Emerging From the Cave of Senior Year

So, it's been a while since my last entry. Sorry. I'm sure you were all panicking about where I'd gone.

The reason I'm only re-emerging now is because I've been caught up in the whirlwind that is the end of my senior year of high school. It's been crazy. I had prom, the last burst of tests at the end of the year, and then my senior class went to Hawaii. (Yes, Hawaii. Yes, my school rocks.) Now I'm back from Hawaii, all my schoolwork is done, and all I have to do between now and my official graduation next Thursday is go to two rehearsals and wait.

Wow.

It's been a long ride. I've been at the same school with the same 100-ish girls for six years now, and it seems absolutely insane that all of that is very soon coming to an end. I love these people. I mean, honestly, all in all, I've had an amazing class. I've made amazing friends. It still hasn't really hit me that I'm leaving (the vast majority of) them in less than a week, mostly because I'm in denial that I have to.

It's strange, leaving things behind. I feel as if I'm not really going to understand what it really means for them to be gone until weeks after we've left each other. My close friends, I assume, I'll see again, as much as possible, over the summer--but the strangest part of it all, I think, is going to be not seeing the people I'm not close friends with. There's a lot of people in my grade that I don't know that well, but still, I like them all. It's going to be strange, not waking up and seeing the same familiar, comfortable group of people every day. Of course, you know, going to all-girls school has had its drawbacks throughout the past six years, but all in all, I've been extremely happy at this school, made a lot of really good friends, had a ball, and learned a lot (both book learning and learning about myself as a person.)

At the same time, though, I'm excited to venture out into the world and be on my own a lot more. I feel like I'm ready for it. Yes, in so many ways I'm still a child--and in others, I feel like I'm ready to be an adult. I want to explore what it means to be independent (or at least more independent than I am now--I know college will at least give me some structure!) and what it means to make all my own choices. I have been living with my (wonderful, fabulous) family for the last eighteen years, and leaving them is going to be really hard, but at the same time, it will create a whole new life for me, one I am excited to explore.

I'm at the point of my life where I could be anyone. I could do anything. I could start a school or become a wildlife photographer or move to Tibet or run a marathon at the north pole (yes, that's a thing, click here) and I'm excited to see what is going to happen. It could be anything, and if there's one thing I wish for myself moving forward into the next part of my life, it is that I don't say no to anything too quickly. I want to keep my doors open, and I want to have adventures. I don't even care what kind of adventures they are, as long as they're good ones. I want to jump wholeheartedly into the things around me.

So, in conclusion: onward. I will miss everything that I have had here in Los Angeles for these 18 years (a lot) but I am ready for the future. I mean, I'm not leaving just yet. I've still got summer. But graduation, in a lot of ways, feels like the end of an era. I'm sad to see it go, and I'm ready to see it go. I'm excited to see what comes.

Writers Are Not Their Stories

As some of you might know, my book is about a teenage serial killer.

Naturally, when I tell people that, I usually get some form of surprise in reply.

"A serial killer? But you're so happy!"
"Wow, really?"
"That's pretty dark, isn't it?"

And sometimes, they just laugh.

I understand their surprise, I suppose. I'm a generally bubbly teenager with lots of joie de vivre, and looking at me, you probably wouldn't immediately realize that murder stories are my cup of tea. But still, it feels a bit odd whenever people say those sorts of things.

I've always posited that writing is a lot like acting. Writers take characters and inhabit their minds, their thought processes. We know what they think, and feel every emotion they feel, because we need to in order to portray them faithfully. Yes, I write about serial killers. No, I'm not a serial killer. In the same way that Anthony Hopkins is not Hannibal Lecter and Tom Hiddleston is not Loki and Hayden Christensen is not Darth Vader, I am not my novel. Writing DEAR KILLER, I was only telling a story. That story is not me.

That being said, some parts of me do exist within the novel.

