Writin’…

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Haven’t been on my own blog in a while, and I decided it was time to change that, at least a little!

For those of you who don’t know, I recently attended my graduation ceremony in Orlando, and instead of being less busy, I’ve been more busy. I’m still around, and still writing!

I was originally planning on having my second book completed by December of this year, but having been suddenly struck with a bout of inspiration, I’m going to bump it up and set a new, tighter goal for myself.

I’m going to write TWENTY THOUSAND WORDS by the end of the month.

ImageJust a reminder of something else that is 20,000 and AWESOME.

Wish me luck!

Issue 2: Infinite Press

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Issue 2: Infinite Press.

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My glorious friend and collaborator, Victoria Elizabeth Ann and I just had our poem released on Infinite Press’ newest issue!

See it here!

Go check it out!!! There are also a bunch of other talented poets featured in there as well.

(Tori and I got the much coveted Editor’s Choice Award!)

I’m FINISHED!!!

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It’s official!

I got the grades back from my final class today, and drumroll please…

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ALL A’s BABY, YEYAH!

I am officially done with my BFA in creative writing, and I can’t wait to put it to use. I’ve got a couple of helpful people revising my query letter, and once that’s done, I’m going to focus on getting published for real. On top of that, of course, I’m still writing some video game cut scenes on the side, and I’ve been working to get things done in my editing internship.

I’m glad that I didn’t waste any time getting experience, and I will be so happy when it all pays off! Come Friday morning, I will be a college graduate.

Congratulations to those in my class who are graduating with me as well! I can’t wait to see everyone there at the ceremony!

Publication, and it feels so good!

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Today, the 10th edition of Full Sail’s literary journal was released, with

THREE SUBMISSIONS…

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…featured by yours truly!

You’ll also notice that my oft-times partner in crime, Victoria Elizabeth, was featured in there twice! Hooray us!

If you want a copy for yourself, you can download the attachment here:

http://media.fullsail.com/LMS/facdev/Aviator10.air.zip

(This is an application, so it will launch when you click it.)

Can’t wait ‘til number 11 when my next two are published!

Oh, me? Nah, just getting more work published.

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Sometimes, amazing things happen!

I recently wrote a blurb on here about how I was going to have five of seven submissions published by my school’s art and writing editorial.

One of the submissions that was rejected was the joint project of a poem, which was co-written by myself and the fantastic and gah-geous Tori Webster! If you want to check out her eternally optimistic blog, go here:

http://victoriaelizabethann.com/blog/

Tori had recently undergone some issues in her personal life, and came to me asking to help her create a cathartic poem. When it was done, we liked it so much, we decided to put a ring on it.

We were initially disappointed in the rejection from the editorial, but we didn’t give up much hope, and Tori had the brilliant idea to submit it elsewhere, and, drumroll folks, the results just came in: It’s being published!

I’m certainly glad we didn’t give up on it the first time!

We’ve both been working really hard to make sure that we’re grounded into the writing industry before we graduate school this fall—in case you didn’t notice, there’s a giant calendar on both of our pages—and this is just another exciting turn!

 Now, if I could only hear such glowing news back about my query, I could literally pee my pants in excitement.

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Good things may come to those who wait, but better things come to those who work towards their goals.

Yay!!!

Anyone else having success with their writing work? Do share!  

 

Five Submissions!

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Whose got two thumbs and a bunch of pieces being published? 

This girl!

I just got an e-mail back from The Aviator, which is my school’s art and writing editorial! They let me know that of the seven pieces that I submitted, an astonishing FIVE have been selected for publication! Three in the upcoming issue, and two in the following one!

I love having my work published!

Agent 88 Is Available Today for 88 Cents, but Only For 8 Days on Chill.com! + Check Out The Crew on CBS!!!

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Go and get it!!! :D

Nolan Smith's avatarPastrami Nation

A88 chill header

By Nolan P. Smith-Pastrami Nation

This is it, today is the day!

Agent 88 is available for 8 days on Chill.com for…you guessed it, 88 cents!!

