Game Plan

I'm going to write my final blog post for Intro to Professional Writing now so that I won't have to double up during the week with an A-to-Z Challenge post.  I'd just like to give an overview of what I've decided to work on for my digital portfolio (for the time being).

Rather than trying to tackle ten pieces, I've decided to go down to six.  If an employer really wants to know a lot about me, he or she can read through my hundreds of blog posts.  Three nonfiction pieces and three fiction pieces should be enough for the portfolio.

Because I like novellas, novellas are in between short stories and novels for length, and the story I choose to review should probably be read again before I rewrite the review for it, I have decided to use my review of The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson in my portfolio.  I will consider my original review but rewrite the review based upon a second reading of the award-winning novella.

For my "On Writing" post I have decided on the second post of my "Quotes" posts.  Unlike some of my other Writing posts, it doesn't go into a writing concept, but I think the post clearly demonstrates my ability to analyze stories and recognize literary magic.

I will indeed include one fantasy story, one sci-fi story, and one horror story in my portfolio.  For fantasy, I'll be using "Lost Love and Nightprowlers."  It will need some large revisions, but it is a story that I have worked on for three years now and, despite posting it to my blog some time back, I think it can be made into a great story.  There are some romance elements in this story that should hint at my abilities in that genre as well.  In sci-fi, I have selected my Flash Frenzy submission "The Last Photo of Humanity."  The psychological element is great, I think, and there is a clear blend of sci-fi and horror.  For horror, I have just now decided upon my Flash Friday submission "Two For Hell."  I really like the style that I used, and I believe this story to be my most terrifying.

To exhibit my ability to work in a group, I have decided to include my proposal as my final portfolio piece (though the actual order I will present the pieces in may be different).  I can't guarantee everything in the proposal is 100% realistic, but I do think that the proposal demonstrates my current knowledge of the publishing industry and my ability to come up with an idea for a novel.

The first three of these pieces will take substantial work.  My latter two fiction pieces will likely stay fairly similar to their original forms, but will definitely get some clean-up.  I would like to preserve the group dynamic of my proposal by keeping the parts my partner wrote fairly close to their "handed-in" form.  The proposal will still need some revisions, I'm sure.  With these six pieces in polished form, I feel confident that my portfolio will be striking.

Two More Weeks of Labor

(Note: This is not an A-to-Z Challenge post.  I posted for today a short while ago.)

My last assignment for this semester is the digital portfolio due on the 28th.  Prior to that, I have a list of exams and other assignments to handle.  The very first thing on my list of things to do is to decide what piece I want to bring in tomorrow to be work-shopped.  I need to get on that.

I have decided (for now) to have four categories of pieces in my portfolio (subject to change): Reviews, On Writing (I'm totally stealing Stephen King's book title), Fiction, and In-House Professional Writing.  I will have three reviews (a short story review, a novella review, and a novel review), two short essays on writing, three stories (one horror, one fantasy, and one sci-fi), and my proposal and press release from the class.  Ten pieces might be too much for the portfolio though.  I will have to figure out if that is permissible or not.  I could always cut it down to four and just use a novella review, one essay on writing, a short story, and either the proposal or the press release.  Or I could go with a number in between four and ten.

The largest piece of work I have before me in the next two weeks (other than the portfolio) is a 6-8 page research paper for my Intro to Medieval Art course that is due in class by next Thursday.  I have my introductory paragraph done and a good bit of research conducted.  I still need to research more and actually write the paper though.  That'll probably take at least six hours of work.  Hopefully I'll get a lot of work done this weekend so that I can send the draft to my professor for feedback (as she offered to everyone in the class).  I think the paper will turn out well, and my grade in that class is quite good, so I'm not drastically worried about it, though I will be if I don't have it finished by the end of Sunday.

Hey, Look, I'm Actually Being a Good Little Blogger

(Note: This is not an A-to-Z Challenge post.  My post for today will likely go up shortly after this one.)

