The entire world would be shocked at the grade I got on my calculus test today: a D+. Yes, for the first time in her life, Paige Foreman got a D+ on a final exam. I'm definitely not proud of it and I hope it'll never happen again.
My math teacher assured my class that F's and D's are normal for calculus, and she even said that my grade (sadly) was one of the highest she's seen in a calculus class at my school. Still...I couldn't help but feel depressed because I spent a lot of time studying for this test. In P.E. I would be doing the treadmill and figuring out calculus problems.
It's not only that. I love calculus. With the exception of geometry, it's the only math class I've ever really liked and to be that horrible at it is really depressing. It just goes to show that I can love derivatives all I want, but that doesn't mean they'll love me back. It doesn't mean I'll have a natural talent for intergrating.
It means that I'll just have to work even harder at figuring out those math problems. I don't think I'll ever take the time to get really good at calculus since I'll be an English major. However, if I decided to go to RIT and dive right into pre-med, I would have had to spend the whole summer with a "How to Ace Calculus" book and graphing calculator.
That's if I cared enough to and I'm not sure if I do. Writing seems to be my calling and not math. I know some writers have had to work really hard at learning to be good at writing. Writing was not their natural talent, just as calculus is not mine, and they had the stamina to keep pushing on even though the thing they loved fustrated them.
I really do admire those people for their strength and willpower. Trust me, there are some times I wish I had half of that willpower.
That's my thoughts on my math test. Thank god I got a 95% on the physics test or I would be a wreck!
With finals out of the way, I am now focusing on studying my valedictorian speech. The governer of the state of New Mexico will watch the speech...
No pressure at all! Yeah, right.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
I'm already a writer! What now?
I've wanted to be a writer ever since I was eleven, but the truth is, I already was a writer a long time ago when I wrote my first novel. I already am a writer.
So what is my goal? To be published! I'm looking up how to publish my book, but Google doesn't really say how I get into the publishing business. So I compare myself to other aspiring-to-be-published writers. They apparently all have blogs so now I have a blog!
But no one reads my blog! There's only one fourteen-year-old that reads this and occasionally I show posts to my friends. That's my entire audience.
How sad. That just goes to show how introverted I am. If I was good with people and everything, I'd be diving head-first into the writing world, but people kind of scare me. In order to be published though, I must deal with people no matter how much I don't want to. For the first time in my life, I will have to figure out how to be popular becuase the well-known people are the ones who get published.
Also, there's another problem I have with the publishing industry. You're not writing for you, you're writing for everybody else. You start to become insecure and wonder if so and so will like the story. You try to figure out what they may not like and try to correct it, but you realize that what you did was not fixing anything, but making it worse. Ick!
No wonder J.D. Salinger drank his own urine.
When I get insecure, I just hand some of my manuscript to someone else to look over and ask if anything needs fixing.
Just writing about the publishing industry makes my heartbeat quicken. There should be a college degree specifically for authors that want to learn the ropes of the publishing industry. I will think of a name for that degree later.
-Sigh- I'm a writer. Yipee. How do I become more than just a writer?
So what is my goal? To be published! I'm looking up how to publish my book, but Google doesn't really say how I get into the publishing business. So I compare myself to other aspiring-to-be-published writers. They apparently all have blogs so now I have a blog!
But no one reads my blog! There's only one fourteen-year-old that reads this and occasionally I show posts to my friends. That's my entire audience.
How sad. That just goes to show how introverted I am. If I was good with people and everything, I'd be diving head-first into the writing world, but people kind of scare me. In order to be published though, I must deal with people no matter how much I don't want to. For the first time in my life, I will have to figure out how to be popular becuase the well-known people are the ones who get published.
Also, there's another problem I have with the publishing industry. You're not writing for you, you're writing for everybody else. You start to become insecure and wonder if so and so will like the story. You try to figure out what they may not like and try to correct it, but you realize that what you did was not fixing anything, but making it worse. Ick!
No wonder J.D. Salinger drank his own urine.
When I get insecure, I just hand some of my manuscript to someone else to look over and ask if anything needs fixing.
Just writing about the publishing industry makes my heartbeat quicken. There should be a college degree specifically for authors that want to learn the ropes of the publishing industry. I will think of a name for that degree later.
-Sigh- I'm a writer. Yipee. How do I become more than just a writer?
