I'm done!

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 10, 2011

I'm done with the GRE. I ended up with a good score -- 1430 or so evenly split. I think so, anyway. I'm not entirely sure since I skipped through that screen kind of fast because I was just glad to be done. I think, ironically enough, I got the same verbal score on the GRE that I did on the SAT even though I studied a lot harder this time. Looking at the estimated percentile breakdowns, it looks like I'm probably going to end up in the top 5% in verbal, but only the top 25% in math. You have to get a ridiculously high math score to get in the top 5% in math. Stupid fellow overachievers.

It was weird. I wasn't feeling stressed out at all before the test, or during the writing part, but when I started on the rest of the test itself I broke down nervously and completely. They really should give you longer breaks, and maybe give you the option to break your test up over two days. 3+ hours is a long, painful time to sit, and the one minute breaks between the verbal and math sections wasn't long enough for me to go to the bathroom, especially since I had to go through the whole security/gestapo thing every time I came back to the room. I guess they were worried I'd pull a Michael-Corleone-in-Godfather moment, except with test answers instead of a handgun.

I think I'd get a better score if I did it again, although the marginal improvement is probably not worth it. Especially, I think I'd do better in math. I ran out of time in math, estimating and clicking wildly. I answered the final question with less than 5 seconds left on the clock. All in all, I found the test material useful for helping prepare for the test, but unfortunately the test prep material tends to use the same vocab and similar math questions and so doing them, I fell into a sort of rhythm, and then the actual GRE used different words and different sorts of math problems so it threw me off. I found the majority of real test questions harder than their counterparts in the study material--something to consider if anyone else needs to prepare for this monster.

The testing experience wasn't helped by the fact that the computer program uses one of the oldest, oddest fonts I've ever seen on a faded screen that made it hard to see. I spent thirty seconds trying to decide if the thing on screen was a "7" or an upside-down capital L, and looking back, I'm still not completely sure. The only thing that let me know is that I couldn't think why anyone would use an upside-down capital L for anything. Anyway, the font reminded me of the old DOS computer days, because it was so highly pixelated.

As to the writing test, well, in the analytical essay, the real world examples I used tended to be on the obvious side, and I realized I'd contradicted myself halfway through, which wasn't good, but it was too late to change things, so hopefully the testers won't notice that part. Fellow nerds will be happy to know I started and ended my essay with Star Trek quotes. I didn't have time to edit so I have no clue how well-written it was, though it felt good while I was writing it. I suspect I knocked the argumentative essay out of the park. I ended that one with a pune, or a play on words (anyone who's not a Terry Pratchett fan probably won't get that. You can read about it under literature here).

At the end of the test, I thought I had bombed terribly, so the 700+ scores that splashed up on the screen came as an incredible relief, even with the upside-down L font.

I wish I could sleep for a week.

comments (1) | Labels: ,

A Truly Profound Question

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 7, 2011 -- 7:01 a.m.

From The Onion's review of Orson Scott Card's book, Lost Gate:
Ever notice how nobody ever writes a series about a young boy with an amazing knack for toilet cleaning and tax reform?
Now that's a writing prompt.

comments (0) | Labels: , , ,

"I knew we should have played Chutes and Ladders"

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 6, 2011

Community did a AD&D episode last week. A lot of TV series have done a one-off episode involving D&D, but I can't remember seeing one this fun in awhile. Part of it was the little details. The orchestral Enya type music. The dramatic fade-ins. The loving craft of someone who knows the community. Odd, that they were doing 2nd edition, but that's the one I grew up with so I liked it all the more. I haven't had a chance to play since third came out. It's hard finding a group with the right chemistry who has the necessary time to burn.

I especially loved Pierce's throne created out of crates and traffic cones in imitation of a traditional bad guy's throne of bones. Or whatever. Wondered why the players weren't the ones rolling the dice.

Anyway, it was fun but a bit raunchy, so not for the youngins. Catch it on hulu if you have time.