As I mentioned in my last Professional Writing blog post, I'm participating in the A-to-Z Challenge this month.  So far I have posted five times and received eleven comments.  Most of the comments have been the result of my usual blogging strategy, which is to comment on other blogs.  I've been pretty good, commenting on a few blog posts each day (except maybe one day).  The time of day that I've posted at has slipped, but hasn't fallen to the last hour of the day at all.

I've liked my posts so far.  My theme for the Challenge, as I've mentioned before, is world-building elements and character bios.  Two of my posts have been bios.  My first post was about a magic system and my "C" and "D" posts were focused on bizarre world-building elements of a setting I haven't actually written anything in.

In other news, my partner and I have completed our proposal for class.  I think it turned out really well.  I can't guarantee a press would actually use our plan exactly, but I do think it's plausible.  It was fun making the details up.

Writing More

Alright, so I have a lot of writing to do.  I have a few paragraphs to write for my proposal, plus editing for that.  I have a research paper for my Intro to Medieval Art class that I'll need to do in the next three weeks.  There are a few more blog posts to be written for this class.  I have two short papers to write for my Acting I class.  Oh, and there's the whole A-to-Z Challenge.  I should probably describe that for those who only read my "Professional Writing" posts.

The A-to-Z Challenge is a sort of blog hop taking place each April.  Hundreds of bloggers participate.  This will be my fourth year partaking in the Challenge, but I dropped out after a few days last year.  Hopefully I'll make it the whole way through this time around.  Each day in April (not counting Sundays), each blogger posts.  The first post has something to do with the letter "A."  In the past my posts for the first of April have been named "A is for Arson," "A is for A. A. Milne," and "A is for Abednego."  My plan for the Challenge this year is to post a character bio or a description of some world-building element of a setting I make up (likely a distinct setting in most posts).

I'm going to be writing a lot more than I have been in the coming days.  The first step is to get my first Challenge post pre-written for tomorrow.  It's going to be a long month.

The Pride She Carries

I've never finished a novel before, so I've never needed to write a query letter.  Despite this, I wrote a query letter a couple days ago.  This query is completely fake: written by a fake author to a fake editor about a fake book.  I really like the idea I came up with though.  I doubt that I'll ever actually write it (because I'm not sure that I'm the best person for the job), but it would be really fun to read.

The idea for The Pride She Carries came from female Kurdish resistance groups.  I had the idea in a different sort of setting for the same genre (far-future military SF) before deciding to use the idea for this fake book that my partner and I are using for our proposal for class.  I won't post the full pitch, but I'll try to boil it down below.

Chanua, a female war hero, battles a terrorist sect of radicals from an archaic native religion with a group of fellow female warriors.  Will the terrorists, who go by the name the Lions' Bane, succeed in taking all of Kenya by storm, or will Chanua and her Huntresses pick them clean to the bone?

Momentum

Momentum is important for writers.  It is immensely easier to get your pen flowing when you've just recently pushed ink through the feed.  This concept applies to me in several ways (two of which I'll talk about here).

It has been two weeks since I last wrote a blog post.  I had intended to post twice a week throughout the semester, but this plan failed.  I'm scraping by with my requisite post per week.  Some of this is loss of energy.  Much of it is loss of momentum.  Back when I was writing three blog posts each week, my hands were always primed and ready for the next post because they were in a rhythm.  Now my rhythm is only one post per week, and that isn't complex enough a song to keep me writin' on.

While I definitely believe that writing blog posts is important for creative writers, writing creative works should be a top priority.  I have lost virtually all sense of momentum for my creative writing.  I started to build a little bit of momentum over Spring Break, writing two small flash fics, starting a third, and editing a fourth, but since then I haven't followed up on that wave.  I let myself settle in the trough.  Dommage.  One of these days I'll build up momentum.  I'll finish the novelette I've been working on sporadically since fall of 2014 and get more flash fics pumped out.  Maybe I'll actually cross some stories off of my list of projects-in-the-wings.

