What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Lamp Post]

Dude, the only thing worse than those, are when it happens in your foot. Like with the bone that connects to your big toe. x.x

[EndOfTheEarth]

Oy.

I've been asking my professors if there is a college resource I could use to get a professional editorial review of my novel. I was suggested the Writing Center. So, when asked to explain what type of project it was, I had to explain:

Content?
"I am attempting to revise a greater-than-100,000-word-long creative arts work (novel manuscript) as part of an ongoing hobby. Again, this is not for a class. I am specifically looking for review with regards to characterization, plot development, and both overarching and scene-level clarity."
How many pages is it? Greater than 30 (The highest option they gave me)
Foci? Development and Clarity.
Due Date? None.
Times Available? Tuesdays after 3PM
How did I learn about the program? I walked up to the front desk and asked who would handle something like this.



The true question?
"Will they take me seriously?"

[RantingSidekick]

So my mom wants to miss my marching band finals (which, instead of being over an hour away, are like a ten minute drive) to go to Jon Stewart's rally.

I'm strangely okay with that. I think.

[EndOfTheEarth]

If I had that option, I'd take it instantly.

[Ovie! Ovie! Ovie! Oy! Oy! Oy!]

Marching band < Jon Stewart,

[nathan_p]

Uh, do it.

We'll meet up.

[Contradiction]

Yessss. *wants to go to the rally so fucking badly*

My mom was okay with it until I asked about it again tonight, when she said she'd be fine if it was a nonstop flight, but she doesn't want me to make a stop alone in an airport.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Congestion or asthma?

[nathan_p]

English class is going to be easy, but hard on the nerves.

Here are, verbatim, what we are supposed to do in our very first essay.

work on:

tight angle

clarity

focus

thesis (implied)

organization

effective use of quotations

overall quality of writing and presentation

paragraphing including introduction and conclusion

audience appropriateness

sentence variety

voice

tone

effective word choices

avoid Be’s and thiss and theres (write in active voice always)

citations in MLA format

editing and punctuation including a command of punctuation

[EndOfTheEarth]

Most of this is automatic, and I don't recall active voice ever being something I've seen on a rubric.

[nathan_p]

My problem was that she can't format or spell, and that apparently these things need to be laid out for us.

"Voice"? I haven't heard that one since grade school.

The active-voice thing is just her stating that like high school, she'll eviscerate you if you ever, ever use the verb "to be" in your paper, because it is 'bad writing'. Always. Period.

I want to die.

[EndOfTheEarth]

So if I argued after a quote in a paper that "It was at this moment that Jules Verne decided that he did not want to be a stockbroker" she'd chuck me out the window?

Look at it this way: It's an easy A. Those aren't easy to come by every semester.
Better than a class I had in my first semester where the professor thought that gravity and air pressure were the same thing.