28 March 2009

Model

You pop out pieces -- an arm, a leg, a jaw stronger than any mammal. Piece them together connecting joints and sinews with translucent marrow. I marvel at how small it is in your rough tumble hands, nails chewed to skin. Your leather watch counts digital seconds while the hands tick away our days. All we do now is sleep, and snuggle under covers and make passes at each other. You build your skeleton dreams; I wake at dawn just to be alone.

My Kind of Journalism

There are so many different types of journalism these days - hard news, print writing, features, online writing, blogging... Sometimes it seems daunting. Sometimes it seems like I want to dabble in every medium. Sometimes I think that I don't want to do any of these things, and that I just want to write a novel - a fantasy novel, preferably, one that probably won't make me any money at all, or fame either. But since I do want to stick with journalism, I think I'm looking for a journalism that combines novel-writing with reporting, researching facts that I can piece together like a complex puzzles, mixing them up with quotes, weaving the entire thing into a story with a plot and diverse characters, one with more than a 2,000 word limit to tell. I want to write journalistic novels, like my Journalism of Empathy professor Ted Conover. Literary journalism seems like an extended, yet exciting, way to tell a story. And after reading "Coyotes" by Conover, and a couple of other books of the same genre (like "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman), I've decided that this is the type of writing I'd like to do in my future. I want to travel somewhere yet un-written about, find some topic unexplored, and delve into a world where I can shine light on a person, place, or idea. The only problem is finding that idea.... Any suggestions?

26 March 2009

Heart Throbs & Tooth Aches

1. First news point: Heart Throb Media I'm currently writing movie news for Heart Throb Media, a website directed (mostly) at teenagers but with content for all ages (at least under my movie section, anyway). It's not just me posting (let me not say what I think about the other guy who posts stuff), but I write maybe five or six articles a week, depending on what else I'm up to. In fact, I'd really suggest going there right now, because I just recently posted a blurb about the new "Taking Woodstock" trailer -- a film directed by Ang Lee ("Lust, Caution" and "Brokeback Mountain" = amazing) with a superstar cast including my all time heart throb: Emile Hirsch (and my second favorite heart throb: Johnathan Groff!!!! He played in "Hair" in Central Park last summer, and lots of people were bummed he wasn't going to resume his role when "Hair" hit Broadway). 2. Second news point:Wisdom Teeth I recently got my wisdom teeth removed (well, during spring break) and FINALLY the swelling is almost all the way down. Although, my jaw (especially the right side) still hurts when I open my mouth too wide. If you have impacted wisdom teeth, I highly recommend getting them removed ASAP. If I had done this three years ago when my dentist first told me to, I probably wouldn't still look sort of like a chipmunk right now. Also, if you're going to get your wisdom teeth pulled -- I recommend lots of ice within the first 24 hours, and salt and water help after a week or so. Also, I tried some color healing when I had mine done, which helped a little, but I think the pain was cutting through my focus. If you want to color heal, you need to focus an ice-blue color on the swelling, and a purple color on the wounds for healing. Thats all for right now! Remember! Go to the website! Watch the "Taking Woodstock" trailer! Let me know what you think!

20 March 2009

Time Management Strategy

Time for my apologies, again. I'm sorry I haven't been writing. I'm sorry I fell off the face of the Earth. But I hope that my absence hasn't driven away all of my readers. So, to make it up to those of you who've hung on, I've developed a plan! I'm taking some tips from my friend and teacher Betty, who writes a pretty kick-ass blog of her own. What does she have that I don't? Well, aside from a cooler layout and way more readers -- she updates quite frequently, and has just developed a strategy for updating three times a week. Well, I don't think I can be that structured, but I am going to develop a goal. By the end of each week, I want to have posted at least four new posts, and at least one of them has to be longer than a tiny info-blurb. I'm not sure when I'm going to squeeze these posts into a schedule that involves five classes, way too many hours of commuting, going places with a boyfriend, and (soon) writing about movies for a new website. Then again, I guess it would make sense to draw inspiration from all of those different things I'm busy with, right? So if I drank, I'd propose a toast to my new challenge. Since I don't drink, we'll just clink glasses of green tea or something.