Sarah Allen's Blog, page 58

Anne of Green Gables and other reasons life will be okay

Life is weird. I think I started another post this week with those same words, but its true, and its one of those times for me when its especially true. I'm feeling good, occasionally even great, though I do feel a bit like I'm holding my breath or standing on one foot, waiting for things to fall into place so I can breath, put my foot down, and keep going. Soon would be good, universe, just saying. But like I said--I'm doing good. And here are some reasons why.

My roommate and I watched Anne of Green Gables last night (or at least half of it. YouTube pooped out on us after a while.) I've been sort of stuck on my novel for a while, and the movie turned out to be the breath of fresh air that I needed to clear the cobwebs. It was her idea, and I was just kind of going with it, and I'm glad I did. It made me feel happy anyway. Anne of Green Gables is good at that.

I have some awesome friends. They get me, and don't get too frustrated with my ranting and whining. They do things like make cookies and smile really big when I walk into a room. I have a relatively new friend who does that, and it makes me happy. We drink peach Fresca together and talk about boys.

Even though from my perspective the future makes no sense, it does to God, and it will all work out. It always does, even though that's hard to remember or fully appreciate when you're in the not-worked-out-yet phase. It's just an interesting time of life, the not-quite-an-adult-yet time. But I don't know if anyone ever really gets out of the insecure and unsure phase, and the future is always scary. I hope it gets less scary, but really all we can do is pray and work and hope for the best and know it will come, and enjoy good friends, peach Fresca and Anne of Green Gables in the meantime.

C'est la vie!
Sarah Allen

Day jobs for writers

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that summer is approaching which means school will end but not my rent, it has become incumbent upon me to commence a search for employment. I'm still in the research stages, but yeah, I'll need a job.

Teaching has been amazing, and I have absolutely loved it, but I think I need something more stable. There is the obvious receptionist/secretary option, which I would really be okay with. But I'm trying to see if I have any other options.

There are three basic requirements for a day job for a writer, in my opinion:

1) Leave the soul in tact. Soul-sucking jobs do not make for healthy creativity.
2) Pay the bills. Why we need a job besides writing in the first place. And,
3) Leave time to write. That includes not having any take-home work, which is one reason teaching might be hard.

What do you all do for a living? What day jobs do you think would be good for writers that I might look in to?

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

Sarah Allen

What your childhood play says about your writing

Life is such a weird thing. We grow up, we think we change, but really we don't, so we have to re-contextualize what we thought we were. But that's okay because we've learned along with our growing up, so the context we're trying to fit Us into is larger and deeper and more terribly beautiful. Things we thought we didn't like about ourselves become okay and things we thought we did right we realize are incredibly unimportant. We look at the faces around us and how the most infinitesimal muscle movement in one face can trigger a physical and emotional reaction in ourselves which then feeds back into all the other faces; we realize that this is the only important thing.

We knew this inherently as kids. My high school English teacher used to say, "Creativity does not happen in isolation." It's true. Playing is just not as much fun when you're alone. We think of emotion and personality as coming from the inside, but we miss out on so much when we leave it at that. We are not isolated beings, and creativity is not a self-sufficient resource. We are a direct part of our environment, and it is our interactions with that environment which help mold us. That environment is constantly changing, and so is our relationship with it. But I don't think we so much change as see ourselves from different angles.

That is what play is all about. Seeing ourselves, individually and collectively, from different angles. And as I've grown up I've discovered that the best toys are words. There is also music and paint and dance and, in the theatrical sense of the word play, pretending to be someone else. But inhabiting someone else's existence using these toys and this play isn't so much us being in someone else's shoes as it is showing us the true shape and size of our own. This is why, to me, art is as necessary to life as food and air. This is why we must play.

As a kid, my cousin and I used to take my grandmothers gold-framed mirrors into the bathroom, pretending the shower was our enchanted castle, and ask the mirrors to show us where our princes were. Whereupon we ventured forth to save our true loves. Now, the obvious interpretation of this would be that I am a born feminist, someone who likes to hold the reins. I used to think that, but I've since re-contextualized. While I am a feminist of sorts, and equate sexism with idiocy, I'm still not really a ride my own horse kind of girl. I want to be swept off my feet and taken care of in a damsel-in-distress sort of way. The thing is, I just want them to need me as much as I need them.

This is why, I think, my favorite characters have always been pining men. Severus Snape, Ben Linus, Niles Crane, Mr. Darcy, Dr. House. Men who to some extent appear to have things under control, appear to carry the power, when really they are the ones desperately in need of saving. Their role as "big strong man" is as much for their sake, if not much more so, than for the sake of their "damsel". What kind of needed is deeper than being needed by someone strong enough to sweep you off your feet?

What games did you play as a child? What roles did you perform? And what does that say about your adult self and your writing?

And guys? Don't forget to play.

Sarah Allen

Some Remi Gaillard with your weekend?

