Life Update

Like I predicted, it has been a hectic month for me. I feel like I’m all over the place. And because I like lists, I’m going to use them to explain what I’ve been up to since the last blog post.


1.) I’ve been sick.

I got sick with a bad common cold (as in, I got all those “rarer” symptoms from the common cold virus…like pink eye). I lost my voice for a week and a half. My throat hurt. Half the time, I couldn’t breathe through my nose. I lost my appetite for two days. I’ve been coughing a lot. It was a rough ten days. Thank goodness for Dayquil for keeping me somewhat functioning during the worst of it. The sad part is, I’m still probably only 98% healthy now. (My right tonsil has not been normal for three weeks and I’m still occasionally coughing. Pathetically, I strained my back from all the coughing.)

Much to my family’s dismay, I’ve been stubborn at not seeing a doctor. What’s the point when there is no antibiotic/cure for the common cold? Eventually, the virus will run its course…which is always the hardest part.


2.) My birthday

I turned 24 years old in the middle of the month. Unfortunately, I didn’t do anything fun and exciting that day. It rained all morning and this was the time when my sickness was at its peak (the day after was the pinnacle of my entire common cold suffering).

Although, it made me realize that I’m basically halfway through my twenties. What in the world have I been doing with my life? The answer: Clearly not enough.

Also, look how much my stack of books has grown!

Yes, I did indeed get eight books for my birthday. And look at those pretty red pages of CROOKED KINGDOM! Sadly, I probably won’t read any of those novels until the semester ends.


3.) School

Trying to balance schoolwork while being sick is tough. You just don’t have the energy and would rather sleep. I feel like I’m still trying to play catch-up.

But at least I don’t have to read so much for my internship anymore. We have our own projects now rather than read submissions.

Also, I will have a guest blog post on my university’s literary magazine website! I don’t know when it’s scheduled to go up (if I did the math correctly, it might be late December/early January). I’ll let you know when it happens so you can head on over there and check it out.


4.) NaNoWriMo 2016

Yes, I’m crazy enough to participate once again this year. I literally have no plan of action. (I’ve been too focused on trying to get healthy and dealing with homework.) I guess I’ll resort to my usual…start by writing short stories and once something sticks, I’ll write that story for as long as I can.

Plus, there’s no point in trying to talk myself out of it. I got a taste of being a winner for the last two years and I’m determined to win again. Even at the sake of my own sanity.

At least I can finally stop feeling so guilty in my workshop class. When we meet up every Monday, at some point, my professor wants to hear how our writing has been going this past week. And every time, I tell her how I haven’t been doing much writing except for this class. (I do enough reading and writing for school. If I have any free time, I’d rather watch tv or something to give myself a break.)



I don’t know how some people do it. I’m a young, single person without a full-time job or responsible for kids (or any other big responsibilities). How do you get everything done without permanently raising your blood pressure? Either I need better priorities or I work too hard at being a perfectionist.

And speaking of being busy, don’t be surprised if I don’t post anything on this blog next month. NaNoWriMo will be occupying whatever free time I have. Not like I have a huge following for this blog anyway, so you probably won’t even notice.



P.S. Happy Halloween!

Edit All the Things

I’ve officially been back in school for a month now. And in that month, I’m practically reading or editing something every day.

In my advanced fiction writing class, I get 4-5 days to read six of my classmates’ short stories. You might think oh, that doesn’t sound so bad. But for me, I take my critiquing very seriously and it takes me an hour to read each story. And once I’m done, I have to write my editorial feedback letter to each one.

In addition to that, I also have an internship this semester. I intern for a small, independent book publishing house (I don’t feel comfortable saying the name on a public platform like this blog). For the past three weeks, I’ve been read the beginnings of manuscripts. My task is to explain what’s working and what’s not working within each piece, ultimately voting on whether the story moves onto the next round. So basically, my job is to weed out the poorly written stories.

