Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Monday, November 6, 2017
New Web Site and Publication
I don't remember if I posted here, but I have a new website. I used to be a software developer and probably can do better than this if I had some extra minutes to devote to it, but I did a simple Wix site for now.
TonjaMatneyReynolds.com
My last post got corrupted with huge blocks of white space between each paragraph. Not sure how that happened, but I deleted it.
I was notified today that one of my short stories, "Life is Now," was accepted for publication by Literary Orphans. I am so happy. This story won 2nd place at a local contest that paid big money and received an Honorable Mention by Glimmer Train in one of their very short fiction contests. I was starting to feel like my style of quirky, humorous writing was not going to survive the current political climate.
I am literally out of stories to submit. I have committed to finishing my novel by the end of the calendar year, so I don't have time to work on short fiction until I finish drafting the next 23,000 words. It's just me and the dog today, and she is being very chill. Definitely a good day to write.
First, I need to research iodine.
Tonja
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
IWSG - Better Late Than Never
It looks like I almost completely missed today's Insecure Writer's Support Group. I am out of town in a land of bad internet connectivity.
I spent my morning in the archive room of the Scott County Historical Society in Huntsville, Tennessee. I found some very interesting facts, but mostly it was super overwhelming being surrounded by a billion records and not knowing where to start.
My daughter is with me, and we spent the afternoon in Knoxville at the East Tennessee Historical Society in the special collections room. All I have to say is they were super rude and treated us like we were going to steal their records and books.
There weren't many people there despite the fact the place was enormous and had so much information. It's really too bad, because they had lots of information there. They made us lock up our belongings on the way in, let us know there are papers and pencils available at each table, and only on our way out told us we could have made copies despite the fact there are signs everywhere forbidding the copying of documents. Why even have books and records there to share if you don't actually share them? Very annoying.
We just returned from walking the family cemetery, which is coincidentally less than a mile from our hotel. We found the headstone of my grandmother's sister, who died when she was a toddler after she fell into a tub of lye when her mom was doing the laundry. So sad. She was buried near her grandparents. The flowers next to her grave were knocked over, so we fixed them up for her.
I don't really have any writing insecurities to share except that it is quite difficult to do research for historical fiction. Despite the difficulty, it has been a fun trip, and we've found some cool things unexpectedly, like this sign near the river where my ancestors used to hang out:
I'll do my best to check in on the other IWSG posts this weekend when I have a better connection.
I spent my morning in the archive room of the Scott County Historical Society in Huntsville, Tennessee. I found some very interesting facts, but mostly it was super overwhelming being surrounded by a billion records and not knowing where to start.
My daughter is with me, and we spent the afternoon in Knoxville at the East Tennessee Historical Society in the special collections room. All I have to say is they were super rude and treated us like we were going to steal their records and books.
There weren't many people there despite the fact the place was enormous and had so much information. It's really too bad, because they had lots of information there. They made us lock up our belongings on the way in, let us know there are papers and pencils available at each table, and only on our way out told us we could have made copies despite the fact there are signs everywhere forbidding the copying of documents. Why even have books and records there to share if you don't actually share them? Very annoying.
We just returned from walking the family cemetery, which is coincidentally less than a mile from our hotel. We found the headstone of my grandmother's sister, who died when she was a toddler after she fell into a tub of lye when her mom was doing the laundry. So sad. She was buried near her grandparents. The flowers next to her grave were knocked over, so we fixed them up for her.
I don't really have any writing insecurities to share except that it is quite difficult to do research for historical fiction. Despite the difficulty, it has been a fun trip, and we've found some cool things unexpectedly, like this sign near the river where my ancestors used to hang out:
I'll do my best to check in on the other IWSG posts this weekend when I have a better connection.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
IWSG - September 2013
I'm not insecure about my writing exactly . . . I definitely used to be. Lately I feel confident my writing ability. What I'm not so certain about is if I can carve out the time I need to focus on the actual writing. I have a lot going on in my life that needs to take priority right now. So I'm working on revisions to my historical novel a little tiny bit at a time.
