Woes of an Inefficient Time Manager (or, How Not to Be Like Me)

Posted on by Mary Sukala

Okay, so maybe I don’t have a right to complain. I graduated over two months ago. Summer vacation officially kicked off in June, and I really have no excuse. But here I sit, three novel ideas bouncing around in my head like caffeinated bumble bees, cursing Father Time and wishing I had an infinity of moments to devote to fleshing out those fleshless darlings.

It’s quite sad, really. Like ravenous four year-olds, they’ve been tugging at my sleeve, hurling their toys at my head, coloring on the walls of my brain, and I have yet to give them the attention they deserve.

Now, in what little defense I have (think a shield the size of a thimble), I also have a hefty spot of summer reading to get out of the way (not that I haven’t saved most of that for the last minute, as well). One con of being so inclined to procrastinate whilst being highly ambitious is the fact that some days I glance at my “to-do” list and think “I can do that later” or “I have plenty of time” when in fact a deadline is fast approaching. But here are several tips that I, too, should heed in the future.

  • Make a list of your daily plans and be as faithful to it as you possibly can. If you deviate from your planned tasks, that’s okay. Just don’t make a habit of it.
  • Set miniature goals, be it word counts, page counts, chapters, or scenes. Even five hundred words per day will one day coagulate into a novel.
  • Give yourself a reward for every week you stick to your scheduled writing time. Have you been itching to snag those hot pink pumps? Do you have an unnatural fetish for chocolate covered caramels? Gift yourself something special, because this is work, and you deserve to be compensated in some way, be it big or small. And remember—dedication may very well lead to the ultimate reward: publication!
  • Give yourself a break when you need it. Forced writing is probably not good writing, so take a breather when necessary. Overworking yourself is just as bad as giving in to laziness.
  • Realize that everyone works differently and find the way you work best. Would it help you get your writing in to start your mornings an hour earlier? Or would it be best to retire for the night an hour later? Get in touch with yourself and find your ideal work schedule. Yes, work Because with this writing business, you mean business, and your literary endeavors should be handled accordingly.

Learn how to strike that balance between firmness and forgiveness, and find what works best for you. And in due time, you and I will be the mothers and fathers of a beautiful, matured brainchildren.

How to Tell if It’s the One: Bookworm Style

Posted on by Mary Sukala

I may not be an authority figure for romance, given my lack of, you know, authority. However, these seem to be highly applicable, accurate methods of discerning whether that lucky lad or fortunate femme is “The One.” When you get married on a Peruvian beach under a sea stars, no need to thank me. But you know, credit is nice. Just every once in a while. Just sayin…But I digress.

I will be using he and she even though I am an irrefutably straight female. However, you can always replace these with “she” or “he,” depending. These criteria are equally infallible either way.

  1. He knows who John Green is. And has a hardcore brain-crush on said unearthly author.

If Augustus Waters was made infinitely more attractive by reading Hazel’s favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, so too shall your prospective lover increase in compatibility if he has pored over Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and/or An Abundance of Katherines. Any guy worth his Himalayan pink salt should have read at least one of your Go-To’s. And because you are literate, one of those happens to be by John Green, right? Right!

  1. He isn’t afraid to admit that in third grade, he bawled like dog that wants to be released from the social confines of men not being allowed to cry at the end of Old Yeller.

Maybe dogs don’t care as much about social norms…The point is, honesty is the best policy. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room, even for Mr. Right. Getting all in touch with his emotions when he was just a diminutive sprout of potential perfection? Now, if that’s not a keeper, I don’t know what is!

  1. When she texts you, she capitalizes every sentence and strives for (or, better yet, naturally operates with) almost impeccable grammar.

For those of us who silently correct grammar (that’s right—hands up high with pride) it takes a special kind of person to match us. Romance is no small feat when you pick apart sentences and go beyond the usual “they, they’re, their” or “your and you’re.” But once you’ve found that special kind of person, you can let yourself fall without worrying about the fights you won’t have about “who” and “whom.”

  1. Most of all, he or she will realize that even if it isn’t always a fairytale love all the time, straight out of a Harlequin Romance, it is worth fighting for even in the most trying moments.

Point blank.

All About that Voice

Posted on by Mary Sukala

I’m a sucker for a strong voice. When it comes to writing, it doesn’t take much to make me happy; just give me a lilting drawl, a wit faster than a maglev, a tone so edgy that it slices its own way into my heart, and I’m hooked. All I ask for in a fresh chunk of lit is the kind of voice that leaps off the page into my ear like Vivaldi or Bon Iver or even, equally pleasurably, Eminem. I have always found the mark of a good writer to be a distinct way of chaining together words; that was my greatest aim when I was in 7th grade, a fledgling teenager, and even farther from refinement than I am now, and I am still on the hunt for my unique literary swag.

My writing voice has, like that of a pubescent boy, undergone many changes over the years. At 15, my writing was so purple that it could have passed for that magenta dinosaur that we all secretly feared as kids. I didn’t quite grasp connotation or denotation, and didn’t completely understand how to articulate precisely what I wanted to say. Most of my prose read like bad poetry, and my poetry itself was bad poetry, dripping with angst and trite metaphors, too young-sounding for the pretentiousness that I would struggle with later on. It covered the typical teenage topics: darkness and mystery and “The Great Unknowns,” I would be embarrassed of it had I not set it ablaze and Jitter-Bugged into the night over its ashes.

Part of finding my own voice has been falling in love with those of other writers. These vary as much as the individuals behind them. My desire to start my own word wizardry began with an inspiring memoir by Marya Hornbacher entitled Wasted. I loved her irony, her humor, and her beautiful, distinct tone. There’s something calm yet fiery in her words; her writing is so much more than communication—it’s art.

This was followed by an intense braincrush on Maya Angelou. Anyone who has even briefly comes across Ms. Angelou’s writings is immediately better for it. Her verses dripped with past and culture and honesty: what constructs our humanity. Her lack of pretenses and the way she totally owned her words and herself was beyond refreshing. I have read every single poem of hers, mostly because her voice is more addicting than sweet potato fries and Downton Abbey combined.

All in all, encountering your voice is meeting every part of you face to face and chipping away the fluff and pretense and flowery bits until you find something not unlike your true self. It is at once fervent introspection and pulling your head out of your own filled up notebooks in search of others’ words. I stand by my 7th grade point of view: the mark of a fantastic writer is a voice that reflects said writer’s inside, nothing more, nothing less. To quote a great English teacher, writer, and mentor, I have the potential to be great, but I’m not there yet.

Writer’s Block (or, The Arbitrary Cement Wall)

Posted on by Mary Sukala

Oh, hey, didn’t see ya there arbitrarily placed cement wall that just met my face! I’ve been too busy chasing after brilliant ideas and unpacking almost-perfect lines. But there you are, the infamous Writer’s Block that every Word Wizard slams into at least 1,200,510 times during his or her writing career.

I will admit it: the river’s been parched lately. I have a laundry list of current and potential projects that most closely resembles the grocery list of a family of five hundred voracious lions, and yet none of them are happening. It seems that my only choice is to resign myself to the writing process; to wait for some gem of a metaphor to arise from the mud; to anticipate some divine wind whipping me across the face with the greatest blog post idea ever, right?

Not exactly. I’m not letting the word processor on my computer take the day off; I’m not letting my pen and paper collect dust in the catacombs under my bed. Because sometimes you need to write for the sake of writing, and perfection is not always going to come when summoned. Sometimes you need to drag the idea out of its sleeping spot under the couch or in the backyard hammock and make it work for you.

So I turn up the tunes; I close the door; I clap the side of my head with the heel of my hand because the omniscient internet tells me that’s the best way to get the creative juices flowing again (Okay, so I didn’t actually find that on the interwebs. But still, it’s probably there somewhere—everything is!). My brainchildren just keep getting less and less pride-inducing, and while that irks me to no end, I do not quit.

Writing is a relationship with your mind; sometimes it’s lovey-dovey and you are swooning over every soul-inspiring verse, losing your breath at each intriguing plot twist that your fantastic brain came up with. But sometimes it takes more work; you’re on the receiving end of the silent treatment, and you have to put in a gargantuan effort to get the communication flowing again.

It’s never easy, but if you love writing, it is worth it. Maybe it takes me three days to write a post or weeks of chipping away at a poem until it is no longer a diamond in the rough, and that’s okay. Patience is to be earned, not a given right. So, too, is the writing bug.

Whatever you do, don’t stop looking for that fire; keep searching. I promise you, it will be found.

The Life of an Overzealous Teenage Writer

Posted on by Mary Sukala

No, I am not quite a published author or anything so official and brag-worthy. But I have grown quite attached to words these past few years, and any notion of tearing me from them is at once preposterous and life-threatening for the individual who dares rip me from the page, given that my nails are talons for a reason.