Yesterday, this internship also started assigning me a novel to read/copyedit on my kindle. With these books, they were published years ago, but the publishing house is trying to convert them digitally. Unfortunately, by doing this, occasional typos pop up, so I have to report them.

Even with all that reading and editing, it’s not including my other class I have this semester. I’m part of the team that is working on my university’s literary magazine (we only accept undergraduate work; no submissions from our university). We’re working on our second issue, so it’s still a new endeavor, but we definitely have our work cut out for us. It’s exciting to see all the submissions piling up in our inbox, but most of it hasn’t been read it.

Basically, I’ll be very busy this semester. (Hopefully it’ll look nice on my resume because I’m graduating in December.) I’m not complaining (especially since I barely did anything in the summer and I felt like I lost some kind of purpose), because I actually enjoy doing all the editing; it’s just very time consuming.

And I feel a twinge of guilt as my pile of leisure books are piling up on my dresser again. There are only three novels right now, but my birthday is in three weeks, so it’s guaranteed to double in size soon.

…But who needs sleep, right?



P.S. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I had some kind of writing error within my post about editing?

Cemetery Adventure

I have lived in the same house for twelve years now. (We’re not going to count the four years I spent in East Lansing for school.) A ten minute walk away from my house is a cemetery. Technically, it’s two separate cemeteries, but you only know that because the iron gates are painted two different colors and there are two unique names next to opposite entrances/exits.

Over the years, I pass by this cemetery countless of times and hardly anyone ever visits. I point it out to whoever I’m driving with whenever I spy a car somewhere in its depths. The pathways are not paved inside these cemeteries. It’s just two parallel lines in the ground, created by car tires, that has been filled with gravel. The grass is somewhat long and patchy, the bushes overgrown. Majority of the flowers placed by the various headstones were artificial.

Earlier this summer, curiosity got the better of me. How have I lived this long in the area without once checking the place out? How old are the headstones in there? (From what I could tell, it looked pretty antique.)

So last Thursday, I finally walked over there. In the grand scheme of things, the two cemeteries aren’t that large of an area, but I was determined to check out each individual headstone. It took me four days (somewhere between an hour to an hour and a half for each visit), but I did it.

And let me tell you, the place was fascinating.

The oldest headstones are on the far right. As you go further in the back or more to the left (left = the other cemetery; the black-painted fence), the more modern the death dates become.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover there were a few people buried there who were born in the 1770s. Oldest person I stumbled upon was born in 1776 (and he lived to be 85 years old…you go, John).

I also figured out who the “power families” were in the early 1800s. Their surnames popped up quite often on the headstones. I imagined them becoming allies and enemies with each other, Game of Thrones-style. But, you know, as farmers instead of kingdoms.

I found three people who were born in New York in the 1800s, but then obviously died in the metro Detroit area of where I reside. Two more were born in Vermont. Their home state must have been very important to them, to have them engraved on their headstone. So why did they leave? Were they hoping for a better job? Land? Did they journey here with other families who were also buried?

I was also surprised to find two “Amanda’s”. Both were born in the early 1800s, so that shocked me. I thought it was a more contemporary name.

^This particular Amanda was born in 1832 and died in 1915. The main headstone that she shares with her husband is to the left of her individual one. Nice to see that I can still read her name quite distinctly, a century later.

Also, on a sadder note, there were more babies buried there than I expected. They were scattered all over the place. I saw two sisters (6 years old and 4 years old) who died within two weeks of each other in March 1878. I saw a couple of twins buried together. One of them was Brian and Bruce. Poor Brian didn’t make it through the night in September 1945 (stillborn, perhaps?). Bruce only lasted for sixteen days. There was a baby (I think he was two years old?) who died in the 1970s. At his headstone were little plastic baby shoes, faded in color but still fairly in good shape. A sibling (or some other relative) must have placed it there within the year because his mother was buried to the left of him; she died a decade ago.

I also encountered two babies who remained unnamed.

