Trying to Be Useful

I.

Last week, my mom came over to have us repair something. She had rediscovered a wooden motorcycle figure in her basement (which she took from an ex-boyfriend that she had eight years ago), and upon finding it, she decided she should give it to one of her coworkers because her son collects motorcycles. (The boy is only two years old, so I don’t see how he could appreciate or care about such an item, but whatever.)

Seeing how I seem to be the glue-all-the-broken-items-that-break during the Christmas season, my mom naturally showed me this motorcycle of hers. The riser kept moving up and down when it should only be moving side-to-side. But most importantly, both brake cables were detached from the bike. My mom showed me the places where the cables were supposed to attach to the front fork, and then she promised to pick it up whenever she would return sometime the following week.

(And if you were impressed about all my motorcycle terminology, don’t be. I looked at diagrams to help me out while I was writing this.)

II.

For the past two weeks, I have been on fire – for being motivated and productive, that is. I’m sure it’s not too unusual at this time of the year. After all, the year is still brand new. But lately, I’ve been doing quite a bit of cooking. (Granted, I also cooked often while my brother came home for his Christmas break. I have this tendency to make large meals, so I feel less bad about myself when there’s another person around to eat.) I also read one complete book and one manuscript. (But, alas, my internship is drawing to an end now.) Additionally, I’ve been trying to get myself on a better sleeping schedule.

But what really has me going lately is that I have an itch to clean and declutter ALL. THE. THINGS. Everywhere I look around the house, I just want to attack it. I feel like I’m that one character in Finding Nemo. You know which one I’m talking about. (Hint: His name is Jacques.)

I have this strong urge to pick everything up and throw it out. Get rid of all the random piles and junk lying around once and for all. But my dad would get mad if I did that, so I can’t be so impulsive.

My latest project is the library. I cleared out one of the desktops, organizing all the scattered papers into a brand new accordion binder. Placed the essential office items off to the side of the desk (like a stapler, a multitude of pens in a holder, and a calendar). Bought two small shelves to hang above the desktop computer. (Punching holes into the previously flawless wall to hang them was quite the struggle, though.) Artfully placed various knickknacks that were lying around in the room onto the shelves. I even kept with a theme for the items!

You could almost pretend I did a room makeover…if you didn’t pan out and looked at the rest of the room. There are still two piles of boxes and papers overflowing on the floor. The other computer desk is surrounded by old bills. One bookshelf has two of the shelves stuffed with all sorts of random photos stacked on top of one another. All the DVDs are overflowing, because the new DVD shelf that is going in the basement hasn’t been built yet. (All the supplies were bought, though. But the basement and its remodeling is a whole other story.)

The entire house just needs a major update, but I can only do so much. After all, it costs money. Also, I have to think about how many more years I plan on staying in my childhood home. Gotta move out at some point. It’s probably going to take a few more years at my rate, but I’m not sure how much to invest in a house that’s not really mine, you know?

III.

On Saturday, I tackled the wooden motorcycle figure. First, I super-glued the riser. I think there may have been a knob beneath it in order to keep the rod in place, but it was clearly missing. Either way, the glue worked. The front of the bike can still move from side to side, and now there’s no danger of it becoming detached from the rest of the body.

Next, I moved onto the two cables. The right plastic cable conveniently had a small notch in the front fork where I could insert the cable inside, but the left cable did not have one. I was perplexed by this. Why was there one indent and not two? How was I supposed to attach the other cable?

My mom had gestured to me that each cable end belonged onto the fork, so seeing how there wasn’t a notch for me to connect the left cable to, I decided to create my own hole. I grabbed a screwdriver and kept twisting it, hoping I could carve into the wood something similar to what I saw on the other side of the motorcycle. I even took a hammer to it. Eventually, I announced that the homemade indent was good enough and began gluing the cables on.

I started with the right cable, fitting it exactly where it was supposed to be. I then applied glue into the newly created hollow. As I was holding the cable in place, hoping for the best, my eyes skimmed over the body of the motorcycle. On the left side, right above the foot peg, I noticed something peculiar.

