BIG News!

Hey blog readers! I decided to discontinue this blog and create a new one at http://allisonmathews.blogspot.com. My new blog is almost 100% the same (it even has all my old posts from this blog, just in case you care to take a look at my past) except for an updated URL and new look (this one was getting a little old). Plus, it will be my writer's blog once again, focused completely on my writing or other writing/editing/publishing/reading items. I promise not to make it too boring, so please keep reading and leaving comments! Thanks!

So check it out: http://allisonmathews.blogspot.com

P.S. If you want to keep up-to-date on my personal life, send me your email address via the comments, facebook, or email, and I'll send you an invite to my new, private family blog.

Open Window

My internship ends in 4 more days. Where has the past year gone?

And where will the next year take me?

Obviously, that's the biggest question running through my head right now. But if I have any control over it (and luckily I do to some extent), the next focus will be on my writing.

Finally, right?!?

In one more week, I will be 100% committed to my novel again and the plethora of novels lingering in my brain. I will finally have time to write, write, and write.

I know you're probably thinking (because I'm always thinking it): why haven't you been writing? People make time to do the things that are important to them, right? Well, I guess getting married and starting my life as a wife became the priority, and my writing got pushed to the side for awhile. I don't necessarily regret this, but I do miss writing. Sure, most authors have a family and obligations other than writing. Some of my favorite authors, like Shannon Hale, are even trying to balance the most important task of being a stay-at-home-mom and their writing career. I haven't been as good at balancing my time, but I'm ready to make writing a priority in my life once again. It was almost a year ago that I made my November goal to write everyday that month, and I did. Wow, that was an exhilarating month! Now my goal is to do it again, but to a greater extent. I won't have a full-time job taking up almost all of my time. My new full-time job will be writing.

Yes: it time to be a writer again. A serious writer. A writing-6-to-8-hours-a-day writer. A writer with an agent, an editor, and a published novel. A professional.

Something I've learned from past writing classes and conferences is being a published writer is a lot of work. You really have to treat it as your job and put in the hours. There are deadlines to meet and hundreds of pages to revise and cut. And now that I have this opportunity, I'm ready to take it seriously and get to work.

The goals: (1) Complete a second (more like third) draft of my novel and prepare it for submission, which means edit, edit, and edit! (2) Start submitting queries to agents like crazy! (3) In the meantime (since it can take up to 6 months to hear back from an agent), put my first novel aside and begin a second novel. (4) Hopefully find an agent and begin the next steps to getting published!

This means writing every day, writing for a few hours (4 to 6 minimum) everyday, and pushing through any writer's block that may come my way, no matter how difficult it is.

Phew! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? I can't wait to get started!

As a quick side note, I have enjoyed this past year as an editing internship working on the Joseph Smith Papers tremendously. I met a lot of amazing, talented people, as well as received some great experience editing, source checking, proofing, and learning more about church history. But as sad as it is to shut the door on this area of my life, it feels right to move on and focus on my goal to become a published writer someday. As Maria says on The Sound of Music, "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." I really believe this is true, and hopefully my open window is facing the world of a true, published writer.

Date A Girl Who Reads

Date a Girl Who Reads
by Rosemarie Urquico*
(Dedicated to my bookworm soul-mate, Haley ;))

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She's the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she's kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author's making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she like the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.**

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce's Ulysses she's just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It's easy to date a girl who reads. Giver her books for her birthday, for Christmas, and for anniversaries. Giver her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Giver her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she know the difference between books and reality but...she's going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, maker her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She'll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. or during a rock concert. or very casually next time she's sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn't burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you're better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

(*This post was borrowed from another friend's post)
(**I am not endorsing drinking coffee ;))

Changes

[Note: I know how seeing titles like this can automatically mean boring to a reader, especially if there aren't any pictures in the post. I won't be hurt if you don't read the entire entry, but please scroll to the last two paragraphs if that's the only thing you choose to read. Thanks!]

