ROW80 Check-in – Page 8

Category: ROW80 Check-in (page 8 of 11)

ROW80: Catching Up

Midweek check-ins are always a little sparse for me, mostly because I spend Mondays and Tuesdays just trying to deal with school stuff. A few things fell through the cracks and came back to haunt me yesterday (namely the stack of grading I was supposed to hand back this morning), so I pulled an unexpected all-nighter last night, staggered into class this morning like a zombie, and had to take an impromptu nap this afternoon to recharge. But I am up, and I will hopefully find the time to tackle the household chores today, because my apartment is a disaster.

Whew.

But it’s not all bad! I’ve done a few things of merit so far, including:

Exercise: I’m on track to fulfill my 4-5 days/week quota, as I have gotten on the glider 3 times this week.

NaNoWriMo Support Group: Today, Em and I launched our “support group,” Fun Not Fear! As she mentions on her check-in post today, the name of the group emerged out of a few conversations she and I had about our fears over tackling NaNo this year. We decided that we needed to focus on the fun aspects of the writing gauntlet, and given the success we’ve both had participating in ROW80, clearly the best way to have fun while writing is to have the support of friends along the way. So pop on over, leave your NaNo profile on the linky list, and introduce yourself. We’ll be hosting “check-in chats” every Friday, and throwing out our linky mashup of NaNoWriMo goodness.

I’ve got quite a few things to work on:

Thesis Edits: The early feedback I received from my advisor basically boils down to the fact that the latest chapter needs to be dramatically tightened up and my arguments “better embedded,” or something along those lines. I more or less expected this, so I have a number of notes to make before I meet with her on Friday. For the record, I just have to say that I HATE first drafts with every gosh darn bone in my body. Like… I bloody HATE them. So I am really relieved to be moving into edit phase, so I can slash and burn all the things that don’t fit, and fix the things that do.

Writing: My WIPs are currently sitting in the corner with sad faces on them, looking like poor little abandoned creatures. I’m can’t wait until November gets here; this extended period of doing nothing but taking notes and outlining (or attempting to, at any rate) is starting to drive me a little crazy.

Spending less time on G+: I’ve recently discovered that Google+ is like this amazing, wonderful, phenomenal candyland of cool people and fantastic ideas, and it has sucked me into its Vortex of Awesome with the force of a massive black hole (seriously, one of these days I will write an ode to G+). Sadly, I think I spent something like 3 hours having great conversations with people, and it was a total blast… but, er, I probably should’ve been doing other things with those three hours (i.e., grading). But just look at the hilarious things I have been finding!

: I am obsessed with this entire “occupy fictional places” thing.

Working on blogging ideas/writing posts: I really miss blogging about more than ROW80 highs and lows, and I’ve been jotting down a few ideas for posts and theme days that I will ~~hopefully~~ ~~eventually~~ ~~maybe~~ definitely write. I just, er, have to find the time to do that, but maybe if I spend less time on G+…

So that’s the current lay of the land. I’ll leave you with the trailer of this wonderful movie that I watched yesterday, Last Night, starring Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington. It tackles that tried and true topic — a married couple tempted to cheat on each other — in a way that I found incredibly compelling and beautiful. This is the sort of movie where the nuances of body language and expression need to be absorbed, not just the dialogue. It’s currently streaming on Netflix (which is how I ran across it), so if you have a chance and it strikes your fancy, check it out.

[tube]qFaTD9kljsU[/tube]

ROW80: A Much-Needed Pause

October 16, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 22 Comments

It’s been a bit of a rocky week, with vestiges of that yucky migraine lingering until Thursday night and lots of work to get out of the way. However, I think I’ve cleared a major hurdle (for the moment), so I’ve been celebrating with a bit of downtime.

The Successes:

I read books 3, 4, and 5 of Karen Marie Moning’s FEVER series between Thursday and Friday night, which is probably a record reading binge for me. A huge thank you to everyone who recommended the series, because wow. It is epic and wonderful and amazing, and I am so glad I read it. Now I am going to sit on pins and needles like the rest of Moning’s fans to see what the upcoming films are going to look like. If they mess up Barrons, I am going to pitch a major fit.