“Amanda,” I said to myself, sighing. “You’re an idiot.”

There was a small hole on what I now know is the rear brake lever. That left cable was never meant to attach to the front; it belonged on the motorcycle’s body. Luckily, the glue hadn’t dried yet, so I quickly attached the cable into its proper place. As for the homemade indent, the gorilla glue I had used trying to attach the cable had filled the hole up.

I guess that’s what I get for becoming so focused on one task. I forget to take a step back when I encounter a problem, trying to plow ahead to force a solution when the solution was there the whole time. And for thinking my mom knew what she was talking about.

IV.

I wonder if that two-year-old knows more about motorcycle parts than I do now.

Superlatives for the Books I Read this Year (2018 Edition)

Well, it appears that another year has come and gone. One of my goals for 2018 was to read at least 22 books. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, I didn’t quite hit my mark. I ended the year with reading 20 books instead. I was feeling a bit disappointed with myself until I discovered it was still more books than I had read in the last two years, so at least that’s something?

(Do all the manuscripts I had to read for my internship count? I mean, it’s technically in pre-book form. No? They don’t count? Darn.)

In any case, my annual “Book Superlatives” post is a fun way for me to glance through and remember the novels I read this year. Overall, I read some pretty good books. Only three of them I thought were, “Blah.” Most of them, though, seem to belong to a series. And speaking of series…



Best Sequel

BURIED HEART by Kate Elliott

Not sure if I can call it a “sequel,” since it’s the last book in a trilogy, but it’s not the launcher, so I’m counting it.

I found Elliott’s desert-fantasy setting rich in its world-building while also tackling issues of colonialism appropriately. I thought the series ended in a nice way, even if not all the characters made it out alive. But overall, it had more of a “happy ending,” which I was not exactly expecting for its genre.

Runner-up: THE DAZZLING HEIGHTS by Katharine McGee 

This was the second book in a trilogy, and I felt like it captured the same essence of the first book without being a carbon-copy. (Even if both books ended with a character dying, which is preluded to in the opening pages of the book.)

The Only Stand-Alone Fiction Book I Read

GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS by Melissa Bashardoust

This is a fairy tale adaption story of Snow White, written in alternative chapters centering around Princess Lynet (Snow White) and Mina (Stepmother). Half of Mina’s chapters are written in the past, explaining how she wound up at the castle and ultimately marrying Lynet’s father. This novel definitely showcases the sometimes complex relationship between a mother and daughter.







Best New Author To Me

THIS MORTAL COIL by Emily Suvada 

There were only four authors that I read this year who I was reading for the first time, and Suvada was a really nice surprise. THIS MORTAL COIL was her debut, and the sci-fi book made my geneticist heart happy. (Fun fact: Before I decided to pursue writing, I had seriously considered becoming a genetic counselor. Even bought GRE practice books to get myself into grad school for it – which, unfortunately were useless because I never applied to any graduate programs in the end.) I thought the concept was creative, the plot had many twists and turns, and the idea of code and genetics playing such a large portion of the story was refreshing.




Runner-up: CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber 

I don’t read many books centering on a carnival, and this fantasy spin on it was intriguing. The world was written vividly; special attention was placed on the colors.











Most Creative

THE LANGUAGE OF THORNS: MIDNIGHT TALES AND DANGEROUS MAGIC by Leigh Bardugo

This book is a collection of six short stories, all of which are inspired by folklore and fairy tale. (You don’t have to read any of her Grisha books to understand the world, even if she sometimes makes references to Grisha countries.) My favorite story would have to be, “When Water Sang Song.” It’s the longest story of the six, and it’s based off of the Little Mermaid story – but the protagonist is the Ursula character.

This book won the superlative because of its illustrator, Sara Kipin. The stories alternate in either dark blue or rustic red font. But what makes the novel really cool is, as each story progresses, the images along the pages’ border increases until you finish the story, which is when you’re awarded with a two-page spread of a picture. I like to go through them like a flip book, haha.



