DIY English Degree

Back in my day when we went to college, we didn't get these fancy degrees in arts and letters. We got degrees in things like engineering and environmental sciences, which we subsequently never used because there was a recession on and we realized we had an aversion to working more than 3 hours a day unless it involved using our imagination, in which case we might consider 5.

But now that my chances of becoming an actual, sort of real author have gone from 0.0000005% to, I don't know, 0.1%, I feel like maybe I should start reading books again. In the last 4 months, my reading list has consisted of:

- The first three pages in a book on Buddhism that I've read 8 times
- The ingredients list of Nutella knock-offs in my epic search for palm oil-free delicious hazel nut spread
- A couple of short stories about life post-apocalypse.

But no more! It is time that I become educated like a real person with literary aspirations. Thus, I will take my janky $40 bike from Wal-Mart and ride to the Berkeley public library, where I will feast mine eyes on great writings of this century and the last. Or, you know, whatever the library has in.

This is the beginning of a series of posts on how to create your own education in literature. It's a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure book, or a degree from Brown - figure it out as you go!

And here is the first part of the growing list of books that you, I, we, all of us really ought to read, at some point. Of course, I have to balance those with current stuff in my genre. I'll be going for these tomorrow:

Paradise Lost
The Iliad (I am not looking forward to this)
Something with a teenage girl and dragons/werewolves/vampires/unicorns/angels on the cover

The Secret to Writing a Novel

Okay, I just want to announce to the internet that I have discovered the secret to writing a novel. This is it, are you ready for it? Okay, really now - are you ready?

Write 500 words every day.

That's it. 500 words that you make up is practically nothing. It should take you a half-hour tops. Here's some math for all you doubting, uh, Dorises: 100,000 / 500 = 200

That's right, 200 days to write a 100,000 page novel. Bam. It's like NaNIWRiMO except without the suffering, arbitrarily capitalized letters and it takes a lot longer too. But that's okay, because no suffering.

I've been doing this for, like, 7 days and it's been awesome! I already have 500 x 7 = 3500 words done on a new book.

Why I'm Here

Everything needs a mission statement, or at least a good introduction. Here's one for this blog:

I recently finished Petrified, a novel about suicide, love and gorgons. With the help of said novel, I am now represented by Vickie Motter at the Andrea Hurst Literary Agency (Yay!). And now I can no longer avoid the inevitable: it's time to start blogging.

I'm new to blogging (at least, blogging about myself) so this blog will be a constantly evolving entity. I'll try to focus a little on the book, a little on writing and reading in general, and a bit on the urban landscapes and mythology that inspire me. Rock on.