Dabbling

College can be summed up in one word: crazy. Because of that, I thought I would have to lay aside all things writing in order to focus on my major, which is Spanish. And yeah, I really have, starting with working two jobs over the summer. I've been beyond busy for the past four or five months.

And I admit that right now I'm wasting valuable time and laptop battery charge on procrastinating. Because I have an English research paper rough draft and a History quiz to work on. Put I really don't want to do it right now. And anyway, I've been meaning to catch up on this blog for a while.

Two interesting events --one pretty big, the other kinda small, though it's impacted my writing life just enough-- have recently dragged me back into writing. I can't get away from it, but I don't mind that. It gives me hope that this passion will never die.

The first was an email from a man named Rich. Here is a copy of his email.

Summer,
I’m a father of a 13 year old who is a voracious reader and writer. I’ve been searching for avenues to further her skills, get more eyes on her material, get her good feedback and continue to encourage her. I came across one of your blogs and your web site and was impressed with your approach and what you’ve accomplished so far. I’m particularly encouraged that you are a sister in Christ and appear to have your heart in the right place.

I’m sending you this email to ask two things. What recommendations would you have for me and/or my daughter, Naomi. I would also ask, if you have time, to take a look at a sampling of her work and provide any feedback you may have. She’s pushing one of her stories up to her recently set-up blog:
http://NaomisRoughDraft.wordpress.com

Honestly, I was tickled to death to get this email. I totally didn't expect that anyone beyond my friends was actually reading it. To sum up my reply, I wrote out six or seven bullets of advice for her (really, everything I could think up on the spot). I also offered to read and critique some of Naomi's work if they wanted to send it to me (since I'm better at line-by-line critiquing). I haven't heard a reply, but maybe I will sometime. I'm just happy to have gotten the email in the first place. It makes me feel as if I've become planted firmly in the writing community. I encourage my writing readers to go to her blog and give her some feedback.

Second thing that happened was that I noticed posted around the English department at WT some notices about this thing called the Legacy. They just had a short-story contest called something like "Strange and Dark Tales" that required the participants to write a short-story that is six hundred sixty-six words long. That is 666 and is a Biblical reference to Revelations and the Mark of the Beast, for you non-Bible-reading types. Basically, it's supposed to be spooky (I think it's funny). I noticed it a while back, but didn't deign to enter because of my busy schedule and so dismissed it. Anyway, my boyfriend, Ross Wilson's, mom, Jo Ann Ross, (yay, commas) entered her short story called Public Face Personal Hell that she wrote in college into it. I didn't even know she writes, so I'm really happy to hear that.

She inspired me to go check out the Legacy again. While I was up in the sound booth at my church, waiting for it to start (because I got there really early that Sunday, for some reason), I went to the webpage and looked up the other contests. I saw that the next on coming up was just your general fiction-and-non-fiction-short-story-plus-poetry kind of contest. The requirement for the short-stories was that they be less than 4000 words long. That reminded me that I had a short-story I had written for my PRO class called Weaponless that was around 3000 words. I believe I mentioned this story in another blog, but I don't remember which one, so as a recap, I've sent it in to one short-story contest and haven't heard back on it, and --through the help of my mentors-- have seriously overhauled it into something decent since then. But I was so frustrated with working on it, that I put it away all summer and didn't touch it. So on Sunday, I pulled it up on my laptop, went through it, and fixed some glaring errors. I thought the plot itself was alright, if I didn't mind some hints of cheesiness in the beginning, so I sent it in. (Okay, I honestly had to persuade myself to do it. Ick.)

So here's hopin'. I should know by November 25 (thank God for short waiting time).

But since I first started this blogpost on Monday, Jo Ann heard back on her shorty-story and has won publication in the Legacy. She didn't win the whole banana, but that's awesome! I'm really proud of her. So here's to Jo Ann!

Oh, and in other news, I have an idea for a new apocolypse novel. It's still very basic, so we'll see where this goes. Also, when I picked up the 2009-2010 (last school year) copy of the Legacy, I found a non-fiction article by my English teacher, Dr. Jessica Wilcox, and a fiction short story by my sister that I didn't know about! It's called Passing on the Peace Pipe if any of my WT friends happen to want to pick it up and read it.