John Mayer Has a TV Show

As we can all tell, I'm a big music fan. I collect CD's, play music, share music with friends, watch concert footage, read biographies of legends...the list goes on. Everyone has something they are passionate about, and this is definitely mine. I'm making progress from the last post with the whole "focus" thing, I guess. I digress.

Apart from the actual listening to music part, I like to get to know the artists I enjoy. To me, I can't get into an artist until I've read or watched something about them. It could even be as simple as knowing what town they grew up in or how old they are. I don't know why. I think my brain has a hard time grasping the unique personality of the music unless I have real world facts and a face to put it to. There are people, like John Mayer and Dave Grohl, who I havealways heard about and listened to their music. I never said they were my "favorite" until I searched up some interviews on Youtube or read an article. Artists say the art is the only thing that matters and should be able to stand alone. I beg to differ, by saying the presentation matters.

To me, they way you present anything, whether it be music or writing or a photo...it makes a difference. The personality of the person who created it will always be behind the art. John Mayer explains a little bit of his newest record "Battle Studies" in this video. Prior to watching this, I listened to the album countless times, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was one of those records that I had my 5 favorite songs, and skipped all the rest. It wasn't that they were bad songs, I just couldn't connect with them. So I skipped them...until I watched that interview. The concept behind the album as a whole made sense to me now. Maybe I'm a simpleton and I was supposed to find that out for myself, but I like conversation and getting to know people, so hearing it strait from the source was more than beneficial.

So, if you ever become famous, know that there are girls (and boys too, although I'm sure not as much) like me that are so passionate about your work that they want to learn as much about it as possible. Take the time to be real with your audience and connect with them. That's all art is, really...it's communication. I just like taking it to the next level.

"John Mayer Has a TV Show" is not the name of a song (although, if I ever become a famous musician, perhaps I'll write a song titled that as an ode to the Great Bagel Banger himself). I deviated from the rules a little bit, but I think this was a good cause, and I promise it has relevance.

"John Mayer Has A TV Show" was a TV show that only ran for 1 episode on VHI a few years ago. It got picked up again by CBS and is in the works. Hopefully, it will be on the air before Mayer continues growing his hair out. See how much presentation matters?! Anyways, he does some funny things and pokes fun at his fans a little bit. To me, this is the epitome of making a connection with an audience. Not every musician needs a TV show, but just letting people see the true personality proves to be worthwhile. And everyone knows teenage girls dominate the record industry. Glad to know I have power over something!

This is part one. I behoove you all to check out part 2 as well. It will change your life.

Sleep All Day

This is me hitting myself in the face because I suck at keeping promises to myself. I don't want this to become my legacy, so this is where I stop all my bullshit.

I told myself in a previous blog post that I wanted to write everyday, even if it was just to say hello, just so I could feel accomplished and work on my writing. This sounds like a good enough goal for myself, right? Well, it was...until I didn't do it. I have no excuse as to why it's taken me almost a month to get back on here. The only week it would have been difficult for me to do it would have been the 9 days I was up north and forgot to bring my computer cord, so I had no way to charge it. The other days, however, those have no excuses. But at this point, it's really not here nor there. I can only move forward. Or turn the page. I live up to my titles :)

I want the focus of this entry to be on focus. I've been out of school for over a month now, and I haven't done a lot of the things I wanted to do. I went up north, I've spent a lot of time with friends, I got oral surgery...but then I look around, and I see people doing these amazing things with their summers. I have friends that attended or are currently attending prestigious camps, going to internships, or getting paid at their jobs. Right now, I don't really have anything I'm doing that requires me to keep a schedule like that. I feel unproductive.

Let me say something strait away...it's not that I'm unhappy. I actually really like not having set things to do and just chillin', as they say. But in reality, I need to grow up and find some direction. I need to start thinking that in a year, I will be preparing for college. I know next summer, I'll have a full time job with not a lot of wiggle room. This is my last chunk of time in the near future that I can devote to whatever I want to devote it to. I want to make it count.

For now, I am going to compile a list of all the things I want to do with my remaining 6 weeks, give or take:

1) Finish the books and summer assignments I have to do for AP Lit. I already finished How to read Literature Like a Professor (which was actually very good. You don't realize how much symbolism is involved in literature until someone writes a book about it.) and I'm almost done with My Stroke of Insight. I still have to read one more book and then work on the essays. Gotta keep those writing juices flowing!

2) Do more with my guitar. I take lessons, and I practice a lot, but I want to find people to play with. I don't necessarily want to join a band, but just find people to jam with. I miss the times Alex (a close friend and fellow guitar player) and I used to work on songs together. He's the first person that really pushed me to get better and encouraged me to play in front of people. He's moving on to college, so next year, I won't be seeing him as much, but I still want to keep that part of my life up.

