Here's what I've been up to:

Bryce Canyon National Park,

featuring hoodoos;

 Desolation Trail to the lookout over Salt Lake Valley,

featuring three of the coolest people you'll ever meet;

and the Subway canyon in Zion National Park,

featuring twelve more of the aforementioned coolest people you'll ever meet.

Also, I received an Honorable Mention from the Q2 Writers of the Future contest to go along with my Semi-finalist entry from Q4 of last year (Semi-finalist is in the top 1%-ish; Honorable Mention is in the top 10%-ish), and submitted another story for the Q3 contest.

Submitted a modified version of my Master's Thesis to the Utah Arts Contest in the Short Story Collection category.

Received feedback from my alpha readers on my current novel, and have now begun ROUND 2 of revisions on said novel.

So, all in all, it's been a fun time.  There are many more to come.

Abstract and Acknowledgments

As promised in my previous post, here is the Abstract and the Acknowledgments sections of my Masters Thesis:

ABSTRACT

Look Me in the Stars

Christopher B. Husberg

Department of English, BYU

Master of Fine Arts

Look Me in the Stars is a work of fiction comprising seven short stories and a critical introduction.  Elements of fantasy, speculation, and horror are woven throughout each of the stories.  While these elements sometimes tend to provide the reader an “escape” from reality, their purpose in these stories is quite the opposite, with the intention of bringing the reader closer to reality rather than further away.

The critical introduction that precedes the collection examines the author’s predilection towards speculative fiction, discussing literary influences and different methodologies for using fantasy as a window to reality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am profoundly grateful to a lot of people.  Here are some of them:

Thanks first and foremost to my thesis committee—Steve Tuttle, John Bennion, and Carl Sederholm—for their support and encouragement, and for their insightful suggestions, and for asking the questions that needed to be asked.  Thanks to Steve in particular for all the time he spent with each story in this thesis, as well as with all the stories that didn’t make the cut.  He’s really the godfather of this collection; he’s been around most of these stories since they were in rough draft form.  His comments, and confidence, were invaluable.

Thanks to those other professors and mentors, without whom this project would not be what it is today:  Kim Johnson, Trent Hickman, Pat Madden, Chris Crowe, Susan Howe, Doug Thayer, and Brandon Sanderson.  I can trace specific parts of this thesis to bits of advice and counsel each of you gave me, in class or otherwise, and it’s that sort of thing that has shaped me (and still shapes me) as a writer.

Thanks to those writers with whom I’ve spent the last two years:  Steve, Amber, Scott, Becca, Shelah, and Bentley.  Your comments are brilliant, your jokes are hilarious, and your singing voices and guitar playing skillz are off the hook, especially late at night in cabins near Capitol Reef National Park.  Also:  you’re all phenomenal writers (imho).

Thanks to my parents for reading to me and helping me tell stories when I was young.  You always encouraged me to pursue stories, both within myself and in the outside world, and really, without that, where would I be?  (Probably graduating from med school, by now.  Thanks a lot.)  You told me I could dream, and you believed in me when I did.  I love you both.

Thanks to all the other family members, both in-law and regular type, who love and support me through these crazy dreams of mine.  There are far too many of you to list, but your confidence in me, your faith, and the way you live your lives are inspiring.

And of course, and always, and forever thanks to my wife, Rachel.  This is something I literally (and I mean it with the literally) never could have done without you.  You support me in all of this, in more ways than one, but—even better—you think I’m cool because of it, and that makes you amazing and wonderful and full of grace and all sorts of awesome things.  Okay, you were already all of that stuff.  I just wanted an excuse to say it.  Everything I write is, and will always be, for you.

My Little Masters Thesis

So, yeah, I wrote a Masters Thesis.  (Is it Master's or Masters?  I'm too lazy to Google it [wow...that is really lazy].)  And you know what?  The whole process was actually pretty cool.  At least I think so.

The thesis was titled Look Me in the Stars.  Strange title, you say?  Yeah, little bit.  It actually derives from a line in Robert Frost's* poem "A Question":

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Are not too much to pay for birth.

That poem has been on my mind for some time, and it sort of worked its own way into the title.

The thesis is a collection of short stories (seven of them, to be exact--no coincidence there) that all treat, with varying degrees of heavy-handedness, the plethora of delightful and crappy things that we all go through in life.  Ok, it mostly revolves around the crappy stuff (hence the titular poem).  The delightful stuff is boring anyway.  Each story also incorporates some aspect of speculation or fantasy, as well; from time travel to the zombie apocalypse, it's all there.  And, well, I'm kind of proud of it.  Look, here it is:

In all its glory!  Pretty cool, no?

For those interested, here are some stats:
Total word count:  38,461
Total page count:  133
Contents:  7 short stories ("Rewind," "The Reception," "On Redemption," "Chronosingularity," "In the Details," "Oneirology," and "Look me in the stars"), Critical Introduction, Abstract, Acknowledgements, Table of Contents, and Title Page
Start date:  This is a tough one.  The first draft of the oldest short story in the collection dates back to 7 Feb 2009, and I suppose that is as good a start date as any.
End date:  Final draft was submitted on 15 June 2012.

