The Marvellous Mr. Marble

Those of you who obsessively follow my fledgling writing career (which should really be all of you) will probably remember that I got a short story accepted for publication a few weeks ago. Good news, everyone - you can finally stop checking your calendars and wringing your weary hands, because my story is officially published and available for your reading pleasure. 

How you're feeling right now.

The story is called "The Marvellous Mr. Marble", and I originally wrote it for a creative writing class assignment in my fourth year of university. At the time, I had just read an article about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa - for those of you with an irrational fear of hyperlinks, a random workman spotted the painting at the Louvre, thought to himself 'hmmm, that looks like a nice painting' - or whatever the equivalent phrase is in French - slipped it into into his cloak and walked out with it, at which point he managed to successfully evade police for two full years. I wanted to fit this into a story somehow, so I ended up writing a 4,000 word comedy story about a middle-aged man who lies about stealing the Mona Lisa to impress his old classmates at a high school reunion.

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Two New Cracked Articles!

Earlier this week, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed like a good little mindless millennial, when I stumbled across an article that was a list of unsolved murders. Being the sort of person who likes reading about unsolved murders, I clicked on it, and immediately congratulated myself on already knowing all about the first murder on the list. In fact, the further I read, the more familiar the article seemed.

Then I scrolled to the top and realize I'd written the damn thing.

The haunting images of dead-eyed statues, however, were chosen by somebody else.

As it turns out, I submitted an article about creepy unsolved murders back in May, and it got combined with two other excellent articles on creepy unsolved murders, and turned into a two-part creepy murder extravaganza for your Halloween viewing pleasure. Only a handful of the entries are actually mine, but all of them should have you sleeping with the lights on and railing at the unfeeling God that could allow these atrocities to go unpunished. 

You can read Part One right here, and you can read Part Two right here. Or you could go up to the top of the page and find them under the "Cracked Articles" tab. I can't tell you how to live your life. 

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Why I'll Never Open a Hedgehog Cafe

A few months ago, I became aware of a pet hedgehog living in less-than-ideal circumstances who needed a new home. Despite the fact that I have never owned a hedgehog, nor have I ever felt a burning desire to own a hedgehog in particular, I did want a pet that my landlord would be cool with, and I didn't want this little guy to keep on being neglected. One thing led to another, and I now share my apartment with a tiny ball of spikes named Harley. Owning Harley has taught me a lot of things; mostly, what it's like to share my life with a living hairbrush that hates me.

This is Harley.

As a 20-something living in a developed nation in the year 2016, my self-esteem is largely dictated by how many strangers click buttons for me on the internet, and pet hedgehogs are social media methamphetamine cut with Scarface-grade cocaine. Within moments of getting the little bastard home, cleaning him up, and naming him 'Harley' - his previous owners were that special kind of neglectful who never bothered to name him - I had his image plastered all across my social media accounts. Even now, after saturating all my feeds with pictures of Harley for months, a photo of him is still pretty much a guaranteed shower of unwarranted internet attention.

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Cracked Article #4

As most of my regular readers/devoted followers/binocular-wielding stalkers already know, I write for Cracked.com from time to time. This is one of those times.

Brace yourselves, it's a weird article this time.

Article #4 is called 'The 5 Weirdest Disappearances No One Can Explain', and you can get to it by clicking that link. If you like taking extra, unnecessary steps to do everything, for reasons known only to you and your therapist, you can find the full list of my Cracked articles at the top of my webpage. It's under "Cracked articles". Because I excel at labeling.

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My Third Cracked Article

As most of my faithful blog followers already know, I write for Cracked.com.

These guys.

If you've stumbled randomly upon my blog while traversing the abyss of the internet, and my finicky website is currently functioning as intended, you can find my previous two articles somewhere near the top of this page, under "Cracked articles".

My third article will have something to do with touching reunions that went horribly awry. I can't actually tell you what it will be called or when it will be posted until the day it's actually strung up for the world to gaze upon, because I have only slightly more control over that than the janitor who cleans the Cracked offices at night, but you can rest assured that I'll let you know when it's available.

Or you could just keep refreshing the Cracked homepage now. Your choice. 

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How to Write the Perfect Cover Letter

I suck at cover letters.

There are several things in life that I am terrible at, and "writing cover letters" is up there, nestled snugly in between "pole dancing" and "seductive horse whispering". On this blog, I write like the jaded, sassy roommate you had in college who smoked clove cigarettes and spent a whole lot of time reading underground blogs about the 'man'. The moment I'm asked to produce a cover letter, however, I turn into a sad, garbled robot, capable only of spitting out mangled chunks of text that list my former jobs and generously overuse the term "excellent time management". The fact that I've ever been hired without holding an employer at gunpoint is as baffling as it is miraculous.

"Yes, you may contact my previous employer."

