Friday, October 30, 2015

NaNoWriMo Approaches! (again!)

On Sunday, I will once again be writing a novel in 30 days (or trying to, anyway). This is my sixth year doing NaNoWriMo, and it may be my last for a while - simply because, if I'm successful, I'll have three full first drafts of novels, but only two-thirds of one of them actually typed up. I love NaNoWriMo, but I also need to fiddle with my drafts to make them less drafty if I want to get them published.
So time to do my last NaNoWriMo (for the foreseeable future) with a bang. I'll be trying to update 5-7 days a week, but, as last year, if I get on a roll and can't update every day, I hope you understand.

This year, my novel is a post-fairy-tale sort of thing: what happens after Sleeping Beauty wakes up?

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Yea or Nay: Pumpkin Spice Latte

Over Fall Break, I was able to try the Pumpkin Spice Latte for the first time I can remember. I may have ordered it before, but if I did, I don't remember it.
Because, dear readers, I may have a controversial opinion about the Pumpkin Spice Latte (considering that I identify as a white female between the ages of 16 and 23): I don't really like it too much. Furthermore, it's not the most pumpkin-spice-y coffee that I've ever had, nor is it my favorite pumpkin spice thing ever.

First, my favorite pumpkin spice coffee is the one at my local coffee shop. I usually order coffee with caramel syrup in it, and the coffee beans are flavored, rather than having the added flavors in the syrup. Because of that, you get more of a "pumpkins and spices and caramel and coffee" type of flavor, rather than "pumpkins and sugar and maybe a spice thing?"

Second, my favorite Pumpkin Spice anything is from Bath and Body Works. The Pumpkin Cupcake Hand Soap sold there had become almost problematic for my roommate and myself. We didn't want to destroy it by any means - we wanted to eat our hand soap. We didn't eat our hand soap, but we wanted to.

What, dear readers, is your favorite pumpkin spice thing? Is pumpkin spice overrated? Should Apple Cinnamon Caramel be a thing instead?

Monday, October 26, 2015

I'm back... with words...

I know I haven't posted in approximately forever, but here we go - I'm finally posting something! YAY!
As we go into NaNoWriMo season, I have to think about words a lot. This post is about why I don't like the word "cute" being used super often - in certain contexts, I understand that something definitely is cute. Babies are cute. Kittens and dogs and fluffy animals are cute. But overuse? That's a completely different manner.
There are a few reasons for this. The simplest is that I don't like "cutesy" things (except for kittens and puppies), and using the word too often out of that context is kind of irritating. When I was 17, I got the chance to go to Switzerland with my Girl Scout troop. Nearly everyone there used the word "cute" at least three times a day (or so it seemed). Couldn't they think of another adjective? Is something "adorable," or "picturesque," or "super sweet," or ANYTHING? WHAT KIND OF CUTE DO YOU MEAN? Sometimes they didn't mean "cute" at all, but it was a go-to adjective to describe anything that the individual user liked - my mom was particularly fond of this usage of the word. (I've been guilty of using go-to adjectives as well; mine have often been "awesome" or "cool.") When my mom and I went with my friend and her mom to Italy after the program was over, I made a deal with my mom - every time she would say "cute," she would pay half a euro.
This frustration with the usage goes a little bit farther back than just that trip, though, and a little bit more than just being my mom's go-to adjective. Earlier that same summer, I went to a two-week Shakespeare camp with an abridged performance at the end. There were three groups of kids: the really young kids were maybe 9-11 years old; the middle schoolers were maybe 12-14, and the high school kids (my group) were 15-18. Each group had different "classes" during the day - acting, movement, stage combat, and text analysis, as well as a two-hour rehearsal at the end of the day. The final performance varied depending on the age bracket - the little kids did short scenes and monologues, the middle schoolers did a history play, the high school kids did a tragedy. During our session, the show was Romeo and Juliet.
This being a summer camp, people rarely played the same role for more than a scene or two. Every girl played Juliet, and most played the Nurse and Lady Capulet as well; every guy played Romeo, as well as a few girls. There were sometimes cross-gender castings; I played Tybalt and killed Mercutio (and then died).
That particular scene was my favorite. It's one of the only times I've truly felt "in character," which is difficult psychologically to explain if you've never done it. When Tybalt gets stabbed, Wild Card's brain knows that M is a nice guy. Wild Card knows that this is exactly how the scene is supposed to go. But for a minute, all that was in Wild Card's brain was Tybalt thinking, "YOU ASSHOLE YOU JUST STABBED ME!!!!"
When Tybalt gets stabbed, there's a moment of tense silence; all the cheers die out. That was the moment I thought Romeo was an ass. Then I was ready to smite Romeo - one flesh wound can't kill me! (It did.)
At the end of the performance, one of the directors whispered, "you're such a badass." It was gratifying to think that someone else - especially a director - thought I had actually fought well. When I asked my parents what they thought of the performance, my mom said, "It was cute."
No. The 9-year-olds overacting Shakespeare is cute. Puppies are cute. Kittens are cute.
One of your child's directors thinks she's a badass. The other director thinks your child should apply for Yale's theater department. Your child just got stabbed in one of the best fights they've done to date and you think it's cute?
Again, it was my mom's go-to adjective. She wanted to confer positive sentiment, which I appreciate. It was also a time when I wanted to be anything but cute - I had just gotten a second-degree black belt. I didn't want to be cute.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Writing Things

This semester is one of the few times I was assigned a book from high school, and then got assigned the same book in college. I've been assigned Othello twice before - once in senior year of high school, and once when I took a Shakespeare class.
This time, the book is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Reading this book again is quite an interesting experience - if only because I can now say "I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE!" while reading the book. It's not necessarily referencing other literature - it's referencing mythology, death, and yarn - often at the same time!
Obviously, when there's a crossover of three of my favorite things (yarn, mythology, and literature), I get excited.
Then I get nervous.
If this is an eligible idea for my capstone - the 20-page paper at the end of the semester - it has to be original. How many other people understood the same reference I did? How many writers would have made the same argument as I would?
These are the things that worry me.