Filling the Bucket Then Kicking it Over

That's totally not depressing. With that image in mind, meet (most of) my bucket list!

10: Publish a novel

Obvious, when you think about what my iQuest passion is but if I don't keep reminding myself what it is I'm working towards or that I could, one day, actually hold my writing in my hands, life gets a little less . . . fun.

9: Find triplets and make them wear these

I can confidently say that my life will not be complete until I see three babies wearing these at the same time.

8: Take a road trip across the country

I've never really had the urge to travel before, not like a "I NEED to go to this place" type of feeling. Like ever. But I've always wanted to drive down Route 66 and get lost in some place I've never been before. I blame the movie Cars.

7: Have a whole room dedicated to books

I want my own library. Remember that scene in The Beauty and the Beast where the Beast gives Belle a library? I want that. I don't necessarily want someone to give it to me (though if someone's willing I certainly won't turn them down) but that's what I want. I want wall to wall shelves covered with books and DVDs and I want a desk and a computer and a couch and a cushy chair in there so that I can sit there forever and just enjoy the company of books.

6: Take my sister out to dinner

A simple plan, I know, but there's more than just a meal to that. I promised my sister that if I ever became famous and made enough money I would take her out to one of those sushi boat places where you pay by the plate and then a Korean barbecue where you grill your own meet (which is surprisingly expensive). Not only do I want to be famous (who doesn't?) but my sister does a lot for me, even if she doesn't know it (nor does she need to).

5: Write a novel

I guess before I can finish #10 I should do this first . . .

4: Fall in love

What can I say? I'm a closet sap.

3: Have my grandma at my college graduation

My grandma's old right now and she'll be even older five years from now but one of the things she's been talking about nonstop ever since my sister was born, was being able to see her grandchildren have a great education. Plus, she'd probably be the most excited one of us to see me graduate.

2: Pay my mom back

She says it doesn't matter, that it's a mom's job to take care of her kids and not expect anything in return, but it's a Chinese thing to repay your parents when you're older for all that they've done for you. Let's be honest, I'm not exactly a ray of sunshine or anything and my future is iffy at best, but my mom's always been there for me and supported me no matter what. I don't really know how to repay her for all that she's done, but I'll sure as hell try.

1: PETS!!

Bet you were expecting something a bit more meaningful, weren't you? Well no way, Jose! I want pets! My grandma used to tell me we couldn't get a dog because she was allergic then when I was about ten years old I found out she just didn't want a dog so she lied to me (gasp!). As a result I want a cat, and a dog, and maybe another cat. And maybe another dog. I've thought a lot about this. My mom used to make fun of me because I used to say that my dream dog was a Husky with blue eyes named Dude (that hasn't really changed, actually).

I Don't Like Reading Non-Fiction (A Boring Title for a Boring Subject)

I really don't. Textbooks left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to nonfiction. It just all seems so dull. Why should I be reading something boring and educational when I could be reading about wizards and magic?

That being said, I found This is Not a Writing Manual by Kerri Majors while I was surfing the web a few months ago, thought it looked interesting and informative, then immediately forgot about it. Because it definitely sounded like a writing manual.

Kerri Majors (a woman I've never heard of before) is the editor and founder of YARN, the Young Adult Review Network (a website I've never heard of before), an award-winning online literary journal of YA short stories, poetry, all that jazz. (And let's just say I'll be looking into that.)

This is Not a Writing Manual is intended for young, aspiring writers to give them advice about the writing life. Perfect for me, right? I'm a young aspiring writer and I know nothing about the writing life. But I've always been more than skeptical of taking advice from other writers. The thing about "creativity" is that it works differently for everyone. For some people it happens in numbers and science, for some it works in music notes, and others it works in words, but it's never the same for everyone. Having someone else's voice in my head while I write tends to hinder the creative process.

But, reading this book, it's not giving me advice on how to write, or even how to live. It's giving me an honest look at someone who's spent her life writing. And that's something I've never had.

The introduction was a bit of a downer, honestly. It talked about all the bummer advice people gave Majors as a teenager when she told them she wanted to be a writer. "Marry well", "Write this or that, it'll sell better", "Better get a day job." Stuff I've heard. Turns out it's all true. Doesn't that suck.