Something is better than nothing. And some things need to come first. I'm also confident about that.
Writing historical fiction is definitely my thing, but it is incredibly difficult. I never would have believed the amount of detail that would go into it. But I love my story and my ancestors who inspired the story enough that I am going to give it what it needs to make it awesome. One slow chapter at a time.
While I'm waiting for my schedule (and my mind) to clear up so I can get back to writing, I am working on research and am trying to do it as efficiently as possible.
One of my college professors told me about the oral history collection at the University of Kentucky Library. The library will send you mp3 files just for asking. This is working great for me since I can slam them onto my iPod and do research while I'm taking care of the rest of my life.
The cool thing I've found about the ones I've listened to so far is the everyday life details that come to the surface like the thing where they called a piece of linoleum a rug (my grandma did that too but I had forgotten) and the way their tone changes when they talk about people that died. These recordings are priceless. I'm looking forward to listening to more this week.
This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group formed by Alex J. Cavanaugh.
Something is better than nothing. And some things need to come first. I'm also confident about that.
Writing historical fiction is definitely my thing, but it is incredibly difficult. I never would have believed the amount of detail that would go into it. But I love my story and my ancestors who inspired the story enough that I am going to give it what it needs to make it awesome. One slow chapter at a time.
While I'm waiting for my schedule (and my mind) to clear up so I can get back to writing, I am working on research and am trying to do it as efficiently as possible.
One of my college professors told me about the oral history collection at the University of Kentucky Library. The library will send you mp3 files just for asking. This is working great for me since I can slam them onto my iPod and do research while I'm taking care of the rest of my life.
The cool thing I've found about the ones I've listened to so far is the everyday life details that come to the surface like the thing where they called a piece of linoleum a rug (my grandma did that too but I had forgotten) and the way their tone changes when they talk about people that died. These recordings are priceless. I'm looking forward to listening to more this week.
* * * * *
This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group formed by Alex J. Cavanaugh.
Friday, March 1, 2013
On Bibliographies for Creative Writing
First I want to thank you all for your kind words at the passing of my brother-in-law.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the requirement in my class to do an annotated bibliography for a creative reading and my bewilderment about how that would go down and concern that we may have to do that in all of the writing classes in this program.
I met with my professor this week. She said it's just an exercise for this class because we need to be able to do bibliographies in general. Most of the people in my class, Intro to Graduate Studies, are not on the Creative Writing track. She's just letting the "creative" people read a creative piece at the mini-conference instead of making us do a research paper. She said this would generally not be required in the writing workshop classes, which is good.
I decided to use a chapter in my last novel where I need to do a little research on mental illness and the meds my MC would be taking. The novel is almost done, and I'd probably feel relatively comfortable reading it to a crowd of students and professors. The chapter I picked was funny in my mind - it's a dark comedy, so it's a dark kind of funny.
This morning I read that section of the novel because I have to commit to the project tomorrow with some amount of detail.
When I read it, I cried. In the scene right before the funny part I wanted to use, the husband of my MC's best friend talks about his wife dying. She had died the day before in the MC's apartment. The reason she's taking the meds is because she's overcome with grief. There's no getting around talking about death.
There's no way in hell I'm reading that section.
I panicked for a few minutes and then decided to use the first ten pages of my new WIP, which is historical fiction and lends itself to research. I'll use this research opportunity to decide on the exact setting and whether it will take place in a real coal town or one I make up. I was planning on visiting the county where the story is set at the end of March anyway. It will be more work than I intended to do for this project since the opening chapter isn't close to being done, but it will definitely be less painful.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the requirement in my class to do an annotated bibliography for a creative reading and my bewilderment about how that would go down and concern that we may have to do that in all of the writing classes in this program.