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Romance...How Awkward
Earlier today, I was watching a conversation two teachers were having and it sparked some writerly thoughts. They were talking about student relationships here at school and how they can go...Err...A little overboard.
"We were very close to seeing something happen," one teacher says.
"Yeah, I swear, sometimes I think couples are practically making babies right in the hallway," I add.
The other teacher just laughs hysterically, like she normally does when something is funny or even when nothing at all is funny.
Anyways, there are a lot of relationships at my school that just aren't healthy, just like some relationships in YA novels aren't that healthy. A classic example is Edward and Bella in the Twilight books. Edward is very controlling of Bella and Bella doesn't know how to be happy without Edward. In "New Moon," she jumped off a fricking cliff just to hear the guy's voice. There's something wrong there.
So in my YA books, I try to set a good example for teens. At least one heroine is strong emotionally. In "The Dead and Dying Embers," the strong heroine setting a good example was Skye. If one character was falling apart, she was always the one to pick up the pieces and show them the right way to do things. If there even is a "right" way to do things. She was a good example for everyone.
Until she got a boyfriend, that is. One day, I was writing another chapter in the story and everyone was at a ski resort close to Denver. Skye and her boyfriend ended up in a hotel room together and...I stopped writing because I knew where things were headed. I started yelling at my characters inside my head.
"Really, Skye?! Really?! You're going to have...that, with him?!" I scream at her.
"Yes," she replies.
I scowl. "Fine! Have it your way." I begrudgingly write the rest of the chapter. I didn't put any mature content in the story though, I just put in a very subtle, "love the night away." Okay, maybe it's not THAT subtle, but I'm not ruining anyone's innocence, am I?
Am I? Maybe I'm just ruining my own. I have only had one boyfriend and that relationship wasn't really a relationship. We barely had conversations! I called him Mr. Oh. Here's what our conversations looked like:
Me: (asks a great question)
Him: (answers and says nothing else)
Me: (Not sure what to do so I provide my own answer to the question, hoping a conversation will start)
Him: Oh.
So writing about relationships, for me, is really awkward since I've never really been in a relationship myself. I know what I've learned from other people's relationships and books. So for my character to have such an intense relationship and I have to put down the words for her is really scary because I am pretty conservative.
So much for Skye (and me) being a good example.
"We were very close to seeing something happen," one teacher says.
"Yeah, I swear, sometimes I think couples are practically making babies right in the hallway," I add.
The other teacher just laughs hysterically, like she normally does when something is funny or even when nothing at all is funny.
Anyways, there are a lot of relationships at my school that just aren't healthy, just like some relationships in YA novels aren't that healthy. A classic example is Edward and Bella in the Twilight books. Edward is very controlling of Bella and Bella doesn't know how to be happy without Edward. In "New Moon," she jumped off a fricking cliff just to hear the guy's voice. There's something wrong there.
So in my YA books, I try to set a good example for teens. At least one heroine is strong emotionally. In "The Dead and Dying Embers," the strong heroine setting a good example was Skye. If one character was falling apart, she was always the one to pick up the pieces and show them the right way to do things. If there even is a "right" way to do things. She was a good example for everyone.
Until she got a boyfriend, that is. One day, I was writing another chapter in the story and everyone was at a ski resort close to Denver. Skye and her boyfriend ended up in a hotel room together and...I stopped writing because I knew where things were headed. I started yelling at my characters inside my head.
"Really, Skye?! Really?! You're going to have...that, with him?!" I scream at her.
"Yes," she replies.
I scowl. "Fine! Have it your way." I begrudgingly write the rest of the chapter. I didn't put any mature content in the story though, I just put in a very subtle, "love the night away." Okay, maybe it's not THAT subtle, but I'm not ruining anyone's innocence, am I?
Am I? Maybe I'm just ruining my own. I have only had one boyfriend and that relationship wasn't really a relationship. We barely had conversations! I called him Mr. Oh. Here's what our conversations looked like:
Me: (asks a great question)
Him: (answers and says nothing else)
Me: (Not sure what to do so I provide my own answer to the question, hoping a conversation will start)
Him: Oh.
So writing about relationships, for me, is really awkward since I've never really been in a relationship myself. I know what I've learned from other people's relationships and books. So for my character to have such an intense relationship and I have to put down the words for her is really scary because I am pretty conservative.
So much for Skye (and me) being a good example.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Hate your characters? I do too.