Unfortunately for me and all potential employers in my area, the time has come for me to find my first real, adult job while I save up money for graduate school, and I've been forced to hone my sad cover letter skills in a hurry. I've learned a lot from the job hunting process, and I'd like to use my newfound cover letter expertise to help my lovely blog readers. So if you're struggling to find a job and you want to upgrade to a sure-fire cover letter, pay careful attention to:

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Bachelor of Memories: My Degree in Photographs (Part Two)

If you're the sort of person who feverishly checks my blog each week, hoping desperately for a new update, you probably saw last week's post filled with a selection of my academic baby pictures. To stall for time until I have to come up with a fresh idea for post material, please enjoy Part Two of that collection, which brings me from the whimpering neophyte of Fall 2013 to the deluded, semi-functional adult I am today.

Fourth Year

After my whirlwind year as a resident of a cinderblock human zoo in Eastern Canada, I was accepted to the Honours Psychology program at the University of Alberta, and I decided to come back home. Despite having gone to school at the U of A with a dozen of my closest friends just two years before, I knew no one when I returned, and so I promptly went out and joined every club I had a remote interest in. By which I mean I joined two clubs. And hey, it worked out pretty well.

This was the year that we decided one dog was simply not enough, and promptly adopted this 11 lb, 8-week old puppy. Today, this same puppy weighs 110 lbs and can comfortably rest her head on the kitchen table.

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Bachelor of Memories: My Degree in Photographs (Part One)

If you've been following my blog lately, or just hiding out in the bushes outside my house, you know that I recently graduated from university with a BA Honors in Psychology. I'll be moving to New York City in August to start my Master's in Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, but until then, I've got a lot of time on my hands to wax poetic about my undergraduate days. Since I'm busy lately and writing words is difficult, I'll be spending the next two weeks going over my favourite photographs from my time as an undergrad student and stalling for time until I can think of a better topic to blog about.

So until then, enjoy:

First Year

Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of photographic evidence of my first year of university. None of my friends owned a decent camera, and in early 2010, Instagram was still just an idea in somebody's notebook. The average cellphone took monstrous, grainy security camera photos with eight and a half pixels each, and you had to eviscerate your phone with a paperclip to dig out the memory card if you wanted to upload any of them. Technological dark age aside, we just didn't think to take pictures. My friends and I tended to hang out in the same bar every day, like a bad television sitcom, and nobody thought to photograph the place. With that said, my first year wasn't a complete photographic black hole. I did manage to emerge with these:

My eighteenth birthday party. Since no one in the background is blacked out or vomiting, I'm going to go ahead and assume that this was taken early in the evening. 

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The Ten Things I Learned in University

Well, folks, it's all over.

After five years of classes, homework, papers, exams, all-nighters and ill-advised experimentation with alcohol and eyeliner, I finally earned the right combination of credits to finish my degree. In just over a week, I will walk across the stage at the Jubilee Auditorium and collect my Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology from the University of Alberta.

This place.

Now, I'm not one to use the "everything I learned in the classroom was forgettable and meaningless; I learned the real lessons outside of school" cliche. In a couple of years, I'm going to be diagnosing and treating patients based on the information I learned in class, so the world had better hope that I remember that shit. But the fact is, I did learn a lot of great things outside the classroom, and a list of the top ten things I learned inside the classroom wouldn't be terribly interesting to anyone but undergraduate psych students.

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My First Cracked Article! (I'm a Real Writer Now!)

A few weeks ago, I made a pretty exciting announcement on this blog - I had just had an article accepted by the massive online humor giant Cracked.com. Weeks later, after the editors have had time to polish it and come to terms with their decision to accept it, it's finally live on the site!

All you have to do is CLICK HERE to check it out. If you're curious, the topic is "5 Historical Figures More Terrifying Than Any Horror Villain".

What did this guy do? You're going to have the read the article to find out.

Thanks to everyone for their messages of congratulations! If you have any questions about writing for Cracked, or what the whole process looks like from my side, you could probably just find out by going to their website. Or you could ask me about it in the comments! Happy reading!

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Getting Back on Track

If you've been following my blog with feverish dedication this past year (as all of you should be), you might have noticed that my posting schedule has been a little bit erratic lately.

This is why.

In the past three months, I've been busy applying for graduate school, attempting to not flunk out of my final year of university, pimping out my writing brilliance for Cracked.com, and spending some time with a particularly persistent group of rabid admirers who refer to themselves as my friends. Sometimes, blogging just had to wait.

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My First Publication!

For the past year, if you clicked the "Publications" tab of my page, you'd see a trite little message that went something like:

I'm flattered that you think I'm good enough to be published, but I'm afraid I don't have anything to put here just yet. 

Well, I'm pleased to announce that, as of today, that message is no more. After much nagging from my regular readers to check out this whole 'Write For Cracked" thing, I've finally had an article accepted by Cracked.com!

Boo yeah.

I don't have a lot of details for you at the moment - I don't know when, exactly, the article will be published, and I don't know what title they will choose to publish it under. What I do know is that it's about historic figures who did things right out of horror movies, and that you should start frantically refreshing Cracked sometime around Halloween. 

Thanks to everyone who told me to send in an article! I'll post a link to it when it goes live.

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My Week at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Part 1

As I've mentioned a few times before on this blog, last spring I won my first writing award. The prize was a full scholarship to the September Writing with Style workshop at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Those of you who know how to work a calendar may have noticed that we're already halfway through September, and, sadly, my time at the Banff Centre is already at an end.

