Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Update: Taste like Pomegranate

Today I translated the last 125 lines of Beowulf, a 3182-line poem in Old English. One of my classmates thinks we should write our professor evaluations in Old English. I totally get a kick out of the thought, but I don't know if I have the time, since perhaps my weakest area (besides the bloody grammar--darn you dative and accusative cases!) is memorizing the vocabulary.

We'll see. I'm working on my ten-page "What I would write on had I more time" paper for Beowulf. And slogging through it, too. I just can't seem to keep my attention on it. But that done, I'll only have to worry about the final next Wednesday and my work at UH is complete.

I graduate--black gown, cap and fancy-schmancy hood--on May 16. Part of me is giddy and squeeing in relief and excitement. I'll be the first one on either side of the family (as far as I know and at least for immediate family) to get a Master's degree. The other part is terrified. I'm taking the summer to focus on querying agents and making my work the best it can be. I won't have the excuse of school or a job taking up so much time that I can't edit. And it is an excuse. After this summer, I start looking for a day job (hence the terror, I have no idea what I want to do or where I want to work, besides writing novels), and at that point, I will work and write and can just shut my cake-hole about being too tired.

I can be kind of mean to myself. ~shrugs~

But the Hounds book has been done, HS is now done and needs an overhaul in one area that will affect the whole book, I have a high fantasy parody/travel narrative complete for my other class, and just finished a short story (self-contained, new characters, and none of them are clamouring for something longer right now, a first!), which is with a few beta readers right now and then goes off on submission for an anthology. I am excited, but trying to keep it to a minimum since I haven't even sent it in yet.

We'll have to see how it goes.

Right then, the women of Beowulf beckon, and the gabby bunch.

2 comments:

writtenwyrdd said...

Congratulations on the hard slog to graduation! That's a big hurdle!

Now, as for permanent employment, my personal experience was that I got locked into what I did after school because the more experience I had, the more I got paid and the more difficult to afford a change. So I spent fifteen years about in administrative jobs I really didn't like nor enjoy.

So try and land a job in some field you like. and good luck with the writing this summer!

Sabrina Favors said...

Thanks for the congrats. I don't think it'll actually hit me until I'm wearing my cap and gown. Right now it still seems a bit surreal.

Work--I just don't know what field outside of writing/publishing I want. Maybe part of my goals this summer will be to figure that out. :)