The first chapter took a better turn, for lack of a better word. It talked about drafting, the stage of the writing process I happen to be trapped in. This is actually stuff I've heard too: write every day, rain or shine, editing is huge but it's not everything, yaddah yaddah. What I was surprised by was this topic turning up: time management. Where have I heard that before? Turns out that buying a planner and setting aside time to write in the midst of her busy schedule helped Majors manage her writing and the rest of her life pretty well. I've never been big on planners, but maybe I should start.

The second chapter talked about my favorite part of writing: reading. The chapter was titled "Writing Without Writing." This might come as bit of a shock to some of you (and by that I mean all two of you reading), but lots of reading actually goes into a book. Tons of research has to be done to stay accurate. But it's not only that, either. It's reading a book that gets you in the mood to write what you need to. I did that just today, actually, read some adventure novel to get the action-y juices flowing. I'm a bit of a light-weight when it comes to the factual research of things, though. According to Majors, though, some people actually find research fun. Go figure.

It's different, finding a book about writing that seems like it was written just for me. It seems like this could be a brutally honest read, though. Not just all the ups but all the waaay downs of writing too. I expect a lot of groaning and unshed tears while reading this. The goal is to finish reading this book by the end of this year, but as to how many pages a day I'll be reading? Fifteen sounds pretty good, but chances are I'll read two hours every Saturday instead. Maybe I should get on that planner thing now...

Update! Read All About It! (or What Have I Been Doing For the Last Three Months?)

Writing. Writing, writing, writing. Writing.

Writing.

(Writing.)

In case you are wondering, the answer to the above question is WRITING.

For the past three months I have been working on (what is sometimes embarrassingly referred to as) a novel. The story of a girl with telekinesis and her just-as-scientifically-empowered cohorts. (This might be the first time I have ever been so specific about plot when I talk about this thing.)

But (plot twist) there is another novel(-ish thing that's not actually finished yet)! How? How can this be? Isn't one enough? The answer to that is never, but taking on two books at once is a daunting task. I hardly even like reading more than one book at a time and now I'm trying to write two? What is wrong with me?

NaNoWriMo.

What a word, I know. Na(tional)No(vel)Wri(ting)Mo(nth) is an annual event that encourages people to sit down and write without letting thoughts like "Is this any good?"get in the way. There is no room for second-guessing yourself in NaNoWriMo because you only have one month to finish a 50,000 word novel. If it sounds like torture, that's because it is. 50,000 words is a lot of words. Do you know how many essays that is? (If you do, let me know because I don't.)

That being said, how much time do I spend on these projects? Honestly, I don't really even know. There are some days where you'll find me writing for hours and hours on end and then other days where just opening up Word is an accomplishment. And a very huge one at that, depending on the day. But it is safe to assume that I fulfill the two to four hour a week requirement. Really, though, I should be writing at least two to fours hours a day.

The creative mind has always boggled me, to be perfectly honest. People who direct movies, who paint, who write music, who write books. All these people have to have whole worlds inside their heads to get anything done. Can you imagine anyone of these people being successful by recreating their neighbor on paper? Unless that neighbor is a raging lunatic who sacrifices pigs in his backyard, whatever comes out of that is not going to be very interesting. Creative people have to see different things, they have to experience things in a new way, they have to use their imaginations, in order to be even remotely successful. That has always been my favorite thing about writing. I have whole worlds inside my head and I can take people to those worlds just by writing about it. Who needs a car when they have a book?

What sucks about that? I actually have to write it.

I love writing, love it to death. But sometimes writing can be a real bitch. There are too many words in the English language and half of them mean the same thing but don't. You can skulk, or you can walk. Same thing, but two different things. Why? You can be triumphant or victorious. Why do I need two different options there? You can be mad or angry or frustrated (ha, get it, frustrations) and even though they are all fundamentally the same thing there is something different about them. And, as a writer, your job is to pick to perfect word. Over and over and over and OVER again. A book is more than one word.

Sure, there's lots more about writing that get my blood boiling, but that, that is what frustrates (angers, upsets, vexes, irks, irritates, annoys, infuriates) me the most.

