Or, alternatively, Since When Have Social Lives Been So Time Consuming? I know that one of my new years resolutions was to be better about posting blogs and videos (for God’s sake, I posted once a day for a year and then posted three-four times a week for a year and a half after THAT), but I honestly did not calculate the amount of time having a social life consumes. Yeah, I know, right? Apparently you’re supposed to, like, spend considerable amounts of time with your boyfriend that you might have otherwise used to blog or make a video. Weird.
Not that I’m complaining. Quinn is a human made of awesome and spending time with him is anything but an obligation. However, I had planned on being single for basically the rest of my life and all my life plans and goals were calculated without a significant other in the equation. It was a happy accident that we ended up together, but an accident nonetheless, and I think I need to reexamine my life a little.
First, I’m definitely only going to aim for one blog every week. The day that I will be blogging on will be Tuesday. I haven’t blogged on Tuesdays in a while. Sound good? Alright. Moving on.
Second, if I don’t end up making a video on any given Thursday, I will at the very least give you a quick blog post as an excuse/to tide you over.
Third, I WILL POST A THESE FOLK VIDEO EVERY SUNDAY IF IT KILLS ME. And it might. My Sundays are kind of busy these days, what with work and boyfriend-monster and poetry slams and such. But I love my collab channel and the people on my collab channel and I am determined to stop being such a crappy member. Get excited for next Sunday, when I’ll be posting my soap opera for our 2 year anniversary. Spoiler alert: someone is going to be pregnant. With OCTUPLETS.
I think that about covers my new plan for the year. In other news, I’ve been writing a lot (just not poetry, unfortunately) and have two completed short story drafts. One is about zombies, which I already told you about, and one is about an Italian chef whose roommate is a vampire, which is my favorite at the moment. It’s written from the Italian dude’s perspective and I don’t know if I’ve ever had more fun writing a character in my life. His name is Tom Corsini and he makes me laugh every time he does anything and I love him.
My thesis has also been getting some much-needed loving lately. I recently realized some major plot points that had been ignored in the first draft that can be fairly easily fixed, I’m writing a few scenes that exist outside the actual book but are still canon, and I’m well on my way to constructing the research portion of my thesis project. So far I’ve collected seven young adult epistolary novels to use as reference and comparison. My research methods professor was super impressed how prepared I am, so hopefully this means that by the end of this semester I’ll have a second draft of my creative portion and a relatively-final draft of my research portion. Next year, if I work really hard, should be smooth sailing.
In case you’re curious, so far the books I’m using are:
The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot (for the voice)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbotsky (for the subtle integration of therapy and depression)
The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger (SURPRISE) (for utilizing supporting POVs)
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger (for the IM and email components)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (for the structure)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (for the internalization of emotions via documents)
The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty (for the form/ balance of multiple characters)
POSSIBLY, if I feel like I want to annoy the crap out of everyone, ttyl by Lauren Myracle (because it’s the most recent version of the format).
I think that’s a really good combination. I am very excited about this thesis. The more I think about my silly little NaNo book the more I’m glad I did it.
Other quickie housekeeping things:
1. New PayPal donate button if you, ya know, wanna support a starving college student.
2. New PayPal donate button on the Pluma site for my Spain fundraising group. We’ll have some other things up soon, but if you’re just feeling generally generous please consider donating now. Every dollar helps!
3. New book and music recommendation widgets in the sidebar. If you have anything to contribute let me know, and if I agree with your opinions you might see yours displayed as well!
HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND I’LL SEE YOU ON SUNDAY FOR SOME SWEET DANCING.