Oddly enough, in one of the more interesting plot twists of my life, I was interviewed by Mark Z. Danielewski for one of my college applications a few months back. ("The Fifty Year Sword" is fabulous, and everyone should read it. "House of Leaves" is great too, I have it on good authority, though I must admit that I only got through the first hundred pages or so before getting totally scared and freaked out and having to put it down. I'm a wuss.) We talked a little bit about my book, and in particular, where this character came from within me. It was the first time I'd really talked it out. After a bit of thinking, I said that she is the darkness within myself. She's the dark spaces, the inverse of me. She is who I would be if I were a serial killer.

Obviously, I don't have serial killer tendencies. I'm a normal teenage girl that likes stories. But much of my story was born from my negative emotions, from feelings I have experienced at some point or another. "Write what you know," I've come to realize, doesn't mean that I should always write about well-adjusted, bubbly teenage girls in high school that write novels and like horses. "Write what you know," rather, means that I should write about feelings I know. It means that I should draw from my bank of emotions to create characters, narratives, worlds. Like an actor, I cannot accurately portray something I don't understand.

I am not my story. But at the same time, my story is a part of me. I learned things about myself while writing it, and, of course, the process of writing it helped me become a better, more experienced writer. Just because I write dark things, it doesn't mean that I'm a dark person. I'm really not.

It just means that I'm a writer.

Dealing with Stress

Ok, so, as one might imagine, writing novels and attending high school and applying to college all at the same time is not an easy thing to do all the time. This past week has been particularly stressful, for a few reasons that I won't go into here. Usually I'm pretty easygoing, pretty steady, but I've felt unusually high strung recently. Here are my tips to dealing with that sort of thing (which work pretty well when I actually listen to my own advice and use them) in case anyone is interested...


1. Drink tea (not caffeinated) or milk, or another soothing drink of choice. This sounds stereotypical and stupid, but honestly, it works. Get a big glass/mug of it and drink like your life depends on it.

2. Take a shower. Coming out of the shower feeling really clean and nice and shiny just makes everything better. It washes things away.

3. Sleep. Take a nap. Much of my stress, at least, comes from the fact that I'm tired. Naps do wonders. It doesn't even need to be a long one--sometimes, ten minutes can be the ticket.

4. Get out of the house and do something fun, if you have the time. Go see a movie. Go to the beach. Anything. Being shut in to a routine or a project just drives me up the wall sometimes--so I try to escape it. I don't mean that you should procrastinate, that just makes things worse later down the line. I mean escape, forget about things for a little while, if your time is well-balanced enough... that project/whatever else you're stressing about will still be there when you get back.

5. Discover new music. Find an album or artist that you haven't heard before and revel in its glory. For me, this week, that music was the Catch Me if You Can soundtrack. (which is FAB, by the way, in case anyone cares.)

6. Remember that life will, inevitably, go on. There will be brighter days, ones less filled with hysterics and hyperventilating. Things will be okay. Maybe not now, but eventually. Seriously, things will be OKAY.

6. Make lists to organize yourself. Like this one! Life is nice when it's organized.

7. Most importantly, remember that this happy little sloth wants you to be happy too.

Antique Books and Why I Love Them

I am in love with old books.

Whenever I go to a good used book shop it's basically impossible to get me to leave until I have found and purchased at least two books published before 1920 (though sometimes I make exceptions to that date, though, for example this book was published in 1927 and it's BEAUTIFUL. Look at that cover!)

This is my entire collection as of now, and I expect it will get bigger over time: 

There's something beautiful about old books. It's not just the stories in them that make them wonderful, although the stories are great too. It's the fact that these books have traveled, been given as gifts, done things you've never done, been places you've never been. They've survived wars and revolutions and somehow, despite everything, persevered until they found their way into my hands. There's a real poetry in that, I think. 

One of the things I love best about them is the notes from the books' previous owners that you find in the front of some of them. I have a math book from 1877 that, according to the writing in the front, was printed in Baltimore, made its way to San Francisco in 1889 and in 1969 was in Spain--and when I found it, it was in a bookstore in Iowa City! There's a story behind that, I know it, and I always end up wondering what that story is. 

I have to say my favorite book in my possession, though, is a huge book of Grimm's Fairy Tales from 1909. It's illustrated by Arthur Rackham(look him up), and there's a note in the front that says (as far as I can read the handwriting)

Davie

     From

         Daisy with all her love.