But I have found that about 93% of the time, I find that word. And I'm happy with it about 84% of the time. So it's not necessarily what I've learned about myself, but what I am in the process of accepting: I am a good writer. Sooner or later, I find the right words and I put them together in a way that even I find pleasing. Sooner or later, characters have a life of their own and I'm just recording it. Sooner or later, stuff actually happens. Wow. Hold on, I think I need a minute.

Part of the process of accepting this is letting other people actually read what I've written. Which is actually a lot harder than it sounds. For a long time, I never even told anyone that writing was even on the table. Just getting past that hurdle was hard enough, but then you throw in letting them read it? Are you kidding? But then, one day, I did it. I let someone read what I wrote. A complete stranger, at that. And you know what happened? She liked it. Someone read something I wrote and liked it. I could hardly believe it. I probably stopped breathing, quite possibly actually pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Because I was so freaking happy, so pleased, so proud, so satisfied, so many things all at once. That is what I learned about writing: the feeling that comes along with someone liking what I wrote.

(Cue abrupt subject change) The main part of my Time Management Plan (that needs a better name. I'll come up with something) is getting my priorities straight. Right now, my problem is that I don't focus on what is important and spend my time wasting it. So I've narrowed down my priorities to these four, in no particular order: writing, school, eating, sleeping. Because, really, these are pretty fundamental to my life. Now all that's left is actually managing my time. We'll save that for later :)

Cloud Word My Here Is

Hi, Nice to Meet You, I Have a Personality

I've taken personality tests before because I clearly have no idea what I'm like and, after the few tests I've taken, I've developed a pretty clear image of myself that just further proves what I thought of myself before I took them: I am the type of person that doesn't like structure and would rather work in a creative environment by myself rather than in large groups. Honestly, not much of a surprise.

I've known for a long time that working in a large company with regular hours, a boss looking over my shoulder at everything I do, and working on the same thing everyday was never something I would be willing to do. Much too constricting and too many boundaries. It's a strange kind of claustrophobia, being trapped in a routine like that. Having to work a job all year round, doing the same thing every single day without even a summer break to give me time to breath, would make life pretty unbearable.

So I wasn't all that surprised when my score for the Holland Code test was AIS/SIA. It was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. What I was surprised by, though, was that my Artistic score matched my Social score. Both tens. That definitely threw me for a loop. Me? Social? Since when?

I didn't really have a clear idea of what I would expect out of the Meyer-Briggs test but if I think about it, the result I got makes sense too: ISFJ. This type of personality is described as quiet, friendly, responsible, conscientious, loyal, thorough, and a lot of other phrases along those lines. Looking at it like that, I sound like a golden retriever. There was once a time in my life when "quiet" was never a word I would even consider to describe myself. When I was about seven. Maybe eight. And responsible is probably a trait that I'll grow into. Thorough, only when I have the energy for it.

Apparently, I know myself pretty well. And yet I still end up surprising myself. I wonder what I'll learn about myself next year. Or even tomorrow.

Talking Isn't My Thing But It Is JK Rowling's

Not exactly a TED sponsored speech but since it's on the website I am using it: JK Rowling addressed the graduating class of Harvard 2008 in a commencement speech about the fringe benefits of failure (the title of the video) and imagination in a much broader sense of the word than that of wizards and magic. A speech that more people should watch because these are things that lots of people struggle with and what one of the most successful woman of our generation has to say about them is not only a little comforting but also completely inspiring.

Before she became richer than the Queen of England, JK Rowling had been as poor as you could possibly be in England without being homeless. By her definition of the word, she had failed. And so, with nothing left to lose, she had built her success up from rock bottom.

As a young woman, she worked for a foundation that helped African refugees brave enough to talk out against their controlling government (I'm pretty sure. The details were a little fuzzy). During her time there, she saw pain and anguish like she'd never imagined and the very best of human nature in people that helped those whose situation they could never even begin to comprehend. The imagination JK Rowling was talking about was the way people have the ability to imagine what other people are going through, the kind of imagination only empathy can provide. But there are also people who choose not to use that imagination, who close their minds to to ugliness of the world.

Failure and imagination. In different ways, these are some of my greatest fears.