On the podcast Writing Excuses, author Mary Robinette Kowal said that when she's lost momentum she'll start off writing just a few sentences a day, building her way back up to thousands of words.  This is a plan I should attempt.  While I have found recently that I don't work well in flash fiction taking more than a sitting or two to complete a story, taking this idea to my novelette should get the blood pumping in both the story and my writing veins.

Targeting Multiple Audiences

In the press releases that we just wrote we were instructed to write with two audiences in mind.  The first audience was journalists and the second was the true target audience of the press release.  This approach does not only exist for press releases.  I use a similar approach when I write fiction.

For fiction to be traditionally published, it first needs to get through a "gatekeeper."  This "gatekeeper" can be one or more slush readers, assistant editors, an editor-in-chief, etc.  In rare cases, the "gatekeeper" can be the public (or virtual public), as is the case in a flash fiction contest for Escape Pod that I am participating in now.  When I write, I assume that the "gatekeeper" will be an editor, unless I'm writing specifically to target a market that I know uses slush readers first or whatever.

If I'm targeting a specific editor I will look at the attributes of the stories that editor publishes and try to keep my story compatible with those stories.  For example, if I know an editor prefers 3rd-narrative POV, I will write the story using that POV.  Usually I do not target specific editors.

Targeting editors in general is a small matter, but it does need to be considered.  Editors in general in the genres I write prefer 3rd-limited or 1st-person POV.  Consequently, most of the stories I write are in those POVs.  Editors in general like traditional plot structures.  I write mainly traditional plot structures for many reasons; this is one of them.  These are just two examples of ways in which I consider editors when I write.

Primarily, I write stories in ways that I believe readers will like.  In order to get to those readers through traditional channels, I must first get through "gatekeepers."  Just as one must target multiple audiences for a press release, one must do the same for stories seeking traditional publication.

Twitter: A Writer's Tool

Before I made a Twitter account I seriously doubted the usefulness of the resource.  Why would you want to be limited to 140 characters a pop?  What can Twitter do for me that Facebook can't?  While Facebook can be utilized in much the same ways as Twitter, Twitter does its job better for certain groups of people.

I have conversed with several prominent members of my field through Twitter.  For names most people recognize, this is difficult.  But for higher-ups in a specific area such as SFF writers, this is sometimes easy.  I have conversed with the likes of Brian McClellan, Caroline Yaochim, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Dan Wells on Twitter.  I am followed by novelist David Farland (a pen name for Dave Wolverton) and short fiction writer Alex Shvartsman, among others.  Many of these sorts of folks will respond to direct questions and some comments, assuming you're being civil.

I've learned a lot from reading tweets and clicking on links to posts and Google Hangouts by writers of speculative fiction.  Some more specific information I've garnered from talking to lesser-name writers directly.  They really are quite nice, in general.

Twitter can be a great tool for writers.  It can be used for both networking and for gathering information.  I do not regret making an account whatsoever.

Inclusion

This quote from former President Bill Clinton, which I found on hillaryspeeches.com ("Bill Clinton Campaigns for Hillary in SC and GA"; photo also from that post), has multiple "meaningless words" and phrases.

"Change maker" is the first meaningless phrase.  Outside of politics, there might be some shred of meaning for the term, but within politics the phrase is hollow.  Some politicians make more changes than others, sure, but everyone makes changes.  Even the most classical conservatives make changes.  "Change maker" is a buzzphrase, stripped of its denotation until all that is left is a positive connotation for most.

There are three instances of "inclusion" in this quote, and zero of them have meaning.  When you see  the word "inclusive," you may get a warm feeling, but that's all there is to the word as it relates to the words "economics," "politics," and "society."  There are policies that could fall under the category of "inclusive," but as Mr. Clinton used the word, there is buzz without sting.

