Vocab Word

You can always count on Sherlock (the show) to give us a interesting word.  This particular word comes from dear, Mycroft, talking about his brother, none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's darling Sherlock.

in·tran·si·gent

inˈtransijənt,-zi-/
adjective

1. unwilling or refusing to change one's views or to agree about something.

The Critical Thesis Journey Begins

I'm working on my MFA through Pine Manor College, and the focus of my current semester is a critical thesis between 30 and 35 pages in length.  I'm not too worried about generating pages.  I'm fairly wordy.  I think I'll probably end up with a forty page paper that has to be trimmed down and polished until it falls within the parameters.  The goal of this project is to help students/writers really examine things that they either struggle with or want to know more about as a means to improve their creative writing.

I had several wonderful topics selected last semester and even ran them by my second semester mentor, but in the end, the thing that I'm most interested in right now - and that I need the most help with, it seems - is Dystopian World Building.  My first semester mentor, Steve Huff, ran a workshop this past residency and he introduced the idea to me.  At first I thought 'isn't it a cop out to do a critical thesis on something so directly related to what you're currently writing?' and I also thought, 'but that sounds like too much fun, how can that possibly be a critical thesis?'  But then I realized that the critical thesis should deal with your creative work and it should  be fun!   Thank you, Steve!

In preparation for this essay I'm reading many wonderful Dystopian novels.  I just recently finished Feed by M.T. Anderson and am working on Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, and I'm also revisiting A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.  I have several craft books that I'm looking at as well.  My goal is to get the thing done in the next two months so that I can keep working on my creative work before hitting the final semester.  Wish me luck!

Amanda LaFantasie (c) January 2014

Weekly vocab word

vac·il·lat·ing  [vas-uh-ley-ting]
adjective
1. not resolute; wavering; indecisive; hesitating: an ineffectual, vacillating person.
2. oscillating; swaying; fluctuating: a vacillating indicator.

Weekly Vocab word, 1st for the New Year

This one is because of one of the blogs I follow. Her title is Ms. Misanthropy and I was curious about the meaning of the word. I think her kind of strange since she doesn't give off that kind of mentality when she posts. But hey, I learned a new word!

mis·an·thro·py  [mis-an-thruh-pee, miz-]  

noun

hatred, dislike, or distrust of humankind.

Origin: 1650–60;  < Greek mīsanthrōpía.  See misanthrope, -y3