Writers Digest Writers Conference 2007 NYC

"Find what you're passionate about and write," said editor Judy Hottenson during the conference lunch break. I didn't expect going to NYC coming back learning more about myself then the trade, but after returning home from the conference - I learned just that.

With just being found positive for mono, I went to NYC with an open mind, tired eyes from driving 5 hours and a hungry energy, excited to learn. At roughly around 7:40 am, I had already registered and was sitting downstairs looking through my pamphlet when Jodi Picoult walked by to get ready for her key note opening speech. I felt like a middle school girl at their first boy band concert - I felt like I had just seen a celebrity and really I had. At 8:30, Jodi gave a great speech which woke me up and opened my ears. She was very down to earth and real, making jokes about the research she had done and how she had to work to make her ordinary, healthy life and more fictional one. I couldn't stop smiling. Something that she said that made me interested had to do with her research. She stated, "Don't write what you know, but what you are willing to learn." I loved it. To be able to hear my favorite author speak about her trials and hardships made me realize how badly I want to be a part of this craft.

The first session I attended was a session about Your Breakout Novel - spoken by the agent Donald Maass. He began in a slightly depressed tone by began to open up by creating a workshop environment where we had to think about the current novel we were creating. I thought of the novel I am currently writing, A Separation of Heart, and about them main charactors, or in my usual case, the three of them. He brought us through different ways to jump into the protagonist's head and become them which helped me quite a bit.

Then it was lunch. Being it hurt too much to eat, I barely did. I sat at a table of woman who had to be twice or three times my age. I found myself trying to act older and more mature, folding my napkin on my lap, cutting the chicken with a knife (which I never do) and beginning polite conversation. Some of the women said that they were so enjoyed to see someone my age beginning their writing career so early in their life. Im pretty happy about that too.

After lunch I got to get 19 Minutes signed by Jodi Picoult, which I had been looking forward to all morning. When she asked me for my name, I swear I almost forgot. Then I got it right and asked for a photo to be taken, obviously. She said that we could be twins because of our hair and I laughed nervously. I still can't believe she was right there .

The last part of the afternoon was a session on Young Adult Writing that I attended because that audience is my main concentration. From that session, I learned that this is what I want to do. I want to be a novelist and really I am already. Whether I accomplish this in the next 10-20 years or if I end up self publishing, no matter what I will do it.

I would have attended the pitch slam if I had been prepared but by 3:00, I was already dead. I didn't feet too good but I knew I had learned a lot. I learned that I need to write and concentrate on what I love. Sure I will have lots of other careers alongside writing, but I will make room to have it. Because I have always made room to write and how could I possibly stop now.

And just like editor Will Shwalbe said, "When you see your book being read on the subway, you know you'll make it." And believe me, I will.

'turn out the lights'

So summer has officially begun and it has begun with me being sick. It isn't even sick exactly, it's that my tonsils/glands are sooo swollen that it hurts to eat, drink or move my neck. My body feels drained and when I went to the doctors, all they told me was that my lymphnodes were swollen. Um, duh? I knew that already. He said it could either be mono, toncilitis (meaning I'd have to get my tonsils out) or just my glands fighting something. Whatever it is, it hurts like hell and is pissing me off.

Tomorrow night @ 2 am I leave for NYC. Can you say excited? I can't wait to be there, learning about ways to make my writing better with people who are just as interested in novel writing as I am. I got an outfit and am just hoping to feel somewhat better by tomorrow night. It will be a long drive in the dark and I probably wont be able to sleep. I have a portfolio made up just in case and a notebook. I'm ready.

I miss MCC and everyone there. It feels weird not being around them every day and night. My room is cluttered with memories of them and it's hard to look at photos without some crazy memory taking over. I miss it all and can't wait until next year.

By the way, I might be getting a car. If I get a job... sweet!

It's funny how people change

We were merely freshman...

Let's see how much people can change from the beginning of their first year of college to the end of the first year. I'm gunna put some pics up from the very first day of MCC to the last. Let's just see how I've survived and who has, or hasn't, helped me to become who I am now.

"For the life of me I cannot remember

What made us think that we were wise and

We'd never compromise

For the life of me I cannot believe

We'd ever die for these sins

We were merely freshmen."

MonroeCC '06-'07

one more supernova

I never really listened to much of TLC. Maybe Scrubs here and there or Unpretty once and a while. Truthfully, I never knew much about Lisa Lopez and how she had died until the 2 hour long documentary I just watched about her trip to Hondoras. It's 3 am on a Saturday night-Sunday morning and I know I will be waking up in 4 hours - but I need to talk about what I just watched.

