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Friday, March 3, 2017

The Four Horsemen of Dominating My Life

I know I haven’t exactly done the post thing in about a week and a half, but I have REASONABLE excuses. Yes, I know there is no such thing, but we get the gist here. Anyhow, I will detail said excuses below:

1. UIL Writing Extravaganza!


Last week -- and this week -- I’ve prepped for these super great, totally not weird and nerdy writing competitions. Pretty much, this is what the debate and science kids go to for their big competition stuffs, but as it turns out, there’s writing fun as well. I went for the sake of competing in Ready Writing, an event in which students are given two hours to compile an expository essay based on a strange prompt. However, as I lingered in the waiting room scheming for #2 on this list, I ended up jumping in on some journalism events -- News Writing, Feature Writing, and Editorial. I’m going to hope those are pretty self explanatory. Here’s how that went:


First in Editorial:

Fun medal time!

Forth in Feature *Insert an Image of the forth place ribbon my teacher has but has yet to give me*


There were approximately thirty to forty kids in each event I sat through. In the end, I was this close from placing in the weird expository thing; what killed me was actually my strength. I included a CRAP TON of personal narrative A) because, as demonstrated here, it’s easy to talk about myself, and B) it’s much like telling a story, which wins my heart every time.


I don’t have an excuse for news writing other than that I’m just not a natural at it. Seeing this, I've decided to enter copy editing this next weekend instead. I'll see the world at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning!


2. DIPLOMACY

This is the map which has been dominating my free time; I (Britain) am the blue pieces, Germany is Black, Austria Hungary is red, and Turkey is yellow. It's about to go DOWN.


Essentially, it’s like a much more complex, much better version of Risk. In my AP European history class, we are taking three weeks with which to play this game, claiming that it simulates Europe pre-WWI. The class is divided into teams, and each team is assigned one of seven countries -- Austria Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, or Turkey. My assigned teammate and I are Great Britain. God bless the queen.


Through an alliance with Germany, we wiped France off the map. Further, Austria Hungary, Germany, Turkey, and I have cornered Russia’s last army in St. Petersburg. Austria Hungary beat Italy out, the Anti-Russian Coalition (ARC) will soon implode upon itself. Time to watch us burn as we compete for our grades.


It may not sound like much, but when the bottom two teams fail, and second place is only an 85, things heat up. So far, people have accidentally helped the wrong team, brought baguettes to class upon the death of France, placed bounties on other countries, and the ARC met last Saturday at a Chick-Fil-A in order to scheme. Absolutely Brilliant. Our last day to make moves is Monday, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

3. Mid-Life Crisis at Age 17

I've been waiting for an excuse to use this image, and this is the perfect opportunity.


About a week and a half ago, I didn’t get into my top college (Texas Christian University) with enough scholarship to be able to attend; it’s a private school, so my hopes weren’t too high to begin with, but I’m still stuck floating through Lake Lack of Direction. I’ve applied to other schools, some which I despise and some towards which I remain fairly indifferent. My panic lasted a good week before I concluded that I don’t need to decide until the last possible second; after all writers work best under pressure *cough-procrastination-cough*. Now, I’ve elected to move on with the rest of my life until I’m drowning in deadlines. It will surely be glorious.


4. Rewriting my query AGAIN after Son of a Pitch

It's a pun, see?


For those of you who haven’t heard, Son of a Pitch is a query contest in which writers submit their query letter and the first 250 words of their novel. Authors/bloggers critique these entries, and after a week of revisions, entries have the opportunity to present their work to a collection of editors, publishers, and even a few literary agents. I shoved Renegade in at the last second, and although I didn’t enter the editor round, I gained some valuable feedback.


Thus, I rewrote my query. Now, it focuses more so on my characters (Nathan) and their direct actions/motives rather than excessive world building randomly shoved halfway through the letter. I’ve yet to submit this draft to anyone, but I’m planning to do so soon; another recent mission involves compiling a solid list of my “top” agents in order to feel like I have a better comparison with the ones I query. Honestly, I have no idea how I didn’t do this before now.


I've decided that every post in which I can't find use for a Pinterest Character Board image will be graced with one of my beautiful prince, the light of my life, the ruler of my household -- my cat, Leo. You can thank him at the end of this post.


I recognize that this isn’t exactly a “writing” post, but it touches a couple marks, and therefore I am counting it. Really, I'm here today to reestablish my presence in this world. I plan on soon posting some update-y things on the Renegade series for the month of February, and hopefully that'll keep me on track. In addition, I'll soon be working on the TCHS ART AND LIT MAG soon, which will prop me up on my feet, even if it'll also keep me busy. However, I'm going to NYC for the first time in a week, so believe me, I'll be dead after that, but in a good way. And yes, there will most definitely be a post on my adventures.