Writing, Writing, and... well, yeah.

Well. I have finally managed to get to the last item on my post I posted several months back about "not having time" to write at the moment. Well, I suppose I proved myself correct, to a certain extent. However, as the last bullet point on that list was "Writing Buddy," stating that I don't have time to write seems rather counter-intuitive.

That's me, counter-intuitive. I could blame it on the fact that I'm a woman, but it probably has more to do with the fact that I'm me. I guess it might be genetic, but it might just be something unique to my personhood. Or not. Anyway, on to what I was supposed to discuss, and that being my writing buddy. Or 'writing partner'. Though I prefer the term 'buddy.'

My awesome writing buddy and I have started writing some fiction together. I say 'some' not because we also write nonfiction, but because we both write our own fictional works in addition to this fictional work that we have begun writing together. However, I have noticed that having a writing buddy is extremely helpful for keeping a regular schedule for writing. In the past few months, we have written something around 12,000 words. Yes, 12,000. That's with a full-time school schedule, and also general busyness on both our parts. Needless to say, I don't get this much writing done on my other fiction. Which is something I have been lamenting lately.

She and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing together, and I also spent some time picking the brain of a close friend of mine for insight into how the male mind thinks. Not because I think that men and women are from different planets, but because I know that there are ways that men and women look at things that may not be as obvious to a member of the opposite gender. So that has been tons of fun.

On the downside, my fanfiction writing has taken the heaviest hit, I have not written a single chapter in any of my fics for months. Additionally, some of my stories are also suffering. I have, however, worked on editing one of my particularly favorite stories. And I am re-writing for the fourth time a story centered around a character that I first invented when I was 14 years old.  So kudos to me for sticking with my character. The classes I have been taking in school have all helped me develop these stories, and I am particularly fond of this character that I invented 5 years ago. The classes that have helped me the most with his story:

• International Relations
• I took this Political Science course last quarter, and it helped me develop a lot of the cultural systems and interactions between the planets, as well as setting me on a vague course for how and why the interplanetary war in this tale takes place. The story is about a young man who is a member of the ruling class of his society, and learns about how his planet and its culture is contrasted with other cultures of surrounding planets. There is a deep and somewhat painful history between their people and some of the other people groups. There are also some deep-seated prejudices towards different peoples, and it is interesting to see how different perspectives can affect how countries will interact. Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" work was particularly interesting in this regard.
• Communication and Difference
• This is a class I am taking this quarter, and it explores the impact of Power and Privilege on people, and how denial and systems are set up in cultures in such a way that people often cannot even see their own privilege. It is an extremely eye-opening class, and it got me to thinking about the insecurities and stereotyping that is rampant in our society, and how that would carry over into cultures that are obsessed with genetic engineering and the physical representations of pure genetics. There is also the differing cultures of what is considered normal in which culture, and the differences in patriarchal societies, matriarchal societies, and perhaps societies with social structures that we don't have any comprehension of. It is interesting to develop cultures that dismiss some cultures as 'crude' simply because of how their culture has developed (ie: "You mean your people don't genetically engineer your children to have the best chances in life? How...interesting.").

And I guess that is all I want to talk about right now. I should really be studying for my Japanese test. Bah. How has Japanese helped my writing? Not really very well. It hasn't done much. My intro to linguistics course, on the other hand, has done wonders for helping me decide what I'm going to do to develop a distinct language for my "aliens." I'll probably recycle it for my fantasy stories, and then fans who read both my stories can have fun realizing that both languages work in the same way and use identical vocabulary. I think it might be kind of fun. Of course, if the Editor wants me to change it, I guess I won't have much of a choice...

In the meantime, I'll keep editing my story about genetically engineered orphans. Which actually has nothing to do with the above story, aside from the fact that they are both written by yours truly. Ha!

And now, to study...