One of the hardest things about writing novels, for me, is that after a while, it gets hard to stick with the story. You get bored of writing about the same thing and another thing I've noticed is that you start to hate your characters.
Horrible characters? Terrible plot? Total buzz kill. It's hard to reach back in the past and recover the enthusiasm you had for writing this story in the first place. After all, if you hated the story back then, you wouldn't have written it, right? So how come you hate it now?
I think I've found the reason. Growth. Whether it's you or your character, one of you is changing. When I was writing "The Dead and Dying Embers" I slowly began to hate Shane. When I first started writing the book, I thought he was a great guy. He was sensitive, philosophical, kind, and emotional, but now when I look at Shane, I see a whiner who doesn't deserve the girl he's going after.
What sucks is that I based Shane on somebody I know so I began to hate the person I based him on too, which I was not happy about because that person is a great friend.
Note to self: don't base characters on people you know. That's really not what this is about though. When you get to the point where you hate your character, do what I do with real people. I looked at my friend again and "cut off" the bad parts of him to see what was left, what was good. What was left saved my friendship with that person.
So if I can do that with a person, I should be able to do that with a character. I don't hate Shane anymore.
Horrible characters? Terrible plot? Total buzz kill. It's hard to reach back in the past and recover the enthusiasm you had for writing this story in the first place. After all, if you hated the story back then, you wouldn't have written it, right? So how come you hate it now?
I think I've found the reason. Growth. Whether it's you or your character, one of you is changing. When I was writing "The Dead and Dying Embers" I slowly began to hate Shane. When I first started writing the book, I thought he was a great guy. He was sensitive, philosophical, kind, and emotional, but now when I look at Shane, I see a whiner who doesn't deserve the girl he's going after.
What sucks is that I based Shane on somebody I know so I began to hate the person I based him on too, which I was not happy about because that person is a great friend.
Note to self: don't base characters on people you know. That's really not what this is about though. When you get to the point where you hate your character, do what I do with real people. I looked at my friend again and "cut off" the bad parts of him to see what was left, what was good. What was left saved my friendship with that person.
So if I can do that with a person, I should be able to do that with a character. I don't hate Shane anymore.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Lame Lyrics
Attention, please! I have a confession: I cannot write song lyrics to save my life.
Yes, I am primarily a fiction writer, but I write A LOT of poetry. A LOT. There's capital letters and repeats people, so I must be serious. However, I love music (even though I'm kind of hard-of-hearing) and I like to sing (hey, just because I'm deaf doesn't mean I'm tone-deaf, got it?). I have Youtube covers to prove I'm alright.
And my stuff on Youtube? They're just covers and that's it. I want to be able to compose my own music and write my own song lyrics. One time I actually did write some of my own music my sophmore year for ArtSign. I put together a few guitar chords and came up with lyrics. It was AWFUL though. I strummed my guitar too loud so it drowned out my voice, and the song lyrics were pretty horrific too. I wrote the first verse and chorus down here:
I'm in a plaid shirt
And my old blue jeans
Tied up in a bandanna, all the things I need.
Don't know what this means, But I'm walking away...
From everything and everyone I know.
Then I find myself in nowhere
And I don't know what to do or where to go...
Chorus:
'Cause I'm a...Stranger in a strange land
I'm a thousand miles from home.
Everyone speaks a language I don't understand.
The moon is shining bright, brighter than the sun.
The people here push me away
Like a distant memory-
They don't wanna stay...
As you can see, it's very much a country song and a bad one too. Look at all the trite phrases in there along with the Heinlein references...-shudder- After I realized how horrible it was, I practiced writing lyrics and I have to say, I've improved. However, they're still not even close to being Grammy-worthy. A sample of my best set of lyrics is below:
Her sanity...Is sitting on a house of cards.
And reality...Is playing with the Queen of Hearts.
She's falling down the rabbit hole
Doesn't know who she is and it's getting cold.
Then she goes and hits the floor...
Drink me, she shrinking now,
But who knows if she'll fit through the door?
She wants to go through, but she doesn't know how...
Chorus: Caterpillars and crazy twins,
It's all the same in Wonderland.
Created by the Author's sins,
It's spiraling out of control and
Who knows if she'll ever get out?
She doesn't know what her story is about.
This world will swallow her whole,
She may never get out of the rabbit hole.
She'll be lost to Wonderland...
