In Memoriam, F.M. Megan

My horse Megan had to be put down today. She developed a strange form of colic, probably within the last 24 hours, that completely backed up her digestive system. The vet said we would have found her dead this afternoon if we hadn't seen her laying sprawled on the ground in pain and made an emergency visit this morning. She's been my one of my best friends since I was 12, about 8 years. I cried in sympathy a week or two ago when my roommate and her family had to put down her Golden Retriever that they'd had seemingly forever, but you just don't understand it until you've felt it for yourself. My emotions have been close to the top all day. As part of my grieving process I want to share some pictures of her with you.

This was taken soon after we first bought her, when we were both 13. I'm holding her and my brother Rick is sitting on her.

This is actually my riding instructor, RaNae, riding Megan in a Western Pleasure show before we met. Isn't she just beautiful?

This is a photo I took two weeks ago to put with Megan's ad on KSL.com (which is no longer online). For a 20-year-old horse she still had pretty good form. My sister Katie is holding her.

I also think instead of a USU Press memoir (although it's a good idea, and I might come back to it), I'm going to revisit a memoir I wrote as a high school sophomore in my first Creative Writing class. It's about when I first met Megan and our riding lessons together. Since I wrote it when I was 16, it needs work. It's 8 pages long but it's all summary, and it only covers our riding lessons before we bought her, which is one summer out of 8 years. I think there's some room to play with there. My idea is to revise each paragraph or section for detail, description, dialogue, imagery, stories that highlight the ideas or detail, etc, and then I'd like to post some of them here for your enjoyment and critique. Let me know what you think.

How about a memoir of interning at the USU Press?

Does that sound like a good idea to anyone? I interned at the USU Press over spring 2009 semester and I just started another three-credit internship there, which will hopefully end before school starts. I've been thinking a lot about my last post's plea for help in writing inspiration (and I got several comments--thanks!), and I remembered today that one of the example Masters projects on the Emerson College website was a memoir of life in London's publishing houses, and I thought, I could write a memoir of life in a publishing house. I love the USU Press! Since I'm always saying that, why not? The thing is, I'm not sure how valuable such a memoir would be or how many people would be interested in reading it. It probably wouldn't be book-length, but I don't know anything about the market for short memoir/short nonfiction. I know short fiction is usually published in anthologies, either of the author's work or of several authors' work, but I don't think they do that for short nonfiction. Would it be something I could publish in a magazine?

And what things should I include? Of course my first impressions of the place and people, my original goals for each internship, maybe part or all of my five-page essay that I wrote at the end of the first internship to get the credit, talking with John about grad school and increasing my editorial skills. Maybe some things about the culture of the press, like talking endlessly with Sandy (the secretary) about religion, school politics, allergies; the day Michael (the director) came out to my desk, which is on the other side of the small building from the offices that he, Dan (designer), and John (editor) work in, to inform me that I'm supposed to say hello when I come in because otherwise he only hears the door close and thinks there's someone waiting out there. The main thing I suppose would be about the stuff I worked on and the things I learned, but at this point I can't directly quote anything (and wouldn't want to if it's from a book) and I can't really remember any stories to tell from my spring internship. The one about Michael happened on Friday, which is why I remember it.

If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

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?

FINALS ARE OVER!!!!

Thought I'd let you know how happy I am. :)

The Victorian Literature test wasn't very bad, actually. The only problem is that I always run out of time! This happens to me on every test in McCuskey's classes! There were 40 quotations from Middlemarch, 20 of them spoken by and 20 of them describing one of 20 listed characters, and we had to match the character to either the two things they said, the two things describing them, or one of each. Piece of cake. Then we had to choose three of four essay questions, which were all based on the major themes of Victorian culture that we discussed in the first half of the class: Industry and Class, Victorian Ladies, Victorian Gentlemen, and Science and Religion. I answered the last three, and my essay on Victorian Ladies was pretty well-done for a thirty-minute essay if I do say so myself (actually it took 45 minutes, which is why I didn't finish the Science and Religion question...oops).

