Balancing Act Summer has officially come to a close, at least for me. As excited as I am to be a week into my last semester, it’s been hard saying goodbye to one of the most fulfilling summers I can remember. After a week or so of consistently surpassing my 1,000 w/d goal, I’d chosen to increase it. It was elating to feel that I had a handle on the balancing act. Life, work, and play all had a time and place. Between the amazing progress I’ve made through the rough draft of Chasing Freedom and a week in Las Vegas, it’ll be a challenge to top the amount of fun I’ve had this month. When school got back underway, I had to reevaluate my plan. Time in class, commuting, and the nonwriting workload for one of my writing classes caught me off guard. These things, in addition of personal lifeRead More
After my feast of writing conferences and LUW meetings this summer, my time has suddenly been taken over by family obligations and vacations. None of these are bad things, it just means that I’m finding it harder and harder to update you guys every week. I’m thinking for the summer I may change my schedule to either a biweekly update or a monthly update. I am still working on the first draft of Chasing Freedom (working title), and I’ll be starting on the third draft of “Night Watch” soon since I’m submitting it in October. Other than that, I’m trying to find a schedule and working location that is best for me. More to come on that once I get everything figured out and settled. Another thing I need to keep in mind is that I start my last semester of school next month. I am so excited! I loveRead More
Instead of rewriting the entire post, I’m going to break it up into two parts. The first part will be what I wrote earlier in the week, the second half came a few days later. Plotting On The past couple of weeks have been busy in some odd ways. Summer is busy because of vacations, family get togethers, holidays, and so on, but that hasn’t been the only thing that’s kept me from my weekly updates. When July started, I decided that I was going to take a week and plot out the book I wanted to work on. The plotting itself wasn’t bad, I actually finished ninety-nine percent of it before the week was out. Now character plotting–that’s been the hold up. While I was at Fyrecon, I was introduced to character interviews. I’d already heard of them, but a presenter showed us templates to use. I thought itRead More
Well, I’m still working on posting consistently on a specific day every week. One day I’ll get there, but I keep letting it slip my mind. However, practice makes perfect, and perseverance leads to success. The next couple of weeks will be full of fun stuff as I report on my experiences at the Summer Writer’s Symposium and Fyrcon this month! My goal is to post as soon as each conference is over so that my thoughts and feelings are fresh. Hopefully I remember to take some pictures. I’ll also be working more on my steampunk novel once July arrives. By the time I enter my last semester at Weber State, I want to have a few chapters ready for my novel writing class. A quick update about the short story I’ve been working on: the first draft is finished! Right now, the working title is Strictly Nightlife. Since IRead More
Madeline M. Marcum is a newly published author. Her short story, “Monsters in the Woods” appeared in the 38th volume of Metaphor (2019). Her short story was also accepted as a presentation at the annual National Undergraduate Literary Conference. Nonconforming to genre rules, Madeline writes all kinds of short and long-form stories (and dabbles in poetry). When she’s not writing, Madeline works toward her goal of becoming a freelance editor for novels. She also occasionally sews costumes that are far out of her league, but only when she’s not doing homework. Madeline is set to graduate with a BA in Creative Writing this December!