I went to a book sale at the Provo Library and loaded myself down with like 20 books. Hard to resist at $1 a pop. Some of them were old favorites. Mistborn. Anne McCaffrey. Some of them I've never seen before but looking interesting. I'll tell you if they're any good.

School is going well. I had my first test last week and scored a 95%. I wish I had more time for extra-curricular activities. The book I'm writing for my creative writing class is going reasonably well. I've done 20,000 of the 50,000 required words. I'm frustrated because the book looks like it's going to be far bigger than is remotely marketable for a new author, but so is any epic fantasy I try to write. How can I write something less than 200,000 words when all the books I read, study and love are that long? I'm going to finish it anyway, for fun and practice. And who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky. What I should probably do is separate two of the characters off into their own book, but I don't want to. They all fit so nicely together. The world is too complicated, though. I'm trying to find ways to simplify it.

It's weird because this is the first time I've tried writing POVs separately. The syllabus told us to pick one character and write them all the way through. In some ways, it's helpful because I'm getting to know this one character very intimately. Unfortunately, it's also making me lose confidence in the book, because I can't imagine how I can make any character as deep and interesting as the one I'm currently writing. Also, I'm not sure how I'll make the other characters' voices distinct from hers, since hers is close to my natural internal style. I think the only way I have a shot at doing that will be to write those characters separately from start to finish as well and then do the interweaving after, which will mean keeping track of what information should go where. Sigh.

I admire Brandon Sanderson even more now that I've watched his lectures. He's incredibly intelligent and thoughtful. I suspect he sees me as a strange, spastic girl who talks too much and has a tendency to be less than tactful. For some reason, when I get around good authors, my brain short-circuits and I behave oddly. And since I always behave oddly, that means I behave REALLY oddly. I wish I had better control over my mouth. Sometimes, when I get nervous, it's like I develop temporary Tourette's.

Well, I expect he's met worse.

I take my GRE Weds in Salt Lake. I got sick of studying and so haven't for awhile. I need to review again, to remind myself of formulas and strange vocab. My practice scores have gotten much better though. I think I'll get a good score. Whether I get a great score depends on the day. Cross your fingers for me.

comments (0) | Labels: , , ,

Orson Scott Card

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

Jan. 19, 2011 -- 3:35 p.m.

Orson Scott Card had a stroke over the holidays. He writes about it here. I'm impressed he can maintain his sense of humor: "I solemnly promise not to croak with any of my book series unfinished."

comments (1) | Labels:

Dancing With Ogres

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

January 10, 2011 -- 7:33 p.m.

I had my first dance class since the sexual assault today. It was easier than I expected. Ballroom's so formal compared with Argentine Tango, it's like dancing neutered. I was a little annoyed that no one asked me to dance, but whatever. Not the kind of people I'm interested anyway since they left the poor, heavily-accented Chinese exchange student who sat by herself in the corner out in the cold. Hard enough to be alone in a foreign country, to barely speak the language, without being surrounded by people who avoid you because of your accent.

So anyway, I'm feel self-pitying at the moment because it's a pattern. I never get asked out on a second date, never get asked out on a first one, either. Something I'm doing, possibly body-language-wise is driving people off and it's frustrating because I have no clue what it is.

I wonder if it's a Utah thing? In Oregon, I wasn't any Bella (groan) but I didn't have trouble finding company if I wanted to. Here, it's like I'm a grape Popsicle in Antarctica--nobody's interested.

Anyway, dancing's a lot like riding a bicycle. It's coming back to me fairly easily. As is the fact that I'm such a klutz, sigh.

I also went to my first meeting of the science fiction magazine run by the university. Only some people don't seem to realize that, since the story I read had no speculative elements whatsoever. We also got a poem that read like someone's suicide note, which is sad. I wished there was something I could do for the poor kid. I also wondered what on earth prompted someone from South Carolina to send his suicide poem to a Utah science fiction magazine. Gotta be one of the most desperate cries for help ever, and the rejection letter he's gonna get probably won't help him. I had the sudden realization that, if I ever become an author, I'll have to deal with depressed lonely teenagers sending out letters to me about how lonely they are. And I still probably won't know what to do. There are some things you just have to work out for yourself.

