Updating my life

It's been an eventful few weeks, which is my way of explaining without groveling to apologize for the fact that I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts in English.  The final weeks of the semester took up a lot of my time.  It was all worth it.  All of the hard work, the late nights, the last minute writing sessions -- that includes writing an eleven page paper in six hours the day that it was due.  In one week I wrote a twelve and a thirteen page paper.  I wrote two three page papers in French (oui, deux) and read an entire book in French (okay, a children's book, but still!).  The best part of all of these final classes: I think the only book I actually read in its entirety was the French book.  I wrote papers and took essay exams having read nothing but Spark Notes, lecture notes, and using mostly class discussion points.  I read parts of the stories, (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, Comus -- Milton class, The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, Parliament of Fowls -- Chaucer class) but I certainly didn't read them the whole way through.  Did I mention I wrote papers for these?  Now, granted, I read most of "The Knight's Tale" in a modern translation, and I had read most of Paradise Lost before, so I re-read the parts I needed for my paper.  It was the first semester that I've truly skated through, and I am still proud of myself.  I did make good grades, I just stopped killing myself to do it.  It was an amazing last semester.  Two great moments: singing Bon Jovi in Chaucer class (the whole class) and yes, it did fit with the story, and winning the prize for best Middle English reading of a Chaucer passage -- I won a book of Middle English romances.  I love Middle English romances.  I'd had this professor for four classes; he knows me well, especially since he taught my King Arthur class (dream class), and he picked it out just for me.  It was a great last semester, but I am so glad that school is done.  Especially since it has given me more time to focus on my...

     Novel!  Hooray!  Okay, so I didn't make my deadline of April 29th, but I do have permission to send queries to a couple of agents once it is complete.  I am so close to being finished.  "The end" is a tantalizing reality at this point.  I have been hand writing everything since my last word count of 40,000 words, so I don't know where I'm at right now as far as word count, but there are a lot of words in my notebook.  Actually, in my second notebook.  Yes, I had to start a new one!  That was an exciting milestone.  Never before have I used up an entire notebook.  I have probably a dozen journals and cute notebooks just laying around with only a few pages written in.  I'm something of a procrastinator (no really, read through my school paragraph again.  why do you think I didn't read all of the books?) and I'm very bad about starting projects without finishing them.  I have the best intentions in the world, I promise!  But I always let something get in the way and the next thing I know I'm left with a stack of project supplies and no completed product in sight.  To finish a notebook, and to be so close to finishing this novel, are huge accomplishments for me.  I'm very excited.  And apparently, I have to get busy and finish in the next few days.  A good friend of mine, and fellow author, Dorathea Maynard (http://twitter.com/theplotpoint) has been saying that I am going to beat her when it comes to finishing our novels.  Let the record show that I did not start this.  I was perfectly fine with letting it go, keeping it casual, and not turning this into anything competitive.  The next thing I know, she and I are having a Twittersation (conversation + Twitter = Twittersation), and I don't remember what she said, but I told her that she had just made it competitive.  So now, apparently, we're competing to see who can finish her novel first.  I would just like to say, I'm very close.  Very, very close.  As in, it's time for the climax, people.  That's how close I am.  I'm just saying.  

     Other updates: the blog has obviously been moved from my private domain here to Blogger.  I've been massively active on Twitter, and I love it.  I've been connecting with some amazing authors from around the world.  For instance, check out Nik Perring (http://twitter.com/nikperring).  Thanks to Twitter, I found his book of short stories in the Amazon Kindle store, Not So Perfect.  I read the first short story, "Kiss" and fell in love with this book.  The other stories I've read so far are just as incredible.  They are in turns sweet and haunting, with a touch of the fantastic that just adds to their beauty.  I had to force myself to put the book down so I could finish all of the cleaning I had to do.  (If you want to check out the book, here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=nik+perring&x=0&y=0 )  I never would have found this book if it weren't for Twitter.  Such great networking fun over the past couple of days.  I love connecting with other writers and hearing about their own adventures in the writing process.

     The poetry that was on the blog has been moved to my website: http://umbravita.com/My_Work.html so there's another quick update.  I'm probably going to keep my poetry there, but be on the lookout for short stories, samples from the novel, Slayer, and possibly an online series to be posted here at the blog.  Also coming soon, a discussion of the "get stupid" factor, and the revelation of a long-hidden opinion about something rather controversial (although it's not at all what you're thinking.  It's only controversial because it could cause controversy for me, and not even that much).  Now, I'm going to go eat some eggs.  C'est magnifique!