Passions or Money: The Choice of my Major

Let me put this first and foremost: writing is my passion. I've woken up days, and immediately reached for my pen and notebook. However, writing, does not make money so quickly. That is where my collegiate major comes in. The monetary gain of my associates degree in English, seems almost like a waste of college for me. Honestly, thus far into my college career, it has done absolutely nothing for the writing that I truly enjoy doing. Granted, I have learned how to properly do a MLA citation, but that does nothing for my quest to correctly delve deeper into my character's psyche. Besides that, I haven't seen a way to make enough money, to afford to go to college. It sucks one thousand times over.

But, the college that I has chosen to go to, I had picked because it had a Veterinary Technician program. If there is one thing that is from me, besides my writing, is that I love animals. Hell, even in my writing, most of my characters have pets of some sort. And becoming a vet tech would have a lovely sum of money coming in, and I would be able to work with animals every day of my life. That is a beautiful prospect in itself. But, I refuse to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. I know that a life of working with animals is not just happy time with cute puppies. It would be a life that would be straight out of Animal Cops. I currently cannot wrap my mind around the concept of watching the death of animals each and every day simply because of human neglect and abuse. Seeing animal that may not make it out of the hospital, through no fault of their own. I know each day I would come home crying for God knows how long.

It's so hard for me to imagine doing the latter, but it seems to be the best path for me. Unlike writing, which is, shotty at best, it is a career where I will be able to work with things I truly love. My dad tries to convince me to work with people, but I just don't like people that much. No offense, but I'm an animal person. I know that I'll clean up vomit and feces from an animal, more quickly than a stranger. And, I would have downside, when at home, to write, and focus, and have money to do whatever I needed to survive in New York City. And, once I do begin to become published, I will be able to go back to school to pursue my English degrees up to doctorate school. I still write my fiction everyday, I'm trying to get back on my reading flow, and stop using my Kindle for games and Facebook. I've really been heavily working on writing out outlines for stories. It makes me feel so secure knowing exactly what I'm trying to do. As of right now, I'm working on an outline of Elah, the novel version. It's so crazy for me that I cannot completely trust the play as the story outline. They really have small story lines and arcs, and paths that cannot be fully explored on the stage in a limited time setting.

See, ugh, this is why I wanted to be a writer... I thought school would help with all that. But it hasn't. Nor has it offered a way for me to make livable moolah. Therefore, I've decided to change my mind from my a degree in reading, and actually do something meaningful with my life. Will it stop me as a writer, hell no, and it can only benefit me, once I wrap my brain around it.

Editing Sucks

"Writing is mostly rewriting"

Well, in my case... un-writing

At this moment, I'm sitting in my bedroom, at my makeshift writing table, listening to Pandora, specifically my Wicked channel, jamming to "A Whole New World". I'm not really feeling it at this moment, but I'm far too lazy to waste a skip on a song that I can now imagine sexually. But I'm digressing...

I'm having issues writing. Well, not really with writing, but with the editing process. I finished a long essay/short story entitled The Dead Girl. I loved it. I silently celebrated by myself that I actually had the discipline to finish it. I was walking around like a damn superhero afterwards, especially since it's in a format that I really don't like to write fiction in: first person, present tense.

It wasn't that long, in terms of the time span of the story. Maybe a 24 hours in protagonists (after)life, give or take. I've spent days trying to make this scene make sense. For me to edit a train of though narrative, I have quite a few steps that I go through. I'm going to list them, just so you know the stress that I've had on my noodle/eyeballs:

1. Now that I've completed the story (^-^), I send it via email, to my household Mac.
2. Now, the Mac can do something that my PC can't. I can look at both documents at once, and not have them undersized. This really comes in handy.
3. Once they're side by side, I bring up my camera, and record myself reading it aloud. There, I catch the first minor mistakes.
4. I'm retyping during step 3. Now that I've recorded, oh say, three minutes, I listen to it, and do more pruning and editing.
5. Repeat for all the pages

That took two days, taking in to account sleeping, eating, and general internet browsing moments. I thought I was a happy camper, proud of how it sounded. So proud was I, I was finally able to show someone else, a trusted critical friend.

Anyone who writes for the joy of it knows that you start catching more mistakes once you send it to someone else, then you feel like a dick for sending such a raw product. I was told that the voice of the narrator was a combination of me and William Shatner. Although that statement made me LOL, it also made me see how much I really needed to do in order to make it sound better. I went through it, pulled out more words and sentences, streamlining it more. After the first page, I sent the re-edited, revised version, and was told it was better.

I couldn't handle looking at The Dead Girl again for a few days, so I went away from her. I did some outlining for other stories, wrote a few sentences here and there for pieces that I hadn't looked at in a while. I spent a lot of time just being a lazy bum, I shan't lie. I even had some time hanging out with my cousin. Today however, I've decided to give this editing another crack.

Last time, I pulled 1000 words out of the story. I had been warned by author Simon van Booy that the majority of editing for me was going to be paring down. I didn't realize just how much this would blow until doing it with this piece.

It's really... intimidating. I get overwhelmed. It's like, damn, I spend at least 15 minutes per page, reading, re-reading, taking out sentences, words, rephrasing, the reading it again, trying to make it sound better, and I know that it's just the beginning. I haven't even gotten into the meat and taters of the story. I'm still setting up the plot.

It feels like it will never end.

Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself when I get into this mindset, and I get really depressed, and just want to run as far away as possible from my laptop. My career choice begins to feel like my enemy.

But... I've mad a resolve. Whilst looking for a job this summer, I'm going to spend as much time as possible writing, editing, putting together pieces that I will proudly share with the world as my own. When I get sick of looking at one piece, I will move on to another, and keep on keeping on. I knew that this would be a difficult choice, but I shall continue laboring in the vineyard, for I know my harvest will be the sweetest fruit.

Right now, I'm going to brew a nice pot of coffee, listen to more music, maybe switch to some classical music, see if it sparks any brain cells.