Tag: writing

Personal Life · Writing

Wrap-up and Resolutions

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Wow, 2014 has been a crazy year for me.  A great year but a whirlwind of insanity at times.

This year, I began graduate school to earn my MFA in creative and professional writing, and now that a full year in the program has passed, I can say that I love it and believe I made the right decision.  I don’t think my parents were terribly pleased when I decided to change my course of study in the second half of my junior year from pre-med to English major, but I’m a lot happier reading and analyzing books and writing constantly than I ever was doing dissections and memorizing muscle groups (though biology and science still hold a special place in my heart and in my books).  In 2014, I also became a graduate assistant at the university I attend, which means I help out the professors and put together the end of semester newsletter as well as work on the department’s literary magazine. Continue reading “Wrap-up and Resolutions” →

Personal Life · Uncategorized · Writing

Age and the Awkward Authoress

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The age of the author is often brought up when discussing young adult novels written by middle-aged authors or older authors writing about younger characters, but young authors tend to fall to the side unless they are exceptionally young.  This isn’t going to be a post about young people griping about “the man” or older people.  Most of my friends are older than I am, and I enjoy their company immensely. Recently, my age has come up several times when talking about my writing or books.

I’m twenty-three and am currently working toward my masters in creative writing.  I went directly from high school to getting my bachelors to getting my masters.  Somehow I always feared if I stopped, I would lose momentum or be talked out of working toward my next degree.  Apparently, I look young according to other adults.  Not sure what that means exactly. Sometimes I wonder if they expect a twenty-three year old to be in a business suit sitting demurely behind a desk or wearing a uniform at McDonalds.  I have a chubby face and wear jeans, t-shirts, flannel shirts, and hoodies, which constitutes looking young even though most of the people in my class dress the same way and are often older than I am. Continue reading “Age and the Awkward Authoress” →

Personal Life

Getting to Know Each Other (Blog Hop)

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This blog hop is designed to show our readers a more personal side. We list seven interesting facts to help cast light onto that tough writer’s persona we all like to project. But I am human and like everyone else I have dreams, hobbies, problems and goals. I see this as a way to share some of them with you, my readers.

The rules are that I share seven facts about myself, and links to at least fifteen blogs that I enjoy reading. I don’t think I follow that many blogs, and the ones I have are tagged by other authors already, so I will simply fill it out and forgo the tagging.

Seven Facts About Me:

1) I am in graduate school studying creative writing, but I began my undergraduate career as a biology major (added English in the beginning of my junior year).

2) If I could, I would be a hermit.  Honestly, I would rather stay shut up in my house 98% of the time with my books, tv, and dog than go anywhere.  If everything could be delivered to my house, I would never need to leave (apart from class). Continue reading “Getting to Know Each Other (Blog Hop)” →

Writing

What is Your Novel’s Sex?

Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

I’m not sure many people think about the gender of their book while they are writing it, but when I began The Earl of Brass as an undergraduate, it crossed my mind.  While reading other steampunk novels, I was rather surprised by how the books seemed to either be very masculine (G.D. Falksen’s Blood in the Skies) or very feminine (Gail Carriger’s Soulless).  I wanted to write a book that was androgynous, that had no defining gender for itself or its audience.

As part of my research for writing The Earl of Brass, I read through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland in order to better understand Victorian and Edwardian adventure novels. There again, I found the gender gap.  In Conan Doyle’s novel, the men leave their women at home and go on an adventure full of dinosaurs and savages, and while Gilman infused her work with feminist ideals, it was very much an us-versus-them mentality with a muddled ending where the women and men fall in love and go back to America. Continue reading “What is Your Novel’s Sex?” →

Personal Life · Writing

You Are What You Read

Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

tbr pile oct 30What do your reading choices say about you?  Since beginning graduate school, I have been turning this question over in my mind as I listened to others in my classes mention who their favorite authors are.  Most of them are people I have never heard of or read but are rather famous in the contemporary lit world.  Typically, I hold my tongue and don’t mention what I read for fear of being ridiculed or looked down upon.  This led to a greater question: why do people read certain books?

Do people (especially those in academia) read for fun or do they read certain books because they feel it is expected of them?  As I continue my journey through the MFA in Creative Writing program, I find myself wondering what my professors read, especially when they are writers or poets as well.  What we read automatically becomes ingrained in our beings and eventually comes out in our writing. I can attest to the fact that when I read a book I love, I am inspired to write and often I will lean toward that genre or some theme found in that work.  If I read a book I had to drag myself through, it typically slows my writing to a crawl.  Oddly, while I didn’t love reading Virginia Woolf for the most part, her works had a huge influence in the way I deal with close narration and “head hopping” as others call it. Continue reading “You Are What You Read” →

Writing

Cover Reveal for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices

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Real-Winter-Garden-Cover-Final-front

Well, my second novel finally has a cover! I am beyond excited to present the cover for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices. The illustrious Javier Ruiz has created a lovely cover for the second time in the style of a paper theatre.  The book is slated to be out in early 2015, but it already has a Goodreads page found here.  The synopsis is as follows: Continue reading “Cover Reveal for The Winter Garden: Book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices” →

Writing

Character Preview: Immanuel Winter

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im close up(Artist credit for this pic of Immanuel Winter goes to the lovely Fiammetta de Innocentis)

I put up a poll on my Facebook page asking the fans of my work what they would like to see next as a preview of The Winter Garden.  Only a few people answered (I’m not that popular and Facebook hides my posts), but it was unanimous that they wanted to see a character preview.  What I am going to reveal here will contain no spoilers and only contains information from before the events of The Winter Garden.  Down the line, I may release a few more of these along the way, but may I present to you, the leading man of The Winter Garden, Immanuel Winter.