I had a movie marathon last night. I was planning on doing some writing and stuff, but instead I curled up on the couch and watched a couple of old favorites. I started with The Inheritance, a made-for-TV movie based on an early Louisa May Alcott novel, followed it up with The Princess Bride (so. darn. awesome), and then finished with Love’s Kitchen, which I hadn’t heard of until Netflix pushed it on my radar. It has a shockingly low rating on imdb, but I really, really loved it. The film involves food and cooking and people falling in love (three of my favorite things), and stars real-life married couple Dougray Scott (who I have had a huge crush on since he did Ever After) and Claire Forlani. It was definitely the feel-good movie that I needed.

Outlining my NaNo project is coming along. I’ve started using the corkboard function in Scrivener, where I can lay out 3×5 cards to organize my ideas. I’m not exactly working in a linear fashion, so I have Act 2 laid out, with short summaries for each scene, but little else decided beyond that. Over the next two weeks I’ll be brainstorming so that I can hopefully be ready to roll by November 1st.

I finally finished the draft of the latest chapter of my MA thesis. It’s rough, and there are holes in it that will need to be filled in, but the hardest work (I think) has been done. I didn’t realize until I emailed it to my advisor exactly how stressed out finishing this chapter has made me feel, but I do feel like I have had a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I can’t slack off too badly — I have lots more edits to tackle, along with a couple shorter sections to write — but I am going to step away from the project for the next few days and catch up on my writing.

Places to Pick Up the Slack:

I only worked out 3 days this past week, instead of 4 like I had hoped, so I’ll need to make up for it in the days to come.

Fun Stuff to Check Out:

As I’ve mentioned before, Em and I both decided to tackle NaNoWriMo this year. For an extra bit of fun, and because there seem to be quite a few first time WriMos out there, we decided to create a support blog of sorts, where everyone can pop in once a week and share the challenges and successes that they’re facing during November. We should be launching sometime this week, so keep your eyes peeled!

The photo contest finalists from our ROW80 twitter party have been posted over at Jenny Hansen’s blog. Swing by and cast your vote — there are some awesome shots.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good week. How’s everyone else doing, mid-way through October? Don’t forget to visit the other ROWers checking in today!

ROW80: The Best Laid Plans…

October 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 15 Comments

I’m a little confused how Wednesday got here so quickly. Weren’t we all just checking in, like, yesterday? This week seems to be careening forward, but I’m okay with that, since it means that the weekend is all the closer. 😀

The past few days has been a mixed bag of highs and lows.First, The Good:

Had an incredible Sunday that somehow fulfilled all my mind, body, heart, and spirit needs. It started with a great morning at church with my colleague and friend, Megan, followed by shopping at the Farmers’ Market, and, finally, 4 hours of studying and gabbing on the beach. To illustrate:

My worksite of choice.

I’m close to being finished with the chapter of my thesis that I’ve been working on since, er, July. It is over 7000 words long, which seems so darn short for the amount of time I’ve labored over it (and given how much will need to be overhauled in the final draft), but I’m proud of it nonetheless.

I have a ROWsista! Elizabeth Anne Mitchell, my fellow academic, writer, and Round 3 veteran, has agreed to team up for this round. We are going to keep each other accountable, and have lots of fun in the process.

The Bad (because, sadly, you knew it was coming):

The migraine that I thought I vanquished Saturday night with my usual remedy (an Excedrine migraine pill, followed by 8 hours of sleep) came back with a vengeance Sunday night, after the aforementioned Day of Bliss. The migraine refused to retreat until late Monday night, and was bad enough that I skipped my morning Monday class, and had to suffer through my afternoon class feeling super gross and nauseous.

I was back to normal this morning, but of course the whole episode threw off my carefully-wrought schedule. It also called into sharp relief, once again, the fact that I need to make sure that I’m taking care of myself. I never had a migraine till I got to grad school, and I’m almost 100% certain that migraines are the way that my body responds when I’m stressed, worried, and underslept.

