Since time I posted about my collo project, I have started another chapter and have gone back to edit more. I am on page 171. One of my goals for the future are not only to continue writing, but to find more people willing to read it so that I can see how an audience respond to it. I am excited about having the opportunity to come back and read the posts when I am done about how my novel grew.
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My twenty hours have long since passed on my collo project of writing my novel. As of this point, I am 162 pages in. I can see the finish line to having a full draft of the story, but I'm not there yet. I have faith, though.
This has been almost a five year journey through one brainstorming, the first full draft, massive editing, and now a very different second draft. I've cut characters, killed some people, and explored topics that I never would have when I was younger. Most importantly, I have to thank my beloved editors (even if one of them doesn't know how to use commas, but I still find her invaluable) for reading and rereading. Thank you to Makena who slapped me when I said that I was going to delete fifty pages. I needed that. Also, thank you for not slapping me when what I wrote made you cry. Here is a Makena editing montage of part two of the novel. I went to see Something Rotten: The Musical at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina. It is a play about Shakespeare's failing completion: the Bottom brothers. Nick, the older brother, seeking his break, hires a fortune teller with his family's savings without telling the rest of his family. Nick and the fortune teller try to discover the plot of what will be Shakespeare's most famous play. They discover Hamlet, but a lot of it gets lost in translation. Instead of Hamlet, they write the Tragedy of Omelette. Also, they discover the art of the musical, something Shakespeare never did. My favorite song was "It's Hard to be the Bard," which is sung by a disgruntled Shakespeare and includes him screaming at his pen. I feel that on an emotional level. Also, now I have a song to listen to while I write papers. Actually pretty well. I'd been stuck on one chapter for two months. I'd rewritten in five times. I had over sixty pages of work on one chapter. It was kicking my butt, but I think I've found the problem. I've decided to go on for now and go back to it, given that usually I go back once a later part of the story is settled and tweak some things anyways. I shall continue the good fight!
Bob Ross had his happy little trees, and now I have my happy little play. This was a fantastic break in my week. Even if I did see the guy who played Wilbur eating a hotdog the next day, this play is a very happy moment in my freshman year. It reminds me of all the fantastic friends I have made and how important they are to me.
So, Spanish is still a goal that I have. I recognize that doing Duolingo isn't going to get me where I want to be with fluency. It's a good stepping stone, but something else has come up: every time I open Duolingo, I think, "Hmm...why don't I write?"
I've been writing novels since I've known how to write. The first book I remember writing was about my dog winning in an agility competition and then falling in love with another dog. It might be my greatest work. It was illustrated, and I spelled "obstacle" (which I still don't know how to spell) differently on every page. My new collo project should be to work on the novel I've been writing since ninth grade. I finished the first draft in tenth grade, but I didn't really revisit it until twelfth grade. Now I'm halfway through the second draft. I want to concentrate on rewriting it so that I can go into the final editing stages before I publish it. (Of course, that's assuming that I have the courage to publish it.) Hopefully the novel is not as terrible as this blog. Spring Break 2017, I went on Alternative Break to Atlanta, Georgia. I didn’t know much about what I’d be doing. I knew that I’d be doing needle exchange, which turned out to be a process where a non-profit will go out with a biohazard bucket and a case full of sterile needles for diabetes patients and sit in front of an old, worn down church with only three stone walls and no roof right across from a boarded up motel; the non-profit will then wait for drug users to come with used needles. The needles might be put in laundry detergent containers, cereal boxes, hidden in the sneakers the drug user wears to walk to the exchange, or in empty Gatorade bottles. The needles will be counted out one by one and then the user can get the same amount of clean needles. The leader of the nonprofit brings her old insulin needles in Gatorade bottles so that if a drug user needs more needles but can’t exchange any, they can use hers for the exchange. The most common question asked about needle exchange is, “How does this help? How doesn’t this enable someone to do drugs?” It’s unclear if needle exchange is legal in Tennessee.
Needle exchange is a part of the theory of harm reduction. Harm reduction is exactly what it sounds like. It’s asking the question, “How do I help people stop hurting themselves?” It’s about empowerment. Needle exchange and the people in it seek to limit the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C, both of which can be contracted from sharing and reusing needles. Most drug users who inject their drugs use their needles more than once and will share needles not just once a day, but multiple times a day with various people. Taking away someone’s needles doesn’t stop the sharing problem. It increases it. Removing needles doesn’t remove addiction. With addiction, the brain cannot fully function without the drugs. Dependent on the type of drug, the brain changes differently, but it does change. There is no doubt that addiction is physical as well as mental. I’ve heard people say that it’s too bad that drug users might get diseases; they’re drug users, they deserve it. People want to clump drug users into one group. They imagine the Hollywood junkie, hollow cheeked and dirty, dropping out of school and screaming at children. They imagine drug users as “the other.” It’s important to understand that the drug community isn’t an individual community. It’s a part of the larger community, even if the larger community ostracizes them. A drug user that contracts HIV from an old needle can spread HIV through sex to a non-drug user. “Well, lock up the drug user, keep them away from the rest of us,” seems like an option, but it’s not. The majority of drug users will spend time in jail, but the American jail system is fundamentally inadequate to help drug abusers, and often it only leads to more problems. Harm reduction requires that you meet people where they are at in their lives. So it's my goal to learn at least basic Spanish. I've been so close and so far to achieving that goal in the past. I realize what I really want to do is have a global perspective. I want to be understanding and willing to listen. My goal to learn Spanish often gets sacrificed so that I can watch TedTalks and read books and volunteer. I love doing those things. Spanish is adding something extra. So, as I strive to learn Spanish, I should never forget why I want to do that. My ultimate goal is to develop my perspective. That takes more than learning a few vocabulary words.
With a name like that, how could the play be sexist?
(The answer: in every way possible) I saw this on ETSU's campus. Everything that ETSU did was fairly good, but there was no escaping how terrible the plot was. The play is evidence that there aren't enough good roles for women in theater. The women all fit stereotypes so perfectly it seemed like it must have taken not even a pinch of creativity to think them up. I left angry. When the average person thinks of the Appalachian region, they do not think of a small theater where Shakespeare is performed, even though there are plenty of theaters around here. The average person would probably think of moonshine and bears. There is a bit of regionalism in the United States. There’s definitely a stereotype that Southern accents and academia don’t mix, even though that’s not true whatsoever.
I went to see Othello, the last play in ETSU’s fall program. I’d only ever read Shakespeare before. I loved the sonnets individually, but I always found reading the plays line by line in my English classes mundane and hard to follow without any type of action. However, the performance was fantastic. I can’t get the final scene out of my head. I keep running each step through my head. Shakespeare’s plays demand emotion and adrenaline, not bored tenth graders passing a book around and praying for the school bell to ring. I was inspired to write. My brain took off, and that’s my favorite feeling. As all the actors and actresses were bowing and motioning for the technical crew’s turn to be applauded, I imagined the play being performed through time. Time and place give words different meanings because peoples’ perceptions change. In theaters around the world, the same plays can be performed, but the notions that people take from the plays can be crazily different. Plays tend to have core values that are indistinguishable from the play itself, but it’s a person’s own valuing of the beliefs set before them that shapes who he or she is. What’s most important is that the play is being put on in so many places. That’s undeniable. Out of all the stereotypes that people have about the Appalachian region, the existence of what’s counter to those stereotypes is ever present. Stereotypes can be readily disproven, and yet they still exist. |
Kyla
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