The Date Draws Ever Closer

The title to this blog post has many meanings, including the fact that it is actually a quote from my novel Summer's Hollow that I am currently slaving away on editing right now. For those of you who don't know, Summer's Hollow is a horror novel that I've been working on for about 7 years or so. I started writing it in High School and finished it just last year. Obviously since I started it in High School the first chapters needed a lot of work with the grammar and overall writing. The content was there it just had some weird writing styles that I had tried out and figure it didn't work.

Now I'm over a third of the way through editing Summer's Hollow (going literally sentence by sentence changing things) and it's getting easier and easier to edit as I go along. It's like me and tunnels (which most of you know I have a phobia of); I'm about over a third of the way through the tunnel and I can see the edges of the light creeping into the darkness.

In the process of editing Summer's Hollow, I'm falling in love with my characters all over again. The main character, Rylie, is very similar to teenage me. She's awkward, geeky, smart and at times shy (okay let's be honest, I was never shy, but you get the point). The other characters are equally loveable and some very unlovable like Rylie's older brother. I love my descriptions of the psychic connection that Rylie has with the other main character, the spirit of Mary Pascal. All in all I'm so in love with this book and I can't wait for you all to be able to read it. With the editing process underway we're shooting for it to be released the end of October or the beginning of November.

The other meaning of this title is that I'm approaching the date when I start Grad School at the University of Maryland. September 3rd is my start date and I'm getting pretty excited. Once I finish (in about 2 1/2 years) I will have a Masters in Geospatial Information Science. To all the people out there who don't know what that is the cliff notes description is that it's taking maps and data and creating databases and complex maps to show spatial relationships of data. To do this I utilize the ESRI ArcGIS Software suite that I just received the other day and started to play around with (which is a slippery slope since you can spend hours doing so).

My classes are on Mondays from 5:30 - 8:00pm and Tuesdays from 5:30 - 6:30 and they're done online using webcams. This allows me to view the lecture and also talk to the professor without having to physically be in the classroom. We also have the option to go into the physical room as well. Since this is a technology degree where all our projects are done on the computer using the software the online setting is an ideal one.

I am super excited to start though I know it's going to be a lot of work and time. I'm hoping  that I can still find the time to pursue my other passions such as writing and Anthropology. Most likely most of my projects that I do for this Master's Programs as well as my thesis are going to be on Anthropological topics. This being said I plan to share these projects with you guys to keep you in the loop as well as show you just how awesome GIS is!

P.S. This image doesn't really have anything to do with what I was talking about except for the fact that it is hauntingly beautiful as I hope you find my book as well. Source: http://www.healinghauntedhouses.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/spirit1.jpg