Internship Blog #6

Just another update on my internship and looking back on everything that I've done so far. Working on this novel has really given me a better appreciation of what authors go through when writing and trying to get a novel published. The writing and editing process can actually be long and intensive, especially when you have other look over your work. However, that review is so super beneficial because I think it fosters writers to be better and present the best possible work.

I also received and signed my author's contract this past week and I cannot relay how excited I am about it. I never thought that something like this could come from an internship, but I think it also shows that if you are dedicated and work hard enough on a project, that you reap what you sow.  It also shows that employers or in my case (internship supervisors) recognize your contributions and are willing to work with you as long as you are willing to put forth the effort.

With my novel's impending publication, I can only say that this has not been a class for me, this internship has literally (though cheesy) changed my life, in ways I never expected. I can now say after this semester that I am a published author, which means more to me than I ever knew.

I have seen so many different aspects of the publishing company, and from the super positive to the super negative, including what bad editing is and how important proper editing and proper presentation really mean to an author and a company's validation.

Reflection on the completion of Essex County

As some of you who have been keeping up with our Graphic Novel class this semester know that we have been reading Jeff Lemire's Essex County. I recently finished the entire three-story collection, and as a class, we were asked to discuss how we felt each story was tied together. What were the overall main themes, characters, or sequences that brought the collection together as whole?

For those of you who have not read Essex County either at all, or in it's entirety, I strongly recommend it, because it for me, Jeff Lemire is an excellent storyteller! For Lemire, the story isn't complex in the way that it makes it hard to understand, but complex in the way of subtlety. It is the responsibility of the audience to piece together and gather the information to complete the overall "big picture."

For Lemire, the themes of family, redemption and loss weave the three stories together just as much as the characters' connections do. All of Lemire's characters strike at our hearts, because just like his characters, often in our own lives we are faced with complicated and heart wrenching situations, often with circumstances that we cannot control.Often times as a family, people talk about the threads that hold them together. Lemire examines these threads and then stretches them, pushing them to their limits and really showing us that there can be redemption through forgiveness, and the chance to rebuild.

 In the first book, Tales from the Farm, we experience Lester coping with the loss of his mother living with his grief stricken uncle, to the second book Ghost Stories where Lou copes with losing his dream of hockey glory and the estrangement of his brother Vince. Which left book three, The Country Nurse to try and pick up the shattered pieces of lives and reconcile them.

I think one of the most important lessons that Essex County tells the reader is that life goes on, and that it is never too late to forgive the ones we love, even if it the damage seems too deep, even if we have to forgive ourselves first.

Internship Journal #5

These past two weeks have also been some of the most difficult for me, as now I am half way in and nearly halfway done, the stretch is becoming harder and harder mostly for time, but also the semester is starting to sap my energy.

Though now I have a completely finished cover for my book, which is pretty amazing and provide a little bit of fuel to keep me going, but everything seem a little weighing.
However, I also got the opportunity to start reading and provide comments on another Cressen Books's author, which was really great. It actually put me in the mindset of an actual editor, and I cannot wait to see what I can learn this week from Ed and Wendy about editing. I've helped edit their writings, but I have never edited anything else by a legitimate author.

I have some ideas, but I really think I need Ed and Wendy's direction. I know that it is one thing to have advice and revisions to give someone, but it is another thing entirely to explain it to the author. I know that I can be a little tactless and a bit too colloquial in my editing, and that really needs to be fine-tuned or rather I need to stop being lazy.

I've also started so many rewrites and revisions on my own novel, something that I really despise, but it is a necessary evil. I am finding it to already be a long and difficult process, and one of the most challenging things that I have ever done. I am proud of the time and effort that I have spent so far and I hope that the milestones that I reach will help me when I feel like there is no end in sight.

Frame Compare/Contrast, Essex County Book 2: Ghost Stories and Blankets

Today's scoop:

Craig Thompson's
full page characterization frame
for the character of Craig.

In our Graphic Novel class, we were asked to read three graphic novels in addition to Jeff Lemire's Essex County as part of the required reading. For my first novel, I chose Blankets by Craig Thompson.

For those familiar with the world of comics and graphic novels, you will know the significance of frame usage and design in these kinds of publications. Frames, as we have been taught, are more than simple containers that hold the text and pictures on the page, they themselves are part of the storytelling and help subconsciously relay information to audience just as much as words or photos do.

Jeff Lemire's full page
characterization frame
for the character of Lou.

 In Essex County Book 2: Ghost Stories, Lemire uses frames very similarly to Craig Thompson in Blankets. Both include framing panels that are mostly rectangular and provide action-to-action based transitions through the story. I also noticed that both contain high-impact large frames sometime enveloping the whole or most of the page to provide emphasis, usually for personal character reflection, especially in characterizing the main characters of each story.

Frames as
hockey arena

  In these frames, each author symbolizes the main desires of their characters. For Lou, it is the desire and remembrance of memory, and catharsis and rebirth for Craig. I also noticed for both Lemire and Thompson that they both abstained from using color within the frames of their novels, but rather used shadows and shading to give depth to both frames and photos.

Frames as
 a scrapbook

In Essex County: Book Two, the frames become something else entirely. They become not only a way to tell the story, but they are integrated into the story. The frames become a scrapbook on which we are able to see into the past and learn about Lou and his brother Vince through their mother's clippings, or a hockey area where we see Lou and Vince obtain their hockey prestige.