This means that I need to finish my schoolwork by 7 pm at the absolute latest. It also means that I need to cook myself dinner. I started off really strong last week, and then sort of tapered off to the point where I was, er, munching on cookies in the evening and calling it a meal. And this also means that I need to make sure that I’m in bed by 11 pm, and/or taking midday naps when I need them.

To tackle during the rest of the week:

Exercise. I’ve slacked off on this over the past two days, so I’ll need to hop on my glider every day for the rest of the week to make up for it.
Thesis stuff. I promised the draft of this latest chapter to my advisor by the end of the week, so I need to make this a priority.
Writing. I used my writing time today and yesterday to write more flash fiction, this time for Glitterlady’s weekly Tuesday Tales. The resulting story, “The Dark Prince,” was a fun distraction, but now I need to get back to prepping for NaNo.
Reading. I am still at the start of Book 3 in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, and it is driving me wild. For all you KMM fans out there, I highly suggest checking out the extra scene she’s posted — a steamy scene told from Barrons’ POV. It’s NSFW, of course, but well worth your time. 😉

Finally, stuff to look forward for on Sunday:

Blog awards!
News about an awesomely amazing, totally wonderful NaNo support group that Em and I are currently plotting.

And with that, I’m off to bed. Happy Hump Day, all!

ROW80: The First Week

October 8, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 56 Comments

Week 1 of ROW80, and the second full week of my fall quarter, is complete! For me, the past seven days has been a crash course in organization, scheduling, and trying my darndest to work at my various projects and responsibilities consistently. Reviewing everything that I managed to do (and those few things that fell by the wayside), I’d say that I’ve done mostly well in reaching my goals.

Writing. I pledged to spend 8-10 hours on WIP-related tasks, and judging from my count, I managed to reach 8 hours. A couple of those were spent struggling through an idea I had for a novella, and the rest with brainstorming and plotting for NaNoWriMo. I also had a chance to write a short flash fiction piece for the “Ghouls Galore” writing challenge I’ve decided to tackle for October. It’s a fun challenge — 4 creepy ghouls over 4 weeks. My first piece is “The Fourth Floor,” about a haunted mansion, one very angry poltergeist, and two high school students who are in way over their heads.

Thesis: I had a really hard time digging into the thesis this week. I originally projected that I would work on it for about 8 hours, and I think I managed to squeeze in maybe 5 or 6. My attention span has been virtually non-existent, though, and I can’t really handle more than 1 hour of work at a time. However, I think I should have the draft of this chapter finished by Sunday night. It’s far from perfect, but I really need to have feedback on it before I go any further. Cross your fingers that I can score a meeting with my advisor in the next week or so!

Exercise: I had hoped to work out 4 or 5 days this week, and I successfully got on my glider 4 times. My clothes are starting to fit better, and I’ve been able to liberate a few items out of my “too small to fit right now” pile, so this is a plus. Now I just have to maintain my momentum, and not fall by the wayside like I always seem to do.

Random things that I’ve learned:

Reading dense theory takes a sickening amount of time, especially when I’m trying to absorb material and take notes. I can speed-read an academic chapter (roughly 45-50 pages long) in two hours; I need over three hours if I want to do a good job of understanding things.
On the other hand, reading fun novels takes no time at all! In two days I have read the first two novels in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, and I am holding myself back from devouring the last three. I made a major library run the other day, and have Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker in queue, as well as Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches.
I seem to be evolving into a disgustingly cheerful morning person — not sure how I have managed this, but I am grateful.

So, yeah, overall I’d say that I’m off to a decent start. I’ll be recalibrating things as I go (for example, do I need to spend 8 hours each week on the thesis, or can I do what I need to do with fewer hours?), but for the moment, I think tackling time targets is working well for me.

As a side note, I just want to add that I’m really grateful that I have friends in town who force me to go out and have a social life. I’ve had my nose to the grindstone for the entire week, trying to juggle everything, and I probably would work straight through the weekend if I didn’t have people forcing me to leave the house. Tonight I was persuaded to go out for dinner, and tomorrow I’ll be back to the weekly ritual of church with one of my friends. Then I will get to spend the afternoon at the movies with another buddy of mine. We are going to see Real Steel, and I will have 2 hours to fangirl squeal over the magnificence that is Hugh Jackman. Granted, I still have a research abstract to write, and thesis edits to do, and roughly 150 pages more theory to read, but I suppose having some relaxation time is important as well. 😀

How’s the first week gone for everyone else? Any need to tweak goals yet, or are things progressing swimmingly for the moment?