Since I wasn't allowed to stuff all you into my suitcase and drag you onto the Greyhound to Banff with me, I will be detailing my literary-tastic week here, in painstaking detail. Starting with:

Saturday

Those of you who find me fascinating enough to check up on each and every week will know that I spent most of the first Saturday sitting on a Greyhound bus. If you were to hop in a car and drive directly from my street to the front doors of the Banff Centre, it'd be almost exactly a four-hour journey, but thanks to Greyhound's unceasing dedication to late departures and random detours down rural cowpaths, the journey by bus takes a total of eight hours. Using the Edmonton Greyhound station means you even get to take a field trip into the most economically and socially bankrupt cesspit of Edmonton, where you can spend the hour before your departure trying to figure out which patrons of the station A&W are travelers, and which ones are prostitutes taking Uncle Burger breaks. (HINT: none of those people are travelers. Hope you wiped that seat off with bleach.)

Chariot of champions.

So after spending the better part of my day clutching my messenger bag to my chest and praying that whoever sat next to me would have minimal facial sores, the bus finally turned up into the mountains and dropped me off in Banff, before continuing on its way to Vancouver. This was it. I was on my own, with three pieces of luggage, half a novel manuscript, and absolutely no idea where to go.

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On the Road to Banff

Today's the big day.

Some time ago, I wrote about winning the Darren Zenko Memorial Prize in Creative Writing. For those of you who are allergic to hot links, the award is given out each year at my university to the most outstanding student in a creative writing class, as determined by a jury of writing professors who were clearly drunk that day.

Booze is the only thing that drowns out the stupid questions of undergraduate students.

I've been counting down the days until the Writing with Style Workshop to begin, and my basic ability to keep track of days of the year has finally paid off - it starts tonight! I will be spending the next week workshopping the first chapter of my newest novel with Alison Pick, an award-winning Canadian author whose books you should be reading, like, right now.

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How to Write the GRE Exam (And Not Die)

Last week, I wrote one of the scariest exams any undergraduate student will ever face.

This bad boy.

For those of you who didn't give up most of the freedom of your 20s in exchange for disapproving sighs from a thesis supervisor, the Graduate Record Exam is a four-hour exercise in misery that determines whether or not a particular student is clever enough to move on to graduate programs. Some graduate programs don't require this beast of an entrance exam, but since people who work in admissions departments apparently feed on human misery, the test is being expanded each year to encompass every subject you could ever hope to study at a post-undergraduate level. It's international, too, to if you think you can make a daring escape to the universities of Tanzania or Botswana, you are sadly mistaken. 

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How to Bake a Cake With a Minivan

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend turned 24 and I wanted to bake him a cake.

Oh, no, I didn't bake this gorgeous cake. His name's not even Bailey.

My boyfriend is the Nerd King of the Super-Nerds, and I wanted to commemorate his birthday by presenting him with an edible celebration of his nerdiness. Last year, I managed to cobble together cake, Oreo crumbs and green icing into a Minecraft cube cake, and I really wanted to top myself. 

That's when I made the mistake of going on Pinterest. 

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On Vacation

Everyone needs a break from time to time. I'm taking one now. See you in two weeks, bitches.

Peace out. Wait, do people still say that?

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Dear America, I Want to Buy Your Sh*t

Dear America,

Yes, you.

I want to buy your shit. 

Seriously. That's it. I want to take the Canadian dollars I have earned from my long, hard hours of hunting moose and applying Avril Lavigne's eyeliner, and exchange them for beautiful, cheap American goods. It's consumerism at its finest, and oh boy, do I want to partake.

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How I Accidentally Met C3PO: A Magical Comic Con Adventure

Every year, I attend the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in Calgary, Alberta.

This. I attend this. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the event, the Calgary Comic Con is a sweaty, writhing, costumed festival of panels, bootleg Walking Dead merchandise, celebrity geek royalty, unknown comic artists and tens of thousands of starry-eyed and socially graceless nerds flocking to Calgary's BMO centre like they're making a religious pilgrimage in a spandex Batman costume. In other words, it's pretty much the closest you can get to heaven. 

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5 Things I've Learned This Year

This Thursday, I will sit down and write the last exam of my fourth year of university. Before you take out your wallet to send me fistfuls of congratulatory graduation cash, settle down - I might have completed a bachelor's degree worth of courses, but since I changed my program halfway through, I've got one more year to go. Some might call this the 'five year plan' method of getting through university. If you're not into borrowing terms from communist dictators, you can call it the 'scenic route' through university. Either way, the point is that I've now completed many years of school.

Don't worry, I've been studying diligently the whole time. 

So at the end of this year, after 8 months of school, 10 courses, $7000 in tuition, countless nights of exploring the dark depths of the internet when I should have been studying and some of the best memories I've ever had, you might be surprised to hear that I think I might have learned something. In fact, I learned a few things, and I happen to be just kind enough to share them. 

So if you have no desire to trace my exact steps through the past year to learn what I've learned, try to appreciate these five pieces of immense wisdom:

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