Xmas 1911. 

This book was given to me by a very old and dear friend who took care of me as a baby. It was printed in London and she and her entire family was originally from England, and so I can be fairly certain this book made its way through the thick of both World Wars. It's huge, with cut pages and thick paper and writing in gold on the front:

It's an absolute treasure. In addition to the cover, it's got brilliant illustrations inside, both color and black and white. I've spent more than one afternoon just sitting down and reading through it (fairly gingerly.)

I want to know all about the books I own, where they came from and all the places they've been--but at the same time, I relish their mystery. It's delightful, wondering how these books have made it from then to now. You can imagine all sorts of pasts for them, mad adventures and epic romances. You wonder if this has ever been anyone's favorite book, if they've packed it away and moved to an entirely new place with it, if, perhaps, it's passed through the hands of some famous character in history. I want to keep collecting and collecting. There are specific books I want to find a first edition of (that's not obscenely expensive) and specific bookstores in strange places that I want to go back to in order to find more treasures. And maybe I will someday!

Old books are beautiful, and they hold secrets and adventure, both in the words and the physical pages themselves. If you ever want to make me really happy, get me a nice old book. I will love you forever.  

Can You Teach Writing?

So, I know this is an question that has been covered by a ton of people, but I just thought I'd add my own two cents' worth.

Can you teach writing? Yes and no.

Writing--good writing--comes from practice. It doesn't come from some magical mythical invisible fountain of awesome inside your head. Writing is really a learned skill, in my opinion. Even getting good plot ideas is learned, I think. As you look at the world around you and learn to see the beauty and the terribleness in it with an eye for story and character, you learn how to get inspiration, as strange as that sounds. You just really have to devote yourself to it. Let your inhibitions go, don't be afraid, and write like your life depends on it.

However, that being said, I don't think I'd be the writer I am today if I hadn't attended the California State Summer School for the Arts (studying creative writing) and the Iowa Young Writers' studio. In both those places, I attended workshops and class-type-things that were mostly discussion-based and interactive. By having my peers critique my work and critiquing the work of others, I learned how to view and dissect and truly understand my writing in a way I hadn't before. As I discussed in my other post, What it Means to Read as a Writer, going to these programs has taught me things I don't think I could have effectively learned on my own.

But, when you really get down to it, I'm not sure my experiences at CSSSA and the IYWS weren't exactly teaching so much as supplementing my practice. If I just went to those programs and I didn't practice, I would be a pretty crappy writer. You're not going to become a great athlete or musician by learning about it intensively for two weeks a year, or even six months of a year. Without exploring something on your own, you're going to miss out on a large portion of the learning process. Writing is the same as any sport or musical instrument in that way.

Basically, I believe that writing can't be taught, in the most literal sense of the word. No one can tell you exactly how to do it. There's no set of rules you can memorize, it just doesn't work that way. At the same time, critiquing work and having yours critiqued in turn are essential parts of the writing learning experience. This doesn't mean that you have to go to school for it--you can, if you want, I think it can be very useful--but it does mean that, if at all possible, you should seek out critique groups or summer programs or whatever you might want to do. That sort of thing has been absolutely invaluable to me.

Loving Both the Sciences and the Humanities

So, if you're reading this, you most likely think of me as a writer. A humanities sort of person. Which makes sense, given that my first novel is coming out in 2014. But here's something you might not expect: I've done lots of work in biology too.

Over the past two years or so, I've worked in three different biology labs: one at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, one at UCLA, and one at the John Wayne Cancer Institute. They've all been very unique experiences, and they've all been wonderful. I've gone hunting for herbivore teeth in the Page Museum archives, done a full research project about wolf skulls at UCLA, and sorted gene expression data at the John Wayne Cancer institute. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

There's this strange myth, though, I think, that you're only supposed to like one side of the academic spectrum. Sciences or Humanities, pick one. Whenever I've talked to someone from my lab about my writing or one of my writing friends about my science exploits, I've sort of felt as if they weren't taking the subject they were involved with very seriously. "She obviously loves her lab work, and so the writing must just be a hobby," or "She writes constantly, so the science must be an extracurricular activity that she does just for fun," I could feel them thinking.