Now that school is officially over the only problem is that I have nothing to do, except crochet and read and watch movies and be lazy in general. And water and mow the lawn, prep and plant the garden, weed the landscaping, etc but I had a massive headache so can you really blame me for not doing anything? I didn't think so. I suppose this will give me time to work on some of my goals that school kind of prevented, like practicing the piano more regularly and practicing my French, because I really don't want to lose that skill, but I need a job! *insert sound of frustration* This weekend I'm going to do some serious yard work, help my friend Christina move into our apartment, and visit my parents' house in Kaysville. If I don't have a job by Monday, I guess I'll just have to apply at grocery stores and bug the theatres to get a job.

So Christina moves into my apartment tomorrow, which is AWESOME because not only is she super cool, but my other roommate Ellie is going to Orlando (among other places) for a WEEK AND A HALF!!! If Christina wasn't going to be here with me, I. Would. Go. Nuts. I like the idea of living alone, but I don't think I could handle it right now, and my not having a job yet would make it exponentially worse. Christina moved about half of her stuff into our house today, including her DVDs, which I helped her put on the shelves in the box window. I saw that she has Becoming Jane, which I have wanted to see again for awhile, so I said, "Christina, I love you." A little while later I saw she had an Avatar: The Last Airbender DVD and I told her how excited I was that she likes Avatar too. She said she only had the one DVD, so I told her that I have them all, and she said, "Christina, I love you." :) Ah the joys of roommates.

My movies take up three of the four shelves on the right. Christina's are on the top two shelves on the left. Ellie has two DVD's still in their cases and the rest in CD cases on the second shelf up on the left. In the middle is our lovely picture window, which is closed because it faces the setting sun and I didn't want to blind you.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who wished my luck on my exam this morning! Let me know what you think about my plans, what your plans are, life in general, anything and everything. I want this blog to be a way of letting others know how I'm doing and of facilitating communication between us about the things we have in common, so please, comment away!

Silver White Winters That Melt Into Spring...

No, unfortunately, I have not watched The Sound of Music recently, because I don't own it. But the song "Favorite Things" popped into my head today and that line stuck. I'm so happy that spring is finally in Logan!

A few days ago I found a patch of tulips growing in our front yard!

And today they looked like this! I'm so excited! I love flowers.

Now, as everyone knows, it's finals week. For our "final" in my Poetry Writing class, we just met during our scheduled examination time as if it were class and discussed submission tips and read aloud some of our poetry before turning in our final portfolios. It was a fabulous experience. As a writer in a writing class, I'm aware of others' writing because we workshop, but I don't really think about them much because I'm concerned with what I'm writing. I never realized how many brilliant poets surrounded me in that class. One girl read a poem all about the letter X: how it only says its own sound above a door in an "exit" sign, how you can see it in the body of a cheerleader, how it replaces a cartoon figure's eyes to signify death, and how it changes a person by putting itself in front of their title (ie, ex-boyfriend), among other examples. I never would have thought to write a poem about a letter! Another girl, K.J., shared a poem about Joseph Smith, Jr.'s First Vision of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ from the point of view of the tree he knelt next to. It was amazing. I realized that religious themes crop up in my ficion writing--in fact, religion has been a major theme in my two most recent stories--but for whatever reason they never seem to show up in my poetry. Any guesses why? I have no clue.

As far as Fiction Writing goes, our "final" was a major revision of one of the two stories that we wrote this semester, which I started and finished all yesterday afternoon before turning it in early this morning. I got a lot of useful feedback for my second story, "Crisis of Faith" (see that religious theme? it's even in the title!), which was about an LDS girl's attempt to reconcile religion with a dating issue and which I didn't really like once I'd finished writing it, but even though I think better of it now because of a great workshop, I decided to revise my first story. "Unexpected" was about a girl in an American tour of Italy and how God and art history work in her life in one day and it needed a lot of work, which got crammed into one afternoon and evening. Hopefully it turned out all right and I can pull off an acceptable grade in that class.

And tomorrow is my final in Dr. McCuskey's Victorian Literature class (for which I have not studied...!), after the roommate tradition of IHOP during finals week! It really shouldn't be that difficult of a test; he said it was mainly to prove that we'd read Middlemarch and could relate it with the other stuff we read in the first half of the semester. Well, wish me luck!

