The Top 10

I have been a very VERY bad blogger. How many months has it been 2, 3 months since I've written? Oh no, wait, it's been near 5 months! Any loyal readers (I doubt there were any) have long ago forgotten this stuck in September blog. But, I have returned, and I hope with a bang! 

With New Years resolutions still desperately clinging to their less than devoted resolutioners, I've decided to share my top 10 plans for my 2014. Having received my Master's Degree in creative writing, I feel it's time to finish my novel, expand my writing and strive to become a known author. But, for the past month, I have felt stagnant, stuck in this time loop that I cannot seem to climb out of. At the same time, I'm determined to make 2014 my year. Cliche right? In all seriousness I will achieve every goal I set for myself this year and although my plans may not seem "big" or "grand" enough to disclose to the entire world, I believe the smallest of steps are the hardest to complete and therefore the most important to achieve. So here we go: 

1) Finish writing the first draft of my novel- currently on chapter 14. 

2) Get one of my short stories or poems published 

3) Update this blog weekly! 

4) Read a novel a week 

5) Go to the gym 5 times a week- I want a fit and tone body by May/June 

6) Travel as often as possible- At least 3 vacations, not including the weekend trips I want 

7) Find a job- A full time, salary paying, benefits included "big girl" position

8) Pay off my student loans 

9) Date- Am I setting myself up for failure by writing this?

10) No more fast food- McDonalds, Wendys, KFC, etc. It needs to go. 

 

Pretty lame? We'll see, perhaps it'll change me more than I can picture now. It's great to be back! 

Committing to a Healthy Lifestyle

To me there is nothing worse, nothing more tragic, nothing more disappointing than not being able to eat the food I love. Exaggeration....maybe? But even so, the life of a dieter is not an easy one and I've given into temptation several times. And then my diet is ruined, my plans for a healthier self are thrown in the trash and after a few months of gorging my favorite snacks, candies, fast foods, I decide to start from square one.

This time, however, I tried to devise a plan that would work for me and help transform my lifestyle, not just my physical appearance. I've been slowly (very slowly) expelling bad foods from my diet and after this weekend, plan on eradicating them altogether. My plan consists of these few things:

1) Cooking meals on the weekend to eat during the week
2) Research healthy recipes
3) Eating only veggies and fruits as snacks between meals
4) Eating consistently every day

The first "doctrine" of my plan is self explanatory. I used to do this on my previous diets and cooking large meals once a week and then eating them each day works for me. The second is quite easy as well, since I have a few websites I turn to for recipes with nutritional values and serving sizes documented. A few places I recommend are Pinterest (because it's practically a photo-site encyclopedia), Skinnytaste.com (which I may have mentioned prior) and Ziplist (which is linked to Skinnytaste). Skinnytaste recipes can be downloaded and then viewed on the Ziplist app, so you can save the recipes which interest you and look them up later on when you plan on making them. Also, Ziplist is great because plenty of other recipe sites use the app as well. You can browse through categories of recipes on Ziplist and save them to your personalized page. It will then show you what you need to buy at the grocery store for each recipe.

My snacks vary throughout the day and often I'm just shoving a protein bar down my throat or stuffing my face with low calorie chips, crackers, etc. First of all, I want to lessen my carb intake and believe that cutting out super carb snacks would do it. Second, I rarely eat veggies or fruits with my meals, so in order to get that nutrition, in a naturally low calorie food, it's great to cut up some peppers and eat them for a snack before lunch instead of 10 Ritz crackers and two cheese sticks (because I'm never satisfied with just crackers). And last, but not least, eating consistently everyday is a true struggle for me. Almost always I eat breakfast around the same time in the morning, but after that, who even knows! There are times when I don't eat until 3pm or 4pm. There are other times when I eat breakfast at 8:30am, then a snack at 10am then another snack at 11:30am, then lunch at 1pm, then another snack at 3pm and then dinner. Eating too often and eating barely anything are two extremes that I jump back and forth between unintentionally. I believe if I remain consistent and eat my snacks, lunch and dinner around the same time each day, my metabolism and body would very much appreciate it.

So, wish me luck! My advice to anyone trying to diet is that you should set yourself parameters, be strict about them and if you put in the effort, you will most definitely see a difference!

Literary Conference

Hey All!

So this weekend I attended Slice Literary Conference in Brooklyn. To be honest, it was one of my first literary conferences. I attended plenty of writing workshops, but never a conference which held panel discussions with agents, editors and authors. It was a great experience and I learned MUCH about the publishing world. Here are the top three pieces of advice the professionals gave us:

1) Be involved in social media: Whether it's a blog (such as this), a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Tumblr, etc., it's important to have an active Internet presence. In this way a writer can build a readership or at least a following prior to publishing their novel.