If there's a school shooting involving said submitter in the next few months, I'm going to feel really guilty. There was some discussion as to whether we should report the poem to...someone...since it also expressed anger toward the people around him. But who do you talk to? And isn't there some kind of submitter-submitted privacy clause?

Oh, and here's a little tip to writers: If you send a story to a fantasy magazine with the line "It's hard to be a straight-A student when you're living with an ogre" and there's no actual ogre in the story, you're going to have one very disappointed reader.

Stupid metaphorical ogres.

comments (0) | Labels: ,

Zombie Christmas

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

Awesome.

comments (0) | Labels: ,

Classes

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

January 7, 2011

So busy. For Christmas, I went to Seattle to visit my family. Including my father, who I haven't seen. He had an emergency gall bladder removal a few weeks ago and seems to be doing well.

Went back to school this week. Feels weird, being a student again. Also feels weird how easy it is to slip into that mold. Listen to lecture, take notes. Like riding a bicycle. More on that below.

Still studying for the GRE. Oddly enough, the verbal section I'm having the most trouble on is reading comprehension, mostly because when they ask me to figure out authorial "intent" or what is implied but not said by the passage, I'm out to sea. Who cares what the author intended when they wrote it? Who cares what's implied? If it's not stated explicitly, then it's either a) not important, b) a failed piece of writing, so I don't pay attention to it. So they're testing my ability to read between the lines, and often what I pick up between the lines is something completely different than they what they pick up between the lines.

Anyway, I have the most success if I pretend I'm a complete idiot and just pick the most obvious thing.

Between that and the absurd vocabulary (anyone care to argue that my ability to define what a Mansard roof is going to be important to my future studies?) I've become even more certain that the GRE is a waste of time and money and needs to be torn apart and rebuilt to the ground up if it's to be remotely diagnostic. Right now, it just measures how much people are willing to jump through hoops.

The arithmetic is still difficult for me. I've come to the conclusion that my score in math is most likely going to be determined by how awake I am on test day. Then there are the times when the test books are just being smart aleck-y. For example, they'll show undefined figures (figures that look like triangles, parallel lines, circles, etc.) but not explicitly define them as such, and you're supposed to work them out anyway, until you come along to one problem where they show two straight lines parallel to each other and then say: "Oh, but we never told you they were parallel, so technically you can't work out the answer! Psych!"

I am putting this off to bad test book copyeditors and hoping that the GRE will not do the same tricks on me, but it is really frustrating to have them play games like that. We should be being tested on real knowledge, not how well we can respond to trick questions.

***

On the whole, I'm expecting to enjoy my classes, though I do have grips. In one of the classes, I'm pissed about because the teacher is having us submit the homework through the book's online software. Sounds fine...except you can only get a key to the software by buying a brand new textbook with a brand new activation code. So effectively, this completely destroys the used textbook market. If you buy a textbook, it cannot be effectively resold because you have already used the unique code. So you're left with a $70 book that you can't resell and you're unlilely to look at ever again. Between that and the $30 device I have to purchase to participate in extra the class credit, I am spending $100 on things I will probably never need in the future, especially since the teacher seems to be teaching directly out of the book, ergo reading it is probably unnecessary. At U of O, for these kind of classes, I just checked out a textbook when I needed it, then put it back. I can't do that, since the library codes are useless. Moreover, the ebook for the textbook is almost as expensive as the real thing, so there's not much savings there.

So kudos for the textbook publisher on figuring out how to extract money I wouldn't have to ordinarily spend, but boo on the teacher for making me put my savings account through the ringer for no necessary reason. It will definitely be noted in my end of class review. I'm financially advantaged, but I've got a savings account because I'm a cheap, money-grubbing miser and I intend to stay that way.