I met with my professor this week. She said it's just an exercise for this class because we need to be able to do bibliographies in general. Most of the people in my class, Intro to Graduate Studies, are not on the Creative Writing track. She's just letting the "creative" people read a creative piece at the mini-conference instead of making us do a research paper. She said this would generally not be required in the writing workshop classes, which is good.
I decided to use a chapter in my last novel where I need to do a little research on mental illness and the meds my MC would be taking. The novel is almost done, and I'd probably feel relatively comfortable reading it to a crowd of students and professors. The chapter I picked was funny in my mind - it's a dark comedy, so it's a dark kind of funny.
This morning I read that section of the novel because I have to commit to the project tomorrow with some amount of detail.
When I read it, I cried. In the scene right before the funny part I wanted to use, the husband of my MC's best friend talks about his wife dying. She had died the day before in the MC's apartment. The reason she's taking the meds is because she's overcome with grief. There's no getting around talking about death.
There's no way in hell I'm reading that section.
I panicked for a few minutes and then decided to use the first ten pages of my new WIP, which is historical fiction and lends itself to research. I'll use this research opportunity to decide on the exact setting and whether it will take place in a real coal town or one I make up. I was planning on visiting the county where the story is set at the end of March anyway. It will be more work than I intended to do for this project since the opening chapter isn't close to being done, but it will definitely be less painful.
Monday, February 18, 2013
On Presentations
For the class I'm taking, we have to write a research paper and present it the last week of the semester in a mini-conference. No problem, except for the presentation part of it and the thing where extra faculty will be there to give us a verbal critique on the spot. Yikes.
In my former job, I did plenty of presentations, often to hostile audiences, on the software I developed that would change the way they did their jobs (hence the hostility). It's not that hard to take a verbal thrashing from people when you're slightly overpaid.
But I'm not getting paid for this. Quite the opposite.
Here's the tricky thing: if we are in the creative writing track (I am), we have the option of doing an 'annotated creative reading.' What is that? Apparently, we are to give the context leading up to the part of the work we are reading, read the excerpt, then follow with context (like what happens next).
That's not that huge of a problem for me - I've read my work in public. Once I cried. Once I made the room laugh out loud. Note to self to read something funny and not sad. Very uncool to cry in class.
Many other students in class are equally terrified of reading in public. At least I'm not alone. I have the added benefit of being old enough to be their mom - I think age toughens us up a bit and gives us perspective. I delivered a baby that was more than 10 pounds - nothing can really be more difficult than that, can it? I've had a thyroid biopsy where a doctor warned me to hold my neck very still while he poked it repeatedly as if he were doing liposuction for thirty seconds and repeated it three times. I'm due for another. This little conference is nothing compared to that.
One thing about the project I don't exactly get is how to do an annotated bibliography (or a bibliography at all) for creative writing - except for historical fiction, that I get completely. I'm on my first draft of my first historical fiction piece, and I'm not ready to share it quite yet. Plus, it's really dark and has the potential to make me cry - definitely a no for my first college reading.
If I pick something else, like my last novel, I don't see where the research element plays in. My characters are generally mentally ill to one degree or another - maybe I'm supposed to research that sort of thing or the color and shape of the anti-depressant my MC takes or the details on the bottle of liquor she turns to when she decides to stop taking her meds. Do I write an entry for my trip to the liquor store?
In addition to the bibliography, we have to turn in an abstract. I'm guessing this will translate into a synopsis for creative writing, which is probably a good thing to practice doing. Odd and sort of awkward to be graded on it.
*If you have experience writing annotated bibliographies for creative writing, please feel free to clue me in. I'll even let you do a guest post if you want.*
I do intend to ask the professor if my assumptions are correct, but we don't have class until Saturday, where I have to present something else. And in one week after that, we have to commit to our topic for our research paper/creative reading.