"Safe" falls toward being a meaningless word as well.  It can mean many things.  No policy can satisfy "safety" by all of its definitions.  In context one can assume that the word is used to describe a state in which terrorism is infrequent, so there is some meaning to be found here.

The final "meaningless word" Bill Clinton used in this quote is "Americans," specifically after the phrase "who we are as."  There isn't a unified idea of what it means to be an American.  Beyond that, Mr. Clinton never attempts to narrow what being an American means.  He simply says that his wife would "[keep] us safe without giving up who we are as Americans."

Virtually no part of this sentence has any meaning whatsoever.  It is political up to the lip of the jar.  If anything, Mr. Clinton is saying that his wife is a liberal.  Well, so is her opponent.  There isn't really a way to fix Mr. Clinton's statement.  Add meaning by actually saying something.

My Editing Process

"Editing process" is a term I use loosely.  I don't really have a unified approach to editing my writing.  Part of this is because I write a wide variety of different genres.  Another part is that some of my manuscripts come out better in their first draft than others.  My path for editing fiction is often quite different than my path for editing nonfiction.

For fiction, a full cycle from first draft to final draft can take years.  There are several reasons for this.  One is that it often takes me months to complete the first draft of a story.  I have a few stories that have been in the works for over a year.  Length of story is a small component of this problem.  My problem here is that I have trouble sustaining effort on projects until they're done, either because of other work (and subsequent loss of momentum) or because I'm unhappy with the quality of the work-in-progress.  I really need to learn to just finish the stories, and I hope to finish my works-in-progress eventually.  The next reason my stories take a long time to develop is because I don't like making major changes right away.  My first few rounds of editing generally go after problems at the paragraph and sentence levels, avoiding larger problems that aren't glaring.  After months of a story lying around I tend to be more apt to making large-scale changes, such as completely rewriting a story from the beginning.  Closely related to that second reason, the uncertain endpoint for stories leads them to continue changing over time.  Until I've posted a story to my blog or had it accepted somewhere, my stories are stuck in limbo.  I make changes every once in a while to continuously improve them.

Most of the time I'll ask alpha and/or beta-readers to critique my stories before I start submitting (and sometimes later).  I then use that feedback to make changes.  Most of this feedback is small stuff, so I make sure the mistakes are indeed mistakes, then I fix them.  For larger pieces of feedback, such as comments about a weakness in a character, I will go through the manuscript and make changes throughout in order to improve my story.  I don't take all advice given to me.  If I feel that the changes recommended would harm my story either in style or vision, I will ignore them.

My own editing steps often start while I'm writing.  Sometimes I fix my stories up as I write them (a habit I'm trying to break); other times I make myself notes for later regarding what I'll need to revise.  After my first draft is finished, I let my work sit for a few weeks (assuming I have the time).  When my eyes have refreshed sufficiently, I reread my story and note what changes should be made.  I will usually fix small errors as I go.  After I have a list of changes to be made, I make those changes.  After I have my second draft, I read through the story again and repeat until I have my third draft.  Then my fourth.  Then my fifth.  Some of my stories look very similar to their original forms, while others are barely recognizable.

For nonfiction, my editing steps are much the same as my steps for fiction.  The main exceptions are that I usually don't have alpha/beta readers and I don't often wait more than a few days before making edits.  For something like a blog post, edits often take place a few minutes after I've finished my last sentence.  If I were trying to get something published professionally I would probably adopt a system closer to that which I use for my stories.  I don't think the changes would quite compare to those that I've made over the past four years for a certain story though.  It is also virtually unheard of for me to note future revisions while I write a nonfiction piece.

The way I have written about my editing process may make it seem like an actual procession of actions that I adopt for each piece.  This is deceiving.  While my process is very loosely the same each time, I don't force myself to use any particular method.  Sometimes I print my manuscripts out and write notes on the paper.  Other times I do everything on the computer, adding notes in red type within red brackets.  Often I take notes with pencil on paper as I read from my laptop.  It's a little different every time.  For this process I leave a big disclaimer: results may vary.