^I felt sorry for Julia. I imagine that she must have died in childbirth, buried with her nameless baby. Poor, too, because this is all that was etched on her headstone. Not even her surname.

I found his/her individual headstone on my first visit. Luckily, he/she was included on the giant family headstone, so I know Baby had born and died in March 1879. I also may have placed a small daylily flower on Baby’s specific headstone two days ago. How sad that Baby didn’t have an actual name. Of course, this was before I found Julia & Baby.

Roaming around the nearly abandoned cemetery by myself (the two men mowing the lawn on the other end of the cemetery doesn’t count), trying to visit every single person buried there, it made me think about what kind of life story each individual person had. Did they reside in the Detroit area all their lives? How did they meet their spouses? What did they do to earn a paycheck?

I was especially curious about what my town must have looked like in the early 1800s with these families. (One of the “power family” must have been the founder of my town – or at least, very important – because the cemetery was his surname + the “ville” suffix.)

I wish I had a flower to place on everyone’s headstone. That they have not been forgotten.

I hope they didn’t mind my presence there for the past few days.



P.S. Through the power of google, I found out that I was correct with my theory. The “power family” was indeed the founder of the local village (now lost in time). The land was purchased from the government in 1826 and they came from New York. Who knew? Yay for history!

P.P.S. Gah! I start my next semester of school in tomorrow. Can you believe it’s already my last semester before I earn my second degree? Crazy.



Note: I am aware that in some cemeteries, you might have to ask for permission to take photographs. And never post headstone photos online of people who are still living. I did a little research on my particular cemetery and it appears that my photos should be okay. (I hope.)

Nature + Goals + Words

Get ready because this post is coming to you in three (!) parts.

Part 1: Pokémon Go and finding inspiration

I know, I know. I can hear you sighing deeply and thinking, “Amanda, why must you talk about that app? Don’t you think the game has saturated the media enough?”

And to you, I will admit that even I am growing tired of reading/hearing it everywhere. But give me a chance to explain…

My sister created an account on day one and I officially became her co-pilot when it came to her catching Pokémon. I would accompany her as she would drive around subdivisions and it was my job in the passenger seat to catch any wild Pokémon that jumped out. I joined her on her various walks (partially because it’s probably not healthy how often I don’t leave the house and I could use the exercise).

We explored three different nearby parks and tramped through a trail behind a nature center. The scenery was so pretty I couldn’t help but take some pictures on my phone.

Can you tell I like taking pictures of water?

Discovering new places and visiting nature really gave me some inspiration for my July writing project.

Part 2: July writing project

Remember how in my last post I had promised myself to write every day and obtain at least 31,000 words by the end?

Yeah…

On July 1st, I didn’t know what to write. However, I did have a kernel of an idea and I figured hey, why not? But because I am a planner rather than a pantser when it comes to the writing process, I had to sit down and do a little planning in terms of fleshing out characters and story arcs.

About that…I may have taken the brainstorming step a little too far. I say that because I didn’t actually start writing until July 9th. The ninth! (But on the bright side, I had a great start when it came to the world-building and creating complex characters. Plus, I even drew a map on Paint to help me out.)

I spent the first three days of actual writing by reaching the 1,000 word mark. After realizing that 1,000 words was rather easy to achieve, I increased it to 1,200. At some point during the month, it graduated to at least 1,300 words.

When I woke up this morning, I only had 2,162 words to go. And because I am a stubborn person, I made the decision to reach my 31k goal. Two thousand words are do-able in one day. No way was I going to admit defeat when I was thisclose.

So despite being eight days behind, I officially reached 31,295 words in total.

My adventure/low fantasy story actually worked out very well for me. In June, I was worried that I’d grow bored of my stories and end up creating multiple short stories to try and stretch to the 31k goal.

I need to have more faith in my abilities.

Part 3: Vocab Words

Do you remember a blog post I created last July? You know, the one where I expressed my love for previously unknown words that I came across and try to memorize them? (If you need to revisit this blog post, just find it in the right side bar. Go on. I’ll wait for you.)

