Summer Vacaaation *guitar solo*

This blog has totally gotten dusty, because graduate school is, as they say, hard. Or at least I say. Because holy crap. This semester alone I was reading around 5 novels a week, plus copious amounts of writing, in addition to working part time at my job. BUT, today, I turned in my last final paper, and am excited to commence the partying. With the exception of a 6-week class I’m taking through June, the summer doth lay before me, like a lightly swinging hammock in the breeze. I’m going to read books…FOR FUN (scandal!), write drafts of my novels, take pictures, blog, clean our long-forgotten apartment floor, start running, learn Swedish and go on road trips. Well, at least I plan to do all these things. I’ll be happy enough if I read some and get one of my novels drafted. You see? I can be pie-in-the-sky AND pragmatic, too.

So, maybe since I’ve not written much about … anything … you would like to hear about my graduate school experience? No, you’d just like to hear about the hammock some more?

Well, as it sways gently in the breeze, dappled by warm, glowing sunshine, a big, sweaty mojito rests, waiting on a table at arm’s length.

By Flickr user emzee

PSYCH! To recap, I’m working toward a MFA in Writing for Children. The program is pretty heavy in critical theory as well, so for both the fall and spring semesters, I took a writing course AND a criticism course. In the fall, I took Criticism of Literature for Children, which was basically a history of literary criticism, plus we read a lot of young adult books (and some graphic novels, picture books and middle grade books as well) which we applied the critical theories to. Not only was there 40+ pages of heavy-duty criticism every week, plus the novel, but I also had to write a paper every week. And the prof was a TOUGH grader, so writing those papers every week was like squeezing blood from a stone. My writing class was less intense, but equally fulfilling. I read so many great books and learned sooo much about writing, the chapters I wrote from week to week indicated a lot of progress, and I even got to try my hand at writing a graphic novel script and picture book text. Just learning the depth behind writing a picture book gave me newfound appreciation for them. Did you know that picture book writers (if they are not the illustrators) do not get to choose the illustrator for the book, and seldom have any input as to how the images will look? I didn’t know that either, and it STILL blows my mind. Just like graphic novels, it’s stunning to see image and picture come together for such a rich, involving reading experience.

Me, every week. From Flickr user LSE Library

For the spring semester, I took a course in Contemporary Realistic Fiction (basically just realistic young adult novels from the last 10 years or so). Over the winter break, I got to read 23 novels in 30ish days to prepare for this class. As you might imagine, I don’t really remember my winter vacation with much clarity. But, for the spring, I read about 60 books for this one class alone. For my final paper I read an additional 5. The class was sort of overwhelmingly helpful for my own writing, every week I was reading several novels in the genre I write, and I really got to see how often the same stuff crops up in novels all the time, as well as seeing things I thought were original going into my novel show up in at least three different books. But I also got to read a lot of criticism, which I actually enjoy, and it makes me consider pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature, because I really love this stuff, and I seem to have an endless amount of enthusiasm for a lot of forms of literature (novels, graphic novels, picture books, fairy tales) from all over the world (Scandinavia, France, Germany, Canada, the US), and picking it apart.

Anyway, in addition to the fiction class, I took Writing II, which was much more intense than Writing I. I had to crank out a new chapter for my novel every other week, in addition to reading (very long) novels, teaching a lesson in class, and reading/providing feedback for my classmates every week. I also got to write a long paper in the end for that as well, but that paper was quite helpful. But, it was really the stuff that frustrated me the most about the class that helped me out the most in the end. A huge reason for my entering this program in the first place was that I wanted to write, but I just spit out these incomprehensible drafts during NaNoWriMo, and then never finished them. And I wanted to write for young adults for maximum impact, despite the very little amount of YA I had actually read before my entrance into the program. And it took this whole year of starting over, from scratch, learning from the people who are doing it now and doing it well, and cranking out excruciating first chapter versions one after the other, and getting contradictory feedback from my well-intentioned classmates week in and week out to realize that there was an immense amount of good in doing things the way I did it before, but I needed some craft help to help me to compose the novel better from the beginning, and to go through the gauntlet of feedback to anticipate what I might want to polish during the editing process. But on the other hand, spitting out a draft whole NaNoWriMo style and listening to my own vision instead of agonizing over every detail and whether people will like this or be offended by that should really come later, and not cloud the writing process, because I just get stuck and don’t move forward.

So, in essence, the worst thing this year was the best thing. Yay!

That is why my mascot for the 2009-2010 academic year is … the STOAT.

The stoat, as you can see, is adorable. It is tiny and cute and runs around and stuff. Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy turns upon occasion into a stoat. And this is how I first heard of this animal. So you see, it is fitting in a children’s literature sense. Also because I like cute things. But, the stoat is also a carnivore. They like eggs and cats. The stoat, like my school year, is the worst best thing.

So that is graduate school, thus far. Next year, I am doing an independent study to write a picture book text about a new obsession, a whole class on picture books (which sounds like a doozy) and each semester, I do this thing called a mentorship. I get paired with an editor or established author who works with me on a novel manuscript (so two different novels, one different one each semester) until it’s all polished and awesome and I can get it ready to submit for publication.

But other things that are new, during this, my first year of graduate school, and my first year living in Boston:

• I went vegan.
• I am getting much better about crossing streets like a New Englander (that is, crossing when it’s good enough, rather than waiting for a light).
• I am finding all kinds of great coffee shops, restaurants and book stores in the city.
• And yes, New Englanders can be kind of…terse…but I’m getting used to that, too.

It’s hard to put it into words without it sounding more harsh than it is. What I think the main difference is between West Coasterners from New Englanders is consideration. Like, I worked retail when I lived in Boise, too. And lets say I’m checking someone out at the register, and it’s wrapping up: I’m handing them the receipt and the bag, but the customer is still trying to collect all their stuff and get outta there. In Boise, if the next customer in line walked up and started putting their stuff down on the counter before the first person was finished, arguments broke out. It only happened once, maybe twice in my four years of retail, but when it did, it got ugly. The first person would totally call out the second person for being rude and not waiting their turn. And this is from polite, old lady Boise types. So, it was a REAL breach of etiquette, excusable only if the second person needs to pay so they can run back out to their car and take their wife, who is in labor, to the hospital.

Not so in Boston. If a person is waiting for someone to get out of the store, they walk up to the counter and set their stuff down immediately. Almost every single time. So, in Boise, that behavior would be called rude, but maybe a better term would be… inconsiderate? You’re not considering that the person in front of you just needs ten seconds to collect their things and leave, and then you’ll get your turn? But then, nobody seems to mind since it is the norm here. Likewise on the subway, nobody gets in straight orderly lines here, you just push onto the train, and nobody gets mad if you push in front of them to get on the train, because that’s just the norm. So in context, perhaps New Englanders are not rude, but out of context, for someone not quite accustomed to the behaviors, the general milieu can come off as pushy. Oh, and Boston drivers should have to pay a fee to honk their horns. Because they are WAY too fond of that.

So, a year in Boston, a year in graduate school. Intense times that are teaching me a lot about myself. And now all that stretches before me is endless amounts of time for fun…

NOT!