Enjoy :)


Sarah Allen

A Haircut and an MFA

Lots of randomness on my mind today, so here goes.

1. I've calmed down from yesterdays craziness. The new plan, which I'm really excited for, is to get a nanny job or something similar in New York for the summer. Something like that. And then the other part of the plan is to apply to graduate school in December, to begin in Fall 2013, and get my MFA. We'll see how that turns out.

2. I'm giving myself a kick in the pants weightloss wise, and no butts about it. (mwa ha!) Going to the gym every day, eating right, and keeping track of it all every day.

3. My room is really clean right now. Just so you all know, because when its clean that's an event. I have piles of books on the floor lining the walls, plus the ones on my shelf. It's beautiful.

4. I want/am going to eventually get this hair-cut. What do y'all think?
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5. Going to begin edits on Keeper soon. Hopefully we'll also soon get some breakthroughs on the brainstorming of novel #2.
Whats going on in your life? How are your writing projects coming along?
Sarah Allen

Time for an adventure, or the perks of being single

I was debating whether or not to write about this today, because I've spent a lot of time ranting about my personal life on the bloggy-blog lately, but then I thought, what the heck, it's my bloggy-blog and my readers are smart and can maybe give me some good advice and some good leads, which is what I need. So here goes.

For a while I've been stuck between two sides. Goes back to the whole I suck at making decisions thing. One side is I'm 23, graduated, and single, time to do something exciting with my life. The other side is that I'm terrified. (Those of you with me for the I-thought-I-knew-what-I-wanted-and-moved-to-Oregon fiasco know what happened last time I tried something too drastic.)

So, knowing that I'll be terrified and it will be hard, but also knowing that I would regret doing nothing much, much more and that getting out will be incredible for me, I'm trying to find something that would be a good option for adventure.

The option I like best is teaching English abroad. Maybe in China or Europe. The reasons I believe this will work better than just trying to move is that 1) I'll have a definite purpose for being there, 2) I'm more prepared to know what it will feel like to leave, and 3) There is a point of return to look toward when I need it. Is that sound logic? I hope so. Like I said, stuck, but feeling like its better to push myself than not but really trying to be wiser this time around and not kill myself. I also feel quite the coward for even needing this kind of reassurance, but I don't know how to help it.

That's where you come in. I know a lot of people go abroad to teach English, specifically in China, and I was wondering if anyone could give me leads in the right direction, like to good programs and such. Maybe you know someone who's done something like this.

Or do you have any other adventure suggestions? I'm open to any ideas. Internship in Washington, expeditions to Africa or the moon, anything.

Specifics, here's what I'm thinking:

-I'm okay with anywhere, China would be cool, but Europe would be amazing.
-I'm okay with a year-long commitment, but a few months would also be cool.
-I would prefer to be paid, even if its nominal.
-I want this to be a benefit to my writing career, rather than any kind of hindrance. So I'd like to be able to keep writing stuff going as usual.

With that, does anyone have any suggestions?

Sarah Allen

Decisions I have to make that I don't want to

I'm pretty much the worst decision maker ever. You think you know someone more indecisive. You don't. I'm the kind of person who spends almost as much time deciding on a movie as watching it. It's mixed with a weird but iron-clad stubborn streak that makes any big decision I've made a final one, no matter what. It's the getting to that decided point that's agonizing.

I don't know why I have such a hard time with decisions. I'm pretty neutral about every day stuff and in general am much more comfortable with letting other people do the deciding. That way I don't run the risk of them not getting what they want and being displeased or offended or something. I will definitely speak up when it matters, but usually I just don't care that much.

So basically, making big decisions that don't really involve someone else's opinion (like where to work) pretty much kills me.

Work is the big one right now. I adore my job, and love working with the pre-k kids. They make my day. The thing is, the hours I have are not enough to be livable and I'm having to do extra on the side to make things work financially. Also summer is coming and I'm going to need to find something new then anyway. Also my roommate applied for graduate school and depending on what happens there I could stay in Provo or might end up going to Salt Lake with her.

All that combined means that I not only don't know what kind of job I want, I don't even know where I need to start looking. The plan right now is to wait and see what happens with roommates grad school and then start job hunting wherever I'm going to end up living and take what I can get and hopefully I can start right when school ends and hopefully it will be a good job.

But so many questions! What kind of job do I want? Does secretarial/receptionist type stuff work just fine, or should I try for something a bit more exotic, and can I get something more exotic with an English BA anyway? What hours do I want, and is there a way to make enough money online to keep work hours part-time so I can have more writing time? Do I want to spend a summer working in Alaska? Ok, yes I do, but am I insane? I don't care enough, really, about where I work as long as it pays the bills because what I really care about is writing and I'm okay with that but is it dumb to leave something like that to fate?