In reality, I love both. I really do. And though it does seem like I'm heading along more of an English trajectory than a Biology one, I still love my science, and want to continue studying it in college. I'm planning on doing some sort of double major or major-minor thing in Bio and English. I want to continue doing research in college, and I also want to continue writing novels (obviously.) I aim to be a full-time writer, I think--but I would be equally happy working as a research scientist.

I know that not everyone is like me. I know a lot of people do, in fact, gravitate towards either the sciences or the humanities. Still, it always feels a little awkward and unpleasant when one of my interests or the other is sees as less important to me. I want to shout and say, "Hey! Guess what! It's not impossible that I could love both equally!"

Anyway, I love both bio and writing. I've always thought that it's kind of cool to know lots of stuff about lots of stuff that has nothing to do with each other. I know about vertebrate morphology and prose poetry, story structure and gene expression. How cool is that? I've nearly always got something to talk about, whether I'm speaking with a scientist or a journalist or someone in between who wants to know more about either of my interests.

So, here's my message to all the english or history lovers wondering if they should try to get a summer internship in a lab, or the physics or biology lovers wondering if they should try their hand at poetry, painting, or costume design--GO FOR IT. It's so much fun. I'm a firm believer that you should try everything; if it doesn't work, or you end up not liking it, then that's that. You tried. Oh well. But you'll never know if you don't try, will you?

Don't be intimidated by this strange idea that you can only love either the sciences or humanities, but not both. Learning is always good, whatever it is. Explore. Strike out. Have an adventure! Take a class, get a job, read books. Have fun doing whatever the hell it is that you want to do.

4 Rules of Writing Violence

I've spent the last year, approximately, writing serial-killery violence for my novel, "Dear Killer." As I went along, I learned a few things about writing the morbid and vicious; here they are. 

1. Only write violence when you need to. 

Don't overindulge. When you can leave something to the imagination, then leave it to the imagination. If you start adding too much blood, broken bones, bruises, exc., then it's all going to blend together in the reader's mind. Also, it's going to get really gross. Each act of violence that you describe should have a point. It might be to introduce the violent nature of a particular character, perhaps, or to shock the reader into paying close attention to what comes next. You don't need to describe every gruesome bit. The reader will get the point. Just choose the most important pieces of blood and gore, and describe those thoroughly.

2. Use action words. 

No, I don't mean "verbs." "Action words," as I think of them, are a subset of verbs. They are verbs that denote intense action--for example, "crushed," "sprinted," "slammed," or "shattered." Verbs that are not action words, on the other hand, are "broke," "cried," or "kicked." Action words, the kind that you would use in extremely violent scenes, are the kind of words that make you cringe when you think of them happening to you. You don't want the word "shattered" having anything to do with you, though you might be okay with "kicked." Basically, though you might not want to do this in every scene, always go for the extreme when you write violence. Make sure it's remembered. 

3. Focus on details. 

This is a general writing tip, really, but focus on the little things. It is far better to "zoom in" on one or two specific details than to explain the whole scene. It gives the reader points to sort of anchor themselves with. Describe the color of the sky and the look in the murdered person's eyes, but nothing else, for example. The reader doesn't need to know what absolutely everything looks like, because they won't remember it all. If you only describe one or two things that are very indicative of the moment, it will be easier to picture; the reader will sort of realize that those things are "important" and should be paid attention to because there isn't anything else to pay attention to. It makes the scene more memorable. And, of course, to repeat what I said before, your violence should definitely be remembered. 

4. Know what you're talking about. 

This one is going to make you a bit uncomfortable and make your search history a bit questionable. But, basically, you should understand what you're writing about. This may seem self-explanatory, but, really, you should google things far beyond what you want or think you need to google. Like, what sound happens when you stab someone. Or what it feels like to have your ribs broken, in detail. Ick, I know. Gross. You're not going to want to google that. But you should. Strive for obsessive levels of accuracy; it just feels more real that way. 

Of course, in the end, these rules are really only guidelines. And rules are meant to be broken, anyway. Good luck with the gore!