Longest Book

LIFEBLOOD by Gena Showalter 

Unlike the last two years, Bardugo’s book did not win this category. Instead, Showalter’s novel clocked in at 476 pages. Which is too bad for me, because this was one of the books in the “blah” group I mentioned earlier. 

And in case anyone was curious, I read a total of 7,715 pages during the course of 2018. Therefore, the average is 385.75 pages/book. Surprisingly, despite reading three more novels than last year, I only read 193 more pages.

For next year, I’d like to take another stab at trying to read at least 22 books. (It just won’t be one of my resolutions.) All I know is that I currently have 25 unread books sitting on my dresser, and the pile is getting ridiculously tall.

As always, too many books, so little time.

NaNoWriMo '18 (aka: I Should Stop Doubting Myself So Much)

It’s already been two weeks since NaNoWriMo has ended. Two weeks where I’ve been able to take a breather and not constantly glance at the clock, wondering how much time I have left in my day to fit my daily writing in. Ah, the panic that is NaNoWriMo.

This year, I really leaned in with the idea of “block scheduling.” This practice is basically where you “block out” certain hours of your day to commit to an activity before you more onto something else. Each block is supposed to last only 1.5-2 hours. Sounds like micromanaging to some people, but I would rearrange my “writing block” depending on what I had going on for that day.

Anyway, I knew I needed to set aside two hours’ worth of time to work on my NaNo daily, so I usually blocked out those hours in the evening (which is nothing new). I made it very clear to my family that I needed that time to write, so if they wanted me to do something with or for them in the day, it had to happen before I started to write.

This system worked quite well for me. There were 4-5 days in November, though, where I would write an hour after midnight, so I didn’t have to write so much later in the day (and it still counted toward my word count). I was just very busy during those days, and I didn’t want the added stress of trying to cram two straight hours of writing in between everything else.

I wrote every day. Also, I decided early on in the month that I had to write at least 1700 words/day instead of the typical 1667 words/day. Because apparently I still like to be ambitious with my writing. [insert eye roll here]

In the end, I finished NaNoWriMo with a total of 53,061 words. Not only did I win for the fifth year in row (half a decade!), but I beat my record from last year by 843 words.

(Ignore the word count total at the top. When I went to validate my novel on their website, it tacked on extra words to my NaNo. I go by the number that my Word document tells me.)

Here’s a graph that displays my daily word count rather than an accumulation:

As you can see, I really didn’t have to write so much on that last day. Especially since I had already reached 50k the day before. However, after I got my 1700 words in for the day, I noticed how close I was to 53k, and I made it my goal to hit it. I also had a pretty busy day on November 30, so guess whose after-midnight writing helped carry her to the finish line?

My average writing time was 1 hour, 46 mins. Surprisingly, I never wrote beyond two hours. Although, on November 2 + 3, I was one minute shy of writing the full two hours.

I ended writing eight stories during the month. Literally half of them were in the fantasy genre, so I guess I was just in the mood to write fantasy. Ten days was the most I spent writing on one story – which was a manuscript idea I had tinkered with last year but never really sat down and wrote more than 700 words for. Unfortunately, two of the stories I had left unfinished before I moved onto the next one. I just hit a road block with the plot, and I lost interested in taking the time to figure out how to end it properly.

So overall, this year’s NaNoWriMo went very well. I made a new record, I wrote every day, and I didn’t feel like I was scrambling for the majority of the month, trying to come up with something to write. I think I got some sleep, too. And here I was on Halloween, anxious about how I was going to tackle my NaNo this year. How silly of me.

As usual, here’s my annual grainy photo from my webcam with me and my lovely Winner’s Certificate.

P.S. I feel like I should get a bonus point for also writing a poem early in November. Second one this year, so I guess I’m good now until 2019, lol.

P.P.S. I spent the entire month listening to a wide variety of Sufjan Stevens songs every day. I feel like I need to acknowledge him for keeping me so focused and motivated while writing. Thanks, Subaru.

It's That Time of the Year Again

This is not a drill! I repeat: this is not a drill!

In less than twenty-four hours, it will officially be November 1. You know what that means?

NaNoWriMo will be upon us once more.