I feel compelled to take the easier route and just write a research paper on some aspect of the research I'm doing for my historical novel. It would be much like writing here but with a stack of books next to my laptop instead of whatever random thoughts pop into my head. I think I could write a paper today on stereotypes of Appalachians with a literature spin since, well, it's an English class and not a History class.
But I didn't sign up for this class to write a paper. I didn't do it to get an A. I did it to improve my fiction.
So I will suck it up and go for it. I think I'll read the chapter where we learn my main character has stopped taking her meds at the same time her mother-in-law is ranting about what a 'dopehead' she is to anyone that will listen.
BTW, I am profoundly behind on my schoolwork and have a précis to write that I wanted to have done this past Saturday. I'm kind of screwed. I'm going to only post on Mondays for a while. I'll check out your posts during the week as best I can. Must remind myself I love literary theory: I love literary theory. I love literary theory. I love it. I love it....
In my former job, I did plenty of presentations, often to hostile audiences, on the software I developed that would change the way they did their jobs (hence the hostility). It's not that hard to take a verbal thrashing from people when you're slightly overpaid.
But I'm not getting paid for this. Quite the opposite.
Here's the tricky thing: if we are in the creative writing track (I am), we have the option of doing an 'annotated creative reading.' What is that? Apparently, we are to give the context leading up to the part of the work we are reading, read the excerpt, then follow with context (like what happens next).
That's not that huge of a problem for me - I've read my work in public. Once I cried. Once I made the room laugh out loud. Note to self to read something funny and not sad. Very uncool to cry in class.
Many other students in class are equally terrified of reading in public. At least I'm not alone. I have the added benefit of being old enough to be their mom - I think age toughens us up a bit and gives us perspective. I delivered a baby that was more than 10 pounds - nothing can really be more difficult than that, can it? I've had a thyroid biopsy where a doctor warned me to hold my neck very still while he poked it repeatedly as if he were doing liposuction for thirty seconds and repeated it three times. I'm due for another. This little conference is nothing compared to that.
One thing about the project I don't exactly get is how to do an annotated bibliography (or a bibliography at all) for creative writing - except for historical fiction, that I get completely. I'm on my first draft of my first historical fiction piece, and I'm not ready to share it quite yet. Plus, it's really dark and has the potential to make me cry - definitely a no for my first college reading.
If I pick something else, like my last novel, I don't see where the research element plays in. My characters are generally mentally ill to one degree or another - maybe I'm supposed to research that sort of thing or the color and shape of the anti-depressant my MC takes or the details on the bottle of liquor she turns to when she decides to stop taking her meds. Do I write an entry for my trip to the liquor store?
In addition to the bibliography, we have to turn in an abstract. I'm guessing this will translate into a synopsis for creative writing, which is probably a good thing to practice doing. Odd and sort of awkward to be graded on it.
*If you have experience writing annotated bibliographies for creative writing, please feel free to clue me in. I'll even let you do a guest post if you want.*
I do intend to ask the professor if my assumptions are correct, but we don't have class until Saturday, where I have to present something else. And in one week after that, we have to commit to our topic for our research paper/creative reading.
I feel compelled to take the easier route and just write a research paper on some aspect of the research I'm doing for my historical novel. It would be much like writing here but with a stack of books next to my laptop instead of whatever random thoughts pop into my head. I think I could write a paper today on stereotypes of Appalachians with a literature spin since, well, it's an English class and not a History class.
But I didn't sign up for this class to write a paper. I didn't do it to get an A. I did it to improve my fiction.
So I will suck it up and go for it. I think I'll read the chapter where we learn my main character has stopped taking her meds at the same time her mother-in-law is ranting about what a 'dopehead' she is to anyone that will listen.
* * * * *
BTW, I am profoundly behind on my schoolwork and have a précis to write that I wanted to have done this past Saturday. I'm kind of screwed. I'm going to only post on Mondays for a while. I'll check out your posts during the week as best I can. Must remind myself I love literary theory: I love literary theory. I love literary theory. I love it. I love it....
