Friday, September 28, 2007

I hate outlines but I love writing. :D

Mood: Pensive
Listening to Memories - NamNamBulu
Watching some guy fill his water bottle at the drinking fountain.
Eating 100 Grand. Oops. It's only 9am and here I am with the candy.
Drinking water.


[speech outline horror]
Augh! Last night I hurt my brain trying to finish my cultural artifact speech outline. My week's goal for my academic probation class, scrawled on the "Prioritize It!" notes they gave us:

work on speech tues and thurs + spread work out so no stress.

Well, a fat lot of good that did! I'd been searching for sources since Tuesday, but I guess resources for visual kei and jrock are just about impossible to come by unless you live in Asia. So by Thursday night, I was searching frantically for anything I could use, one source even being a dictionary. Yes, a dictionary. It counts...! I think!

Online resources were there in abundance, but we can only use one for references, and all the ones I found had a "from Wikipedia" stamp somewhere around the article. Arrgh! (We can't use Wikipedia, either.)

And if online resources were hard, don't even get me started on print resources. If I could read in Japanese, this would be no problem, but alas, I cannot. However, I got really lucky with sources by the end of the night, and found two articles that related to my speech. Yessss! Thank god for Tokyopop and their stupid magazine that I can't cite properly because it has no volume/issue number! D:

But anyway, I finished the outline, and hopefully it's good enough. I was soooo stressed last night that I felt like throwing up. I'm glad it's over with. Guess I need to learn how to find sources really early, two speeches ahead, before even the next speech is announced! Hahaha. (That's impossible, by the way, if you didn't catch the...sarcasm or whatever.) D:


[writing group]
Over the past few days I've considered starting a writing group at school. I don't know how to go about doing so, though. I think it'd be an interesting thing to do, meeting once a month or every three weeks—something along those lines. It'd be solely for prose, though (die you poetry! you don't belong in this world!) and I would make a big, big, big note on the first meeting that people will have to be very open-minded. Can't be all surprised at my mansmut! D: Hahaha.

On that subject though, I wonder if it should be more specific than just a "writing group". Perhaps it can be only fantasy, or even more specifically, dark fantasy. Or even just a group for short stories? I have no clue. "Romance Writers' Group!" Augh! [laughs]

I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off, though. But if it's for mostly students and held on campus (perhaps I can ask the library or someplace if they'd let me reserve a room), at least everyone would be on the same page schoolwise; not everyone has a lot of time for writing between schoolwork. But at least being motivated to show off new work every meeting might be something good for some people, even for me.

Being leader of a group is going to be fairly different for me, though. I'll have to be all leaderly and take charge. And ask guiding questions...Hmm. Well, I've done it in discussion groups before. Did it in lit the other week, even. Hahaha. I guess I'll be okay. :3

The part I'm most excited about is putting up grammatically-sound fliers! [laughs, so making elysa help her out with this] D: I might even do a blog (though very sadly, this is something myspace would actually come in handy for) for it that interested people could review and perhaps even a short application I can use to keep the group from being too big (tsch, as if). It'd be good for posting meeting dates and expectations for the next meetings. But once again, I'm not sure how this works. How many fliers do I get printed? I'm sure I could figure out the best places to post them, but really, where are the best places? Should I get bright red paper or somehow go the extra mile and print pretty full-color fliers? I don't really know. How many people is enough?

It's something I'll keep thinking about. Perhaps I can do it next semester if I'm motivated enough.

4 comments:

the prince of mansmut said...

Well, it's good you didn't give up, right? [laughs] I guess just pick a broader topic next time..? But those are boring, aw. :\

I think the writing group sounds like a really good idea, too. That'd give you something to do that you'd enjoy. I guess it'd be hard to find the time, but I'm sure you could find some. Organizing those things can be really fun, too. [laughs] You should remember to ask your teacher next time. D: She should have some helpful ideas. Well, should. D<
I d'know how many people is enough. Probably no more than ten. Otherwise it's not intimate enough to get to everyone's writing. D: It'd be fun to edit other people's stories, ha ha. Aaah. D:
Anyway, you should give it a try if you can. I bet you'd like that. [nods]

Calix said...

Yeah, I didn't want to pick something boring or something I didn't like. That just makes speeches super-dull.

And mwaa. I guess ten is a good number, or liek. Six or seven. I just d'know what it should center around...writing in general or...what. I don't even really know what genre I write in. D:

Rosiel said...

[laughs] If you need myspace for updates you can use my page or Mr Bear's!

w00t, I get to help? [puts up fliers upside down] See? :3

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. Anyway, this still sounds like a good idea. A nice sized group would be around a dozen. I think any more would be troublesome. ><

So yeeeah..! I'll be your "fetch monkey" or helper when you need it. [sits in corner with typewriter] :C

Calix said...

I was talking to my lit teacher and she says five is actually the best number of people. I was thinking seven to ten, but I guess even that's too much. D:

[rights fliers] D: