New Beginnings (And a New Look)

Happy summer! Don’t think this is as big of a deal for something people that aren’t in school (or teach school), but for a college student, summer time means a ton more free time. And a ton more time for writing. With summer starting, I feel like it’s time for other new beginnings (which is why I changed the design of my blog to this cleaner look). Knowing my obsession with lists, you can’t be that surprised that I’m about to give you another one…

5 Things That I Will (Hopefully) Do This Summer

1. Blog once a week: Yikes. I just promised (kind of) to do that. But if I can’t do it during the summer, I’m never going to be able to do it during the school year, which is the ultimate goal. So yeah. Once a week. I promise. I hope. I’ll try?

2. Submit my work for regular editing: Geez, why do all of these sound so scary? Don’t get me wrong: I like editing and I even like being edited (sometimes). But committing to regular editing? It means that I am going to have people reading my stuff once a week for scrutiny. I am going to have to produce enough each week (and clean it up enough) to send it off to an editor. But it’s good. It is. It is. I just gotta say it to myself a few more times.

3. Start to combine my love of food and writing on this blog. I have a plan for how to do this, which I will express in a later blog post. The bottom line is, get reading for some recipes!

4. Finish my current WIP: Yeah. I’m in a hole and I know from experience that getting in a hole at this point in my WIP is bad news bears. So I have to push through whatever rut I’m in. And the best way I know how to do it is to just sit down and write.

5. Read 10 books: for fun. These last two words are the key ones.  I read plenty during the school year, and they are good books (er, most of them.). But this summer I want to read books that I pick. So far, I’m two books in and working on the third. I may be posting reviews as I go. Want to follow my progress and read with me? The first book of the summer was A Fault in Our Stars by John Green (amazing!) and the second was The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (love her). Currently? Delirium by Lauren Oliver. 

Do you have any summer writing/reading goals? Tell me about ‘em. And, if I stay good on my goals, I’ll be talking to you again really soon!

List Time: In Which I Discuss How Weird Writers Are

I’m not sure how I missed this before, but writers are kind of weird.

I was having a conversation the other day with a friend about some of the strange things we do when we write. It was only then, after a year of college living, that I realized just how weird habits that writers have (or, at least, that I have) are. And in college, these habits are essentially put on display. College provides this bizarre world of cohabitation that is not conducive to secret-keeping. And so, the people who share this campus with me are –ahem – lucky enough to learn my writing habits, even if I don’t want them to.

Which makes it even more obvious that writers can seem weird.

So to start what will be the first of what I'm sure will become many lists on this blog (I like blogs. It's my expression of OCD.), I present…

 Things That Normal Writers Do That Normal People Do Not:

1. Have Conversations With Themselves: We all know that crazy guy with the broken grocery cart and the yellow raincoat tied around his head, the one with the sketchy brown paper bag shaped around a bottle and the only smile that could accurately be described as “crooked.” He talks to himself. But normal people do not. Writers on the other hand, can find talking to themselves very helpful when trying to invent realistic conversation for their characters to have. But unless you want to be “that crazy guy (or girl)” on campus, don’t do this in public.

2. Have Imaginary Friends: This requires a qualifier. Having imaginary friends is totally fine for normal people when they are cute kids and everything they do is cute. But college kids, not so much. Writers, however, always have imaginary friends: their characters. Even when their characters piss them off sometimes; it’s like having children. You’ll always still love them. And no matter what other people say, they do exist.

3. Go To Work In Their Pajamas: This is assuming that we consider writing as our actual work and not our day jobs. I find this to be an excellent thing that we, as writers, are allowed to do that other people are not. The more footsie pajamas, the better.

4. Know All the Warning Signs of a Caffeine Overdose: Granted, there are other professions that require people to depend on caffeine. But I would argue that few require caffeine as much as writers.  And some of the warning signs, in case you are curious, are: getting tired in the early afternoon but being unable to sleep at night, peeing orange, feelings of anxiety, heartburn, nausea, and muscle tremors. Only a true writer would know all of these.

5. Love Their Jobs: Few people are this lucky. Enjoy it.

Know any others? Post a comment to add to the list. : )

Curiouser and Curiouser...

So here we are. There is something super intimidating about putting words out into the internet and hoping they mean something (or at least that someone will read them). But, that aside, I’m excited to start this and take a tumble down the rabbit hole!

My name is Alice, and as much as I would love to say I was named after THE Alice (the Lewis Carroll Alice), I’m not. That said, it’s still my favorite book and movie, if we are talking about the Disney animated version. And I like to think that having that name is some kind of good literary omen. Here’s to hoping.

As much as I hate the obligatory icebreaker, it’s probably appropriate here. 

 My stand-by answer for that “what’s something interesting about yourself” question is that I write novels. But given the nature of this blog, that’s a bit obvious, so I’m going to have to get a bit more creative. So here we go. Five “interesting” things about Alice:

1. Out of the many things that make me happy, there are two that really stand out: writing and cooking. Writing, I've always loved, but cooking is a more recent obsession. I've always loved food, but it wasn't until recently that I decided that if I love food so much, cooking might be a good hobby. This blog, with any luck, will fuse my love of writing/reading and food into a literary/cooking blog. 

2. I’m the quintessential Hufflepuff. This might be because I’m excessively well-intending but also extraordinarily awkward. But I like to think it’s because I’m nice.

3. I have an irrational fear of fish hooks and my basement.

4. My favorite classes to take in college are things like art history and film analysis, solely so that I can be as pretentious as possible in my future life.

5. My goal in college is to start an a cappella group of people who can’t sing. We shall be called “Not Too Sharp” and we will be terrible great. 

Can't wait to get started!