I have done zero preparation for it so far. I was hoping to sketch out the plot of at least one story, but I never got around to it. The only thing I’ve done is revisited their website and logged into my account, checking things out from when I visited last year.

Like every year, I’m staring at the upcoming NaNoWriMo season with a feeling of trepidation. As in, why do I keep putting myself through this stress once a month every year? Will I have time to win, let alone write for 2-2.5 hours/day?

But then I remind myself how I managed to win two years ago when I was also a full-time student. Not only did I have a writing class, but I also had an internship to deal with on top of NaNoWriMo. Yet somehow, I still won. Of course, I also remember all those times I sat in my university’s library and cranked out words during the free time I had in-between classes.

I also pushed through two months of writing continuously every day for my Spring Writing Project (SWP), so if I can do that, I can do one month again. Except I usually tried to write at least 1400 words/day, whereas with NaNoWriMo, I have to write at least 1667 words/day.

Speaking of my SWP, I haven’t written any sort of fictional story since then. And I finished that project five and a half month ago already! Time certainly flies.

Therefore, my only plan for NaNoWriMo so far is to employ my usual tactic: Write a bunch of short stories and hope that something eventually sticks. It’s been so long since I wrote something creatively, and I definitely feel like I need a warm-up.

No idea what I’m going to write tomorrow, but nothing works your creative muscles more than improvising on the spot! (At least, that’s what I’m saying to myself to make me feel better.)

Still trying to figure out how to fit in a large chunk of writing every day into my schedule. In years past, I tend to write in the evenings. That worked well for me, except for the fact that I sometimes felt like I was racing against the clock to get those words in before midnight. So now a part of me is thinking about getting up early and write at least 834 words in the morning. Except I’m not much of a morning person, so I’m not sure how exactly I can force myself to wake up earlier.

The other option, though, is to write those 834 words after midnight. After all, it still counts for that day, even if it means I go to bed late. I actually did this strategy during my very first year of NaNoWriMo. (Ah, sophomore year of college. It seems so long ago.)

I guess we’ll all see how everything works out when it ends on December 1.

Also! Speaking of December, just like in past years, I plan to be absent from this blog for the entire month of November. All of my free time will be dedicated to marathon writing.

Therefore, see you next month with whatever’s left of my sanity! (And hopefully I’m not too sleep deprived.)



P.S. Happy Halloween!

^I carved this on a pumpkin yesterday. I didn’t mean for the cheetah to look kinda old and grumpy, lol. Spots are tedious to whittle, by the way.

A Long Road of Writing

Sometime last week, I found myself browsing the “stories” folder on my laptop. I originally clicked on this folder because I was recently thinking about an old story of mine, and I wanted to re-read it for fun. I couldn’t remember when I last read this short story, but I wrote it back in 2012, so I wanted to see how it has held up since its creation.

But after reading that story, I began locating other older short stories that I had written. Stories that were at least four years old. And as I was reading them, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cringe.

For the most part, the plots for these stories were still pretty solid. My issue was with the writing itself – mainly, the grammar. I was cringing so hard at all the dialogue punctuation errors. And even though I had moments where I wrote specific details about the characters' surroundings, I could definitely do a better job at creating a more vivid scene. Also, some of the stories felt too rushed and could use some slowing down in order to let the story breathe.

Of course, once I finished my trip down memory lane, I had to read a short story that I wrote last fall. Sort of like a palate cleanser. What a difference my writing has become.

Sometimes it’s difficult to see improvements in my writing (or anything in general) when I compare them to more recent works, but seeing how they stack up to a piece from multiple years ago made me feel strangely proud of myself. Like I actually have come a long way, despite feeling like I still have a long road ahead of me.

I still haven’t re-read my Spring Writing Project, though. I wanted to wait a couple of months to let the story rest, so I could read it with fresh eyes. But now I’m starting to realize how seldom I revisit old manuscripts. I think it’s mainly because I’m afraid of how terrible it might actually be written, and I don’t want to believe that I spent all those hours writing it as wasted time. (Even though I’m aware that no time is actually wasted when I’m writing – practicing a skill eventually leads to masterpieces.)

