The Beauty of Writing...

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a writer. As a little girl I wrote a ton of stories and even won writing contests that allowed me to go to my school district’s writing convention. I can thank my mom for my love of storytelling since she was the one that got me hooked on books in the first place. She read to me often as a baby and a toddler and indulged my need to spend time in the library picking out books. I read just about everything I could get my hands on, including the cereal boxes during breakfast and while most of what I read was fun and not all that memorable (I don’t think I could tell you the full plot of a Babysitter’s Club book), it wasn’t until I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson at around the age of 7 that I really understood the true beauty and meaning of being a writer.

Bridge to Terabithia was the first book that stuck with me and I’m not just talking about the plot and the characters, but also the feelings I had while reading the book. It was the first book that truly touched me and brought me to tears. Anyone who has ever read the book (or seen the movie that came out in the last decade) knows the emotional rollercoaster this book takes you on and how it makes you really think about life. Was it too much for me to read at such a young age? Maybe, but I’m glad I did. Reading that book changed how I look at my writing. I know now that I need to evoke emotions and I need to make my readers think. That’s not to say that frivolous and fun aren’t great things to read and that I don’t absolutely love books that represent those things, but they aren’t the ones that stick with me years later.

I want people to get teary eyed or feel an ache in their chest when they read something I’ve written. I want them to remember my characters and their heartache or happiness or the connection that they felt with them whenever they think of the great books they have read. But I also want my books to be fun, an escape from reality even if the book represents something very real. These goals aren’t easy to reach and out of the thousands of books that I’ve read throughout the last 30 years, there are not many that have truly gripped me the way that Bridge to Terabithia did when I was young (and again when I re-read it in my twenties). Even though I couldn’t remember the name of Bridge to Terabithia nearly 2 decades after I first read it, I still remembered what happened and how it made me feel and that is exactly what I want to see happen with my own work someday.

February Goals
Read 3000 pages
Write 1000 words a day
Workout 3 hours a week

All goals are of course at least that amount. More is always better.

Update for February Goals: So far in February, I have an hour of gym time under my belt, but that week only had 3 days and one of those was Super Bowl Sunday, so I feel like that’s a good start. I’ve also finished 4 books this month for a total of 1321 pages, so also got a good start on that. It’s the writing that I have a feeling is going to be tricky. I cannot seem to focus on just one project. I still need to finish revising Genevieve, which now has a tentative name of Revelations, and I need to finish the sero draft of Caitlin, which also has a tentative name of Awakening. But I am being haunted by contemporary romance ideas and they are leaving me scatterbrained and overwhelmed. Normally I would work on outlining the CRs while writing or revising one of the others, but I just stare at the computer or my notebook unable to concentrate and eventually I move on to something easier like reading or watching TV. That’s been happening since the middle of last month and I really need to figure out a way around the obstacle or I may never write again.

In which I admit failure...again...

Once again I've come up short on my goals for November...and really for December and most of January. But for once it wasn't due to my being lazy or because I was so busy procrastinating. I've been so busy over the last 2 and a half months, I've barely had time to rest enough to get rid of the cold that just didn't want to leave.

After 7 years of complacency, I decided to change day jobs so I spent November teaching others how to do my old job and then started training for the new one. Training for the new job took 4 and a half weeks and by the time I was done with that I had the worst cold I've had in years. The damn thing stuck around off and on for over 3 weeks, with the last incarnation of it really kicking my butt.

But now everything is finally starting to fall into place and I'm finding myself comfortable with my new job and my new work schedule. I hope this comfort means that I will be able to start accomplishing my goals, which is my big plan for 2013. I am going to make smaller, easier to accomplish goals for each month and those goals will include writing, reading and working out of course, but I also want to cross as many things off of my Things to do Before I Die List (aka bucket list) as possible.

