So a while ago I was brainstorming useless magic powers with a friend (this has since turned into a discussion topic between multiple friends of mine, a trend of which is as simultaneously enchanting as it is distressing). I thought I’d make a list of my favorites here, you know, because I’m compulsive and delusional and think this will add value to the internet. Feel free to leave a suggestion or six!
Ryan La Sala
Ryan vs. New York City: A Story of Trash, Bingo, and Self-Assuredness
(No, I’m not in the photo. I’m taking the photo. Stop creepin’)
I spent the past few days in New York and I wasn’t in complete agony!
Now, before I go further, I want to reject the notion that I blindly despise NYC because I went to school in Boston. Honestly, I’m shocked you’d even go and make that assumption. It really makes me questions how comfortable I am talking with you. What other prejudices are you projecting onto me? You, my reader, are probably a very paranoid and miserable person.
Read moreRyan vs. New York City: A Story of Trash, Bingo, and Self-Assuredness
Book Review: Proxy by Alex London
Alex London’s Proxy is probably one of the coolest concepts I’ve encountered in a while. I feel like most dystopian societies resemble one another in their foundation of a oppressive system, but rarely am I as captivated by a dystopia as I was with Proxy. Reading this book was an act of investigation, not only because I wanted to find out what happened next but because the world of Proxy is created with such vivid detail, and with such sound world-building, that it feels nearly tactile. There are some coercive plot devices that make the book feel a tad unstable, and sure, I wasn’t really swayed by either the romance or the twists, but these are easy to overlook when the rest of Proxy was so good.
16 Essentials for Succeeding as A Writer in 2014
1. Crippling Self-Doubt Cutely Coupled With Billowing Anxiety
2. Wool Socks (trust me)
Beta Reading 2
Two updates!
Beta Reading
Sometime last month I sent a preliminary draft of KMDC to a writer friend who has literally witnessed this project from the very beginning. And about a week ago I sent off the beta draft of KMDC to a few trusted ladies up in Boston. My parents currently have copies loaded on their kindles, and, to complete my Arsenal of Critique, I’ve enlisted another novelist in a trade of manuscripts. (the lovely J.M. Johnson, who you should follow on Twitter. Also, check our her blog).
My Two Favorite Men
You know how it’s a bit of a trope for the sad, single girl/gay to flop down next to their best friend (usually the main character with a love interest half-developed by now) and say, “I’ve got a date tonight with my two favorite men! Ben…and Jerry!” And we all laugh at the simmering hilarity that is self-indulgent, sugary melancholy?
Here at the Bottom
When I write, I generally keep a scene outline at the bottom of my document. As I figure things out and make edits, this outline tends to accumulate into a chapter outline, then a section outline, then eventually a book outline. It looms beneath my cursor like some sort of stupid, static dirigible, feeding me hints as I encroach on its content, and bumping itself down obediently as I progress.
On Resolutions
There’s something sickly about resolutions. I think it has to do with the way they’re made; either uttered furtively or pronounced with great enthusiasm (but always as a shamed self-reprimand), and they’re always precipitated by something arbitrary. I mean that as: it isn’t your weight, or how you feel about your size, but the time of year that drums up your resolution. It isn’t your generally aloof nature, or your family’s naturally sparse dynamic, but the death of a cousin that makes you resolve to stay in touch.
The Good Things of January 23, 2014
So many great things happened today! Here they are, listed, for your accessing pleasure: