Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Titanic: One of Many Writerly Fascinations and January 1912

When I was in the fifth grade, the movie Titanic was released into the world. At first, I didn't have any particular interest to see it, although I thought it sounded interesting. If it hadn't been for my cousin, I likely wouldn't have seen it for years. The Thanksgiving after the movie came out on home video (that sounds so long ago, a time before DVD and BluRays), my cousin and her family brought it to the holiday at my aunt and uncle's house. It was the first PG-13 movie I ever saw (which was a big deal for a 10-year-old). My cousin, me, and the adults all stayed up late watching it. I fell in love.

That was my favorite movie for a few years. I watched it at least once a week. I loved the story, I loved the characters. And, because of that movie, I grew an immediate fasciantion with all things related to the Titanic. I read as many books on the Titanic as I could possibly get my hands on. I knew nearly any obscure fact about that ship and about what had happened the night it sunk. I was a wealth of Titanic-related knowledge.



After a few years of this, I got away from it. I got fascianted in other things. But then the summer before I went to college, the Titanic Exhibit came to Columbus. That old spark reignited, and I insisted that I go. I went with my mom and sister and the second I stepped into that exhibit...it all came flooding back. All the obscure information I knew, all the facts I'd learned, everything.

The fascination has never died. I would love, one day, to write a novel about the Titanic...but it's not my time yet. One day, perhaps.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic. My little Titanic-fact-consuming brain is going to be working in overdrive, just because of this. So I'm going to try to share some of that 100th anniversary thoughts with you.

100 YEARS AGO...
January 1912

The lifeboats are installed in the davits on the Titanic...sixteen wooden lifeboats and two Englehardt Collapsible lifeboats. Originally, 32 lifeboats were ordered, but Bruce Ismay (the Titanic's owner) requested only 16 be installed. This was all the law required at the time (a law that would change after the tragedy). The ship's original designer, Alexander Carlisle, had also originally proposed that 64 boats be on the ship, which would be enough for every person on board, but this proposal was never seriously considered.

Also in January 1912, the Titanic was given its call letters for the Marconi Wireless System: "MGY". These letters would identify the Titanic to other ships listening in on transmissions.

(1912 Facts About Titanic: Revised Edition by Lee W. Merideth, pg 36, 37)

Monday, January 9, 2012

Change Write Now: Week 2

Here we are. Week 2 of Change Write Now. I survived week 1. Huzzah!

How are things going for Team For Our SAKES? Things are going well! We've got awesome goals for this week and I'm so glad that I get to talk to these girls every day. Some have added on additional, unofficial goals for the challenge...like writing ones...and now I've taken to bothering said team member on Twitter to make sure she's getting her writing done. I'm truly LOVING this team. Do we rock? I'm fairly certain we do!

How are things going for me? I've made a goal to work on exercising more this week. I did pretty well last week, but I need to do even better. Also need to blog more. Thus, this. I know, you feel very loved.

That's all for now, folks!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Revisiting My (Novel) Baby

Over the last couple of weeks, I somehow got the bright idea to send a couple of chapters from my re-re-revised first novel to a couple of email penpals I have. The novel centers around a radical religious cult (and if you look back waaaaay to the beginning of this blog, you'll see me talking about it A LOT), it was the first novel I ever completed to satisfaction, it was the first novel I ever queried, and it was a novel I worked on all throughout college.

This novel is my baby. And while I've decided that other projects I'm working on are much more marketable than this one (not to mention just...better...as my writing style has changed since I finished my pre-querying revisions on this one), I still would love to see this novel in the world someday. Down the road. Maybe.

Anyway, for some reason, I decided to share the first few chapters with my two penpals. We share writings with each other from time to time, as two of us are writers, and it's just fun. Since I stopped querying this particular novel, I started revising it again, trying to make it better and make more sense and make it sound more like my current style. I only have about four chapters (out of twenty-three) re-revised currently.

In sharing the first few chapters with my penpals, now they want to read more. What does this mean? This means I need to actually open my notes for this novel back up (I had to fish them out from under my bed last night after my one penpal DEMANDED more. Yes, in all caps and everything), and get back to my very slow re-revisions. If nothing else, at least then this novel won't just be sitting in the back of my mind, nagging me to pay attention to it like it has for a while now.

So here's to revisiting old projects, just because.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Change Write Now



I'm embarking on a new challenge this month. It's called Change Write Now and it's a habit-changing challenge taking place in the writing community. The basic idea is everyone has been split into teams (Go Team "For Our SAKES"!) and is competing to earn points each day...for eating healthy, exercising, creating one good habit, and breaking one bad habit.

My eating goals revolve around losing some weight I put on over the course of last year (which also goes hand-in-hand with a different weight losing competition I have going with my dad currently). Luckily, many of my teammates have similar weight loss goals, which is going to be great motivation for me!

But the good habit I'm trying to pick up is in posting on this blog more often. I'm aiming for three times a week, at least to start. Hopefully that will work out!

Anyway, this was just a quick post to introduce all of this fun and let you know what's going to be happening for the next couple of months!