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.