2) Envision your own goal or idea of success: There was a specific panel about what "success" means to writers, but I found that this message was brought up throughout the entire conference. Success is truly subjective and it always helps that writers set goals for themselves and do all they can to accomplish them. Don't look to the agent or the editor to make your dream happen. Instead, view them as helpful appendages and continue striving for your vision of success. For instance, my dream would be to complete and publish the novel I am currently working on. In order to do this I will need the assistance from professionals, but I won't strictly depend on them to tell me how I need to be successful and I let anyone force changes to (meaning HUGE transformations, not edits) my work or my goals.

3) Be willing to adapt: In each panel, everyone discussed the editing process. Some beginning writers fail to realize that the editing process prior to publication is in fact quite constant. If you have an agent, they will more than likely send you edits before approaching editors. In turn, once an editor picks up your novel for publication they will also send edits. This could be anything from further character development to complete overhauls of structure. Writers must accept that these edits are in the interest of them as well as the books they care so much about. Not everything must or should be changed, but to be open minded about suggestions and changes is very important when getting ready to publish a novel or book of any kind.

Here are a few pictures of what the attendees were given by Slice:

The first day attendees were given this great canvas bag.

 

Inside was a hard cover copy of Patricia Engel's new novel, which I am very excited to read! I never thought that I would be given a free brand new novel just because I attended a literary conference. I attended a two week long summer intensive workshop at NYU and the coordinators had us buy the books of the authors to be instructing us (even after paying the thousands of dollars to attend)!

 

 

Along with the novel, Slice gave us a free copy of their literary journal as well as a copy of Poets & Writers magazine. I am quite excited to read Slice's issue, since I'm sure it contains many talented writers. I am familiar with Poets & Writers, having subscribed before, so it will be nice to delve into their articles about authors and updates about the publishing industry.

If you're a writer of any kind I definitely suggest finding groups, conferences, workshops to attend that will allow you to meet people, gain knowledge and hone your work. Every time I attend workshops or conferences my writing improves and my drive to be a legitimate author increases. 

Sunday Fun

The summer for me has been intolerable with the heat that New York has been slammed by. For the past two months I've been running to the nearest air conditioned building, blasting the A/C in my car and literally sweating bullets every time I sat in the heat for more than five minutes. Previously, I loved the heat, my body could handle it and the warmness soothed my skin. I think the change in my temperment had to do with the Accutane medication I am currently taking. But, enough about that! With the weather cooling down a bit (to about 80 degrees instead of 95!) I've been taking full advantage.

Today I enjoyed my usual morning workout on a bridge near where I live.

 

Then, I decided to lay out a blanket on my lawn, relax and read.

 

                                                 

 

I pray the Jeanette Winterson continues writing for another twenty years, because she is above all the most skilled and entertaining writer I have ever read. The Battle of the Sun, although a bit different than what I'm used to reading from her is just as epic!

 

 

 

A truly gorgeous day!

Happy Sunday!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Reality T.V......Really Now?

I've had this argument with many people now and although I never seem to win, I can't help but blab my opinions all over the Internet. With this being said, I hate reality television. Hate; being the strongest word to describe my passionate stance on the subject.

I'm only twenty-three, but in a time of rapidly changing technology, commercialism, marketing and television transitions, I feel pretty old. I and I'm sure anyone else my age or older remember the old Nickelodeon, the old Disney Channel, the old MTV for crying out loud. We recall the entertainment, the music, the music videos of all different genres that splashed across our television screens. There were sitcoms and cartoons oh and don't forget when TLC actually used to stand for "The (legitimate) Learning Channel" and when the Discovery Channel provided more than just the typical adventure "Man vs. Nature," shows.

The first reality shows I ever remember watching were "The Real World" and "Survivor." I remember watching Cora and Mike from "Real World New York" argue about race and gender in their shared kitchen. I remember sitting beside my father every Thursday night watching "Survivor" and debating over who would be kicked off that evening. I'm sure I watched more than that here and there, like the celebrity diaries show MTV provided with the famous quote, "You think you know me, but you have no idea." They were scattered throughout television and in their debut, we were all captivated. "These were real people, living their lives. I could connect with them without even knowing them," I thought, "Or, these people are REALLY doing these crazy things, and it's REALLY REAL."

Well, weren't we all deceived?

I remember the day "TRL" ("Total Request Live") aired its last episode on MTV. It was after school, I sat in my living room and something of an epiphany overwhelmed me, "This is the last music related show on MTV." It was nonsense and a stupid decision. Kids watched, teens watched. It exposed us to new music, to good music, to the music videos we all hungrily craved. And just like that a big corporation comes through and cancels it, in order to do what, create a station with more trash reality shows than any other (maybe TLC beats this)??

