It's been awhile...I feel sheepish

Sorry everyone that I haven't blogged regularly for some time. I haven't blogged at all for awhile! Summer is just a weird time warp for me: I never know exactly what day it is because I'm not in school; it seems like no time passes and there's never any deadlines, so I simply don't do the things that the regularity of school facilitates, like blogging and writing and reading.

Anyway.

Quick update: I have a job!!!! I'm a cashier at the new South Logan Walmart. I kind of feel like I was brainwashed instead of informed at my orientation and training, but it's better now. Not too bad a job to have actually.

I have also started reading a book I borrowed from my mom, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith during my breaks at work. Love it. It takes place in Botswana Africa and has calm, soothing, almost folklore-ish feeling to it, a lot like Chinua Achebe's writing.

Good news: I've started another internship at the USU Press! I love the press. If it were possible I would stay in Logan and work there for a long time. Alas, it's unpaid. But it's okay because John (my supervisor and the executive editor of the press) is going to train me to be a professional proofreader and copyeditor, so I can advertise myself on-campus as a freelance editor, and maybe even advertise elsewhere. Yay for good editing experience!

And the biggest (and scariest) news of all is that I'm thinking about grad school and getting my Masters in Publishing. Right now I'm researching two schools, Portland State University in Oregon (where my brother lives) and Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts. Big cities, expensive schools, far away from home--I'm terrified. Since my brother lives in Portland, I'm less scared of PSU, but lately I've been leaning toward Boston, where I know no one and nothing! So if anybody knows anything about Boston or Emerson College, I'd love to hear it!

Another plea for help: summer is a time warp for me, which means there are no deadlines like there are in school, which means I never write anything except random comments on Facebook. I really need to write! at least something every week. I need to practice for school, for grad school application essays, and for grad school resumes. To get into publishing, I really should be published, and do that I need to write. Anything: poetry, fiction, nonfiction (memoir, travelogue, etc). If anybody has any writing prompts (other than my two books, In the Palm of Your Hand for poetry and The Pocket Muse for a bit everything), or even better, a motivation technique to take the place of deadlines, I NEED TO HEAR IT!!!! Please feel free to help me out!

Also, quick poll: should I write my stuff (assuming I write) and then find magazines or other venues in which I would like to publish my stuff? or should I find the mags/venues first, and then write for the kind of publication they are?