Additions to my Bookshelf

Before I get to my summer reading list, I have some other books to tell you about. First is the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, the journal of creative writing for the International English Honor Society (the only Greek organization to which I belong). I haven't actually started reading it yet, but I'm way excited to read it, and hopefully I can begin next week as a break from finals. This yearly publication has a good smattering of poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction, and one award every year for each.

Next is the Sigma Tau Delta Review, the journal of critical writing, which I'm also very excited to start reading. I find it strange thought that the Review is smaller in thickness than the Rectangle, as if the judges value creativity over criticism...? Maybe that's just me. The goal this year was to incorporate some modern criticism of Middlemarch into the essay I gave to Dr. McCuskey and submit it for publication to the Review but the deadline is April 30, and I have finals and revisions and portfolios to work on, so...I might not make it into the 2010 journals. Hopefully I can write and revise some really good critical and creative work in the next year and submit next April. That will be my last chance to submit because the journals only accept work by enrolled students.

So this is my plug for Sigma Tau Delta. There are tons of English majors at USU but our chapter is so small! Please join! Come to the activities! Network! Make friends! Have fun! Get scholarships! Beef up your resume! Submit your writing and maybe get published! A one-time fee gets you lifetime membership, and a subscription to the journals as long as you're an enrolled student. We have lots of great ideas for activities and things to help each other in our various disciplines this year, so come see what it's all about! If you're interested in finding out more, visit the website at www.english.org/sigmatd.

The other addition to my bookshelf is Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage. I've decided to do my best to study the good word in the morning and at night, so it will feel like it's a greater priority in my life than it might be if I only read before bed. Last night I read chapter 4, which proves the antemortal existence of Christ by the significance of his names; for example, "Jehovah" (and the related Hebrew word for "I Am") means "Self-Existent One" or "The Eternal." Remember when Jesus tells the Jews in John 8 that "Before Abraham was, I Am"? Talmage tells us that "The true significance of this saying would be more plainly expressed were the sentence punctuated...as follows: '...Before Abraham, was I Am'; which means the same as had He said--Before Abraham, was I, Jehovah." I thought it was so interesting to prove the premortal divinity of Christ by using scriptural evidence of his names and titles. I highly recommend this book, and I haven't even finished it yet.

A little bit of everything

Thanks to Dr. McCuskey, my summer reading list now also includes John Fowles' (sp?) The French Lieutenant's Woman, which is a (short) Victorian novel written in 1969...how does that work? Anyway, he said it was really great so I think I'll try to give it a shot.

So my internship at the USU Press is officially over...*sigh* This weekend I will write an essay about my experiences there in order to get credit for the internship. Before today, I thought that I would be changing my emphasis to Literary Studies (which doesn't require elective credits like Creative Writing), and getting a 40+ hours per week job over the summer, and therefore volunteering at the Press like I have been except without the official title of internship, just to learn more about publishing and copyediting, but then, my fellow English Creative Writing major Curtis (I think that's his name...) and I were talking today about Creative Writing when Dr. McCuskey's class got out early. It would honestly just be easier for me to finish school in Creative Writing. For Literary Studies to work, the stars would have to align perfectly, and they're not likely to do that. And I've heard good things about the classes I have left to take. But I've already signed up for Lit Studies classes, and now Access is down so I can't see or change what I'm registered for...!

Anyway...(can you tell ellipses are my new favorite form of punctuation?) My Middlemarch essay was due today so I took the evening off from doing any work, since yesterday was stressful enough. I was up till 3 am writing it! But it's okay. I'm done. I'm watching A&E's Pride and Prejudice, one 50-minute video cassette a night, which means that my crocheting is coming along nicely. I'm so excited to make this afghan! Many thanks again to Sarah for teaching me this useful art.

The finished pattern will be 100 or so of these hexagons stitched together like this.

This is one of the hexagons. The colors from the inside out are green, pink, yellow, and green This one actually has 6 corners! (some of them have only had 5, unfortunately)