Failure is a slightly more superficial fear in my mind because how do you constitute a failure? A high school student is conditioned to call an F a failure and an A a success. Get below a 70% on a test, you're marked for life as a failure. An A, you're clearly meant for success. But there aren't grades in the real world. Sometimes, in the little high school bubble, you forget that. Grades make up your GPA but your GPA doesn't define you. That's what sucks though, because no matter how often you tell yourself that, it never feels like the truth until after you stop getting graded and start getting paid. Even then, after school, success is still measured by how much money you make a year. So somehow, your success is always measured by something.

Then imagination, the way JK Rowling talked about it. Being able to understand people's situations and feelings and put yourself in their shoes. Cutting yourself off from all the cruelties of the world and live life ignoring what's wrong. I am terrified of both because the world is a terrible, terrible place and finding some glimmer of good in it is so hard that ignoring it all is just easier. But then, by doing that, selfishness is inevitable. And who wants to be selfish? Nobody who runs this blog, that's for sure.

I just--AH. Feelings and thoughts become too much when you're not sure whether to be inspired or scared. Because everything that JK Rowling was what keeps me up every other night and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. But still, knowing what's wrong doesn't mean anything gets better. Things just are and you just sit with that for a while until you finally get a chance to form an opinion on it and then you cry because feelings just feel like too much.

A Science I Shouldn't Fail

Goal setting is a science.

You have to  make your goals important and meaningful, make them in line with your values, make them just high enough that it feels like a dream but just low enough so that they're exactly within reach. You have to make them SMART. Lots of things go into setting goals and that makes it a science.

I've always hated science.

And I've always been bad at it. I'm not a scientific person. I'm not a person with lots of goals. I'm not really ambitious and my determination only extends as far as I can throw a baseball (in case you're wondering, not that far). Most of my dreams consist of man-eating scientists and green glob monsters that absorb my family (but that's a story for another post). Goals are easy to make for people who have dreams a little bit more realistic than that. Goals are easy for people who know what they want. For an aimless, ambition-less, undetermined person like me goals are hard to make.

That being said, the following goals are in order, not of importance or time restraints, but whichever ones I think of first.

1) Write a novel in November. I know, you might be thinking, "But haven't even written one in the last four years" or "Why November?" but I have a reason. November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a nonprofit organization that motivates people to write a novel, of 50,000 words or more, in a month. I signed up for it two years ago, actually attempted it last year, and have decided to win it this year. This is not only a matter of pride but to prove to myself that me actually writing a book is not impossible.

2) I have 14 unread books in my room and about ten of those have been staring at me since the beginning of the summer. Seven of those books will be read before the start of 2014. (If not for the main reason that they sit on my shelves and mock me with their unread stories.)

3) Straight A's. Maybe a little superficial and pointless considering I'm a senior but something in me can't help but feel irritated at the sight of different letters on my report card. So (more SMARTly worded) when the last day of school rolls around, I will be receiving my diploma with six A's on my senior report card.

Writing these goals, I learned two things about myself: 1) I am afraid of long term goals and 2) I have more pride than I thought I did.

Through the Pearly Gates

Question of the Week: Who do I want to welcome through the pearly gates and into my world?

Answer: People I like, who make me feel good about myself and what I want to do with my life and might, in some way or another, help me get there without dragging me down.

Who are these people? Well, due to my strong dislike of the human race, finding these kinds of people is much harder than you might think. But, after thinking long and hard about this, here is a list of five people that I was able to scrounge up:

1) My mom: This is kind of a given, honestly. She's never read a thing I wrote, she knows even less than I do about liberal arts, and yet she still has complete faith that I will succeed in whatever I want and supports me no matter what. So even if she weren't my mom, I wouldn't mind having her around.

2) My sister: A lot of people don't really have a good relationship with their siblings, and when we were younger me and my sister definitely fit under that category, but now that we're older we've reached a level of what we like to call "toleration." She's always on my side when my mom has no idea what I'm saying and she has the same fears and anxieties about the future that I do. Having a nice Panic Partner is always helpful.

3) Mrs. Bonagura: This is where thinking of this list gets a little hard. Mrs. Bonagura is my iQuest teacher and just the fact that she accepted me into the class means that she has some sort of faith in me and, even though I don't know her that well, someone who's practically a stranger who has faith in me is a definite confident boost.