These lyrics are pretty awesome compared to "Stranger in a Strange Land." Still...It's not great. I just have to accept that I'll never be a Taylor Swift or John Lennon. I am doomed to being a terrible lyricist.
You know what though? No matter how terrible I am, I will continue to write song lyrics simply because it's fun. With this, I diverge a little. Even if I don't make it as a writer, I will still continue to write for fun because you know what? I love writing!
And my stuff on Youtube? They're just covers and that's it. I want to be able to compose my own music and write my own song lyrics. One time I actually did write some of my own music my sophmore year for ArtSign. I put together a few guitar chords and came up with lyrics. It was AWFUL though. I strummed my guitar too loud so it drowned out my voice, and the song lyrics were pretty horrific too. I wrote the first verse and chorus down here:
I'm in a plaid shirt
And my old blue jeans
Tied up in a bandanna, all the things I need.
Don't know what this means, But I'm walking away...
From everything and everyone I know.
Then I find myself in nowhere
And I don't know what to do or where to go...
Chorus:
'Cause I'm a...Stranger in a strange land
I'm a thousand miles from home.
Everyone speaks a language I don't understand.
The moon is shining bright, brighter than the sun.
The people here push me away
Like a distant memory-
They don't wanna stay...
As you can see, it's very much a country song and a bad one too. Look at all the trite phrases in there along with the Heinlein references...-shudder- After I realized how horrible it was, I practiced writing lyrics and I have to say, I've improved. However, they're still not even close to being Grammy-worthy. A sample of my best set of lyrics is below:
Her sanity...Is sitting on a house of cards.
And reality...Is playing with the Queen of Hearts.
She's falling down the rabbit hole
Doesn't know who she is and it's getting cold.
Then she goes and hits the floor...
Drink me, she shrinking now,
But who knows if she'll fit through the door?
She wants to go through, but she doesn't know how...
Chorus: Caterpillars and crazy twins,
It's all the same in Wonderland.
Created by the Author's sins,
It's spiraling out of control and
Who knows if she'll ever get out?
She doesn't know what her story is about.
This world will swallow her whole,
She may never get out of the rabbit hole.
She'll be lost to Wonderland...
These lyrics are pretty awesome compared to "Stranger in a Strange Land." Still...It's not great. I just have to accept that I'll never be a Taylor Swift or John Lennon. I am doomed to being a terrible lyricist.
You know what though? No matter how terrible I am, I will continue to write song lyrics simply because it's fun. With this, I diverge a little. Even if I don't make it as a writer, I will still continue to write for fun because you know what? I love writing!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Graduation Pains
I'm officially eighteen now, old enough to vote and officially be kicked out of the house. I don't think my parents would do that to me though, no matter how much my inner donkey tempts them to.
However, the number eighteen is also associated with graduation from high school, which is really what this post is about. Let me tell you, at the beginning of the year, I wasn't exactly sure if I was ready to graduate. Now though, I am certainly ready! I can't wait to get out of New Mexico. -Sigh-
The past few weeks have been hectic though. I have had to go to four award ceremonies (not that I'm complaining about getting awards) and it has been exhausting.On top of that, I have had to come up with a valedictorian speech worthy enought to be presented in front of the governer. I'm pretty satisfied with my speech topic, "The Difference Between Finding and Creating Meaning." I think I brownosed my school's superintendent enough in my speech too.
There's also little, trifling things that are making an impact on my life. My friends constantly complain about the saludictorian and how she doesn't deserve the title. I disagree with them immensely, this girl deserves the title, but yet I still get in trouble for supposedly "destroying her reputation" simply because I am with my friends when they complain about her.
We also have to select ten pictures to use at graduation and let me tell you, it's hard picking pictures! I have a sense of humor and a personality so I don't want my pictures to be the boring ones where I'm just smiling and looking pretty for the camera. I have to be careful with my selections though because the governer will be there and showing a picture of little Paige jumping off her roof into the pool probably is not the best idea. By the way, enjoy the totally awesome picture below:
All of these problems make me curse society and how it forces us to attend these dang ceremonies. I guess without all of this fuss though, no one would feel important. I wouldn't feel important. I'm one of those people that like power and recognition for some reason. I don't seem to be that way because I'm so quiet, but it's true and it always will be. I'm not exactly proud of that trait, but eh, I try not to let it get to me a lot.
The part of me that likes power will help me push on through all of this graduation crap though. Something has to.
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