Lisa Lopez was infamous and still had her faults. She struggled like any other human being and for me to be able to see that, made me realize I am not really alone and no one is perfect, no matter what photographs or rumors may come to tell. She was an alcoholic. She was abused in a relationship. She was a cutter. She was three different people all in one body and I believe that everyone has a multiple personality from time to time. I, for one, have many.

-

Just like her, I have struggled and really who hasn't. Maybe I too should document how I see the world and show everyone what I have been through. Even now, I am falling apart and trying so hard to sew up the ripped frays as I shatter. I've become a perfectionist at sewing. But that isn't the point. By seeing in this documentary that someone like her has some of the same views and emotions as I - made me feel significant because lately, I haven't felt important at all. I need to feel needed. I want to feel loved. I've began to give up on everything that I once believed was true - everything but my writing.

-

Lisa loved to sing, to rap, to paint. I love to write - novels, poems, short stories. She did it, why can't I? She struggled through hardships and still did what she loved - shouldn't I be able to do the same? And in reality, shouldn't we all be able to just do what makes us happy? Then why can't we be content.

'paper bags and plastic hearts'

Maybe life is difficult because it is all just a test. Maybe the reason we trip and we fall, is just to see if we are strong enough to get up - if we are willing to give it another shot. We are all born with so many trials to overcome and even though some are so difficult that you will fall so low - there are only so many other trials to overcome until you are the best you can be, until you are back on your feet again.

Divorce happens. Alcoholism happens. Cancer happens. Rape happens. Suicide happens. Drugs happen. Love happens. Death happens.
Life happens.

Lately, a lot has been on my mind. So much that I've been falling apart at the seams. I've been falling back into memories of the summer of 2004 - the year my father left. It's weird, that even though it has been 3 years that all that anger is still packed up inside of me with just as much force that it was back then. Nothing has really changed. Sure, I have, but not to the point of normalcy. And really, I don't think I will ever be normal again - if I ever was. I fell so far that summer that it would be a miracle to make it half way back to where I was before. I was looking through my journal from my junior - senior years and I realized how alike I am to that person I was then. How the same thoughts still thunder through my mind every day. The thoughts scare me because I never imagined they would be there. But I can't blame anyone. I can't blame my father. I can't blame the divorce. I can't blame depression. I can't blame the meds. I can't even blame myself. I can only blame life - because this is the road it has chosen for me. And no matter how far I have fallen, it knows I can make it because if I wasn't supposed to fall then why would any of us be here in the first place?

"please help me get from worse to better'

This weekend was good. I got to hang out with some of the best people in the world. Maybe i had too much fun within a short period of time. Last night i collapsed. I began to cry harder then i have cried in weeks. I really didn't even know what ignited it, but i couldn't stop. Today in math i began to cry as well because my dumb teacher told me i most likely will fail. I will also probably fail journalism and will barely pass communications and drugs and behavior. Just thinking about all the work i have put into this semester makes me angry that it wont be shown in the end with good grades proving the effort. Last night i took out my journal from junior-senior year and i read some letters i had wrote to my father, the kind the therapist tells you to write to feel better that will never really go to him. I had never realized how upset i had been at him and how even today, a lot hasn't changed - I've just gotten better at covering it up. It's annoying that three years later, I'm still barely recovering. Last night was tough. I barely made it through. And thanks to some night time tylonel, i fell asleep.

Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer
Do you know you're unlike any other?
You'll always be my thunder, and I sad
Your eyes are the brightest of all the colors
I don't wanna ever love another
You'll always be my thunder
So bring on the rain
And bring on the thunder
- Thunder, Boys like Girls

May 30th = Writers Digest Writers Conference.

If there is one thing to look forward to it will be that. That will be the make or break of what I want to do for the rest of my life.

"what took you so long?"

Sometimes people do things that they can't even explain the reason of. Maybe everything does happen for a reason. Either to prove to that person that they need to change or to give them a flash of reality and to make them look at what they care about most - their mistake or the reason they are afraid. The fear is there because they are so full of regret that it has overturned into a bucket full of overflowing fright. I guess that's what it feels like for a lot of people who are either jealous or cheat or steal. Because they know they are a good person and really don't know the reason that they did what they did. All they know is that it happened and they regret it to the point of insanity - allowing them to have sleepless nights, wishing they could go back and change those few moments and make them right.

Sometimes people really didn't even do anything wrong and society sees their action as normal behavior. But that person knows it was wrong and very unlike them. They know it was not something they should have done, being the kind of person they are. Whether it was being jealous of someone you had no right to be jealous of. Or cheating but not cheating at all because there was no relationship involved. But instead of feeling okay with their decision, they feel haunted and horrible - like the worst person in the world. But the real reason they feel so full of emptiness is because they didn't only hurt themselves - they are afraid they hurt someone else. Someone they felt so much affection for. And even if they didn't hurt the other person, their conscience is killing them.




"Sometimes people lie, not only to help themselves - but to help the person they are lying to, because they care that much."

silly, childish actions keep mimicking wild thoughts

Why is it my fault?

So maybe I try too hard

But its all because of this desire

I just wanna be liked, I just wanna be funny.

Looks like the jokes on me

So call me captain backfire

Im never speaking up again it only hurts me.

Id rather be a mystery than she (he) desert me.

Oh Im never speaking up again

Starting now


- My Stupid Mouth, John Mayer





I’ve got some problems but we’ve got ten dollars

That’s enough to get us wasted before the night is over

These past five days I’ve been completely sober

But tonight I’m getting ripped wide open


- Knights of the Island Counter, Dave Melillo





Use me as you will

Pull my strings just for a thrill

And I know I'll be okay

Though my skies are turning gray


- My Guardian Angel, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus





And your slowly shaking finger tips

Show that your scared like me

So let's pretend we're alone

And I know you may be scared

And I know were unprepared but I don't care


- Vulnerable, Secondhand Serenade








Eighteen years old legally makes you an adult, right? Then how come I'm still a child - a little girl trapped in what society wants me to turn into? Truthfully, I'm lost. I don't know where I'm going to be in ten years and for that matter, I'm not ready to even think about what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. Sometimes, I wish I could just fast forward ten years from now and for just a moment, see what life is like. See who I'm with and how I live. See where I live and what friends are still by my side. I could see the adult I have become. I wish I could go back and life a minute or two when I was carefree and young. I didn't care what people thought and always thought I never would. It's funny how times change and the person inside of you does too.





Life is like a scar. A scar is the result of pain - physical and emotional. Yet, when it heals, you can pinch it and poke it and there is no feeling. We've gone numb. In life we get so used to overcoming the same dreadful obsticles that in the end, we have gone numb to how we react to them. Yet, the mark will remain forever - showing you where you have been and what boundries you have overcome. Scars are timelines. They can tell an entire story without a word being spoken.

My voice seems to be gone. Is it because I talk too much, or because you took my breath away?

"when I wake I can't recall a thing"

You see all those beautiful couples - walking in the hallways hand in hand or kissing gently in the corner of Starbucks. As I see those couples, I begin to realize how young they are and wonder if they will last forever. Forever is a long, long time and it frightens me that we are all either bound to find someone who will fit into the 'forever' category or find someone who wont.

-

The question remains - are people destined for each other or is it merely luck? I wrote an article about this that never made it into the paper, but the thought crossed my mind again tonight as I watched Sex and the City. Luck is the only explanation. If everyone is bound to fall under the 'destiny' spell, then why are there so many divorces and separations and cheating? Destiny doesn't make people cheaters. If you are lucky enough to find someone who loves you, it's fate. And fate is different then destiny. Fate is what happens as a result of luck. Luck that works.

-

I've been frustrated lately. Everyone around me has someone there for them. Dana has Ryan. Sara has Derek. Bam has Tony. And my best guy friend even has someone too nowadays. Where am I? Am I never going to be lucky enough to find someone worth holding onto? I can't trust. I can only hope. Hope that someday, something great will happen.

"you can measure your life by the scenes you have survived"

Isn't it frightening what words can do? What emotions words can process into ones mind when they are finished reading the very last word typed onto a page? Words can explode any emotion: fear, happiness, depression, excitement, thrill. And even better - words only create these emotions because of the intelligence inside the authors mind.

At 3:08 in the morning on May 1st, I was afraid to go to sleep. I was afraid to go to school then next morning because I was scared. After finishing Jodi Picoult's newest novel, a lot of thoughts slipped into my brain - making the entire Virginia Tech situation seem even more real. I was afraid that someone was after me, going to run into my room and shoot me. I wouldn't know what to do if this occured. Yet, it all falls back into the authors hands. If Jodi Picoult wasn't such a wonderful, talented writer, I wouldn't have had these intense emotions. And someday, i hope that young readers all over the world will think this same way when they read my books.

I went to Borders tonight with my laptop, bought a drink and grabbed a Writers Digest, Hermans Guide to Agents, Cosmopoliton, and Mercy, another J.P. book. I typed up 2 1/2 pages of agents so that I can start this summer off well. I also am looking into going to a Writers Conference in NYC on May 30th where J.P. will be speaking. There will be sessions about novel writing and pitching your stories to agents as well as an hour to get a book signed and 2 hours to actually speak to agents. This would be so wonderful to go a be a part of. The only downfall is that it is $200... and I'm practically broke.