Tag: mfa

Personal Life

Graduation

Kara Jorgensen17 Comments

As of last Wednesday, I have officially graduated from graduate school with my MFA in Creative and Professional Writing.

It seems strange to say that I’m done with school since I’ve been in it one way or another for nearly 20 years. I still may go back for a MA in literature, but for now, I’m done.

It still hasn’t sunk in yet. I feel like in the fall I should be ordering texts for class and preparing my backpack with supplies.

I guess I’ll be doing much of the same thing because in the fall I’ll be an adjunct professor at two universities, teaching freshman writing. An adjunct professor is basically a part-time professor who teaches the underclassmen. An entry level professor. It’s the bottom of ladder, but at least I’m on a rung. I’ll be one step closer to becoming a full-time English professor. It may take years to get there, but I’m willing to stick it out.

For most of my life, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I “grew up.” I went from wanting to be an archaeologist to a doctor to an English professor. What I really want to be is a writer, but I think I can balance that with working as a professor. I’ll be teaching students about writing and literature while actively engaging in that community. I’ve seen the publishing industry change over the last five years, and I’ve been self-publishing for the last two. I’m someone who loves reading and writing, and I hope I can impart that to my future students. My life was changed drastically by the influence of a few key professors, and maybe one day, I’ll be that professor for someone.

Monthly Review

February 2016 in Review

Kara Jorgensen3 Comments

Last year, I decided that I would post my accomplishments for the month and what goals I hope to achieve in the following month.

February has not been a great month for me. My mom spent part of the month in the hospital, which completely derailed anything I planned to do, but the good thing is that my mom is better now and home. March will be better.

What I accomplished in February:

  1. Read 3 books, 2 of which were for class, and dealt with my schoolwork (Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Curious Tale of Gabrielle by Zachary Chopchinski, and The Story of My Life by Helen Keller)
  2. Worked on the university’s English Department newsletter (it’s about 60% done and is one of my major tasks for the semester)
  3. Scheduled a promo for later in the month
  4. Wrote a bit of Dead Magic (IMD #4)
  5. Started offering editing services

What I hope to achieve in March:

  1. Write more of Dead Magic
  2. Find the balance between work and writing
  3. Read at least 3 books
  4. Blog more
  5. Begin offering formatting services in edition to editing
February Book Haul
February book haul.

February was a strange month for me. I began working on one project only to abandon it for book 4 of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices, which will be titled Dead Magic. I’m going to refer to February as a transitional month. It’s been a lot of getting accustomed to grad school starting again, which totally throws off my groove, and at the same time, I’ve been switching projects (twice technically since I went from book 3 to random project to book 4). Later in the month, my mom was sick and in the hospital for nearly a week. Luckily she got there in time, and they were able to properly treat the issue. Now, she’s home and back to work. My mom is my best friend, so having her in the hospital meant being in a constant state of anxiety until her procedures were done. All is well now, and March will be a better month.

As you can see at the top of the page, I am now offering editing services. I’ve done developmental editing for the whole of my time as an MFA student, and through my own work and working with other authors, I’ve done some editing for them as well (I will make a post about this later). This month, I plan to look into offering ebook and paperback formatting services. I do it for my own books, so I could easily do layouts for others.

So Dead Magic is coming along slowly. I haven’t written much yet because I’m still figuring out the path the story will take, but as I figure that out, I’ll post more about it. At this point, I’m not making any writing goals for March because I’m still in the planning stage. I don’t know how long that will take, but trying to crank out 10,000 words that won’t work isn’t worth the effort at the moment. I am looking forward to writing Dead Magic, especially since some of my fav characters are back.

Well, that’s probably all I have to say about February and March, but onward to better things! What are your plans for March?

Writing

The Absent Awkward Authoress

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

The Awkward Authoress has not been posting nearly as often as she really should, and for that, she must apologize. I have unconsciously decided to take a little hiatus from blogging this month to throw myself wholly into my writing. For nearly all of May and most of June, I struggled through The Earl and the Artificer, adding only a hundred words or so here or there, taking several weeks to muddle through a chapter. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that I was participating in Camp Nanowrimo and that my goal is 15,000 words by the end of July, which would bring my manuscript’s word count up to 30,000 words if I met my goal.

Well, it’s going swimmingly, and I am trying very hard to keep up the pace with my novel. The downside is that to keep productivity up, I have had to take a step back from blogging for a little while. In August, I hope to figure out how to balance writing and blogging better, but for now, I will be only posting once or twice a week until the end of the month. Most will probably be progress updates and info posts about my current WIP. I do feel guilty about neglecting my blog and its readers, yet I hope you will understand that my novel is more pressing. It will be my thesis project for my MFA, and I need to get as much of it done over the summer as possible because once the school year starts, I know my productivity will drop dramatically.

When you get the chance, I hope you will check the Progress and Projects page at the top of the website to see how The Earl and the Artificer is coming along. I should be updating it every few days.

Once again, I apologize for disappearing this month, but it’s for a good cause.

Writing

Checking Those Boxes

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Become-a-writer

Often my posts mention my dealings with academia, and the stark contrasts between the “normal” world and the academic domain.  These differences have sparked an interest in figuring out the psychology of not only some professors but the world they are enmeshed in.  One of the things I have noticed during my time as a graduate student in an MFA program is the difference in publishing goals and how the professors treat their writing versus how most authors deal with their work and how they market it.

To be hired as a professor, one must publish at some point, and it seems for some that the only reason they have published anything is to able to put it on their resumes.  Maybe I’m naive and idealistic, but to write a novel or short stories to check off a box seems disingenuous.  If you have a passion for writing, why would you only write one book or a handful of short stories?  Most writers have a hard time stopping or getting other work done when the writing bug bites, so how can one instruct and inspire young writers when they haven’t really done it themselves?  Can you really consider yourself a writer or author when you only write to further your career goals?  It most definitely is not my motivation for writing, but I cannot say why others do it. Continue reading “Checking Those Boxes” →