ETA: I would totally love to have a ROWbuddy for this round! I have no specific requirements, but it would be grand to have someone about for general encouragement, and maybe to do some writing sprints, especially as NaNoWriMo approaches. I am in the Pacific time zone (U.S. west coast); Twitter and email are my favorite modes of communication.

ROW80: The Party’s Here!

October 5, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 22 Comments

I’ve been having so much fun dancing to ABBA, drinking pina coladas and nomming on cupcakes and jalapeno poppers and pizza that I almost forgot to write my mid-week ROW80 check-in post! So here I am, reporting in on the progress I’ve made on my goals so far. Feel free to munch on some cake while you read on.

Oh, and have a mimosa, too. Fresh berries have been added in for garnish. 😀

Mimosas, anyone?

I wanted to thank everyone for all the awesome comments on my first post, though I had to laugh at all the comments about how organized I am! I have to admit, trying to become an organized person has been the quest of my life. I was always the kid who forgot her homework in her desk, or at home, or lost it in her backpack. And I was always the kid who was chronically late to class (though this was more my mom’s fault that mine), who managed to lose pens and pencils and shoes and toys…

So the whole “let’s get organized” quest (can we make that a song and sing it to the beat of “Let’s Get Physical” by Olivia Newton-John?) is a little scary for me, and something I’ve been trying to attempt for a long, long time.

Thus far, my attempt at following a schedule has been fairly successful. My classes are all in the morning, and after a few months of staying up till roughly 3 or 4 am, and not getting up till 11 am, adjusting has proven a bit difficult (but not impossible).

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that when my alarm goes off each morning, I need to launch myself out of bed and not look back. I tried this Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday mornings, and ended up jazzed, energized, and super energetic for the rest of the day. Tuesday I decided to just lay in bed for a couple of hours and blogsurf, and yiiiiikes… I dragged the entire day.

Anyway, here are the concrete accomplishments this week:

Thesis-izing: Progressing a bit slowly here. I got in roughly 30 minutes yesterday, but ended up taking a nap because I was so low on energy. I’ve actually been feeling a little down about my work and its importance, but after seeing Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry speak at my campus last night, I had a sudden resurgence of excitement about my work and the direction it might take for the dissertation. For the record, MHP is an amazing public intellectual, an inspirational black feminist, and a dynamic speaker, and I got her autograph and a picture with her. Seriously, I’m still giddy over this.

Work on WIPs: I’ve been doing a little outlining and brainstorming for NaNo, which is proving interesting. I think the project I’ll be tackling is actually going to end up being written in the 1st person, so I’m trying to get into that mode by reading some of my favorite 1st person novels (Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart series). I’ve also been trying to write this new story that hit me the other day, but words are proving difficult to come by. I’m hoping that wears off over the next few days.

Social Media: I’m a little behind on visiting everyone’s blogs, but hopefully I’ll catch up by the weekend. I have to say, though, that I have been having way too much connecting with all my ROW80 peeps today. 😀

Exercise: I worked out Sunday and Monday mornings, and I’m hoping to get some time in on my glider tonight, so I’m on schedule to meet my goal of working out 4-5 days this week.

And there we have it! I’m hoping that all my energy and excitement for tackling goals and responsibilities and whatnot continues throughout the end of the week. In the meantime, I offer a few more party pics…

Cupcakes for all!

And we can’t forget the mixed drinks. What’s a party without something cold and tasty in a martini glass?

Finally, I will be rocking my giant 80s hair for all of you as I prance around in my favorite sparkle shoes and froufy dress and dance to the party playlist. Be sure to swing by the other ROW80 partiers and wish them well!

#ROW80: Round 4 Goals

October 3, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 35 Comments

It’s here, it’s here! A Round of Words in 80 Days, Round 4, is here!