And to think, in two weeks, I’ll be participating in my eighth year of NaNoWriMo. I refuse to look back at any of my NaNo projects from 2011-2014. Just thinking about them and how awful the writing might be makes me cringe.

But despite all of the wincing, I will never remove these documents from my computer files. I remember how hard I worked on them at that time. I never delete a story, just in case I might mine its plot for a completely new (and better written) story for a later time.

More often than not, though, these stories simply make me smile. No matter how old I was, I was still making time to write.

Autumn = New Things

I used to think spring was the season that represented newness, change. After all, it’s when the plants begin to bloom after the cold of winter. Lately, however, I’ve pretty much embraced the idea that early autumn is considered a time of change in my life. (Maybe it has secretly been that way all along – I mean, the start of a new school year always begins in autumn.)

Quite a bit has been happening in my life in the last two weeks, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until I sat down and brainstormed possible topics to write about for this blog post. I was surprised to discover that there have been ten different occasions where some new change had transpired. Ten! With everything going on, no wonder I feel like the days have blurred together.

To give you an idea of what kind of new changes I’ve been experiencing, I’ve compiled a brief list below. (You don’t get all ten, though. Gotta keep some things private on a public blog, you know.)

1.) The “summer” part of my internship officially ended on Sept 21. (I submitted my last assignment on the 19th.) However, I signed on to be a continuing intern, so I’m still with the press. The “fall” session begins tomorrow. Therefore, I basically had a break for a week and a half. It was nice to use that time I used to proofread and just read a book for fun.

2.) Speaking of which, I started Book #19 on Sept 20. I’m roughly 54% complete with THE KNOWING by Sharon Cameron. I’m really enjoying it so far.

3.) I also met my new bible study group on Sept 19. Most of the people (like myself) were in this group for the past year, but now there are five new girls, and three of our former members had to jump into another group due to scheduling conflicts (except one - she left because she’s now officially a leader of her own group). Additionally, I met my brother and sister group three days prior to that. Surprising for an introvert, I like meeting new people; I’m just terrible at the small talk that comes with getting to know someone. But I’m looking forward to hearing about their lives in the next coming months.

4.) and 5.) My sister’s birthday was last week, so we’re now officially the same age. Quarter of a century. She also picked up her brand new car that day. (It was time to retire her sixteen-year-old car. It was falling apart.) It’s odd to see such a different car sitting behind mine on the driveway.

6.) I had my annual eye doctor appointment yesterday, and even though I’m an avid contact-wearer, I picked out a new pair of glasses. (This was the last time I’d be under my dad’s insurance, so I took advantage of my eligibility.) I still really like my light chestnut brown glasses that I chose four years ago already, but now I’ll have a black/dark tortoiseshell pair. Thank goodness my prescription hasn’t changed in years (my eyesight is bad enough), and now I can alternate glasses at home. It reminds me of my high school days where I used to rotate between three different glasses depending on what day of the week it was, haha.



So yeah. Autumn may have just started, but I’m beginning to feel its effect on my life. The trees around here haven’t quite changed colors yet, but if you look closely, some of the very tops of tall trees have leaves that are beginning to look rustic. I find myself wearing a light jacket now. (I forgot how much I dislike the cold. But I like fall fashion the most, so I don’t mind wearing layers and jeans instead of shorts.)

Also, my sister’s birthday kicks off “birthday season” around here, so I’m back to doing All The Birthday Celebrations. And before I know it, NaNoWriMo will show up, shortly followed by the holidays.

With all the new changes happening lately, I began to internally categorize everything as if it were a book. You know, like how each story starts with the inciting event, which triggers everything else in the story? I tried to pick the “inciting event” within my own life from the last couple of weeks, but instead I only narrowed it down to three changes. Basically I have multiple “story lines” going, depending on which chapter direction you want to follow.

But hey! Life itself is quite complex, so my comparison can only go so far.

I’m trying to embrace all the changes, though. I’ve had periods in my life where I felt like everything was moving at a standstill so at least all the new occurrences tell me that my life is actually moving forward. Even if it’s typically at such a slow pace. Like how it takes a few weeks for a tree to transform into brilliant colors before shedding its foliage. Until all that’s left is its sturdy structure.

