Schoolin'

School has begun once more. So, I looked through my degree requirements and figured out if I took 4-5 classes a semester I could finish up in two years. That's not counting the two summer terms they offer, which I'll for sure take some classes in. But we'll see what happens and what classes are offered during those times. So with those added summer classes I think two years (including this semester) is an realistic goal. I've got philosophy, health, history, and web languages this semester, two classes online and two lectures. I'm bouncing in between institute classes at the moment too. I about signed up for the two I thought would be interesting (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and Living life with the Gospel or something like that), but the classes seem... I don't know too small or whatever, I'd like to find some classes that are more populated. When there's only ten people in the class getting a good discussion going is intimidating. Besides, there weren't any cute girls in the two classes I went to hah.

My writing is going pretty steady at the moment. I've realized I've written probably five or six pages, which is like an eighth of everything I've written, that won't end up in the book at all, which is kinda disappointing but necessary. I realized I didn't have some back stories fleshed out and the only way to do it honestly was to sit down and write how it happened for reference in the actual story. But I'm not too worried about all that because the back stories might be kinda dull anyway, or if I find some way to tell them in a different interesting way other than the linear method I did to get it down on paper. Anyway it's fun to have something down to mess with, but kinda frightening to just delete a whole page because I realize I was trying to muscle the story the way I wanted it to go instead of the way it wanted to. The sculpture is in the stone already, I've just got to remove the unnecessary parts.

Also, writing a truly evil, sadistic person isn't as much fun as it might sound.

-A

2009? More like 1909!!

Hey, 2009, 1909 called, it wants it's lack of flying cars back... seriously, WTF is my flying car!? Some future!

Hope everyone had a fun-filled New Years! As a treat I'll divulge a little bit
about what I'm spending my time writing.

The thing with writing a book is: it's a refining process. What is it about? Right now I'm writing the story of a family who has a couple sons go on an LDS mission, come back, and take very different paths. One picks a path of darkness and becomes an enemy to everything good in this world. He's so consumed with his guilt he chooses to forget everything he believed and is consumed with lust and hate he rejects everything his family believes in. Where the story goes from here I can't really say. People are going to be happy, people are going to be sad, I'm going to try and be as true to life as I can get. Living a good righteous life is still filled with pain, doubt, and misfortune, and figuring out how to have faith in the face of failure is paramount to enduring to the end. So, how that's all going to happen I don't know (or even if that's going to be where it takes me).

Right now it seems like a dark story with no happy ending, which is okay. I can't guarantee a happy ending, but just because I haven't thought of one doesn't mean it won't be. I'm not going to plan out a very detailed plot about each character, who lives and who dies, etc. The book takes place over a few weeks of the bad son coming home to say goodbye to his family. Goodbye why? I don't really know yet, he knows something I don't know, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I'm not trying to write a depressing book. I'm just trying to tell a story I find interesting.