ROW 80, of course, is none other than the awesome writing challenge that knows you have a life. It’s flexible, because it allows us to pick our own manageable goals, and there’s no penalty for having to switch goals up midway through.

As many of you know, I participated in Round 3 and had an absolutely amazing time. Publicly posting my goals, as well as progress updates, really gave me the boost I needed to tackle my various WIPs. I’m proud to say that I accomplished a lot, and I wouldn’t have done it without the support and encouragement of the friends that I’ve made.

I want to carry on the discipline that I’ve started to build into Round 4. I have a lot going on in the next few months, and so I’m hoping to use my goals as a way to help me focus on what needs to get done. This time around, I’ve decided to tackle weekly goals, and instead of targeting a specific word count, I’m trying to estimate a certain number of hours that I’ll spend on each goal. I think this will be a bit more flexible, and a little easier for me to complete.

The Goals!

Write, edit, and polish the MA thesis. I have roughly 8-10 hours per week set aside to tackle this project, which is at the top of my priority list for this round.

Write, edit, and develop WIPs. I have another 8-10 hours per week scheduled to deal with my fiction-writing, though I may have adjust the number of hours as we go. For the month of October, my writing time will consist of outlining, plotting, and planning my November NaNo project. I’ll also be editing TELL ME NO LIES, my August CampNaNo story, and toying with an idea for a novella that popped into my head yesterday (not sure how far this third project will go, but there is an outline, and a cast of characters, and an interesting set of problems at stake, so we’ll see). Once November rolls around, I’ll be in full-scale NaNo mode, and my writing time will most likely be consumed with trying to reach my 1667+ words per day.

Tinker with author platform/social media stuff. I’ve made the decision to hold off on declaring a set number of weekly blog posts for the moment, beyond ROW80 check-ins, that is. I’ve just started Kristen Lamb’s “Blogging to Build Your Brand” class (and there are a number of ROW-ers in the mix as well!), which will last through November. The course assignments will help me to further refine my goals and topics for my blog.

Exercise 4-5 times each week. I started making some progress with this goal towards the very end of Round 3, and I’m determined to keep up my momentum during Round 4.

I have a fancy-schmancy schedule that I’ve made myself to help me stay on track, and I’m utilizing Google calendar’s task list so that I remember everything that needs to get done. I’ll also be trying out some techniques to help me stay focused (there are a few that I found here that are really going to come in handy, I think).

I’ve peeked at the linky list to see who’s signed up for this round, and there are almost 100 people listed! I’m super excited to get to know all the new participants, and to catch up with my old friends… and I’m even more excited to party with everyone on Wednesday for our “Rock the ROW” Twitter party! We’ve got loads to celebrate, so I hope that everyone who (1) participated in the last round, (2) jumped in for this round, or (3) just wants to check out our awesomeness swings by. There will be bubbly drinks and dancing for all! 😉

The details:

Theme: “Rock the Row”
However you want to work that in is great. I leave it to your outrageously creative imagination!
Date: October 5th, 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM ET in the U.S.
This also happens to be the first day of check-in so there should be a ton of ROW80 fun happening around the blogosphere.
Party will be held at the #ROW80 hashtag.
Fire up your Tweet Deck or HootSuite and let’s get jiggy with it.
Photo Competition:
You can start now…we won’t tell. Start digging for or taking photos that reflect the theme. We’ll do our best to gather them and decide on the best to spotlight in a post at the ROW80 blog. One the readers vote, the 1st place winner gets a copy of Kait Nolan’s latest book, Red, in e-book format!!
Friendly Blog Competition
We will also post a mash-up of favorite ROCK THE ROW posts at the Row80 blog.

See you all at the #ROW80 hashtag on October 5th, and in the meantime, visit the other participants and check out their goals!

ROW80: Wrapping Up Round 3

September 22, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 9 Comments

With my mom in town and school starting back today, it’s been a busy few days since our last check-in. Mom and I have been out every day except for Wednesday, I’ve been doing a ton of driving for all of our adventuring, and I had a major case of the freak-outs yesterday, when I saw the syllabus for one of my classes (so many books and articles, I think my eyeballs will roll out of my head by December). I calmed myself down by remembering that this really isn’t anything new, but yikes, it was definitely a scary moment.