Kerrytown Bookfest 2018

Last Sunday (September 9), I took a trip out to enemy territory Ann Arbor to attend the 16th Annual Kerrytown Bookfest. It’s basically an all-day celebration of independent presses and bookstores (plus book-related arts and crafts were sold). I had never attended before, but since my current and former internships at a publishing house were going to have a booth there, I decided to check things out. After all, I figured it would at least be nice to physically meet the editors.

When I left my house that morning, the sky was overcast and threatened rain. I was worried it might downpour by the time I arrived in Ann Arbor. All the booths at the Bookfest were underneath tents, but it was still outside – and I hate being outside in the rain. It only sprinkled briefly during my drive, so I saw it as a good sign. The drive itself took me longer than my GPS had predicted, but then again, I had taken the wrong exit at one point and had to turn back around. Needless to say, I’m still terrible at directions and prone to getting lost. But I eventually got there! (This could easily be said as a metaphor for my life.)

The Bookfest was really neat, though. I made 3-4 rounds to really take in all that the booths had to offer. I think I spent more time gazing at all the craft items being sold than at actual books, haha. In the end, I only bought a bookmark for $2. There was even one booth that was not only selling homemade notebooks filled with homemade paper, but the vendor was periodically making the paper at the table. I wish I got to witness it; watching her make paper would have been intriguing.

As for the publishing presses that I personally know, I went over and stopped by my former internship place first. Unfortunately for me, the publisher was not there. She decided to stay in Colorado so that was disappointing, but I understand why she didn’t fly all the way over to Michigan for this. Instead, I spoke with the three girls manning the booth as representatives. (Well, one of them didn’t talk to me. She just listened.) One was an intern for them three years ago, and the other girl was a current intern. It almost felt like a gathering of interns, past and present.

Conveniently, three booths away was where my current internship’s location was. The editor was busy talking to someone else when I arrived, so I actually talked with her husband first. Opened up one of their upcoming fall books that they were promoting, because my name is credited on the inside as one of the proofreaders. Once the editor was free, she invited me behind the booth and we chatted for a good 15-20 mins. One of the things we talked about was what my tasks would be as I transition into a continuing intern. We expressed how relieved we were that it hadn’t actually rained.

At 2:00 p.m., I attended a seminar about YA books. I feel like I’m pretty well-versed in this genre, but I wanted to hear what these authors had to say. There were three authors who were on this panel. One of them actually grew up in the Ann Arbor area. As for another one, I actually own (and obviously read) a trilogy of her books! So I was pretty thrilled about that – even if I felt a little guilty about not reading Joelle Charbonneau’s newest three books.

(The guy sitting to Charbonneau’s left is Caleb Roehrig. He sounds like he would be a cool guy to have as a friend.)

At 2:30, it started to downpour. The joke was that now no one was going to leave the seminar now, thanks to the safety of our large tent. The session only lasted forty-five minutes, so I think that’s my only complaint about it; I wish it lasted a bit longer. Afterward, all three authors were available to sign things. I half-contemplated about standing in line, but I didn’t want to risk spending money for their signatures. Especially since I have never read books from the other two authors.

At that point I was hungry, and I had to think about heading out soon. I feel like I walked through half of downtown Ann Arbor in the rain, trying to find some sort of café to eat dinner at. I finally found an opened sandwich place that I’ve never been in before, and I was quite pleased with the food. It was also nice to rest my feet for a little bit, for my shoes had ripped up my heels from the day before, and I had to keep reapplying a Band-Aid on my worst scab.

But I couldn’t dawdle too long, because I had to be somewhere at 6:00 p.m. Luckily, it stopped raining at this point, so the drive wasn’t too terrible. I was just tired of driving when I pulled into the church parking lot at 5:25.

Overall, I’m glad I went to the Bookfest. It was nice to meet at least one of the editors of the publishing presses that I’ve interned for. I just wish the drive to get there was shorter. And maybe for the weather to be a little bit nicer.