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Review Archive

I’ve been working hard

Your browser does not support the video tag Though I’ve been neglecting my blog–a thing I no longer intend to do–I thought to provide evidence of what I have been working on over the last several months. I won’t publish any of the actual drafts in the blog anymore, but I have been working diligently (if slowly) on putting together a novel. Note: so is the whole world, apparently. I’m really enjoying the work, and I’m still in communication with the writing group I joined last year (through WriteAboutDragons,) which has taught me innumerable things about my own writing, audience, and the general issues one faces when making stuff up on a large scale. I’ve got (somewhere around) 12,000 words of actual chapter draft written, I believe, and as I’m not yet finished with chapter 5, so this should be a long–and totally awesome—process. The video above is a Vine I posted a

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Going Out on a Limb

It is no secret to many of you that I have been (as many are) looking to move; to do something new. In a perfect world, I could live where I want (at the moment, that place is Seattle,) do what I want (write stuff,) and visit my parents often enough that I could once again get tired of eating my food in a tortilla. (That last bit is a joke. I don’t think it’s possible to get tired of eating tasty snacks in a tortilla.) That being said, I’ve been cruising the listings just to see if anything resembling a writing gig has popped up in the cold Pacific Northwest. I found a hilarious listing for a technical writing position at [REDACTED] and decided that I just had to send in an application. [REDACTED] is a tech company in downtown Seattle, mere blocks from Pike Place market. Sounds up my

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Haircuts: A Necessary Evil

In honor of my Mother’s birthday, I decided to try to write something that would make her laugh (I hope.) I got a haircut yesterday, and often joke about how uncomfortable the experience is for me, so I decided to take some creative liberties with the whole process and embellish it. Hopefully you’ll find this funny, as I do, Mom. I’m so deeply grateful to have your support in my creative, academic, emotional, and spiritual endeavors. You’re the best, Mom. You inspire me. Happy birthday Mom. I love you.

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The Next Thousand

Hello, friends. I thought it might be nice to share with you the next thousand-word submission for the online group. I won’t bury the blog under weekly submissions for the writing project, but I have a feeling it will crop up occasionally. Enjoy!

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Untitled / Something I Wrote

Hello, friends! I just finished a book by an author who is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers, Mr. Brandon Sanderson. I’m just about done with a review of his book Elantris, which was a pleasure to read. This post, however, doesn’t have to do with that book. Apparently, Mr. Sanderson is teaching a class in creative writing this semester, videos of which are being posted online. The site that is posting these videos also started an online writing group, which I requested to join and was subsequently invited to. This group plans to shadow the class as best it can, working on the semester’s assignment: 50,000 words. (That’s about 200 standard pages, if I’m not mistaken.) The people in the group are all wonderfully creative and eager to give feedback, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this all goes. Even if I don’t get to 50,000 words,

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Captcha Exercises

It shouldn’t surprise you, dear reader, to learn that I enjoy writing. One of the reasons this blog exists is to begin sharing what I write with my friends and family. A natural response to that sentence would be, I suppose: “Haven’t you been doing that already, Elan?” The answer is yes, of course, but I’m referring to experiments in fiction. Several of my friends write, with professional aspirations or for pleasure, and I happen to believe they are quite talented. One of these individuals, Tony, introduced me to a writing exercise called “Captcha Quickies,” in which you load a Captcha of two words and write something–anything–to do with it. I’ve found this to be an excellent exercise. I’ve only done a few of them, but the ones I’ve done have lead to an in-progress comic book script (working with Dan, my old roommate), another in-progress short story, and several

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Welcome Home

On a cross country flight At the end of an international journey At my eleven o’clock In a Deere Tractor hat Vest designed to hold spare ammo One of those neck-bound sensitive document holders Watched the O’Reilly factor Pulling out exclusively non-apple gadgets Tap-tap-tapping away at photos of Blond haired blue eyed children We enter California from the west Promptly pulling out your radiation meter Snapping photos at 2.6 2.4 0.9 0.2 (January 6th 2012, 12:14 am EST, flying over california)

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