4) Mahek, Mari, and Karly: And this is where I hope that none of my other friends find this blog. Nothing against them, really, but sometimes I just don't like being around them. These three I sort of think of as a unit, because together they make me feel better about almost everything.

5) Kristen Cashore: I don't actually know her, but she wrote one of my favorite book series ever (have a chance, check out Graceling and the other books in that series, AMAZING). I wouldn't exactly call her a role model. More of a goal in life. If I write a book that someone loves half as much as I love her books, then I'd call myself successful.

And while this post is already much longer than I'd like, there's a Part 2! What should I be doing right now that I'm not doing? I'm sure there's more than five, and if someone reminded me that I had to do them it'd be very obvious, but thinking of five things I have to do is a little hard.  So here they are:

1) Finish college apps! Sure, they're not due till November, but I'll be procrastinating on them for that long anyway. Might as well add them to the list now.

2) Talk to my counselor about college apps. Can't actually finish them without talking to my counselor.

3) Write college essays. This is the part about college apps that I really hate. I have to think of reasons for you to accept me into your school that set me apart from the rest? I hardly know why people talk to me in real life.

4) Put my clothes away. Because I always have clean, folded clothes on a chair that I might actually use if there weren't clothes on it all the time.

5) Write. Because I've reached that point in my writing-in-progress (from this point on called WIP) where I deleted half of what I wrote because I didn't like it and after that point I never feel like writing for three months. Gotta work on that.

Welcome to My World

We have cookies.

My name is Erica Drake and I am unbearably average. I'm smart but I'm not a genius. I can run a ten minute mile but ask me for anything better than that and it could kill me. I think I'm funny but it's a dry humor and I'm the only one. I have friends but I can't remember how I made them because, in all honestly, people are not my favorite species on the planet. I like dogs much better. Cats too.

Because of how exceedingly boring I am, I really have nothing else to add. Maybe some basic facts?
1) I'm 17. I'll turn 18 in March (mark it in your calendars)
2) I'm a high school senior and as such college is still a mystery so don't ask
3) My mom works for Oracle but I have no idea what she does
4) My sister is a junior at UCLA majoring in mechanical engineering
5) My uncle recently moved into an apartment of his own (and his roommate's) after living in our loft for years
6) Every now and then my grandma forgets how old I am and treats me like an eight year old
7) I've had four concussions in the last two years (short story shorter soccer is a contact sport)
8) My hobbies include reading, writing, soccer, my computer, sleeping, and eating (hanging out with friends gets in there too sometimes)
9) My goals in life include . . . not a lot of things but at the top of that list is not to fail epically at it
10) I really have nothing else to say but I felt that I should end this at a nice, even 10

Backing up a bit to hobbies: writing. I like writing. A lot. It is my iQuest passion. It's something I hope to make a future out of and that's kind of why I'm in the class. I want iQuest to help me figure out how to make that happen because nobody I know seems to know how. My mom was a math major and works for some computer company (or whatever Oracle is), my dad majored in physics, and my sister is a science nerd. And then there's me. Sometimes we just look at each other and wonder where I came from. My mom told me that my dad liked writing in his spare time so she thinks that's it.

And as if that doesn't make me black sheep enough, both my parents are UCLA alumn and that's where my sisters goes and yet I have no desire whatsoever to go there for college. I always thought about heading to So-Cal for school but now that I've been actively looking, I'm thinking out of state would be better. You know, exploring the world and whatnot. Someone says that writers should explore the world and fuel their stories with experience or whatever, and that might be part of the reason why I want to leave but it's mostly because I want to prove to myself that I'm not afraid of leaving.

I've lived a pretty sheltered life. I've been in San Ramon  in the same house with the same people with my mom supporting me and my sister and my grandma with the same job for the last fifteen years. I've left the country once, too long ago for me to remember, and that was to go to Mexico. The farthest I've been from California is New York and out of the fifty, I've been to six states.

And so, I say again, I am exhaustingly dull.

With that said, my goal for my senior year? Not to be.

Get a plan.

Get a life.

Do something.

Do everything.

Be brave.

Be interesting.

And how am I going to do that?

I have no idea.

Welcome to my world.