The Subgenres of SF

I hope to do reviews of sci-fi and fantasy stories professionally some day.  In writing these reviews, I often define the subgenre of particular stories.  As far as I can remember, I've never written a post describing the subgenres of sci-fi, but I have posted about fantasy twice.  The more recent, far better post can be found here.  Today I would like to detail just the four main types of sci-fi prose: hard SF, military SF, soft SF, and space opera.

Hard SF is also defined as technological sci-fi.  This is the most common use of the subgenre.  Hard SF emphasizes science, particularly the "hard" sciences or natural sciences.  These include chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, engineering, and others.  Technology is not a required aspect to a hard SF story, though most stories of the subgenre deal with it.  One story I'll be reviewing for class has its scientific bases in zoology.  I consider the story hard SF (though it's a blend with contemporary fantasy).  In hard SF, the facts behind the science are crucial; however, because these stories are often projected far into the future, the science only needs to be plausible.  Analog Science Fiction and Fact is perhaps the most prestigious magazine for and most frequent publisher of hard SF.

Military SF is well-named.  It's science fiction that focuses on militaries.  Usually the protagonist is a soldier, though this is not a hard requirement.  Military SF is fairly rare, though not as rare as one might think.  Even in sci-fi stories that aren't strictly military, war and combat are frequent elements.  Military SF exists on a spectrum from space opera to hard SF.  Sometimes you get unlikely aliens and what seems like magic, while other times you get detailed explanations of the physics behind a soaring missile.  When well-written, military SF gives us fantastic romps.  As far as I know, there aren't any major publishers who focus on military SF.  Stories in this subgenre appear sporadically.

Soft SF has many clarified names.  It can be psychological SF, philosophical SF, or sociological SF.  The borders of soft SF are blurry.  Soft SF is supposed to be at least somewhat focused on science, most typically the "soft" sciences or social sciences.  The humanities can also lend themselves to soft SF.  It is unclear where stories with little "soft" implications and some "hard" implications should be placed.  Most of those stories will end up being either military SF or some blend of sci-fi and fantasy, but that is not always the case.  Soft SF seems to be attributed to stories less often than the other main subgenres of sci-fi.  Sometimes stories in the gray region are coupled with true soft SF under the nondescript name of "sci-fi."  True soft SF is the sort of stuff that makes you question what you know about yourself, society, and even existence.  It can show you what's inside your head, describe society better than most literary fiction, or present a deep philosophical question.  Orson Scott Card's books Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind (sequels to Ender's Game) are excellent examples of soft SF.

Because it hasn't really changed since I wrote about it before, I'm just going to quote my post about fantasy subgenres to describe space opera, since realistically it's a blend: "Space opera is where the line between fantasy and science-fiction blurs. Some consider it fantasy, others science-fiction. Star Wars and Star Trek are both considered space opera. Science as we know it is completely disregarded on multiple planets in both settings, which some argue makes space opera a subgenre of fantasy. The often futuristic settings of space opera stories make them appear to be science-fiction. To be fair, space opera can be regarded as a subgenre of both science-fiction and fantasy."

Science fiction has far fewer subgenres than fantasy.  Part of the reason for this is that fantasy is a much larger concept.  The other part is that the boxes we have built for sci-fi are quite large.  Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to break these subgenres up into better classifications, other than to separate them out into biological SF, sociological SF, etc.  This wouldn't actually help very much because stories that blend would still blend.  My rule of thumb is that if I can't put a subgenre to a story I don't; I just call it "sci-fi" and leave it at that.

Reviews

Reviews play an important role in the publishing industry.  Their primary function is as a marketing tool.  Glowing reviews are quoted and put on or in books to help them sell.  Positive reviews on Amazon (and the like) promote the sale of books, whereas negative reviews denounce the sales.  Published critical reviews are also residual marketing tools.  They examine the quality of a work critically and influence sales/exposure indirectly.  The type of review I write is similar to these reviews.