***

I had my first Brandon Sanderson class yesterday. I was glad I'm officially signed up as a student--there must have been fifty non-student people clawing for the chance to listen. Sanderson used my hat to draw names of the lucky people who'd get to audit--although it was too small to hold all the slips of paper. Brandon Sanderson also mentioned he'll do public lectures in the future, so they'll hopefully those who won't get to enroll able to see everything. I suspect a lot of the content will be similar to that expressed on writing excuses.

My first impressions are positive, although a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a little more intimate situation, like with my teachers at Oregon, but those were classes of about 15 students...much fewer than the classes here. I understand why things are this way, and I like the idea of dividing a larger class into critique groups based on fervor (I'm in the most "hard core" group). I was very glad because I was concerned that the class was going to be divided randomly, and I was worried that I'd get in a group with less experienced people, who might not offer as useful comments. Sanderson also seems to be taking a different approach by emphasizing word production--by the end of the quarter, we're supposed to have produced 50,000 words. I don't know if I could do that if I were a full-time student, but since I'm not, I should be able to bag that out, especially since it's first draft quality (much like this blog post--I'm too lazy to take out the typos). Still, it's going to be a challenge. I'm looking forward to it. He's recommended that you do all the POV scenes from one character, straight beginning to end, just so you can practice all stages of writing, which is good logic but may be beyond me since my POVs tend to be so interconnected, separating one out will likely end up in an ending that doesn't make sense without information contained in the other POVs. But I'll give it a go.

I was originally planning to post my class notes online, but my grandmother said she thought that would be illegal. I don't see the harm, personally, unless it somehow undermines the authors' appearance fees, but I wouldn't want to get sued. And I could see opening myself up for liability by doing something like accidentally writing "[the author] hates fags" instead of "[the author] hates lag." Stupid example, yes, but the point is there.

There's also this train of logic--if someone posts notes from 'x' workshop, others might be less likely to take the workshop because they think they know it all already, ergo the authors earn less money, ergo, I'm depriving them of income. I don't necessarily believe this, but I'm not willing to piss off authors who might.

So in the end I won't post notes, or my notes from Scott Westerfield's appearance here, most of which was repeated on Writing Excuses, anyway. But if you want to play along by trying to write 50,000 words in three months, be my guest.

comments (0) | Labels: ,

News

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

December 9, 2010 -- 9:07 a.m.

Publisher's Lunch Weekly had deals from local author Brandon Sanderson, giving us some detail about the books coming from him in the next couple of years.

"No. 1 NYT bestselling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson's MISTBORN: The Alloy of Law, an original, standalone short novel set in the universe of his Mistborn trilogy, and THE RITHMATIST, set in an alternate-history America where magic users (called "Rithmatists") battle wild chalk creatures, introducing a student at the Rithmatist academy with great interest in but no ability to use the magic, but when students start vanishing, it's up to him to expose the sinister figure behind the disappearances, to Tor, for publication in 2011 and 2012, respectively."

It'll be fun to see another Mistborn book. I'm reserving judgment on Rithmatists, but it sounds interesting. Hopefully, it has something to do with arithmetic or rhythm, otherwise its kind of a silly name.

In other news, my friend Frank, from our writing group, was an honorable mention in this quarter's Writers of the Future contest. So congratulations!

comments (0) | Labels:

Borders and B&N, Unite!

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

December 6, 2010 -- 12:41 p.m.

Book News: Borders' owner just made a proposal to buy Barnes and Noble. Will their powers combine to form an arch nemesis to Amazon?

Posters on the Wall Street Journal web site scoff and say the move is just to pump stock prices. I would be surprised at the move, personally. Borders is shutting down stores at the moment, so why would they try to absorb a huge chain?

Personally, I've been doing my Christmas shopping at Hastings, which is one of my favorite chain used book stores. Powell's is nice also, but Hastings has the advantages of used video games and used DVDs too. There's a big conversation in the gaming community about how buying used video games is immoral because developers don't get their money. That applies to books, too. I feel a wee bit guilty about denying my favorite authors their percentages (less about the game developers) but I am a poor student. They got their fee once, too, from the original owner. You wouldn't complain it was immoral if someone read a book and then gave it to someone else, would you? And which would an author rather have, their book in the trash, or their book in the hands of a fervent admirer who shows it to her friends and tries to convince them to buy it, too?