Don't get me wrong, I watched a few seasons of "16& Pregnant" and "Teen Moms." At first, it was interesting and in a way informative. But then, season after season, it became less about the pregnancy and more about the drama between the baby momma and the baby daddy. Is that really all you can provide us, drama drama drama? That, ladies and gents, is one big reason why I have grown to HATE reality shows: the exacerbated hostility. They have watchers choosing sides and have people entertained with mind numbing bull crap (literally). For instance, the "Real Wives of Orange County," or of "New York," or of "Atlanta" or of "New Jersey." It's all fighting between catty women that aren't house wives, but rich snobs that are greedily grabbing a few more dollars and some television fame. Disgusting.

And what about "Honey Boo Boo," "Bridezillas," "Say Yes to the Dress," "Jersey Shore," "The Bachelor/ Bachelorette," etc. etc. etc. First of all, they all portray values that in the ACTUAL real world, most of us would pretty much find rude, offensive and down right nasty. But yet again, people watch because the drama is just sooo entertaining, but I'm pretty sure watching dumb doesn't do well for the watcher's brain cells.

Secondly, my biggest beef with Reality T.V. is that....duhn duhn duhn...It isn't REAL. Most of the time it is what could be called, "scripted reality." Sure real people with "similar" situations are taken, but their placed in a fictional setting which producers and directors over see. The moment I found out that "Survivor" had reenacted one of its scenes because the camera men missed the shot, I stopped watching the show. Also, last year when it was leaked and the hurriedly spread that "House Hunters" was not real and in most cases fictional, I stopped watching that as well. It may seem petty, but I am a stickler for truth. The one aspect lacking in Reality T.V. is truth. These shows are produced and directed in order to get an audience and nine out of ten times, reality just isn't as exciting as they need it to be. I mean really, crab fishing and Alaskan truckers?? Only pure imagination could create more than a handful of entertaining episodes from those topics....And so, it blatantly enrages me that these shows claim to be "reality," when indeed they are nothing more than handful of people who aren't necessarily "actors" playing themselves in different (mostly scripted) situations for us to watch. It's not real and it's not quality and it most definitely is not truth.

I guess I'll finish with this: My mother and I have had this discussion a few times and each time she throws her hands up in the air and says, "I like it because I don't have to think while watching it." And every time I shake my head and sigh. Because that's really it. We don't need to think about our lives or our worries or our "to do" lists when watching other people play out their dramatic, albeit fictional (or vaguely fictional, however you like to see it), life predicaments. That's the problem: there are too many of us not thinking, too many of us choosing not to think, too many of us hidden behind "Gypsy Weddings," "The Apprentice," "Sister Wives," "Toddlers and Tiaras," and "The Kardashians," to care one bit.

This may read disjointed, so I apologize. Rant over.

Here is an excerpt from my first chapter of my novel-in-progress...The Biography of a Real Man. I hate posting my work on the internet, but in order to give some sort of attention to my writing, I guess it's a must. I hope you enjoy!! Tell me what you think please! 

The wind lashed icy pebbles against my cheeks and lips as I stood on the broken, hole ridden porch. I shivered beneath my faux leather jacket, under prepared for the bitter morning chill. The house was surrounded by large trees. Overbearing pines hung above the roof, knocking their branches against loose shingles. Others, the barren ash, oak and maple trees scattered the yard as thin icicles hung from their cold, stiff and outstretched limbs. Narrow streams of light rose through the dense surrounding forest. To the west of the house and down a steep hill, the Stillaguamish River meandered toward Skagit Bay. After hundreds of miles and many changes of the tide that dark blue water would cross the Canadian border and disappear into the Pacific Ocean.
    For years, on summer evenings, before the sun had set, my grandfather and I would sit by the river heating marshmallows in our handmade fire pit and talking until the sky blackened. We carried lawn chairs down the hill and arranged them on a tiny stretch of pebbles, sand and dirt that the water splashed against when the tide was high. He told me stories about the history of the land, our family and made up his own fantasies about the constellations. He spoke of the Pacific Ocean and the ancient Indian tribes that for centuries ruled these lands. When I was a child, I saw the excitement in his eyes, the glossy shimmer, as he acted out scenes and I chewed on burnt marshmallows. But as I grew older, into my teens and a young adult, I noticed the somberness in his voice, his chuckle of regret as he finished a tale, how his eyes concentrated on the river’s westward movement toward the ocean he never saw. Maybe he wished he lived during that earlier age as a tribesman free to roam the wilderness instead of growing up in Seattle confined to the expectations of an Irish Catholic man.
    He told me once, “Avery, never move to the city. There’s just too much hassle for the heart to bear.” I never understood his meaning, but I knew that was why, after marrying, he moved to Stanwood with my grandmother and built this home. The small town, seclusion and privacy suited him. My grandfather enjoyed the freedom of rural life and found it easier to be alone than among the urban chaos and concrete. My grandmother in all ways opposed him, especially when it came to living in Stanwood. From the day my mother, my brother, Paul, and I moved in, her complaints about living in “the woods” were daily reminders of her misery. “The birds sing too damn loud,” she would say while pouring her morning coffee. “I can’t stand the scent of the buds outside. It’s like a funeral home!” I was sorry that any peace my grandfather had from this home was interrupted by her persistent depression. I never fathomed how he convinced her to move to begin with.
    Frost stuck to the aged plywood under my feet. A layer of snow covered the porch’s surface and I tripped over the wood’s concealed splinters and cracks. The past seven days I imagined a much different scenario than what I was confronted with. I had not expected the home’s ruinous transformation, the sad dilapidation of its former self. The windows, covered with heavy drapes, hid its cavernous insides from view. 