3) Decorate my room. I've been working on this collage type thing over my bed for almost a year now, and I think it looks pretty cool, but there is still more I can do with organizing and cleaning it up. I'm a bit of a slob.

4) Work on my internship. My aunt set up an internship for me in Pittsburgh in August. I'll be living in her house in the city for 2 weeks and city slickin' it up. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone there and getting work experience. Plus, I get bank. Always a plus! This will be my "Summer Camp" experience of this summer, and I know I'm always more productive when I have to get up early in the morning (I'm a late sleeper, even when I go to bed early. For example, I went to bed last night around 10:30. I didn't get out of bed until around 11. That's not healthy, I'm pretty sure.) so this should be a good thing for me. Plus, Pittsburgh is the shit. Everyone should visit.

5) Finish my college applications. This is pretty standard. Everyone has to do it. Also, more writing experience. Yay!

Those are the big ones. Of course, I'll still be hanging with my friends and relaxing. But it helps to have a little bit more of a roadmap for the way I want to spend my time. Because I know, the day school goes back in session, that's the day I become stressed out. It happens every year, I've learned to expect and accept it.

I think I'll be doing a fair share of writing over the course of the rest of this summer, what with this blog (that I won't forget about again, I promise), my AP Lit stuff, college essays, and any other little projects I decide to take on for my own enjoyment. And as always, any tips I find, I will of course put them on here. Oh, and I spent a lot of time writing letters to Leah while she was at Interlochen (which I'm super jealous about), so that counts, in my book. I spent a lot of time crafting those letters, and I'm damn proud of them!

UPDATE: I tried emailing more writers, no responses. Matt Hires also didn't respond, which I'm a little surprised about, but he's a busy guy, so whatever. Most of the time, I can look up interviews with the writers I like and they have most of the information I'm curious about. I encourage that.

Writing this made me feel a lot better. I'm glad to finally be back on track. Also, my mom just gave me all 6 seasons of Sex and the City yesterday, and I watched a few episodes last night. I'm on my Mac right now, and I feel like Carrie Bradshaw. Makes me feel special.

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This is like a PS kind of thing. I didn't have a song in mind when I started writing this entry, so I just decided to turn on iTunes and listen to songs as I write, and the song I'm listening to at the end of writing the entry is the one that I would share and name the post after.

Turns out, that song is "Sleep All Day" by Jason Mraz. How fitting, seeing as a lot of this was about how unproductive I feel. Plus, there is my love of sleeping late. My iTunes account knows me too well.

Rockin' the Suburbs

Here are the little snippets of things about me, to set the scene for you all:

Name: Maddie

Description: High school student, brown hair, pretty average looking, Caucasian, rockin' the suburbs of Detroit.

Things I Enjoy: Forensics (the speech activity, not dead bodies). I've done it for 6 years now, and it is what has defined me in high school. Orator4lyfe. I play the guitar, and in the past 2 years I've become involved in theatre. I've done props, costumed 2 shows, and acted. It is quite the enjoyable experience, and I'm not looking forward to Spelling Bee (the current show I'm costuming) to end.

I also like the desert, yoga, and Ke$ha. I don't believe in stereotypes. My peers would tell you I'm fun(ny), chill, and/or a bitch, depending on who you ask. Adults generally tell me I'm responsible. I'm not sure who's right.

Things I Do Not Enjoy: Strange foods, waking up early, people who take themselves too seriously, people who don't have any common courtesy, nagging, cold weather, chronic illnesses, that song by Train about getting married (I think it's called "Marry Me". If I could punch that song in the face, I would.), math, gas prices, and judgmental people.

College Prospects: Washington University in St. Louis is my dream.

Best Friend: Leah (check out her blog, I follow it, and it's a lot better than mine.) She will come up a lot because she means the world to me and we've been best friends for years. She probably knows me better than anyone else on the planet. So, needless to say, she's my bestest buddy.

Relationship Status: Taken. I don't know if I want to refer to him by his real name on here, or use a fake name or something. When the time comes, I'll decide. But because he is such a big part of my life and my writing at the moment, knowing that I am in a relationship is good information to have.

Parentals: I have two, both are still married, and we all live together. I also have a brother. He is younger than me but also in high school. Jolly good fun.

I think that's a good jumping off point. As more comes up along this journey, I will elaborate.

Thank you, kind strangers (and Leah) for taking the time to read my blog. It means a lot.

Times Like These

So, it's been a while since I've been on here. Far too long, in fact. But I promise, it is not because I forgot or because I decided I didn't want to blog. Quiet the opposite, actually. As soon as school let out for summer this year, I hit the ground running with a musical I am costuming and helping backstage with. It is the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, to be precise, and I'm loving every minute of it. The show is phenomenal, and everything is coming together. I'm very excited for opening night tomorrow.

