Of Faith, Finals, and Finances...

Even now I am waiting for the email from a literary agency saying yay or nay to whether they'll represent the manuscript portion I sent in for Faerie Games. Even now I am, literally, biting my nails (a very old bad habit) because of the wait. Even now I am asking God in my personal prayers, why all the waiting?

On top of wondering if the manuscript will get published, I have finals coming up in subjects I sorely want to excel in. Trouble is there is a little thing called "work ethic" I need to master. Consistently doing homework on time while turning it in on time would be a lovely quick fix habit to be granted.

And finally, the universal problem of Americans in this day in age: finances. After all, college is expensive. The next year is covered, but what then? I hardly qualify for anything need based and is there anything academic that's even being offered anymore? I'm looking for jobs, applying to all kinds and asking around. No one seems to be hiring or at the very least are taking their sweet time in looking over my applications. I've had a total of one summer job at Taco Bell when I was 17 and now I find myself either overqualified or under-qualified for everything I see.

The common thread in these issues seems to be waiting. I beg for more patience yet how else can it be gained but this agonizing process of waiting for something to happen? I am making initiative for once in my youthful life, so why isn't it paying off lickity split? Why can't opportunities be served to me on silver platters with federal grants and silver spoons?

Such is the curse of the middle class student, to wait and build patience that way. Character is built is more than a day, as are experiences that make us who we are. I'll have to keep waiting until the fruits of my labor finally start to show up. Until then, I can either whine privately or keep trekking along. I'm finding more often that I end up wanting to choose the latter of those more and more.

Who Is The Cheese?

Welcome to BrieTheCheese: a blog about myself, my life and my work as an aspiring novelist. Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering why exactly I picked this blog name and even if you aren’t, you’re reading this post so I hope you’ll be interested enough to continue. My real name is rather long and drawn out, Briannon, so when I was little I endeavored to come up with a nickname for myself. Since my name is rather long, I was often called some variant of “Bri, Bree, Bria,” however you spell that. My mother sat me down to help me find a way to spell that nickname. We looked through all the combinations and I liked the aesthetic quality of “Brie”. My mom then told me that was a kind of watery cheese. From then on, my nickname has been both Brie and Cheese among friends and family alike.

Quirky anecdote aside, I am a college student majoring in Sign Language Interpretation with a minor in Creative Writing. So what’s with it, a “cheese” that’s going to be a sign language interpreter and an author? There have been odder combinations, you have to admit. Either way, this combination fits me best and I intend to see both through to their inevitable ends. Sign language lets me use my hands in the same way I use my pen to express myself on a level deeper than mere language by using just that medium.

However, this is supposed to be about my writing primarily. I’ve been writing since seventh grade where I completed the first crap manuscript I ever thought up about a tough girl princess with dragon wings and a bitter prince who rode dragons like horses for a living. I let my English teacher read the entire thing, start to finish, and she actually told me to try getting is published at 12 years old. Luckily, I have matured past that level, but everyone has to start somewhere and that 263 pages of notebook paper was mine. Nowadays, my characters are more fleshed out and my plots less fantastic despite the fact I like dealing in the fantasy genre. I have recently started sending out my manuscript, Faerie Games, out to a potential publisher and a literary agency. Here’s hoping my unpublished status won’t stay that way for long!

So that is basically me in a nutshell! I hope you enjoy the blog as I readily update it whenever something interesting enters my thoughts or happens in my life. Happy reading and thank you for checking me out.