Another thing I want to do (which also kinda works with my list, since it's on there in a way) is get this blog into shape and then get more followers. I need to come up with a schedule/plan and then stick with it. I need to put myself out there, not to mention get my butt in gear when it comes to the whole reason I have this blog in the first place, which is my writing.

There's a lot that needs to be done and since I've felt more productive in the last week than I have in the last 6 months, I have high hopes that great things will happen.

January Goals
Read 3000 pages
Write 1000 words a day
Workout 3 hours a week

All goals are of course at least that amount. More is always better.

Update for January Goals: I have read more than 4000 pages this month, so at least I've gotten one goal met. The rest have been left hanging while I got rid of the nasty cold. Now that I can breathe again, working out might actually commence. And now that I am caught up and feeling comfortable with life, I can actually start writing again. I am really mostly happy with life right now.

It's NaNo Time!

Normally I spend November entering a whole new world in the hopes that I’ll finally win (write 50,000 words in a month) NaNoWriMo. This year I spent most of October going back and forth about whether or not I should start yet another project. I have a ton of ideas, one of which I’ve been really wanting to dive into, but I also have two projects that are in progress that I want to finish. What I finally decided is that I’m going to participate in my very own NaNo that has slightly altered rules that fit what I need/want to do before the end of the year.

So my goal is to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. Those words can be while working on Genevieve’s first draft rewrite or on Caitlin’s zero draft. As long as I’m working on one (or both) of those that’s what matters. I’m going to try to only count new words when working on Genevieve, but I also don’t want to get discouraged which could lead to being sidetracked, which I definitely don’t need. My ultimate goal is to have a zero draft of Caitlin and a 1^st draft of Genevieve done by midnight on December 31^st. I think they are completely doable, especially with my handy new tiny laptop that is far more portable then my gaming 17” laptop.

While working this out part of me wanted to include blog posts as words towards my goal as well as any research/writing I do on other projects, because I really want to regulate my blog schedule and get the first layer of research done for Grayson’s project, but I wasn’t sure if I should. After a month and a half of no writing whatsoever I really want to get back in the swing of things which means I need to do it all, writing, researching and blogging. Having those words count towards my goal will not only help keep me motivated towards meeting my goal, but they will help motivate me to actually do what I want/need to do. It never ceases to annoy me that my last blog post was over a month (or sometimes even longer) ago, yet I constantly slack off instead of posting like I should.

Now that I’ve put my goals in writing I’m off to write…well work really, then write once I’m home. Good luck to anyone else participating in NaNo or their own version of it. I know we are all going to need it.

NaNo Goal Metric

First Draft...Coming Right Up?

Well I finally finished editing Genevieve's zero draft which was nice. Now it's on to the first draft, which I realized is going to be way harder than the zero draft. I want to keep the great parts that I've already written and make greater parts, but that means two word docs open at the same time, which is easy at home, but not so much at work (where I wrote a lot of the zero draft). This means I'm really going to have to get my ass in gear and write more at home. Ultimately this is what I want anyway, but that's also easier said than done. I need to just think about how badly I would regret life if I never got to the end of the book. I need to finish at least one book that's worthy of submission. If I don't, I'll hate myself and I never want to do that again.

Knowing that I need to make some changes in my daily life where writing is concerned, I've been keeping a writing diary. Every day I notate what I did writing wise and what my daily distractions and feelings were. There are a lot of days that I did nothing in the month that I've been doing the writing diary and it sucks. A lot of those days seem to be that I was too sick or too tired to bother. But if writing was my day job, it wouldn't matter how tired or sick I was, I'd still have to write. I need to remember that. Although it's hard to do that when I've worked all day at my real day job and all I want to do is sleep or veg out when I get home. I have to find the balance.