I call my reviews "literary criticisms."  If you click the tag of that name on this site, you'll be able to read the dozens of literary criticisms that I have written.  These criticisms are almost invariably written in the same format.  The outline I have chosen is based upon what I believe is most important about stories.

My criticisms are not analyses like you might find in a literature class.  I really don't care much about sub-text unless it's right beneath the surface.  If it isn't clear, it isn't there.  Theme and "meaning" can be very important, but only insofar as they are properly displayed by the three main aspects of any story: plot, setting, and characters.

The first paragraph of my criticisms is an introduction.  I usually give the title of the work I'm criticizing, the name of the author, the length of the work, and where the work came from.  Typically I'll give some indication of what I thought of the work as well.  The next three paragraphs deal with plot, setting, and characters.  The order varies depending upon what jumps out at me the most.  I try to position my paragraphs to allow the best transitions possible.  Ideally, the plot, setting, and characters of a story are interwoven so tightly that I can transition from any of them to any of the others and then over to the third; if this isn't the case, I will place the two paragraphs with connections to one another next to each other.  Sometimes the body of my critiques will get a fourth paragraph.  That forth paragraph is used if I have something specific to say about the prose (the words, the authorial voice, the style) of the work.  For most stories I will give a quick remark or two about the prose in the first or last paragraph and leave it at that, but for some stories the prose either makes the work immensely better or immensely poorer.  My final paragraph comments on what I wrote prior to that point.  I often give the work a grade, such as 95%, and then I provide some means of finding the work if I haven't already.

I don't read a lot of critical reviews, but I should.  I would really like to write some some day within a professional capacity.  Two of my reviews appeared in the High School Highlights section of the Somerset Daily American during my high school career (one for the movie Gravity and the other for the novella Perfect State); however, I was not paid for either.  It's not truly professional unless money changes hands.  In any case, I hope that if I am able to write reviews professionally some day, that I will be allowed to use the format that I currently use.  Why would I use it if I didn't think it was the best?

Professional Creative Writing: The Surface Scatched

When I first sat down to write this post, I thought that it would be best to address it directly to my fellow Creative Writing majors.  Then I thought that might be insulting.  For all I know, they know more about the industry than I do.  My fellow classmates would be a better audience, I decided.  But then I thought about it and chose to just write the post openly.  Some people who have visited this blog before or will in the future know this information; my guess is that many know only some of it.

My focus is in short speculative fiction.  For the most part, this is fantasy, sci-fi, and horror from flash fiction up to some novellas.  At novella-length it gets a little blurry because some, from a contractual standpoint, look like short fiction and others look like novels.

Best-selling SFF writer Brandon Sanderson urges those pursuing publication of their creative works professionally to view themselves as small businessmen and women.  This sort of creative writing is self-aware.  It is entertainment rather than simply art.  It is as professional as any other form of writing and often garners similar amounts of pay.  A writer has a brand, a reputation built upon his or her work.  (S)he produces a commodity that may or may not have a value, depending upon how it measures up to that of others.  Payment is expected for the use of these products, though it is assumed that the vast majority of potential buyers will not put them in their cart to begin with.

As of July 2014, the professional rate for short speculative fiction is six cents per word.  The rate immediately prior to that month was five cents per word.  It had stood at a nickel a word since 2004, when the pro rate increased from three cents per word.  (These rates are taken from SFWA, the Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.)  The semi-pro rate is one cent per word, according to Duotrope, a database for publications.  Any payment below the semi-pro rate but above zero is considered a token payment.

To put this in perspective, consider a 3,000-word story.  At the minimum pro rate, this story would garner $180.  Semi-pro markets would pay at least $30.  The pro rate may seem pretty good, and it is, considering the market.  The nature of the industry does not allow for much income, however.  Writing short fiction is not something you should attempt to make an occupation.