Snow metaphor  

 In Blankets, however frame usage does not put us in a physical place,  rather Thompson taps more into our emotional and conceptual reactions to things. The frames become metaphors for themes throughout the story. We see the patterns of Raina and Craig's quilt actually weave itself through the pages, so that it is always lingering in our thoughts and emphasizing the emotions and the time and effort and dedication that Raina and Craig used to have for each other. But then we also get frames of white and snow, that is the metaphor for Craig's quest for purity and peace.

Blanket metaphor

Internship Journal #4

The final cover for A Veil of Shattered Dreams.
Cover photo and design by Danielle Gesford.

This week, in my internship journal,  I'd like to discuss a few things that have been on my mind for the past few days concerning the different things that I have been working on. These past few weeks I feel I have been most in touch with my novel, A Veil of Shattered Dreams, the one that I am working on for my internship. What seems so strange to me is that in my wildest dreams, I never saw this kind of story escape from me, it is definitely different than anything else that I have ever written and definitely the most difficult.

I think that putting out my cover and realizing the amount of time that I have left to put this novel together has really put the pressure on me to get my writing done. I think that after I finish this story, it may be awhile before I write again. The decision to publish is also something that I have struggled with immensely this week. I never thought that I would publish something like this, especially not in college, my of my writings are for my enjoyment or shorter works that are not ready for publication. However,                 as much as I want to publish it, I want everyone to know that this was never a money making endeavor. Writing is something that I love and something that I want to share with everyone. Reading and the gift of reading is something that I don't believe should be denied to anyone. It is my love of reading, even over writing that propels me to editing and publishing. A belief I hope to retain while I continue even past internship. Secondly, as much as I love the story and the characters, I am no acclaimed author, anything that someone reads from me, published while I am in school, is I think student work. Unless someone sees something in it that I do not see myself.
What I also recognize is the fear that I have in exposing so much of work and writing for everyone to see. It is difficult to have people not only judge your work, but judge you as the author of the work. It should not matter if others like it, I know, as long as I like it. But, if writing has been the one thing that people have anticipated from you, then you do not want to let those people down.

As I start my fifth chapter ( now half-way through) I take these thoughts with me, and I only hope that I can influence my own writing so that I give myself and others the story that they (/I) expect.

Internship Journal #3

A Veil of Shattered Dreams Cover Version #2.
Still a little more work to be done.
Photo by Danielle Gesford
Model: Caity See

These past few weeks have been the most exciting yet in my internship. At the beginning of the semester, I was learning all of the technical and instructional aspects of the publisher/author, but as time has gone on and I have developed even more of my own project, things have shifted over to the more creative outlet.

Last week alone, I completed another chapter of my novel, now titled A Veil of Shattered Dreams and worked on creating a cover for the novel with help from my two friends. It has been a wonderfully crazy process from setting up a photo shoot, processing and creating all the elements that go into a cover of a book. Though this is only a student project, I can hardly imagine all the revisions, time and creativity that must be put forth to come up with not only the content of the novel, but also how the cover attracts the audience to the novel as well. Design plays a huge role in laying out a novel's format.

I have also spent time with my supervisors helping them with the plots in their own work. I am finding more and more that publishing and novel creation is much more of a collaborative process than I first recognized.

As far as my writing is concerned,  the writing process of Veil is definitely a more challenging endeavor, and I understand why, as most authors do, have so long dates between publication. There is hardly anytime to write. With daily lives and resources and the little unexpected tribulations that pop up,  it is a drastic feat for me to have a decently penned and edited novel in six months. Wow. Writing is actually going to be my major focus for my next journal, as my crunch time approaches and I begin writing very heavily in the next few weeks.

Lester vs. Vladek, Character Showdown

As those of you who have been keeping up to date on my Comm blog, in my graphic novel class we've been studying different elements of graphic novels and how each element has been contributing to the overall purpose of the comic. Most recently, we've read Art Spiegelman's Maus and the first two books of Jeff Lemire's Essex County. This week, we discuss the characterization of Maus's main character Vladek in comparison to Essex County's Lester.

Art Spiegelman's Maus

We are first introduced to Vladek in Maus through his own recollections and his conversations between himself and his son Artie. Everything that we find out about Vladek are inferences from other characters in the story. Vladek's character is actually presented to us first through the filter of Artie's reactions and dialogue with him.  The way that Artie feels about his father ( overbearing, somewhat ridiculous) influences the way that we as an audience begin to view Vladek. We also understand his compulsive waste-not and thrifty ideals, and his family central lifestyle. Spiegelman illustrates many times  how Vladek came to be who he is, we experience and discover him through his own storying telling. Not only do we come to understand Vladek through Artie, but also through Vladek's own actions in his memories. We hardly ever hear or see Vladek's internal thoughts or feelings. This creates a division in his character, Vladek the narrator and Vladek the father. We are told everything that happens to him throughout his years in the Holocaust, he recalls every memory and therefore we can judge him and understand him based on what he has been through.

Cover of Jeff Lemire's  Essex County

However, Lester in Essex County is presented to the audience in a very different way. Instead of developing his character through the other characters, Lemire gives the audience bits and pieces of information about the character, through memories and facial expressions and his reactions to others. He leaves it up to the reader to fill in the gaps and make their inferences about Lester. Lemire's approach to characterization is a bit more subtle and makes his character feel more relatable. Unlike Vladek, Lester is a bit more complex and difficult to understand. He does not give every detail about his life away to us right away but we must rely on his surroundings and environment to reveal his character.