But onto fun things! Today marks the end of ROW80’s Round 3, and it is both an exhilarating and bittersweet feeling. Reflecting on Round 3, I’ve come to appreciate all the more the length and nature of this writing challenge. Having 80 days to work towards a set of goals, and being encouraged to be flexible with them if necessary, has been exactly what I’ve needed.

These were my initial goals for Round 3 (I actually had to look them up, because I changed them more than once, and forgot what the original ones were):

Write an average of 500 words/day on any project. This means that I’m doubling my Round 2 word count goal, which makes me slightly nervous, but we’ll see how it goes! I found myself exceeding the original 250 words/day goal consistently, so I don’t think this increase will be too burdensome.

Complete Act 2 of Path to the Peacock Throne, and resist the urge to do too much editing to Act 1.

Move from brainstorming and world-building tell me no lies to working on the first draft.

I ended up exceeding the daily word count quite a bit when I tackled CampNaNo in August. While I didn’t complete Act 2 of PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE, I did write over 50k for TELL ME NO LIES, which was a feat in and of itself. I also wrote roughly 13K for STRANGE BEDFELLOWS, although I’ve placed that on the back-burner for the moment.

I had a few other goals for the summer, in particular finishing the 1st draft of my MA thesis. I haven’t finalized the draft, but I did manage to write over 12.5K, retool the theoretical framework, and outline the remainder of the “results” section. I was feeling a little down about not having everything finished and wrapped up. However, I ran into my advisor at the grocery store the other day (oh, the perils of going to school in a small town), who told me to “take my time” finalizing the project. Definitely lifts a little of the pressure off my shoulders, though I do have my own timeline (defending by December?) that I’d like to maintain.

So that’s Round 3! Lots of success, lots of challenges, and lots of surprises. The best part, though, are all of the wonderful people I have met along the way, and who have been an amazing source of support and inspiration. I’m looking forward to ROCKING THE ROW with all of you when Round 4 starts on October 3rd!

In the meantime, I’m off for a visit with my younger sister this weekend, and to have a bit more fun with my mom before she returns back home next Wednesday. After that, it’ll be back to the grind of studying, thesisizing, teaching, and hopefully squeezing in time to work on my WIPs. I haven’t actually written much of anything in the past two or three weeks, and it’s starting to make me feel a little crazy.

I have a few ideas for my Round 4 goals, and I as I’ll be taking Kristen Lamb’s “Blogging to Build Your Brand” class, I’m sure some of these goals will include retooling and refining my blog. I also need to figure out which project I’m going to tackle for November’s NaNoWriMo, but I’ll be chatting more about this once October rolls around.

That’s all for now, ROW80 friends (you can find everyone here). Hope to see you all on October 3rd!

ROW80: There’s No Place Like Home

September 18, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 34 Comments

It is a strange feeling, having two homes.

My fourth year of graduate school begins on Thursday, and so I drove back to my apartment today, after spending six weeks at my parents’ house. Initially, I worried about going home to stay with my parents. I wasn’t sure if their presence would chafe, especially after being on my own for the past 3 years. However, the opposite occurred: I have realized that my parents are actually really awesome people, and I love being home with them. Leaving was incredibly difficult, and it was with a heavy heart that I drove back to school this afternoon.

There’s an odd amount of emotional work that has to be done in order to prepare for the transition: saying goodbye to my friends and family in my hometown, letting go of the coziness of my childhood bedroom, and detaching myself from the family cat. There’s also the work of adjusting to a change in roles, from daughter and sister to student and teacher, not to mention the shift in geographic location (northern to southern California; big city to small-ish town; my childhood home to my teeny but cozy studio apartment).

I spent the first couple of hours on the drive down here lamenting the end of my summer and dreading the looming specter of coursework and teaching, but once I reached my apartment, I felt the familiar longings for my school-life: the rhythm of seminars and lectures, the excitement of grad student gatherings and parties, the tranquility of my home, the beauty of the beaches.