Monday, August 27, 2012
Immersion
I haven't been able to write much this summer, but I've done a lot of thinking and enough outlining to ensure that I'm going to have a very productive end of the year.
I have a lot of research to do for my next several books, and I'm going to start today, assuming the migraine that just eased up doesn't flare up again. Once the small one starts back to preschool in September, I hope to move forward without all the starts and stops I've had over the last several months.
My next several novels are set in Appalachia. My plan is to immerse myself in Appalachian and Cherokee culture and literature so I don't misrepresent any facts.
Yesterday, I purchased a copy of Up From These Hills: Memories of a Cherokee Boyhood by Leonard Carson Lambert, Jr. It's a memoir of a Cherokee man who grew up in the reservation in North Carolina and also lived outside the reservation in the hills of Tennessee in the 1930's and 1940's, the location and time period where one of my novels is going to be set. The purpose of the memoir seems to be to debunk the stereotypes about Cherokee Indians. It's definitely an interesting read.
I thought the research I need to do would be relatively easy. After all, we should be able to find any kind of public information on the internet, right? The Tennessee State Library has information, but the web site only lists what they have on site, and some of the materials are restricted to Tennessee residents. Kind of lame in my opinion.
The National Archives located in DC and Atlanta have original documents, like the census lists for Cherokees before and after the Trail of Tears. But it's on microfilm. Anyone can order the microfilm via an online form (it's really expensive), but then you need a reader to read it. Do they not have interns to digitize the microfilm??
I definitely need to do a road trip or two. I looked into flying to the county in Tennessee where my first novel is set so I can be sure to get descriptions of the landforms right (although this may be an area where strip mining and mountaintop removal have severely changed the landscape), but the nearest airport is over an hour away. I may as well drive and take my time getting there. I was also disappointed to find that there aren't any hotels that don't look terrifying (think Psycho or Motel Hell).
I've had a great time with my kids this summer, but I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to work.
Have you had to do research for your work? Any suggestions? Anyone know where I can get a microfilm reader?
I have a lot of research to do for my next several books, and I'm going to start today, assuming the migraine that just eased up doesn't flare up again. Once the small one starts back to preschool in September, I hope to move forward without all the starts and stops I've had over the last several months.
My next several novels are set in Appalachia. My plan is to immerse myself in Appalachian and Cherokee culture and literature so I don't misrepresent any facts.
Yesterday, I purchased a copy of Up From These Hills: Memories of a Cherokee Boyhood by Leonard Carson Lambert, Jr. It's a memoir of a Cherokee man who grew up in the reservation in North Carolina and also lived outside the reservation in the hills of Tennessee in the 1930's and 1940's, the location and time period where one of my novels is going to be set. The purpose of the memoir seems to be to debunk the stereotypes about Cherokee Indians. It's definitely an interesting read.
| http://www.amazon.com/Up-These-Hills-Memories-Southeast/dp/0803235364 |
I thought the research I need to do would be relatively easy. After all, we should be able to find any kind of public information on the internet, right? The Tennessee State Library has information, but the web site only lists what they have on site, and some of the materials are restricted to Tennessee residents. Kind of lame in my opinion.
The National Archives located in DC and Atlanta have original documents, like the census lists for Cherokees before and after the Trail of Tears. But it's on microfilm. Anyone can order the microfilm via an online form (it's really expensive), but then you need a reader to read it. Do they not have interns to digitize the microfilm??
I definitely need to do a road trip or two. I looked into flying to the county in Tennessee where my first novel is set so I can be sure to get descriptions of the landforms right (although this may be an area where strip mining and mountaintop removal have severely changed the landscape), but the nearest airport is over an hour away. I may as well drive and take my time getting there. I was also disappointed to find that there aren't any hotels that don't look terrifying (think Psycho or Motel Hell).
I've had a great time with my kids this summer, but I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to work.
Have you had to do research for your work? Any suggestions? Anyone know where I can get a microfilm reader?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)