I’ve started this practice up again.

While I have been reading books these past couple of months, I’d input these new words into a notepad on my phone and carry on reading, knowing I’d eventually research their definitions at a later time.

These past three days, I have finally researched their meanings. I even made flashcards out of them!

The reason why they are green is simply because that is the only kind of index cards I have laying around in abundance at my house. They remind me of “play” money, much like the version my siblings and I would use as children whenever we needed currency for our many imaginative games, haha.

I’ve also tried to find ways to insert a few of these words into the July writing project. Just because I can. (Additionally, I’m hoping by doing this, I’ll memorize the words quicker.)

Maybe I’m weird for voluntarily creating flashcards to memorize words. But I guess we’re all weird in some way.




P.S. Happy HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD book pub day! (Yes, I’m eagerly awaiting my pre-ordered book to arrive in the mail. Just like a bajillion of other people.)

Diving Back In

If you remember in my last post, I mentioned I was trying to ease back into reading books that I wanted to read rather than what was required for my classes. I stated the tower of books on my dresser stretched to ten (plus three books on my Kindle). It was down to seven, I believe, once June hit.

Well. I then added four books to that tower throughout the month of June. It seemed like every time I finished one, another was added.

But! I found that once I started reading these wonderful books, I churned them out quickly. (Not because I needed to shrink my book pile down as quickly as possible, but because the stories drew me in.)

And in the end, I managed to start and complete seven books during the course of June (for a total of 2,398 pages).

So now I’m down to only three books in stack. Hooray!

Are you confused by the math yet?

I feel like June was “Month of Stories” for me. I obviously did a ton of reading and in between that, I took six days off of this activity to binge-watch the first two seasons of The 100 (I need season 3, Netflix!). Also, this past Sunday marked the end of Game of Thrones until next year. (What am I going to do with myself on Sunday nights now? The Walking Dead, which is also on Sundays, doesn’t start up again until October.)

It’s safe to say that I accomplished reading again since school ended. However, I have yet to do any writing.

And when I say that, I mean, other than all the stories I had to write as class assignments, I haven’t written anything for myself since November. November! When I finished and won NaNoWriMo.

It has been seven months.

This is not okay.

I found, in the past, if I go 2-3 months without creatively writing something, I become restless to type something out. But then I freeze up, scared to write again. As if all of my skills could fly out of the window in those short months.

For the past three years, I had a writing project to do in the summer. This year, I got nothing.

So yesterday, I made the decision that I’m going to do my own version of Camp NaNoWriMo (which occurs during the month of July). It’s a good motivator in order to force me to write again.

I have no idea what I’m going to write about, though. I get the feeling that if I tried to focus on one story, I’ll end up repeating what I did last November. You know, start with one story, hit a road block and no longer become interested in it, and then start a new story until I find one that sticks.

My goal is to write at least 1,000 words a day during the month of July (simple math, total end goal for the word count: 31,000). That’s do-able, right?

I guess we’ll have to see what the month of July will bring.




P.S. How in the world is tomorrow July already? Half of the 2016 year is over? Whaaaat??

Randomness 3

Guess who has a blog post of completely random things once again? (It has been an interesting month so far, not being in school and all. But because of that, I feel like my thoughts are all over the place, hence this seemingly aimless list.)

Things that I have been enjoying lately:

1.) Summer weather!

I can just see all of you right now. Rolling your eyes at me. Look at this girl, desperate for a topic to talk about. The weather! C’mon. To you I say, try living in Michigan. The temperature was averaging in the forties about two weeks ago and then – bam! – we hit 70s/80s all at once. What happened to the temperatures in between?

Anyway, because of this, I’ve now begun to do all those fun summery things. Like plant flowers (and unfortunately, pull a ton of weeds). And bike rides. And go to the beach (my sister and I plan on doing this tomorrow).