But I've been spending every day at the theatre for tech/dress rehearsals, and working on costuming issues on my off hours as well. This leaves me with little free time, let alone time for blogging and working on my writing.

I know what your thinking. I shouldn't be making excuses for myself, and I should be making time for this. Well, that is exactly what I have begun to do. No matter what I am doing on any given day, I want to have a post, even if it is just a hello and goodbye type of thing with a nifty song to go with it. I just want this to be a regular thing, so I must discipline myself.

Also, I know I promised writing samples and tips and all of that when I was using this platform as my final project. Well, turns out this blog site a) gives Mac's a hard time and b) doesn't allow you to copy and paste directly from a Word document. I'm still trying to figure out how to best share my work and work on the technical glitches, but hopefully that will be up and running soon.

I also feel like I'm rambling. At some point, I want to give a better picture of who I am and where I come from. I always feel like if I am reading something about someone or taking advice from them, it's nice to know little things about that person.

So my next post will just be little fun facts about me. Enjoy.

The song for this post is "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters are rad. Everyone should listen to and appreciate their music. This song is about slowing down and realizing what is important in life. I need to do that more often.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzmNRtIp8k

All Apologies

After I chose the topic of my project, and I read On Writing, I continued researching fiction. I flipped through the first couple chapters of Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway. As far as textbooks go, it wasn't boring in the least. She included lessons on grammar and how to improve dialogue, for example. But she included little side notes from actual fiction writers, which I found to be enlightening. It is always better to hear from someone that has gone through the process themselves.

After that, I tried to network and make a few personal connections. The first person I contacted was Jodi Picoult, author of the best-selling novel My Sister's Keeper, among many others. Her website is very user friendly, and she encourages fans to send her emails. I took advantage of her willingness to talk to people like me. I sent her an email, basically telling her that I love her books and that she is a major influence of mine, and would she be willing to answer a few of my questions about her writing process. I was not expecting anything to come back, but within a matter of minutes, with my email account still logged in, she emailed me back. I was beyond thrilled. I think it's amazing when famous people, or just people in general, just take the time to be nice, even if it is just to say "Thank you for supporting me."

Her response was very nice. She thanked me for buying her books, and for taking an interest in her writing, but she said that she did not have the time to answer my questions. She did, however, provide me with links to past interviews that she had done that may contain the answers I was looking for.

So, needless to say, that was a wonderful experience. I continued by contacting Matt Hires, whom this blog is named after, via Facebook. He as yet to write me back, but as soon as he does, you'll be the first to know. I know he's a musician and not a fiction writer, but this is just a little off-shoot of this project for my own personal enjoyment.

Contact, even if it is just all apologies and you can't really help the person...that's enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0drC8qVMRk

Falling Slowly

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8mtXwtapX4

"Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova contains a major sticking point for Stephen King in On Writing: adverbs, especially when attached to dialogue, like "...Biff said exuberantly". Many new writers think that by attached unnecessary adverbs, they are somehow making their writing better. The opposite is true, according to King. Adverbs clog up the writing and slow down the pace. It also goes against the rule "show, not tell" in writing.

Ever since reading this section in the book, I have noticed adverbs everywhere, from Lord of the Flies to my own writing to newspaper articles. It is important to note that the use of adverbs does not mean that the writer is inexperienced, but they do need to be used sparingly. If the same idea can be communicated through showing the audience, the adverb just plagues the writing.

My previous post touched upon this a tad, but King has a writing process that is unique and intuitively make sense. First, he writes one draft of a book, front to back, without sharing it with anyone. This makes sense to me, because the first draft is just that: a first draft. Write the first draft of anything for yourself. The world is not watching you. After that first draft, put it away and forget about it for a substantial period of time. Write another story, spend more time with your family, or anything else you were just dying to do while writing the first draft. Just get out of the 'writing' mode. This is a major point that I originally overlooked. Letting the draft sits gets you into a different mindset, and you are more likely not to give up on what you've wrote, or to think that it is not good enough.

After that, come back and work on the second draft. Don't throw away the first draft. There is always something worthwhile to take away from what you have written. King even tells a story that he threw away the first draft of Carrie, his bestselling first novel. His wife found it in the trash, read it, and knew that there was something special there. So, needless to say, after leaving the writing, don't ever throw it away before trying to make it better. This includes revising, editing, deleting things, and just cleaning everything up and having it makes sense. After the second draft is done, pick a few select people that you trust to read your work and give you concrete feedback. At this point, you as the author have a better understanding of the story, the characters, everything.

The main thing that I took away from this amazing book, aside from all of the grammar tips and interesting anecdotes from King's life, was that writing takes a heck of a long time. The pace of writing a complete novel is different from anything I have ever experienced. Its hard for a lot of people, me especially, to let go of the need for instant gratification, and just let go. Slowing down, then letting others read it, and moving forward from there will create a wonderful product.