Things always work out, and I'm sure they will in this case. It will just be a relief when they do. My Life Plans A and B both involve me not having (needing) a day-job (because my hot books or my hot man pays the moneys), but those are works in progress and in the meantime rent must be paid and cereal must be bought and so I must work somewhere and I just...don't...know. Needless to say, advice (i.e. vicarious decision making) would be appreciated.

Sarah Allen

Slow and steady, eh? I hope so.

I'm at the scenario stage on novel number two. I have a main character and a slew of secondaries, interesting relationships and a couple intriguing scenes in mind. Getting from this point to a "plot" is the hard part for me, in terms of planning. I don't even like "plot-heavy" books, and I'm not trying to come up with anything intricate and I know life is basically plotless anyway. I know all that, but I still feel like I need something holding it all together story-wise, and that often takes me a while.

Novel #1 was about a 40-ish year old man. Novel #2 is going to be about a 17 year old girl. Obviously more towards my age and gender side of the spectrum. I want to get a broad range. We'll see how this goes. The last one had a paranormal element to it. This one isn't going to.

So the steps ahead of me now: Edit novel #1. Keep brainstorming novel #2. Give 1 to beta readers and begin work on 2. Hopefully start submitting 1 to agents and finish work on 2. Also a screenplay and a kids picture book and a short story collection somewhere in there would be cool.

Also a cute boy who wants to kiss my face and a stable job and a tortoise named Watson. Those things would be cool too.
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Just sayin :)

Sarah Allen

Why Losing Confidence in Your Book is a Good Thing

So, I'm still blah about my novel, but I've decided it's a good thing, and here's why.

It doesn't mean I'm not going to move forward exactly the same. I'm going to edit the crap out of it and then give it to other people to read and then start the submissions process. Feeling sort of whatever about it just means that the editing will be that much easier, and so will the putting it in other peoples hands. I still hope and want just as much for it as I did before, but I'm in a much better emotional place for accepting that whatever happens happens, and that it's okay if things just don't pan out for this one. Because they might not.

All this is true, but it's also true that I wouldn't be able to feel this way about this novel if I didn't have wild hopes and faith and ambition for my new novel. I have to be crazy about something. And I spent some time yesterday doing some good brainstorming, and I'm definitely starting to feel the excitement coming. If I've taken my eggs out of the old basket and sent it down the river, hoping it ends up somewhere nice, that just means my eggs are in a shiny new basket.

So, basically, this just means that I'm emotionally ready to push my baby out of the nest and can deal with the consequences. It also means I'll be writing my new baby like my life depends on it, because for a while it will. Then I'll grow hard to it too, send that one out, and get started on a new one. Circle of life.

I guess this seems kind of cruel. Maybe it is. Really I don't think my relationship with my books is going to turn out as black and white as all that. I'm just going through a phase that I'll probably go through with each novel, but once I give it time and get some fresh perspective on it I think I'll totally fall in love with it again.

I'm getting all practice for married life, aren't I?

Sarah Allen

Everything to say and not much at all

Well, I'm having one of those weird days where I feel like I have so much to get off my chest I'm going to burst, while simultaneously feeling like there's not much to say at all. So I hope you'll forgive me if I just talk, fighting both the urge to say too much and to say nothing, and see where we end up.

I'm in a doubtful stage with my novel right now. I feel like it's all a bunch of crap. I should have known it was coming, I had a good level of confidence almost the whole time I was writing it, so it was bound to happen some time. I know it's me being silly, and I know not to trust my own feelings at either extreme, but its still not fun to feel like it sucks. Self-prescription: Get over it, edit the thing, and most of all start work on novel #2. Hopefully the getting over it part happens really soon.

There aren't many people I have a hard time being around, and I try really hard to genuinely get along with everyone, and usually it works. There are, of course, some types that rub me the wrong way, but the hardest type for me to watch--and in this case by hardest I don't mean annoying or grouchy-indusing but rather saddest, painful, upsetting, that kind of hard--are people who let themselves feel victimized. I suppose this can be quite annoying too, but really its so hard to watch because they are only making things so, so, so much worse for themselves, but nobody ever thinks they're playing the victim and when you try to help at all they just feel more victimized. Painful frustration caused by helplessness. You love and pray and hope and it never seems like enough. But what else can you do?

The last while has definitely been a haze of Downton Abbey. Sometimes I don't understand myself. I have the normal scale of hating something to really loving it, and then there's this whole other sphere of liking things where it takes me over on the obsession level, and I know its happening and know I'm involving myself and loving something beyond all sense of proportion and can't help it don't really want to help it. In this sphere live things like Severus Snape (of course), Ben Linus, Colin Firth, Jane Austen, John Green, Frasier, Sherlock, and now, Downton Abbey. I need Bates and Anna to be together like I need to eat when I'm hungry and pee when I'm full. I wish it made sense in my own head, (anyone else as crazy as I am?), but I guess that's all I've got to say about that.

I suppose I've already run the risk of saying too much, so I'll stop now. But thank you all very, very much for listening.

Sarah Allen