There’s a lot for me to ponder as we reach the end of round 3 of ROW80, especially since it also marks the very end of my summer vacation. So much has happened over the past 80 days, and it will be an adventure to see how I will integrate this “writing-self” that has emerged with the “student-self” that I will become once classes begin.

And so here I am, about to begin my 4th year of grad school. This is the year when I need to complete my MA thesis, finish my last few classes, write and defend my PhD dissertation proposal, and advance to candidacy. If all goes well, this will be my last year in Santa Barbara, and I’ll be able to move back in with my parents next August, so I can write my dissertation, rent-free, in San Francisco.

“Focus” will be my middle name in the months to come, especially if I am going to accomplish all of the above, and still tackle the creative writing that I love and adore. I’ve drafted a weekly schedule that allows me time in the evenings for writing and social media stuff, as well as blocks out a couple of hours each afternoon for my research and thesis writing. We’ll see if I can adhere to it, but if I’ve learned anything this summer, it’s that I work best when I’m satisfying my left brain and my right brain. I won’t be giving up on my novel(s) any time soon. 😀

That’s all from me at the moment! I may be a little MIA over the next week or two: my mom is in town with me, and we will be busy sight-seeing, shopping, and hanging out together. However, I’ll do my best to blog-hop about in the days to come, to check in with everyone in our last few days of Round 3.

ROW80: Where Randomness Ensues

September 14, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 28 Comments

It’s been a busy few days for me, so I don’t have too much to report. The transition to new pen name and blog seems to be going smoothly. Instead of changing my WordPress blog address, I opted at the last minute to purchase a domain name and set up a self-hosted blog instead. I’ve also set up a Facebook author page, along with a Google Friend Connect widget, so it’ll be easier for folks to follow me (links for both are in the sidebar).

In other news, I received the Versatile Blogger award from Angela Orlowski-Peart, who I met through the Writers’ Campaign, as well as charitygirl and glitterlady, friends I made through Lady Antimony’s “Seven Virtues” flash fiction challenge. I’m honored, as all three of them have blogs that I enjoy and admire. Stop by and visit all three — you won’t regret it!

There are three rules for accepting the award:

* Thank the person who gave her the award and link back to them in the post.

* Share seven random things about herself.
* Pass this Award to fifteen recently discovered blogs, letting them know about the award.I’ll have to ponder who I’ll pass the award to, but in the meantime, I’ll happily share a few random facts. Merry Farmer actually tagged me a couple of weeks ago to share 10 random things about myself, so I’ll combine the two.

1. My three best friends and I made our own “girl band” in junior high. We called ourselves Eclypse and sang in school talent shows, and I wrote amazing stories where we were a multi-platinum band that went on adventures with the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync.

2. I attended an all-girls Catholic high school partly housed in a historic mansion that may or may not have been haunted (that could be the basis of a novel, now that I think about it…).

3. I have a suspicion that my love for Byronic heroes may have stem from my obsession with the musical, The Phantom of the Opera. My parents saw it when I was 8 and brought home the soundtrack, which I had memorized within weeks. Raoul always seemed a nice sort of guy, but I wanted Christine to end up with the Phantom. A tortured genius who lives underground in an awesome cavern — what’s not to like? (We’ll ignore the fact that he, er, kills people from time to time, and has a penchant for kidnapping young women.)

4. I’ve never lived more than 10 minutes from the beach, with the exception of the time I spent studying aboard in college.

5. Out of all my favorite literary heroines, I’ve always identified with Anne from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables the most. Like her, I love school, devour novels, have the unfortunate tendency to talk far too much, and dream of becoming a famous writer.

6. I love almost everything that can be made out of ginger: candied ginger, ginger tea, pickled ginger (with or without sushi). This is a little strange, since I hated ginger with a passion as a kid.

7. I’m an unrepentant girly-girl, and I love fashion, jewelry, high heels, and sparkly things. Living on a tight budget means that I have to find creative ways to keep up with trends, so I have mastered the art of sale racks, outlet stores, and secondhand shops. If I hadn’t gone into academia, I might have become a fashion/costume stylist.