Overall, it was a really great process.  Much more enjoyable than the whole Honors Thesis thing (which actually wasn't that bad for a critical thesis...but nowhere near this cool).  And my defense was fantastic.  I was lucky to have three pretty amazing professors ask some really interesting questions amd give some really helpful feedback...and it was actually kind of fun; a far cry from the purgatorial panel I had feared.  I don't know many people who can say they genuinely enjoyed their thesis/dissertation defense, so I'm glad to be part of that elite group.

I'd give you a link to check out the entire document on BYU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation website, but you can't find it there.  You see, as an MFA student dealing with a creative work that might actually be a source of income (however modest) in the future, I don't have to release it to the public.  So I didn't.  Instead, I'm currently in the process of getting at least a couple of the stories from my thesis published in literary journals, magazines, etc.  And, trust me, as soon as I find a home for any of these stories, you guys will be the first to know.  Okay, maybe not the first.  My wife will be the first.  And actually my parents will be second.  And then I'll have some other friends and family members I'll want to tell right away.  So you guys are maybe five or six down on the list...but you'll get the news relatively soon :-).  Priorities, you see.  You understand.

Also, I think I'll paste the Abstract and the Acknowledgements sections in the next post, just so you can get some more specifics about the project...and because there were a whole lot of people who helped me out with the project, and they deserve all the thanks they can get.

In fact, I think I'll get on that right now.



*  Robert Frost is one of my favorite all-time poets, by the way.

NOW I AM THE MASTER

Did I mention that I'm now officially an MFA graduate?  No?  Well, then.

I'm now, officially, an MFA graduate.

Okay, so the news isn't that current.  It actually happened in June.  Still, I have to admit it feels good to be a Master, even if it is just of fiction writing*.

And you know what?  The whole thesis thing wasn't half bad.  The defense was a pleasure, and I'm very happy with the finished product.  There's more to that story, but I'll save that for another day.  In the mean time, I'll probably never post on this blog again.  Or, at least, that's what you should tell yourself.  That way you'll be delighted when I actually DO post something up here.  Later this week, for example.  (Low expectations are the key to happiness, after all.)  So, until then never! :-)

P.S.  Please, please get the title reference.  If you don't, you are dead to me.


* And, even though I have the title, I have to admit that I don't feel much like the master of anything--especially not fiction writing.  I've still got a long way to go where that is concerned, I think.  But, I'm smarter about it than I was two years ago, and if that happens every two years from here on out, I'll be happy as a witch in a broomstick factory (ick...those Geico commercials are really getting to me).

Explanation and Contests

First, an explanation of the progress bars to the right:  the top bar indicates how far I've gotten on a full draft of my thesis (I'm currently working through the second draft).  The remaining bars indicate progress on individual stories, which make up the thesis as a whole, and the numbers next to each title indicate the draft I'm currently working on for that piece (2.0 = second full draft, 4.2 = fourth draft with some other minor changes, etc.).

In other news, I'll wax update-y and tell you how I've sent stories in to three BYU writing contests in the past day or so.  We'll see how things turn out; during my undergrad I was 2/2 for the contests to which I submitted.  Last year was less encouraging (0/2, to be exact).  So we'll see how things unfold this time around.  I'm also in the process of submitting some of my stories to various literary journals--nothing but rejections so far, but rest assured I'll holler as soon as I hear some good news.

Oh, and happy Valentines Day.  I happen to have the best wife in the world, so yeah, I bet you're jealous of that.

The Homestretch, or, Why I'm Going to Start Blogging Again

I've been hanging out at LTUE this weekend, and its gotten me thinking about a number of things--one begin that I want to get back into blogging.  My plan was to start up again after I graduate in April/June, but I really have no reason not to start right now.

It's sort of a moment of kairos, as we say in my Writing 150 class.  This is an interesting semester for me; it's the last full semester I'll have (hopefully) before I graduate, so I'm taking 6 credits of thesis hours and no real literary/criticism or workshop classes, which has actually been great.  Devoting most of my working hours to revisions on my thesis is not a bad way to end the program, if you ask me.  Of course, I'm also teaching two classes--the typical Writing 150 (Writing and Rhetoric/Freshman English) as well as English 218R (Intro to Creative Writing)--which adds quite a bit to my workload, but so far both classes are going well.  I'm teaching an experimental section of Writing 150 that focuses on blogging as a medium for rhetoric, and that has been an educational experience (and all the more reason to keep up my own blog, of course).  And English 218R is awesome--workshopping and talking about interesting pieces of writing, what more could I want?

Anyway, other than a few "student activity" courses I'm taking (basketball and a spinning class), that's pretty much my semester.  Hopefully I'll defend my thesis in early April (speaking of which, I've updated the Current Projects and Backburner pages of the site, so check them out if you're interested), and that will be that.

So all this is to say that I really have no excuse not to be blogging right now, and I want to di it anyway, so why not start (again)?  It might even serve as motivation to attack my thesis revisions with a fiery vengeance.  So let it be written.