Between three years, just under 250 poems and countless drafts of chapters just itching to become that Great American Novel, along with blog posts and pinkie-toe-dips into the wonderful world of creative nonfiction, I have, to the best of my knowledge, become an Overzealous Teenage Writer. You may have looked at the title of this post, and posed the question: what does the life of said writer look like? Would a tour satisfy your curiosity? Allow me to welcome you into my share of cyberspace!

At first glance, you can expect to see glazed over computer-screen eyes, crumpled potato chip bags, precariously strewn pens and notes, and, of course, that weird streak of ink on the side of my right hand. Plus a laptop keyboard that has never known a day of loneliness in its short life due to a ridiculous amount of use. You also have the endless stacks of notebooks that I refuse to get rid of because someday, they might just hold that Great Something that I’ve been needing in my work.

But even deeper than that, this existence is filled to the brim with projects: two novels-in-progress (among many other ideas), poetry that tears out of my mind whenever the whim hits, a memoir that I have been contemplating for years but haven’t quite started yet. Each project may be an unfinished slab of pizza that I intermittently nuke and then pack away for days. But I love it—mold and all. Which makes it very difficult to keep up with everything.

Overall, the life of an Overzealous Teenage Writer is one of adventure in the comfort of your own home; excitement over little breakthroughs and small headways in your latest WIP; and most of all, the possession of a force that drives you to always be better. Sure, it can be a pain in the neck. Certainly exhausting. But I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Fictional Crushes or How to Cope with a Love that Will Never Be

Posted on by Mary Sukala

You know you’ve done it before: imagined Michael Moscovitz or Augustus Waters or Fred Weasley or even, in your younger years. Percy Jackson, as the yellow American cheese that has been missing on your tuna melt life since, oh, forever. You’re just barely through chapter one when he comes waltzing onto the page, perfectly drawn, a delectable anti-stereotype.

Okay, so maybe you’ve left out one small detail; these Prince Charmings—gallant, handsome, and alluring as they may be—are tangled up in the serifs of your favorite books, never to escape. Fictional crushes are, arguably, the greatest struggle in existence. And yet, we bookworms all too often find ourselves falling, however naively, for misters who never shall exist, subsequently settling for men who fall short in comparison to our fictitious beaus.

  • Your first (and perhaps most realistic) option is to scrutinize every man who crosses your path for those admirable qualities that said literary love possesses. Sure, impeccable carbon copies are few and far between. But remember: for every human on earth, there are 6 other people who look more or less like him. If that kid who sat at the back table in kindergarten picking his nose and licking paste has half a dozen dopple-gangers roaming God’s green earth, Edward Cullen best have some, too! It’s worth a shot, right?
  • Secondly, you could give in to the nagging temptation to read his parts over and over again till you surpass the cloud nine that you were on two hours and three hundred pages ago, when the burning suns in your heart were but small flames, and the room smelled vaguely of new book.
  • Finally, don’t be afraid to politely inform fellow crushing chicas that he who has captured your heart is all yours. A dismissive chuckle and pat on the head should do the trick just fine. Don’t resort to violence until it is absolutely necessary. But trust me—at times it will be duly necessitated.

Or, of course, you could pull your head out of the yellowing pages and find the real Mr. Right. But why would you do that, anyway?

Welcome!

Posted on by Mary Sukala

Picture it: twerking everywhere. Pounding bass. Some chick with a lampshade on her head doing the Cotton-Eyed Joe so out of time that you don’t even want to imagine the kind of hangover she’s going to wake up to in the morning. Not your thing? Yeah. Me neither.

So welcome to “In for a Night,” a haven for those of us who relish our down time more dearly than life itself (well, maybe not that much, but you get the gist), and are drawn to those evenings in which we are curled up with a riveting read or propped up against our bedroom wall with a laptop resting on our knees, or pen and paper in hand. I’m Mary and I have been kicking around the blogosphere for some time, and must admit that while I have yet to perfect the art of interwebbing, I am a wordsmith by blood. Being that I’m inclined to share my work, you can expect posts on a various and sundry topics related to writing, words, and, their favorite child: reading. So settle into that dapple gray sofa with a hot tea, some fresh lit, and have yourself a merry reading spree in the best spot in town: the comfort of your own home!

Feel free to follow and check back later–this might just make it worth staying in for a night!