It's been a while...

I've not abandoned the blog, I promise. Tomorrow is a Sunday, which means if I have time between Easter festivities I will be posting a journal. ("I know! I'll have a feature! That'll make sure I post regularly." Oh, over-optomistic self. Ha. And again, I say, Ha.) For tonight, I'll do some other stuff I promised I'd do.

Beta'ing. So, My first ever Beta partner and I finished reading each other's work a few months ago, I finished editing my way through her comments, and I haven't touched Accidents since (except to do some self-conscious editing. I can't help myself.) On the experience of having work critiqued, it was very constructive and encouraging, and I think I had a good partner. I wish I had a partner I knew a better, since it's a little easier to do cross-examination with a friend. There were a few things, mostly small, on which I very strongly disagreed, and I had to just take it as a difference in taste/lack of understanding.

On the experience of critiqueing - I've done it before, on a smaller scale, but I find it very rewarding to get deep into the nitty-gritty bits of a story and try to make it shine its absolute brightest. It was a good story (outside my prefered genre by a fair margin, but what can you do?) and I don't for a second regret the time spent with the characters. I always knew I liked editing, but this kind of makes me think I might have the stamina for it, I mean professionally. I'd love so much to work with an editor...

The maiden Beta voyage deemed successful, I am now one step closer to being query-ready. I thought I'd have queried by now, this time last year, but there's still a little more I want to tweak. My goal is to get it going by this summer. Fingers crossed!

Writing Class, Scripts, and Classics

My writing elective for this semester began today. Because my teacher is awsome, we spent most of our hour-and-a-half watching and discussing clips from Knight Rider and movie trailers. This could partly due to our writing scripts this year, or it could be my teacher's idolization of talking cars and The Hoff. Anyway. I had a novel I've been dying to try writing out as a script, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. And at the end of the class the guy who wrote the script for Buried (the movie that won Sundance where the entire film takes place inside a coffin) is going to come in and talk to us. We're connected like that. (Sort of. His cousin attends our school.)

Any writers who've tried this before, what's it like trying to switch a story from novel to script? Hopefully at the end of the summer I'll be able to answer this myself!

Also, while my mom's copies of A Seperate Peace and The Great Gatsby (assigned reading, yay~) seem to have dropped into some black abyss, I located a very dusty Catcher in the Rye and started reading it. I have never felt so inundated by swearwords in my life. But by golly if it's not some of the best characterization I've ever read. Things don't get to be "classics" for no reason, I guess. I will eventually finish the six-thousand books on my pile, but Holden might come first...

I missed journals on Sunday. There will be some this weekend, unless the snow decides I'm not allowed to have power.

God bless us, every one.

It's a New Year...

I should get some sort of award. "Latest New Year Post". Isn't there a wall of shame somewhere for people like me?

Anyway.

I'm not gonna do a list of resolutions, because I don't like to be disappointed or disappoint others. However there are a few things I'm planning. Tentatively.

1. I would like to blog twice or thrice a week. Because my current level of suck here is just ridiculous.

2. I want to read all the classics on my TBR list (To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, some Shakespeare, and finish Huck Finn and Dorian Gray).

3. I want to be more outgoing; comment more, interact, etc.

4. I want to query for Accidents and complete at least two first drafts.

That's all. At least, all the interweb related ones.

In other news, I finally found a beta partner. Her name is Writein and we met on Absolute Write (wonderful forums, an awesome query workshop and lively discussions) on a third party's beta reader request thread. I'll see if I can scrounge up a post about betas and editing after we've finished each others books.

And, with a B&N giftcard graciously given by my aunt, I've read Personal Demons, Ink Exchange, House of Many Ways, and am about a third through with Dorian Gray (I also bought Danger Days, new album of awesome, but I can't start talking about that or I swear I will gush). House of Many Ways was wonderful; even better than Castle in the Air, but not quite as good as Howl's Moving Castle, I thought. Ink Exchange was really neat, and I'll probably be reading more Melissa Marr soon. Personal Demons was great, but dunno if I'm gonna read Original Sin. Got a few funny looks carrying that book around, but it's worth it. Dorian Gray is an example of why I don't need drugs - a future favorite, I think. Probably all of these will show up in the English Journals posts eventually, but my journal is now being graded for the last quarter, which is why I didn't post one tonight. When I get it back, the next two will be for Pegasus by Robin McKinley. (Edit: I lied. They're actually about Living Dead Girl. I'll get to Pegasus eventually.)

Happy New Year. Anyone have any fun resolutions (or tentative plans) for 2011?