2.) Commencement Speeches

Okay, I can see those eye rolls again. But seriously, there have been some seriously good commencement speeches this year. Here are my two favorites:

a.) John Green’s Learn to Listen:

“You are about to be a nobody. And that’s important, because when you become a somebody, if you can remember what it was like to be a nobody, you won’t be a jerk.”

b.) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Speech:

“The simple truth is this: Every story you choose to tell, by necessity, omits others from the larger narrative…This act of choosing—the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out—will reverberate across the rest of your life.”

3.) Books

I’ve slowly been trying to get back into reading. After being forced to read particular books every day for eight months for school, I wanted to take a break. (Although, to be fair, half the time they weren’t all that bad.) I had a stack of ten books sitting on my dresser that I’ve collected since last October (not to mention the three free books on my Kindle). I managed to plow through three of those books, so my pile is finally shrinking…but I’m also anticipating a new book in the mail to arrive sometime this week.

So many books, so little time.

And in case you were curious, I’m currently in the middle of UNBOUND by Neal Shusterman. Gotta love the creepiness of the Unwind world. I’m enjoying the various short stories that go into the backstories of various characters.

Also! I am super pumped for Veronica Roth’s new book that will be published in January (ugh, why so far away?).


4.) Music

During the end of April, my laptop surprised me and went through a mandatory update to Windows 10. In doing so, it downloaded all these songs that I had hidden away and forgotten about on iTunes and reappeared on my computer music file. So now I’ve been listening to all these songs that I had previously brushed aside and it has given me something new to listen to.

Also, I was pretty excited when Skillet released their two new songs last week in order to promote their next album being released in August. I’ve been listening to “Feel Invincible” and “Stars” on repeat since then.



So, yeah, that’s basically what I’ve been up to this past month. (Okay, not really. I do somewhat have a life. Sort of.)

Something Beautiful

First of all, I’m officially on my summer break now! Huzzah! I can’t believe that I’ve already completed an entire year of school. Only one more semester to go…

You know how sometimes you get told certain things over and over again that after a while, they lose their impact? But then one day, it hits you like a train and you rediscover this particular fact/advice all over again like it’s the first time? (I feel like there must be a word for this feeling in the English dictionary…I just don’t know it. If there is, please enlighten me.)

I’ve read plenty of online articles and author opinions over the years that mention how all writing is never wasted. Even bad writing. Because you can learn something from every piece that you write.

But for some reason, this idea popped into my head last night and I’ve been mulling it over ever since. Maybe because I’ve been reflecting about these past few months? (Does anyone else think back to what they’ve learned after a semester of school? No? What about the kind of people that you met while meeting in the same room multiple times in a week? Anyone?)

At any rate, I thought back to the stories (and poems) that I wrote this past semester and there are few of them where I scratch my head and wonder, “Why did I write that? That’s not a good reflection of the work I can do.” But at that time, I must have, because I wouldn’t have turned it in as an assignment otherwise.

It made me wonder about what I saw in those pieces. What was it that made me cringe? It’s usually different for each work, so I can’t make a sweeping statement about them for you, but it’s interesting to think about.

And I definitely have to get better at not feeling embarrassed about my “bad” pieces.

Because, yeah, you can argue about what is considered “good” writing and you can point out story inconsistencies and grammatical errors and the list goes on and on. (The trick is to just have as little amount of faults as possible. Yes, all first drafts are pretty terrible. But some written work is more likely to be published than others. Why am I getting ANIMAL FARM flashbacks??)

However, I believe that there is a nugget of goodness in all writing. The act of writing takes work and there’s a part of your soul that you inserted into the piece that made it yours. And that is beautiful.

This doesn’t simply apply to writing. Basically any craft can have this viewpoint.

I’m trying to remind myself that, no matter what I write, I make beautiful things. I have something to learn with even the stories I would rather lock inside my laptop forever.

So my advice: Make something beautiful!