My personal writing rate varies, but I've gotten it up to about 600 words per hour for drafting.  For a 3,000-word story I would need some time in brainstorming, as well as an additional few hours for editing.  That gives me five hours for drafting, another hour or so for brainstorming, and about four hours for revisions, all guesstimated.  These figures are optimistic.  Considering the payment for such a story, the hourly pay for my writing would be $18 per hour for pro rate and $3 per hour for semi-pro.  Unfortunately, this math neglects the time required to research markets and submit to them.  It also fails to incorporate time to send emails to critique partners and time to read their replies.  The amount of thought put into the stories and the energy expended by that thought is intangible.  All things considered, even earning a professional rate does not guarantee hourly pay better than that earned by the average worker at Walmart.

This blog post is getting pretty long, so I will end it here.  It will likely continue with a deeper explanation of why you should never attempt to survive solely off of short spec fic story writing.  I might even write something up about the economics behind novels.  Contracts are another subject of note.  This vast pool of information is related to the topic of professional writing, but is not what I will be focusing on in future posts for my Intro to Professional Writing class.  This post serves both as a tipping point for future posts and as a testament to the professional nature that creative writing often takes on.

Boasting About Tomorrow?

For a long time I thought I knew what I wanted to do.  I was going to get my BA in Creative Writing at Seton Hill University and then move to New York City to work for one of the major SFF imprints there, hopefully Tor Books.  I was even interviewed for a column in my local newspaper, the Daily American, in which I stated that as my plan.  That was in November of 2014, I believe.  It wasn't too long after that that I changed my mind on both fronts.

I am not a city person.  I like people, but I don't think I would like living within several miles of millions of people.  Then there's the whole survival aspect.  An editor can survive in NYC, but can one live?  Can one raise a family there comfortably?  Ethically?  The answers to all of these questions are probably "yes," but why take the gamble?  Between that and "cultural" issues, I decided that staying near home and trying to make a difference in the local area was the better fit for me.

I was a finalist for a full-tuition scholarship to Seton Hill U.  Had I gotten it I might have been tempted, but I was passed over, and the offer by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown was too good to pass up.  My books, tuition, and fees are paid for as long as I commute, keep my GPA up, and maintain financial need.  I am studying Creative Writing as in my original plan.  That part hasn't changed.

So what do I want to do with myself?  I tell you the truth, I'm not really sure.  And I'm alright with that.  Read James 4:13-15.  I found the passage in late 2014 while I was mulling things over.  I know that it doesn't dismiss us from being responsible about our futures, but I do have structure to what I would like to do.  I'm just not keen on saying that I'm going to do any specific job.  Anything could happen between now and 2019 when (if God wills it) I'll receive my BA.

My aspirations lie in publishing.  I'm also very interested in teleplay and play-writing.  Or I might go in a completely different direction and work full time as a pastor (I definitely want to get my pastoral license at some point, but more time and prayer are required before I make that decision for certain).  For the purposes of this class, I will stick with publishing, specifically small presses, magazines, and anthologies.

Banking on making a living solely as a magazine or anthology editor is not a bank I would take to the bank.  Working for or operating a small press is much more realistic.  Side-work with anthologies and/or magazines is likely in my future no matter what I do as my base profession.  I am not quite so bold as to try opening my own press straight out of college, so if I do end up taking that path, I will almost certainly work for several years or decades first.

I won't boast about tomorrow; I have no clue what tomorrow will bring.  Am I worried about it?  A little.  Right now I'm just living one hour at a time.  My expenses are low and I can survive in my parents' house just fine for the next few years cutting grass and occasionally filling the pulpit at my church.  Summer jobs will come, more than likely beginning with this year.  I have faith that when these decisions need to be made I'll know how to decide.  All I have to do is live for today and for Him and I know I'll be alright.