The action pilot, by Director Digger T. Mesch, Producer Jan Utstein-O’Neill and starring the amazing Kay D’arcy, had a greatly successful Kickstarter campaign to see it’s way into creation. Today marks the day of the digital release, and to mark the occasion, you can get the episode for the bargain price of 88 cents! It is available at https://chill.com/agent88.

Today on CBS This Morning, Digger, Jan and Kay were featured for this momentous release. Check out the video below!

Make sure to follow all the Agent 88 goodness on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Agent88Films and online at http://www.agent88films.com/

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The Waiting Game…

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I recently submitted a query, and I’m nervous as hell. 

One of the SCARIEST THINGS about submitting a query is the waiting. I cannot even begin to tell you how long I stared at that word file on my computer before I finally decided to do it and just send it.

Why is querying such a scary thing? Imagine that you are a shy, introverted individual and in groups of people, you tend to get a little panicky.

Now imagine that you’re being forced to put yourself on a pedestal.

They hand you the ladder and you climb on up, and you stand there with an awkward smile on your face explaining all of the reasons that YOU are fantastic and wonderful, and deserve to have a publisher or agent represent you.

(Did I mention that you’re secretly praying that you don’t vomit onto the upturned faces of the people below you?)

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Apparently, I’m not the only one who has this nightmare.

It’s not because I don’t think they’ll like my book—I have every confidence in my book—what I don’t have, however, is confidence that I sold myself.

The thing is, actually getting people to read your work and like it is not the hardest part—the hardest part is convincing them that you deserve the representation MORE than anyone else in their rather large stack of hopefuls. 

When you first realize that you’ve finished your book, you may leap with joy, but you can’t sit back and think that you’re done, because you are far from it. 

You’ll have to write your own professional query/bio letter. In that case, you’ll need to snazz it up as much as possible, and the best thing to do is to look to those who have successfully completed one before.  

MAKE SURE TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK

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Choose the examples that best suit your needs to make the best impression possible. There are different parameters per your genre, the type of material, whether they want physical or electronic submissions, and even what the agency you’re submitting to require as far as formatting goes. You must make certain that you’ve got the correct formatting so that your submission doesn’t immediately end up in the trash bin. 

Terrifying? Yes. Worth it? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. 

I Have a (Weird) Allergy

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I have a (WEIRD) allergy.

It’s true. It’s something that I’ve battled against since I was a little kid, before I knew that I should question what kind of wacky things my body was capable of. You know, the days when scabs were still cool, and comparing injuries to your friends was a way to pass the time?

Here’s a weird thing to say:

I am allergic to GARLIC.

 I’ll give you a second to let the vampire jokes come rolling in before I continue.

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I’ve been dealing with this for years, if you couldn’t already tell.

As weird as it sounds, garlic allergies are absolutely despicable. And it’s not something that say, can be cured by eating more garlic and developing an immunity against it. (I would know—I’ve tried.)

It has varied over the years, but basically, I eat ANYTHING with garlic, and my body just decides it’s going to be a giant jerk, and erm… enthusiastically evacuates everything I’ve eaten that day. Everything. Nothing is safe from the wrath of garlic allergy fallout. Then I get what my fiancé affectionately refers to as “temptation blemishes,” which is just his way of telling me that I ate something I shouldn’t have eaten because now I’m covered in hives.

That’s nothing though. My lips, tongue and throat used to swell up when I ate it. I guess I should be glad I’m only getting hives and… other symptoms now.

And yes, sometimes I just decide I’m going to wreck my body later for the sake of having savory delicious foods now.

What can I say? Sometimes bad decisions are a sure thing when you’re hungry.

“Garlic is a weird allergy to have,” you say, “But I haven’t heard of it, so it probably isn’t that big of an issue.”

For one, I’d like to give you this face:

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For two, I’d like to thank you for shutting up with all of that mess, because you need to take a look at something really near and dear to me: the ingredients list on the back of any food of your choice.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Whatcha got? Chips? Hummus? Pretzels? Meat? Chicken salad? Coleslaw? Lasagna? Hot dogs? Chances are it has garlic in it. Go ahead and peruse the shelves of your grocery store next time you go. Four out of five items that you look at on the shelves with have garlic listed somewhere in them. Imagine trying to order pizza. Chinese. Japanese. Vietnamese. Indian. Thai. Arabic. German. Italian’s out completely. BBQ? No way.