8. I’m known in my family as the “old soul.” As soon as I could talk, I preferred the company of adults to kids my own age. When I was 15, I fantasized about being 35 because it meant that I would be out of college, through with graduate school, and well-established in whatever profession I would choose, with a husband and maybe some kids. It’s only recently that I’ve learned how to “act my age.”

9. Despite loathing college-level science (I couldn’t stand all of the memorization we were forced to do), I was the co-founder and vice president of the high school science club, “The Far Side of Science.” We ran fun experiments, obsessed over Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone (about the Ebola Zaire virus), and watched movies like Outbreak.

10. I spent the spring semester of my junior year of college studying in Oxford, England. It was a dream come true, and to date, is one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I miss England like crazy, and I can’t wait to travel there again.

I’m not going to tag anyone to take the 10 Random Facts challenge, but I encourage all of you to participate, if you so desire. I’ve learned lots of fun and silly things from everyone who has played along so far.

One week remains of Round 3 of ROW80, so go and cheer on our merry band of writers. You’ll find the list here.

ROW80: A New Name, and Some Plotting

September 11, 2011 / Lena Corazon / 32 Comments

ROWers, the end of Round 3 is almost upon us! Here’s my short recap for the past few days:

The Grand Name Change happens at midnight! If you see “Lena Corazon” pop up on your Twitter feed, don’t be alarmed — it’s just me. In order to ease the transition as much as possible, I’ll be using WordPress’s site redirect service. This means that anyone who heads to jamilajamison.wordpress.com will automatically be sent to the new site (which should be lenacorazon.wordpress.com, unless someone steals it from me before midnight). So hopefully people don’t get too confused, but I’ll have a sticky announcement up on my front page with an explanation, just in case. For my Writers’ Campaign folks, I’ll send an announcement to Rach so she can put it on Friday’s announcement board.

I’ve returned to edits for TELL ME NO LIES in earnest. I plan to dig into the suspense and thriller aspects of the novel, tweaking the murder plot and adding in the details of the police investigation (this involves research into 19th century forensic techniques — fun!). I’m also putting on my sociologist’s cap, trying to consider the larger political and social ramifications presented by the novel’s main conflict: a serial killer is preying upon “ladies of the stage” in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast. While these ramifications will play out in the background of the tale, they will, of course, have a major impact on my protagonists and their attempts to hunt down the killer.

I continue to make time for reading. I’m about halfway through Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, a book that seems to defy genre. I’ve heard it described variously as “post-cyberpunk,” “futuristic steampunk,” and “math fiction.” I’ll just say that it is speculative fiction at its best, and presents a futuristic world where nanotechnology is the norm, nation-states have been replaced by a proliferation of tiny city-states/semi-sovereign communities, and “Anglo-Americans” have returned to elements of Victorian culture in the form of dress, aesthetics, and etiquette. Stephenson is one of the most amazing masters of world-building, so I am simultaneously taking notes, marveling at his skill, and, of course, enjoying the story.

Finally, I’m obsessed with The Civil Wars, an awesome folksy music duo that’s making some gorgeous music. Adele apparently went to one of their concerts and declared that it was the greatest live show she had ever attended. I’ll have a chance to test this claim, as they’re coming to Santa Barbara in November. They’re offering one of their live albums for free download, along with their first single, “Barton Hollow,” is available for free download, but I’m going to share “To Whom It May Concern” with you. It’s my favorite song off the album (the lyrics resonate with my inner hopeless romantic), and I’ve been listening to it non-stop.

I’m also considering the slate of fall writing courses that have surfaced online, including Tiffany Lawson Inman’s The Triple Threat Behind Staging a Scene, and Kristen Lamb’s class on Blogging To Build Your Brand. I’d like to do them both, but I’m trying to be careful with what I add to my plate, since this is going to be a busy fall quarter. But we’ll see! It’s hard to pass up two incredibly amazing opportunities like these. 😀

That’s about it for me. Check in with the rest of the intrepid ROW80 cohort here, and cheer them on as we enter the final stretch of this round.

Lena Corazon

Flights of Fancy