While in Paris, Mom, Laura and I went to Musée d’Orsay to see the Impressionist paintings. It wasn’t until I saw the first Renoir that I remembered he and I share Rheumatoid Arthritis. When I saw that first painting (I can’t remember which it was), his words rang in my head as if I’d just read them: “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” (more…)
Since my WIP, Illuminate, is also the thesis project for my graduate program, I don’t have as much time as I’m used to for fiddling around and rewriting stuff. The logical response? Go absolutely crazy. Step 1: Make Character Arcs for Everyone. The Interwebs contain lots of great information about character arcs, so in brief: In the course of a story, characters will respond to conflict on an external and internal level, and by the conclusion characters will undergo some sort of change. This creates story arcs. Every book has at least one major arc. I personally like Doug Tennapel’s...
This may seem counter to all my [insanely structure-based] tips earlier, but sometimes you just need to… Blow your schedule out the window. (more…)
The third part of my secret to survive college with three jobs and a full load of courses? Use your time intentionally. (more…)
The second part of my tips for surviving college with the Power of Being Intentional and Organized. Again, my methods probably won’t work for everyone, but I hope they can be adapted to help you not be that kid who spends college running after the deadlines that got away. Get a note-taking device JUST for lists. (more…)
A friend of mine asked me how I survived college with a full load of courses and three jobs, while still managing to attend some campus clubs and volunteer. Not all of my methods will work for everyone, because I am a mildly-insane organization freak. But in the hope that maybe a few of the tips in these entries can help another floundering undergraduate, I thought I’d share! My first tip: Get a calendar and use it. (more…)
I’ve completed my reading goal for the year! I set my goal on Goodreads back on January 1, 2013. This year I’d lowered it to 50 books, hoping to use my extra time and tackle more classics. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that, but I did pass my goal with a final count of 63/50. Not all of these books were published in 2013, but below is a list of my favorites from my reading list this year. 1. The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness Young Adult fiction. Huckleberry Finn meets Firefly. Fantastically written. Though the...
Last fall, I wrote an essay that eventually won third place in the Elie Wiesel Foundation’s Prize in Ethics. Over a year after the first draft, I found myself in New York City to attend seminars with the other winners and an award ceremony. It was a crazy, crazy experience, guys. October 2nd: I arrived from Heathrow and met my parents on Wednesday. We got to the Wellington Hotel (where the foundation had reserved a room for me) without too much hassle—though Dad driving in NYC during rush hour traffic was a terrifying experience in and of itself. I got...
Originally written early on October 4th, the day after the Prize in Ethics Ceremony. A full day report will be coming soon. Dr. Patterson told us that when he met Elie Wiesel his life was divided into two parts. I did not understand what he meant until after the awards were handed out. When the ceremony was done, I found myself standing near Gavriel (the first place winner). Professor Wiesel came to us and took my hand his his left and Gavi’s in his right. He held my hand in the way family does sometimes, when they are proud or...
So some people asked me to share my symposium presentation about building myth in creative writing. Your wish is my command! Here’s my abstract: The world is not constructed simply of fact, but also of myth. The interplay between mythology, geography, culture and history is a relationship which fiction provides a perfect platform for exploring. This presentation will focus specifically on Welsh and Celtic mythology, a relatively unknown genre of myth, before exploring the ways studying the influences of myth can help create worlds in fiction. Welsh mythology is closely tied to its geographic roots, with many tales informing the...
© 2018 · Alyssa Hollingsworth