Creating Ideas in Conversation

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 If this English class (Writing Literary Criticism) has taught me anything this semester, it's to be proactive about my work. There is definitely a difference between plugging key words into library and Google search engines and asking people what they think about a certain topic. It's the difference between finding what already exists and bringing a new conversation, and consequently new ideas, into existence.

I sent out messages to a large group of people on Facebook and tried to contact someone on Goodreads. I just noticed 30 seconds ago that I got a response! Thank you to my cousin, Melissa! Her comment makes me even more confident in my thesis, and I think I will be able to really run with it, now.

This week, in that same post, I looked back at comments that two of my classmates had left. Chalene and Jessica gave me awesome feedback. Jessica's particularly struck me as interesting. She mentioned that it sounded like I was talking about "unchanging ethics" in my post. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded like something that fit right in to what I was trying to say. I entered the phrase into a Google search and found something called Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's work on ethics. I skimmed through an overview that I found online, and voila! One phrase stood out above the rest: "Moral Luck of having the right 'trainers' in one's youth." That's exactly what I'm talking about in my paper! Perhaps Aristotle will help me bring William Faulkner and Lewis Carroll's works together.
 
So reverting back to my new-found proactive-ness, here are a few places to which I have decided to submit my paper, and future papers:
 

• The blog, Interesting Literature would be an ideal place for me to submit a guest post. It's all about "Literary Interestingness," which, as it happens, is what I'm all about.

• The BYU English Symposium is close to home and would be a great way for me to start getting my foot into the literary world.

• The BYU Scholars Archive has a Criterion section (A Journal of Literary Criticism!). I might've just died and gone to heaven. 

I feel myself being refueled and I'm ready to once again jump into my topic!