story by Kazuya Kudo, art by Ryoichi Ikegami [graphic novel]
  10. The Loneliness of the Mind Reader by Dalit Orbach
  11. Henry IV Part I by William Shakespeare

 

February

  1. Maurice by E. M. Forster
  2. The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
  3. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
  4. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
  5. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré

 

March

  1. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss [reread]
  2. The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
  3. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
  4. The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint
  5. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  6. The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker by Leslie Frewin

 

April

  1. The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth
  2. The Quest for le Carre ed. By Alan Bold
  3. The Faerie Queene, book VI by Edmund Spenser
  4. IT by Stephen King
  5. Utopia by Thomas More
  6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  7. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
  8. Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint
  9. Overqualified by Joey Comeau

 

May

  1. Bad Love by Jonathan Kellerman
  2. Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales by Tamora Pierce
  3. Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman
  4. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
  5. Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

 

June

  1. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  2. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
  3. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  4. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
  5. Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
  6. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams
  7. Young Zaphod Plays it Safe by Douglas Adams
  8. The Hug by David Grossman
  9. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
  10. Neuland by Eshkol Nevo
  11. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

 

July

  1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling [Reread]
  3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  4. The Locusts Have No King by Dawn Powel
  5. Pipelines by Etgar Keret
  6. Naamah’s Blessing by Jacqueline Carey

 

August

  1. Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton
  2. Watchmen by Alan Moore
  3. Embassytown by Charles Mieville
  4. The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman
  5. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
  6. Breakable You by Brian Morton

 

September

  1. Missing Kissinger by Etgar Keret
  2. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley
  3. The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain [Reread]
  4. Scott Pilgrim v. the World by Bryan Lee O’Malley
  5. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness by Bryan Lee O’Malley
  6. Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together by Bryan Lee O’Malley
  7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen [Reread]

 

October

  1. Masfield Park by Jane Austen [Reread]
  2. Spuds by Karen Hesse
  1. Galilee by Clive Barker
  2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens [Reread]
  4. The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard by A. E. Coppard
  5. Wolf Moon by Charles de Lint

 

November

  1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  2. God’s Eyes a-Twinkle: An Anthology by T.F. Powys
  3. Middlemarch by George Eliot

 

 

December

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  2. Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley
  3. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  4. Fairest by Gail Carson Levine
  5. The Dylanist by Brian Morton
  6. Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne Jones
  7. The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones

     

 

 

Lesson Learned

This morning, I woke up with the greatest idea for a story. It was an original concept, and I had a strong character in mind.

And then…

I fell back asleep.

And I forgot the idea.

The only thing I remember is that the character was female, and I believe she was a young girl.

Tonight I’m going to bed with a notebook and a pen by my bed again.