I presume that most authors are in favor of the used book industry, regardless of the fact they don't profit, but it would be interesting to find out. Used book stores have such a happy fuzzy reputation, I suspect most authors would be stoned on the spot if they dared to speak out against them.

The only problem with used books is that when I see trade paperbacks for $2.50, I end up bringing home 30 of them, and I never read them because I have too many. I must have twenty books on my shelf calling to me, and I keep buying more for "market research."

My baby brother turned 20 yesterday. I still remember wrapping his 1-year-old body in a blanket and stuffing him under an overturned laundry basket weighed down with my mum's aerobic weights, because he was so annoying. When I came back, he'd stopped moving, and I was terrified he'd suffocated, but no, he'd just fallen asleep, happy as a clam that his big sister had played with him. Unfortunately, he is big enough I can no longer do that. Though I have tried.

I love my family so much. Speaking of which, a delayed thanksgiving post: when I asked my grandfather what he wanted for his birthday/Christmas, he told me, "for you to find an agent and a publisher, and to get into grad school with good scores on your GREs."

If everyone had grandparents like mine, I don't think the world would have any crime or any war. We'd all live happy lives climbing lollypop trees and singing happy songs. I am so grateful for my family, who believe in me even though I categorically refuse to let them read my novels. I am tentatively planning on showing some them the first part of Skin Farm. We'll see if they think I've been wasting my time.

comments (0) | Labels: ,

Bad Writing

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

December 3, 2010

Still sick. No fun. I hate the isolation this causes. I see it as my moral obligation not to spread germs, but I haven't left the house in a week and I miss non-family social interaction. Even for me, grand solipsist that I am (see, still studying for the GREs), I like the occasionally company of someone my own age from time to time.

Dad had gall bladder surgery last weekend but now he's okay. It was edging on gangrenous when they took it out, so I'm glad they caught it before things got more serious. I hate the suddenness of these things. Why can't life hand you your schedule of medical emergencies in advance so you can properly prepare?

Today, I've been musing about the phrase "bad writing." I've had people talk to me about the bad writing in books. I've seen it on amazon reviews all the time. The funny thing is, it's a phrase the doesn't actually mean much, yet everyone seems to expect everyone else to understand what they mean.

I've been thinking about this because I was talking about books with a friend who hated Hunger Games because of its "bad writing." The vagueness of the phrase can refer to style, or to characterization, or to a dozen other nitpicky things. Usually an author is good on some points and not so good on others, yet if the particular aspect you care about as a reader is lacking, all of their good points get wrapped up in the term "bad writing". And often, even more ironically, sometimes it's a term that's used not about the writing at all, but about something else, like the choice of subject matter. If it's something you disagree with, then it's bad writing, too.

And then things get even more complicated, because sometimes the author does bad writing on purpose. Does that turn bad writing into good writing? Does that mean we judge should weigh intention while trying to judge if something is bad or not?

I thought about it somewhat while reading the criticism of Dan Wells' Serial Killer book on Amazon. It amused to me to see some people complaining that the protagonist's sociopathic tendencies are "bad writing" when it was a deliberate choice on the part of the author. I don't know whether it realistically represented a sociopath's perspective or not, not being a sociopath, but I wonder why people tend to dismiss things they don't like as "bad writing" instead of saying, "I didn't like the author's choice to do x". Not liking something is fine. But I wonder where we got the tendency to group everything we don't like under bad writing, because it's a universal trait. Maybe I felt a little touchy because some people on Amazon seemed to be equating bad writing with anything that has elements of fantasy.

So the moral of the story is, bad writing isn't always bad writing. Except when I use the term, because everything I don't like IS bad writing, even if all these other people using the phrase are crazy-kins. (/End irony.)

comments (1) | Labels:

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)