I've been thinking a lot about change lately. It's interesting how things are always changing--for better or for worse--whether we want them to or not. We have complete control over some changes (usually the ones we want or like), and other changes we feel like spectators watching our lives flash before our eyes. These changes are usually the harder ones to cope with: ones where we have no control and all we can do is trust in the Lord and move forward or stand back and cry.

Obviously, marriage is a huge change--a very positive one. I am very happy right now with my decision to marry Richard and spend eternity with him. But it still has made me pause about life a lot and other things happening around me. Meeting Richard, falling in love, getting engaged, and getting married were obviously very positive changes. And despite not having any control over the timing of it all, I did make choices along the way that resulted in the change of lifestyles for both of us (going from single to married). AND now that I'm married and feeling a little more settled, I've been reflecting a lot more on other areas of my life.

In 23 days, my internship with the Joseph Smith Papers will end.
I'm no longer a citizen of Oregon, but of Utah.
Some of my best friends and family have moved away, resulting in seeing them less.
My name has changed. And my signature.
I'm in a new ward, new apartment complex, new city.
I'm looking for a new job.
I'm trying to eat healthier, get more sleep, and exercise more.
And I'm a wife.

I can't necessarily go down the list and say whether each thing is a good or bad change (well, having friends and family move away can be depressing, and I LOVE being a wife). Funny how when you list things happening in your life like I just did, it makes things clearer. Some of these changes I control, others I don't. But my attitude towards these changes is in my hands.

Interesting how that works.

Change = good or bad depending on our perspective. And whether we're looking for work or moving to a new city or dealing with the loss of a loved one, we can embrace the change--no matter how hard it is--and continue to see the beauty of life, or we can let it slowly eat at us until it's harder to count our blessings every day. Obviously, no one is perfect at this; I'm writing this because I'm not good at it. But I know I can get better at seeing the good in all kinds of change--the big or small. Trusting in the Lord is always the key, as well as understanding that He has a much bigger, better plan in store for us than we have for ourselves.

So my life may be completely different than it was a year ago, but the changes along the way have brought me where I am today. Moving to Utah last August was tough for me (as you may remember from my fall 2010 posts), but that change led me to meeting Richard. Getting a minor in editing wasn't ideal, but it led me to an ideal internship which has made me more aware of publishing, as well as given me a greater knowledge and stronger testimony of Joseph Smith and the early history of the Church. Now it's ending and I'll be back in the pool of unemployed looking for work, but I'll have more time to focus on my writing, as well as read a few books that have been on my list for months. I truly believe there's always something positive to look for in change, despite the difficulty in finding it--especially in the moment. But it's there, even if we don't know why or how.

Speaking of changes, there will be some new changes with blogging shortly. Richard and I have a new blog, which is currently in the works (I'll share the URL soon!). And the blog you're currently reading (or possibly a new blog with an updated URL) will go back to being a blog about writing and reading and publishing--my author's blog--once again, especially as I try to focus on meeting some new writing goals.

So the question is, who reads my blog (if anyone)? And would you be interested in following mine and Richard's family blog once it's ready to go? I'm planning on making it private once we're in the swing of things and keeping this one public. So let me know if you're interested! I'd love to continue sharing my thoughts and feelings (and pictures!) with you as I experience more changes in the weeks and months to come.

Poor Spelling Pays Off

Since this blog was initially a writer's blog instead of a personal blog, I decided I'd better add some thoughts on writing now and again.

One of my co-workers sent me an article titled, "The Price of Typos" by Virginia Heffernan. It was printed in The New York Times. In a quick summary, she writes about how spelling errors in the publishing world are becoming more and more common, and editors and authors can both take the blame. But what really stood out to me was her beginning insights to the benefits of poor spelling. And let's be honest--I'm one of the worst spellers in the world. My mom used to ask me, "For one who reads so much, how can you spell so poorly?" I used to ask myself the same question. Fortunately, Ms. Heffernan seems to have an answer (although I didn't agree with everything she wrote). She says:

"Bad spellers, of course, can be sublime writers and good spellers punctilious duds.... A writer with a mind that doesn't register how words are spelled tends to see through the words he encounters--straight to the things, characters, ideas, images and emotions they conjure. A good speller, by contrast--the kind who never fail to clock the idiosyncratic orthography of "algorithm" or "Albert Pujols"--tends to see language as a system. Good spellers are often drawn to poetry and wordplay, while bad spellers, from who language is a conduit and not an end in itself, can excel at representation and reportage."