I will get random outbreaks of garlic allergy whenever I eat it. Now, imagine dealing with that everyday of your life. It’s really not fun, and my outbreaks can vary in severity according to how much I ate and even how it was in the food. Dried, powdered, chopped up into bits? Sometimes just smelling it can give me a headache and make me nauseous.

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 Just looking at this picture makes me all kindsa queasy.

Regardless of however bizarre, it actually is a real issue with lots of people. To this day, I have ever only met one other person with a garlic allergy in real life. I read about lots of others on the Internet, so they must be real, right?

Anyone else have a weird allergy?

I’ll still say that a garlic allergy is harder to avoid than your typical shellfish/peanuts/lactose intolerances any day.

And I’d be right too. ‘Cause now it’s on the Internet. It must be true.

STRESS

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Ever get a day where you are literally just two seconds away from punching someone in the teeth? I mean, you don’t even know what’s going on or who they are—they just come up and smile at you and their smile is so sickeningly cutesy that you just can’t take it and you feel your brain melting?

Yeah, I’m there.

I’d like to start by saying that sometimes, it feels like I’m on top of a unicycle, juggling throwing knives, and Life is the asshole on the sidelines who keeps throwing more at me while I’m frantically trying not to drop the ones I’ve got.

Also, I’m on a trapeze. And the knives are on fire. And there’s a clown standing directly below me, shouting things that I don’t understand. And then I remember that I hate clowns almost as much as I hate cockroaches, and then I realize that I’m thinking about cockroaches and now I have the heebie-jeebies.

What I’m saying is, it’s stressful.

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Kind of like this, but I don’t think I can rock those pink shorts half so well.”

 

Okay, so you get the point.

I’m not the sort to deal well with injustice, but I’ve found that ever increasingly, businesses, schools, and (most of all) governments abide by this ideal that I can’t seem to understand.

That’s the ideal of: “We wanted to, so na-na-na-na-boo-boo”.

For those of you who read the “About Me” section on this page (which you should because it’s totally sweet), you’ll know that I’m currently attending school for creative writing, and I’m about two months away from graduating, which is exciting and also terrifying as HELL at the same time.  

I’ve recently run into those terrible people who make you want to run away and leave all of your hard work behind—people who have nothing positive to say, and try to tear you down at every turn. Unfortunately, one of those people is currently in charge of judging how well I completed certain materials. It’s ridiculously hard to maintain any sort of positivity, and I’ve recently started to feel like a P.O.W. from all of her dumbassery and cocksureness. 

I have been waiting almost five weeks for feedback on assignments. Compound that with my inability to wait patiently, and it’s a hot mess in my brain.

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Okay, refreshing the page obsessively isn’t working—maybe I should try sacrificing a lamb next.”

 

Some days I literally feel like an aneurysm is patiently waiting outside my door like a Jehovah’s Witness and they’re not going away because they totally saw me peeking through the window to see who it was so they know I’m home. It’s difficult to work so hard for something and know that someone’s opinion—which isn’t any better or more important than mine—is the deciding factor between success and a less than savory outcome.

Stress is a lot like being drunk. It limits your ability to see past the present, it hampers your decision-making abilities, and it makes everything feel off-kilter. While it’s hard to go through patches like this, life is full of them. I’m just cruising through this one and biding my time until the next one rears its ugly head.

 That’s just what I’m gonna have to deal with.

A lot of times it feels easier to give up, go into hiding and change your name, but you never get better by not suffering adversity. That’s what being a human is, and it sucks, but it comes with some pretty neat rewards sometimes. We aren’t as delicate as we sometimes feel, and a little heat on us only makes us rise up to accept the challenge, or crumble in the face of it. Being poked can either provoke or annoy us (unless we’re being poked with a sword, in which case we start bleeding profusely), and it will either push us back or propel us forward. 

Regardless of my sense of injustice crying out; regardless of my agony at being put through a particularly rough patch, I’m going to try to use this as a means of growing, rather than faltering. I really feel like I just have to keep going forward, despite the difficulties because if I can turn this to my advantage, it means I win, and she loses.

Challenge accepted. >:D