A blog about writing

"Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators." -- Olin Miller

I'm late on the blogging train, but I've finally come around to it. Unemployment will do that, I suppose.

I've recently graduated college with a degree in English Literature (an admission that will probably result in you laughing at me whenever I make a spelling error or use a word incorrectly... perhaps I can deliberately misuse words in every entry and leave it up to the reader to find them, thus I'll save face for any genuine mistakes on my part...) Anyway, back to the point, I'm a recent graduate who is unemployed and who doesn't have much idea where I want to go with my life.

I do know one thing: I want to write a novel. And I want to get it published. So, I suppose that's two things. English major here, though, not math. Never hold me accountable for dealing with numbers. There's a third thing as well, but it's less important, and that is I need to come up with a story that will be the next Harry Potter so I can be rich and spend my days writing at my own pace and enjoying life. We all want that, I guess.

So I'm working on my novel and I figured I'd start a blog to go along with it. I've already been working on it some time-- and am 90+ pages into my first draft-- but I thought this might be something fun to try and that it could potentially provide me with a place to brainstorm when I hit roadblocks in my narrative. I find it helpful to bounce ideas off of other people and I hope to gather a few readers here to do just that. I know there have to be others out there working on their own stories, after all.

I'm sure other things might creep into it from time to time, but this is meant to be a blog that follows me through my efforts at writing and publishing my first novel. (I have written two novel-length narratives already, but neither of them is satisfactory: one I started in seventh grade and therein lies the shortcomings and the other is just a mess. Some day I will go back to it and fix it up, I imagine, but now now).

With the mission statement out of the way, I'll divulge a few more facts about myself. I am currently seeking employment anywhere I can get it (short of anything illegal and/or that could be percieved as otherwise lewd), with a prefernce toward anything having to do with books, movies, music, or animals. I am living with my parents until I save up enough money to live elsewhere-- my last few terms of college emptied my bank account. I studied abroad in Germany for a semester. I have a minor in Judaic Studies, though I'm not Jewish (which everyone seems to assume. Always they ask: why are you taking the Jewish classes if you're not Jewish? Because it's interesting. I don't know why. I enjoy it. It's fun for me). I love music, but am not able to play anything myself. I have recently fallen in love... with comic books. My current favorite novel: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have a black cat named Finley (which means 'fair-haired'). And, hmm, I enjoy snowboarding, surfing, long walks on the beach...


I think that's it for a opening post. I hope someone stumbles upon this and decides to come back. I'm new to this, as I said, and I don't really know how anyone would find my blog to begin with, so... I guess I'll just keeped my fingers crossed. I'm going to try and post at least once a week, probably a couple more times this week as I get it kicked off.

Feel free to ask any questions and I may or may not answer them.

Coming Up Next Time: I will go into some details about my creative process, my current story, and what I'm struggling with in my writing.