Think Tank Tuesdays: Madrid and AP crunch studies

Hello, my loves. I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted - it's been a hard couple of weeks.

I came back to see that I'd written a line for what was supposed to be a Maniacal Monday post from a couple months ago. Let's start this over. Obviously I've been on hiatus for a stretch - one that goes on for more than a couple of weeks. The last you guys heard from me, I was gearing up for my trip to Spain (my heart flutters at the mere thought) and bracing myself for the AP test gauntlet I was going to run in a couple weeks after.

Well, APs have been over for a week now.

If you guys haven't figured out by now, I'm what some people might call an academic achiever. I have taken a total of eight AP classes (four this year) and spent pretty much every night doing my homework until at least 12:30 am just to wake up at 6 am and begin the process all over again. During the school year, I live for my classes. Is it healthy? Probably not. But up until now, about three days until I am officially released from school as a senior and a week before I don my cap and gown, I haven't been able to write a blog post. So forgive me that, if you please. I thought I'd be able to get things I wanted done back up and running after APs but my classes had different ideas. I'm now swamped with a quiz and a project three days before I leave high school forever, and I'm definitely not amused.

But back to the original intention of this post, besides apologizing for my absence: What the heck have I actually been doing all this time?

Barring studying, homework, and sleeping, I've been living life. I have to tell you guys about Spain, because I think I've found my mother country. I mean, I'm an American, but the Spanish culture and lifestyle just feel so much more like me than how I live in Ohio. The people dress nicer, they are kinder, they are more open, and they're more worldly. The food is more to my taste, too. Fresher and cleaner and better on my body. I was there for a week, starting in the south of Spain, ferrying over to Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar, and then north to Sevilla, Grenada, Toledo, and then spending my final three days in Madrid.

Sevilla, also two of our teachers, Snas. Braun and Weiant.

Not only was it beautiful and wondrous, but I met so many amazing people and learned so much from the locals and from my guide, Ulrich, a German living in Barcelona up north. It taught me that I need to come back to this beautiful country and stay longer, and that The Artist is in need of some serious changes. It was hard to write about a country I'd never visited, but now that I've been there, it's really going to need some work. Fortunately, I have time for that, and I have a reference now! But seriously, I am still giddy about that trip, and it's been two months. My need to study abroad there is stronger than ever.

So, what have you guys been up to these last couple of months? I've missed you all, come talk to me! Tomorrow I'll try to actually post something writing-related, but until then, I'm going to try and update you all on my personal endeavors in small blocks on the Mondays of summer. (Spoiler alert: I'm going to college and I got my first real job.)

Hasta luego, mis dulces,
Brie

My Thoughts Thursday: The P Word

It's been quite the week. Generally I have some sort of post for Thursday where I'm serving up literary snark, but I'm too tired even for that. Sometimes, life rolls on. Other times, life steamrolls on. Over you. This is one of those other times.

A lot of people think that after Christmas break, life's a breeze. But since these people have left school, various school boards, states, and federal whims have brought us more testing, more homework, more diagnostics, and other behavioral corrections enough to make a lab rat out of me. I am nothing but five letters meant to make the school board look good, it seems.

The good news is, the weekend is almost here, and the week of OGTs is next, meaning I have two hours off school each day while the sophomores take graduation tests. I think...I THINK that I can finish The Artist next week.

Fingers crossed, writing gods appeased, lucky shirt worn.

So I guess my thoughts this Thursday are summed up on one word: Persistence. Perseverance can work, but you need tenacity, endurance. Push through, and you'll get what you want. Let's hope we all accomplish that soon, huh?

Don't forget the brain bucket,
Brie

Day 19 of Summer. Conclusion: Still Glow-in-the-dark White.

Hello again, everyone! It's been awhile, I know, since I posted last. I just...feel like I don't want to be bothering you with useless blog posts, as not very many interesting things have happened to me as of late.

Well, that's not necessarily true, but the things I find interesting aren't necessarily interesting to others. I did play a riveting three-hour game of Would You Rather. I think my friends and I go way more into depth on the prompts than is probably necessary or considered good. When asked if we'd rather be one of five surviving humans scattered across Earth or a survivor on a distant inhabited planet, we took into consideration that you might rather know the human race will continue without you rather than be one of five humans left in the globe. It was then argued that you probably wouldn't last too long on an alien planet where you don't know anything about the place or what's good or not good to eat, sleep on, walk over, etc.

Short version: Nerds are probably the best people to talk over your plans with. Whether it's for world domination, an impending apocalypse, or whether or not you should buy a certain outfit.

Anyway, I guess this blog post is both an apology for being so late and a little mini-lesson from me about how to take criticism. I actually got a critique today from someone on Hexbound (a miracle, if you've ever visited the site. That place gets about as much activity as a nursing home.) and, while reading it, realized that people (myself definitely included in the bunch) need to learn how to take criticism. I see it all the time with writers, students, and people in general. The classic reaction is to defend oneself or lash back out at the person. But we can't expect to improve if all we do is rationalize our shortcomings away, right?

So that's what this little mini-list is for. Because we all could stand to remember these things.