Memories

This blog was created as a final project for my Honors Creative Writing class. Prior to the project, we were told just to write anything, and by the end, we had to have 100 pages total. It proved to be a very difficult task. Some days, the writing would come easy, the words just flowing over the page and everything seemed ok. Other times, I would go back and read what I wrote, and it just wasn't good enough. It didn't sound like me, and if someone who knew me really well read it, they would have been confused. Now that I have done more research and read more books, this isn't the proper attitude to have. The first draft is supposed to be crappy, and getting the thoughts down on the paper is important, not writing the greatest thing of your life. It will never happen the first time around, as I have experienced.

I started to panic. After I got to the 100 page mark, I thought nothing was worth revising, nothing was good enough for myself or anyone else to read, and all of my efforts for this entire trimester had been futile. I was stuck. Nothing was making sense, and I felt like I was just writing the same thing over and over again, about my own life, my boyfriend, my friends, my fears. Even though I know a lot of it was important to write and get down on paper, it still was not up to my high standards. The bar I set for myself for that first draft was too high, and I let it consume my thinking, and my writing suffered. I literally could not write anymore, I was just done.

So, to get myself out of the freak-out mode, I searched for a solution. Over Memorial Day weekend, I read On Writing by Stephen King, which was suggested to me by one of the greatest teachers I have ever had, Mr. R-N. I read it cover to cover that weekend, and it changed my perspective. I was ready to learn more and get a different perspective outside of my own little world and bubble.

I came back from that weekend, all of the seniors in my class were gone, and Mr. R-N gave us a new project. We just had to research and learn more about any topic in the world that interested and inspired us. I had already kind of been doing this on my own, so it was a natural step to just take what I had been doing on my own and continue with it for this project.

I've read books, looked at websites, talked to people face to face, and emailed writers about writing. I wanted to create a place where people, especially students, can come together and create a writing community. There is a lack of resources for teenage writers written by teenagers, so I hope this is helpful.

My first piece of advice, or "tip" if you will, also related to the title of this post. Memories will always be there, and no matter if you are writing a song or a fantasy novel, your own personal experiences will influence it. You can't change where you've been. A large majority of my first 100 pages were about my past and current situations, and it was important to get those things out before I tried to move forward and write about something different, like fiction. I tried to fight it for a long time, and instead of focusing on writing a great piece, I was focusing on sugar coating my own feelings. Memories are all we've ever known, as is said in this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmNp09jdghg

Let the memories in, and reflect on the past, and never let them slip away.

My name is...

There are a few clarification and housekeeping items about myself and this blog.

My name is Maddie and I live in Michigan. I am a high school student at the time of this post, and overall, my high school experience has been a positive one. I compete in forensics, and I'm active in my high school theatre program.

Regarding the blog, I'm going to keep one thing constant. The name of the blog and the title of every post will be a song title. Music is a huge part of my life, and it always comes up in my writing, so I consider it important to note. In every post I will either explain the significance of the song, a link to it, or both. So enjoy :)

"Turn the Page" is a song by Matt Hires. He is not very well known, but he should be. He's a singer-songwriter from Florida. I've seen him in concert 3 times, and he is one of the nicest people I've ever met. He is very personable, and is more than willing to meet with fans and talk to them about his music. He even friended my friend and I on Facebook after the last time we saw him. His connection to his fans and the people that support him makes him unique. He is a regular person with a unique gift.
This particular song title jumped out at me because this blog is literally me turning over to a new phase in my life, one where I reflect on what I learn and see in the world, and how to make my writing better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4sS06MpVP0

"My name is..." speaks for itself. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNPnbI1arSE

Crossroads

We begin...

This is my first post for what will hopefully be a journey that will continue far beyond the constraints of what this was created for: a final project.

I have been researching tips and techniques on how to make my writing better. My focus was fiction. I started by reading On Writing by Stephen King, and that set me off on this path to make my writing more enjoyable for myself and others.

This blog will be used as a forum for sharing helpful tips, providing links, and sharing my work in which I will implement the things that I have learned. Along the way, there may be a smattering of my own personal flair, ideas, music, pictures, thoughts, etc. I'm hoping that this blog doesn't end with this project, but keeps progressing as I learn new things. I have no idea what types of things will come up on this blog, or who will find it and read it, but feel free to give the link to anyone who has ever struggled with writing. I want to connect with people who are having similar experiences.

Along those same lines, if you are reading this blog, please please PLEASE leave a comment. I would love to hear not only what you think of this project and blog, but constructive critiques on my writing or sharing tips of your own would be much appreciated. Communication is a two way street, and I want to hear what my audience has to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg1pHeYmaQE

With that, we depart.