He has risen--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Staff Writing Retreats

Staff writing retreat at the Writing Center today, and it was surprisingly productive.  From 9am until 5pm I sat at my computer (in the Writing Center of course) surrounded by 13 of my fantastic colleagues and we all wrote.  Each one of us had our different projects which ranged from lesson plans to American Lit papers. Besides being full of fantastic people, it was also full of fantastic food--in the form of berry mango ice cream concocted and manifested by the amazing S. Duffie.  Also, I ate too many cookies, but whatevs.

Much of my time was spent writing a paper on the Christian symbolism found in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which I have now realized I haven't read since my mother read them to me when I was 8.  Anyways, I had finally narrowed down what to talk about enough to not go insane trying to write this thing. Which I had been believe me. Never try to write a 3 page paper about all of the Christian mythology found the entire Chronicles.  I'm pretty sure people have written whole BOOKS on the subject.  If working the desk in the WC has taught me anything at all, it's that you need to have a narrow subject or you just might mange to have nothing and everything to talk about at the same time.  Take that WRT 150. You taught me nothing about papers. But seriously, a three page paper shouldn't be that hard to write.  I think I've lost the context for writing short papers since I took American Lit last semester.  It's almost like I can only think about it as a 8-10 page paper now especially since I was analyzing something.  I keep thinking to myself--"Does she want quotes? I should have quotes..." Really though, it's just a 3 page paper, so I won't get too worked up about it.

I also managed to finally get the scene from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie when Aslan is resurrected into the presentation that is to accompany my paper.  It was one of those "Oh, look how easy that was. Why did it take me three days to figure that out?" sort of things.

However, I have now effectively knocked out pretty much all of the homework I had for the last week of classes.

On the other hand, I'm not really getting anywhere with my novel...It just hasn't really 'hit' me.  While forcing myself to write is a fine habit, and one I should practice more often, I will not be reaching a book in a month...In fact, I'm still sitting hard on 6 pages.  Here's the part where I make excuses and say it's the end of the semester and I've got projects, papers and finals to worry about.  I'm definitely going to keep myself writing something!  Mostly, the whole point of the book in a month was that I would get myself going again.  Who knows, maybe I'll start something else or go back to something old.  I guess we'll see, but for now, I'm out of here.

Week 1...er...2. Nevermind, I lied.

So, remember two weeks ago when I said I was about a week into it?  Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm still a week into it.  Frankly though, I told myself I would write five days a week so really I'm only 8 days right?  Either way I'm slightly behind.  Still, I'll keep giving myself Thursdays and Fridays off.  Why Thursday and Friday might you ask?  Well, those are my so-called busy days.  So called only because those are the days when I have Writers' Club and play Dungeons and Dragons at late hours of the night. It's fantastically fun even if it does put a damper in the time I have to write.

I'm finding the Book in a Month (BIAM) system wonderful and frustrating at the same time.  For whatever reason, brainstorming has never been my strong suit.  Oh, I could sit and write about characters and other various things, create a "guide" per-say, but this is organized and involves plotting.  How I hate to plot.

Also, maybe the last month of school wasn't the best time to start a BIAM.  I'm planing on doing this again (probably with the same novel) over the summer. Maybe I'll get more done then.  On the bright side, I've been super productive when it comes to homework!  I'll be attending a writing retreat at my work on Saturday and I'm hoping to finish some of my final papers and get somewhere with my novel.

I'm trying to update more often---I swear!


Wish me luck!