So there you have it--perhaps being a bad speller is a blessing! I definitely have more of a writer's mind than an editor's, despite my current working position, and I definitely see words for their use in the whole rather than their individual meaning. Words seem to constantly flow into my mind when I write, and I try getting them onto the page as quickly as they come without stopping to worry about spelling. Even when I read, I don't focus on the actual type on the page--I'm too wrapped up in how the words are being used to portray a scene, character, etc. As much as editing can have its moments of pleasure, I'd rather avoid the technical and let someone else worry about it.

After all, I am a writer.

(Now I'm sure all my spelling errors will stand out from this point on.)

True Love

"True love blooms when we care more about another person than about ourselves."

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Married Life

Richard and I have been married for almost 4 weeks now! We're completely moved in and settled into our new apartment, which we LOVE. Duplicate wedding gifts have been returned and other household essentials have been bought with gift cards. I put the kitchen together on Sunday (including drooling over my new Kitchenaid as I took it out of the box), and we even found a new couch and chair from ksl.com a week or two ago, which we're already breaking in. And my favorite part addition to the apartment? Our two new bookcases!!! They're both set up and full of all our books (aka mostly my books, although Richard did have a few to contribute to our library-in-progress). I'll have to post pictures as soon as I remember to take some...

I'm still waiting to get my DVD of photos from our wedding photographer, but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to post my favorites. Sadly, no one seems to have taken pictures of the wedding day except for the photographer and my aunt (life saver!) My aunt even presented us with an album full of her pictures when we returned from our honeymoon. I've posted a few on facebook, so I guess look there if you're interested in wedding photos until I get the professional ones (which I'll post here...someday).

We just returned from our first ward party, and I'm pretty excited about our ward. It seems to have a good blend of young married couples, well-established families, and elderly couples. And everyone seems so friendly! I'm sure they'll put us to work in no time.

In summary, married life is AMAZING. I feel so blessed not only to be married, but to be married to Richard, who is nothing short of perfect. Our first week back to real life, he got up early and made me lunches for work, including writing "Allison Mathews" on the paper bag. He has been a big help putting are apartment together (he makes our bed almost every day!) and being patient with my picky organizing and decorating wants. Perhaps he still doesn't understand why I needed new silverware and real glasses rather than the miss-match forks and spoons and plastic cups, but he has happily gone with the flow and let me do what I want. And I love him even more everyday =)

I'm still in Limbo between being Allison Morgan and Allison Mathews. As hard as I try to introduce myself as Allison Mathews, I'm still technically Allison Morgan until our marriage license arrives in the mail and I can legally change my name. Meanwhile, I have to keep signing with my maiden name since that's what it says on all the cards but practice getting used to being "Sister Mathews" or "Richard's wife"--both GREAT titles =) And practicing my new signature is like learning cursive all over again. How in the world do you go from a cursive "w" to a cursive "s"? But one positive: I now get to cross a "t"!

Well, this is beginning to sound more like one of my journal entries or a rambling voice message more than anything else. What good is a blog if there aren't any pictures? So here are a few from the Utah open-house (sorry there aren't very many, but I wasn't the one behind the camera):

The YUMMY food Richard's mom, sister, and sister-in-law prepared for us.

The guest book table with pictures from our wedding

A few nieces and nephews enjoying the ipad. I'm sure that was the highlight of the party.

Richard and I greeting guests. It was fun meeting so many of Richard's old mission companions and friends from past wards.

Gift opening! All the nieces and nephews wanted a turn "helping" us unwrap our gifts. It may have been close to chaos by the end, but it was a lot of fun. It feels good being an aunt =)