Salutations.

I’m Bea, as you may have guessed. This is my first year in Creative Writing, and therefore my first year in an English-related class  that I was able to choose. I’m quite enjoying it so far; it’s much more my sort of thing than 5-paragraph persuasive essays.
    In case you’re wondering, here’s the – for want of a better word – thinking that went into the blog title. I have been told that my interests seem contradictory, that they don’t quite fit into others’ idea of one person. For example: I plan on a career in science. I love chemistry and am quite interested in astronomy as well. I am in two science classes and on the Robotics team. I am utterly in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The first classification I fall into is that of a science nerd. Then I tell the person that I’m enrolled in an online school of wizardry. No, seriously. Yes, like spells and stuff. No, I can’t read your mind. Yet.
    Most people have trouble imagining that someone could take both science and magic seriously. They seem like opposites, no? Opposites…opposites attract. I’m not a magnet, though. I’m not polar, they come together into one person in me. In chemistry, two different substances react to form new ones.
    Opposites React.
    These are recent developments. Until about the eighth grade, it was all Harry Potter, all the time. Virtually all I did was read fantasy novels. Therefore, it makes sense that the first story I remember writing in school was fantasy. I believe the story was called “Weird Wire,” and had something to do with witches. It did not make a huge impression on me (the only thing I remember was learning to indent when the dialogue switched speakers), but it was a start.
    I suppose I reached Critical Fantasy Mass somewhere in middle school and had to start spitting it back out. It started with some idle, vaguely map-like doodles that developed into an entire continent. After that came countries, cities, peoples, mythologies, and language. My favorite part of a novel or movie is between the introduction and the first plot complication, when the author takes you around to look at the world. I determined to create the most complete fantasy world in existence, and thus Raoltha was born.
    I rarely finish a task once I start it. It’s something I’m working on. Raoltha is currently in stasis as  I try to think of a potentially epic conflict for it. I hope to become better at creating plots this year, plots that don’t sound totally contrived, or plots where the villain has an actual motivation. That’s always nice.
    My greatest influence is likely Tamora Pierce. Her books are all fantasy, set in medieval-ish times with more modern values. She focuses on strong female heroines, like girls choosing to become knights or joining the police force. Quite aside from the characters influencing me, her writing has had an effect as well. They’re good books, no doubt about that, but they are also easy to pick apart. I can see on the second reading where she starts threads that unexpectedly tie back together at the end. I can tell why she picked this trait for that character. I think it’s quite useful to see how successful books work when trying to create your own.
    Something I didn’t mention above: I hope to work on conciseness. “No, really?” you say, scanning the wall of text above. “Shocking, I know,” I reply.
    171 days of school to go. There’s time.