1. They wouldn't say it if they didn't want you to improve.

You hear this a lot, especially in class. Whenever I rip through someone's paper with my handy-dandy red pen, people tend to complain about all of the marks. I actually had this happen to me freshman year when I was fifteen. I had edited a kid's creative paper (of course, a strong area of mine at the time, being a bookworm and a returning writer) and practically covered it in comments, suggestions, and red pen. He started criticizing me for marking up his paper and my teacher walked over and told him, "You know, you should be thanking her. The more ink on that paper, the more she likes you. If she didn't really care whether or not you did well, she would've just noted a couple grammar mistakes and given it back. But she wants you to get a good grade on this and make it good, so she ripped it up. Don't ever ask a woman to do something, because guess what? She'll do it. And she'll do it well." If someone criticizes you on something, it'll probably hurt. Maybe a lot, maybe just a smidge. But it's better that they want you to be better than to just leave you as you are.

2. If it is said, take it to heart.

This point is where it gets hard for writers, especially. For us, our works aren't just mounds of black letters forming words, sentences, paragraphs. Writing is a dangerously personal profession, and a lot of writers - myself included - consider our manuscripts like our babies. They require care, attention, effort, just about everything a real baby does besides food and diaper changes. So when someone criticizes something about it, it's hard to look at it and change it. You love it so much, you feel so connected to it, it's like someone is personally criticizing you. But when they do, you have to realize that your opinion is not the only one that matters. If someone thinks that way, there's bound to be others who think so, too. If someone says (I'll use the example I got today) that some of my descriptions seemed to 'try too hard'. My automatic reaction was to lash out: what do you know? There's a point to that description. But I remembered this point again. If that reader thought so, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of others who think the same thing. It's worth taking a look at.

Last but not least:

3. Life is all about improving yourself.

You're never too old to change, and you're never too young to be stubborn. Remember the first two, and the third comes easy.

Backspacing and white-out wands,
Brie

The Aftermath

So...went boxing yesterday. It was a good time, I didn't realize how strong I really am. And being Collins' basic frame and size, that's got good going for her.

Unfortunately, I woke up from a dead sleep and realized that I'm now aching in places that I didn't know I could ache in. My armpits, the bottom of my shoulder blades, and even the back of my quads. One of the things I realized during my trip to Title Boxing was that you last a lot less time than you think you will in energy in stamina. When I played volleyball, we were in pretty intense physical training; I'm in pretty good shape. However, I couldn't go more than perhaps five minutes without having to dance around the bag. Granted, the bag is a huge black leather blob that's meant to provide more resistance than a human body, but it just goes to show how you can't try and just go hard all at once, or your opponent will outlast you.

This was a great experience, and I have to admit I didn't want to take off my wraps because I felt too awesome and couldn't wait to get home and start writing notes to fix my fight scenes and how Collins thinks through her fights. That's another part of fight scenes that is helped by having been in something like it before. If you've never fought, you can't really accurately think of what to do throughout it. Unless the character has no fighting experience, they're generally going to be a little calmer and more calculating through the situation. Collins thinks through her punches in sequence: Left, right, uppercut. That works...but she'll have to switch directions with Oliver, since he's left-handed.

I hope everyone's weekends kicked off well, and no one's too sore from their escapades!

Knuckle wraps and sore armpits,
Brie

My first ever video review!

Hello everyone! I'm super excited to show this off - in fact, when I saw this first I pretty much Facebook Chat-bombed most of my writer friends using a shameless amount of caps lock and flailing emoticons.

I asked for a video review of the portion of The Artist I have up on Wattpad, and Ms. Dunbar was very kind and said she'd be happy to.

Little did I know she'd have such a reaction to it:

http://ask.fm/dunbarsi

Due to the website, I can't post the video directly here, but scroll down until you see 'The Artist' in the title and that's her review.

She gave it a perfect 10, her first, and proceeded to spend about a minute telling me how much she loves my book. She loves Ollie, she loves Collins, and she's apparently a new fan of mine.

I HAVE A FANDOM GUYS :D

Flailing and screaming with joy,
Brie

So, Happy Belated New Year, Everyone!

Yes, I've noticed, my blog hasn't been updated since NaNoWriMo was still in full swing in mid-November. The good news is, all this time away from the blogosphere has given me ample time to work on The Artist, and that yesterday I literally spent seven hours doing nothing but writing. Oliver and Collins thank me dearly.

However, unfortunately, I've been away for far too long! It's been almost five months, which is a lot of time in any person's perspective, but definitely a long time for a writer. Usually, most blogs are updated weekly, and I'm hoping to finally get into the swing of that, save perhaps finals week in May. But that's hopefully as far away as I think it is.

Anyways, dear followers, I thought I'd make an annoucement:

I have been accepted to two very prestigious writing programs at Denison University and at Kenyon College in Gambier. You may receive the college's Kenyon Review. They're both intense summer programs, not very cheap, and an opportunity to go out there and meet more writers. We writers are like birds, we flock together when we can. So the chance to meet thirty others? More? That's like a dream come true.

Alas, I must choose only one, and hope that next year when I apply I can attend the other. Or perhaps I might even get into the one offered for rising college freshmen at Yale. That would be fantastic.

So thank you to those who have stuck with me, or perhaps just forgotten to stop following my blog, and I hope to appease you with more posts to come! I hope everyone's Spring Break, whether it's ended, ending, or just begun, was wonderful, and a happy Easter to those who celebrate!

Spring weather and chocolate bunnies,
Brie