Fall Shows!

August ends next weekend and in just a few weeks all of our favorite shows will once again be on air. Here are the top 5 shows that I'm looking forward to most this fall!

1: ONCE UPON A TIME

 

If you enjoy fantasy, fairy tales, plot twists and exciting drama, this show is for you! I've watched it since season one and I have to say it has really impressed me. Introducing viewers to such a unique and original world slowed down season one a bit, but I loved everything about season two. The drama is all encompassing and flies way past typical fairy tales. I believe this show will be a success for years to come. Plus, it's pretty amazing that the actors who play Snow White and Prince Charming are an actual couple in real life! Season three premieres on Sunday September 29 on ABC at 8pm!! 

2: GREYS ANATOMY

One of my all time favorite shows that I've been addicted to for over a year now. Last summer I literally watched all of the seasons available on Netflix and then searched the internet for the previous season. I never missed an episode last fall. The drama is juicy, the acting is great, and of course, who doesn't like seeing some hot doctors having fun in the on call rooms? Just having heard that Sandra Oh will be leaving the cast after the completion of this season is devastating. She was by far my favorite character. I wonder what could happen to the show if the rest of the original cast follows suit? Greys Anatomy will premiere on September 26 on ABC at 9pm!

3: THE MINDY PROJECT

 

 

I don't care what anyone says...or the reviews of the show...or the statistics. I am going off the rails and making a purely judgmental and biased statement by saying this is one of the best comedies I've seen on television. The writing is witty, original and does share a bit of the spunk from "The Office." I read Mindy's autobiography: Is Everyone Hanging out with me? That really got me pumped for Mindy's show. What I love about her, is that she's intelligent and beautiful, but never giving in to Hollywood standards. The characters are not cookie cutter versions, taped together from other shows. These are great stories and the show literally makes me laugh out loud. Plus, the show hasn't cemented itself into one story line. For a comedy, there is constant change in the storyline and the fast pace keeps the hilarity alive. The Mindy Project will premiere on September 17 on Fox at 9:30pm!

4: BONES 

 

Last summer it was Greys Anatomy, this summer it was Bones. I'm not sure how I never watched this show previously. It is funny, personal and yet very different from the typical medical/crime fighting dramas scattered across television channels. The characters' personal lives greatly influence the show, which I think is great. The show applauds the intellect of a human being and is actually as scientifically accurate as possible, even though it's just a show serving entertainment purposes. There is drama and there is, obviously, death and violence; but what I find interesting is that the drama isn't overplayed. For example, the season finale (spoiler) ends with Booth revoking his "acceptance" to Bones' marriage proposal (for good reason though). Of course, this is devastating. However, unlike other television dramas, it does not end in death, or mortal accidents, or traveling to another world. It ends with a human dilemma, which we can all be sympathetic too. Bones airs on September 16 on Fox at 8pm!

5: ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND 

When I found out that there would be a spin off show of Once Upon a Time, I was thrilled and hesitant. I've never been a fan of spin offs, usually because they are never fully capture the zeal and quality of the original. However, when I saw the trailer to this show, I wanted to see the first episode immediately. Just as in the original, the writers have figured ways to mesh the "real world" with fantasy and in the trailer, it made perfect sense. I have no doubts this show will be a winner and am excited for its upcoming debut! Once Upon a Time in Wonderland airs its first show on October 10 on ABC at 8pm!

Here's the link to the trailer: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland Trailer