Immanuel Winter was born February 2nd, 1870 in Berlin, Germany.  His family line can be traced back to the alchemists of Cologne, but during the time of the French Republic, his family migrated to Berlin.  This change of cities officially shifted their already changing identity from alchemists to scientists, but one remnant of their esoteric past remained in the form of a pendant: Continue reading “Character Preview: Immanuel Winter” →

Personal Life · Writing

The Long-Term Goals of a Young Writer

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Today I am heading back to graduate school to begin another semester studying creative writing.  Every time I start school anew, I feel my anxiety level rise tremendously as I worry my professors will not like me or my work, and the best way I have found for me to combat this is to look at the larger picture.  This year I achieved one of my major life goals, to publish a novel, and for this year and the beginning of next year, I would like to publish the second book in the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series, The Winter Garden.  I’m 73,000 words into it, so I hope to be done in a month or two since my writing slows down exponentially once the semester starts.  Editing hopefully won’t take too long, so it is supposed to be out some time in March or so. Along with finishing book two, I plan on getting book three underway or working on my master’s thesis project (which is a novel also but not in the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series though it is still laced with fantasy). Maybe even both. I haven’t tried to tackle juggling two projects at once in a while, but hopefully, I’ll manage. Continue reading “The Long-Term Goals of a Young Writer” →

Writing

The Writing Process

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One of the members of my Facebook author page asked if I would do a post about my writing process.  After I saw it, I sat back and scratched my head.  What was my writing process?  Like many things, when you live with it, it isn’t nearly as obvious as it is to others.

 

As with all writing, it begins with an idea.  Sometimes it comes as a smattering of dialogue or description while other times it comes as a topic or idea.  For The Earl of Brass, it began with the idea of a man needing automaton parts in order to survive, but this rapidly evolved into a man with a missing arm who needs a prosthesis.  In the beginning, I typically free write and put down anything that comes to mind.  Sometimes it becomes the first chapter of a novel while other times it gets completely rewritten or discarded.  Once an idea beginnings to take form, I make an idea map or an outline of what events will happen in the coming paragraphs.  For flexibility’s sake, I usually only plan five or so chapters ahead at any given time.  Typically, my characters are wayward and do what they want, so I need to alter my plans to fit them.  Forcing an agenda on my characters never goes well.  Sometimes when I have ideas but am not sure what order they should be in, I make index cards and lay them out.  I will move them around and ask my best friend/beta reader and see what she thinks to ensure it’s logical to others. Continue reading “The Writing Process” →

Personal Life · Uncategorized · Writing

A Woman of Principle

Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

On my blogs and page, I try as a rule not to get too political on my author page or blog, but a recent event has refused to leave my mind, leaving me to purge it through writing.

One of the authors I know from the writing groups I am a part of on Facebook sent me a link to a blog tour service that was hosting a tour for a steampunk novel and was looking for blogs that would be willing to do the advertising posts.  Obviously, I want to support and network with other steampunk writers, so I checked it out.  The book looked okay.  I’m not a fan of advertising something I haven’t actually read, but at that point, I was willing to give the author a chance based on the blurb.  The only thing was, I couldn’t figure out how to sign up for the tour, so I went onto the their contact and information page.  As I scrolled, I came across the thing that completely soured my feelings toward that book blog tour host, No M/M, F/F, or M/F/M.

For those who are unfamiliar with the terminology, that basically means no stories involving same sex or bisexual protagonists or love interests.  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t bring myself to sign up for the tour and quickly clicked off the web page.  From the time I understood what being gay meant, I have been a strong supporter of LGBT rights and marriage.  Many of my friends are gay, and two of my characters in The Winter Garden comprise a gay couple who is dealing with their relationship in a world that does not approve of them.  How could I, a supporter of the LGBT community, work with a company that outright excludes them?  I couldn’t.

When we exclude certain types of fiction, what are we saying to those who choose to write about their experiences or the experiences of others?  Your story isn’t worth telling. I don’t want to hear it. No one wants to read it if it’s about that. In this day and age, diverse books are a necessity.  By writing and reading about characters who are a different ethnicity, sexuality, or religion as yourself, you are learning empathy and stepping into their shoes as you go from cover to cover.  When you say no gay or bisexual protagonists, you are telling every bisexual or gay reader or writer that comes across that site that they are unacceptable.  The anti-gay sentiment from many book blogs and reviewers follows in the vein of the prejudicial sentiments of the 1960s. Diversity in characters and novels is a necessity, and having open-minded reviewers and book programs will only further that goal.  I hope you will not ignore books solely on the sexuality or ethnicity or a characters within.  I will not state the name of the blog tour and take away their livelihood or slander them, but I will boycott them.  I will not participate in anything that excludes those who are in need of support.