Thankfully I have great friends who are encouraging me to do it. They are making me remember that I don't want to have any regrets. Maybe if I can get this writing thing under control I'll consider the other life changing prospect I've been thinking about...dating. A scary concept considering I don't do relationships (I haven't been in a real relationship in something like 13 years) and I'm not 100% sure I'm ready to stop being selfish and share my life with someone else. I guess we'll see. Until then it's writing, writing, writing!!! And a promise to blog more than once every 1-2 months. That's not cool.

And So It Begins...Again

Two months...two freaking months since I last blogged. How incredibly lame. What's even worse is that I have very little to show for those two months of silence. Up until this past Saturday (August 11th) I hadn't touched Genevieve. I have only written an extra 1,000 words on Caitlin and I still have no concrete plans for Grayson. I read 40 books over the last two months which is about average for me anyway. I worked out for about two weeks in there and then stopped right before my vacation (which ended yesterday). I absolutely hate that when I break everything down like this, I have nothing to show for the last two months of my life. Even factoring in hanging out with friends and family, there is still a lot of time that I probably spent sitting on my ass watching tv or spacing out or playing video games.

To make matters a little worse, school supplies are filling up the stores around here and it's making me sad. I actually really miss being in school. I miss the structure and the deadlines. I actually went online the other day to look at continuing education course options, but realized that since I can barely afford food sometimes, that paying to go to school when I'm still paying for my BA would be a dumb idea. So then I went online and looked at syllabi for different classes thinking that maybe if I created my own syllabus for each project I have (writing, reading and working out) then maybe I would actually get stuff done and become a productive person again. I'm seriously considering this, but I'm not sure how yet.

All I know is that I need to get back to how I was when I was in school three years ago. I juggled working full time, taking 2-3 classes a semester and still had a social life. Now I just need to do the same thing and I can't seem to figure out how. I better have it figured out by September 1st though because whether I like it or not things are going to change because they have to. Hopefully though I'll get it figured out soon and then I'll have a soft launch into this new life situation, which is always the best way to go I think.

Bits and Pieces: Sucktastic

Once again I've been pretty lame at remembering to blog. I don't have any really good excuses...not that any excuse is a good excuse. I haven't been particularly busy although I've been trying to keep myself buried in writing. While Genevieve's still titleless story is sitting waiting for me to read and edit the zero draft, I've been trying to figure out where I want to take Caitlin's story. I have 15,000 words written there, but I'm a little stuck and unsure of what I had already plotted out. While I'm stuck with that I've been researching ideas for Grayson's world. I'll definitely be going down the Greek myth road, just not sure how much or what else will be added.

Aside from writing, I've been wasting time playing Castleville. Procrastination and distractions worked wonders while I was in school, so I'm hoping it'll work now. What I really need to do is set up strict deadlines like I had in school. Even though I was up burning the midnight oil more than once I never turned in a paper late and I always got great grades on them.

Last, but definitely not least a friend of mine passed away yesterday and it's been hard to not think about him and start crying. I know that he wouldn't want me to sit around and be sad. Even when he was at his worst and the Leukemia and his cerebral palsy had him down, he was still the most positive and optimistic person I knew. He has inspired me to be a better person, so hopefully I will eventually make him proud whereever he is.

Back to Reality

At the end of every May I take a mental health break from my day job for at least a week. This year I planned on working a lot on Genevieve's story while also recovering from getting a tooth pulled and some other dental work done. But plans always seem to change. I finished Genevieve's zero draft the Friday before my vacation so that took her out of the equation. Thought maybe I'd work on one of my other projects, but then the dental work and subsequent Vicodin pain pills took a lot out of me so I spent a lot of my vacation sleeping or just lounging. I did, however, read 9 books while I was lounging and watched a lot of tv, more specifically a lot of Storage Wars...I can't seem to get enough of that weird show.

Now it's time to get back to reality. Day job comes first and then it's all about the little things. I have 9 book reviews to write, a workout routine to well..workout, I'm gonna let Genevieve sit another week and then it's on to her 1st draft. In the meantime I'll be trying to put stuff together for Grayson's story and maybe working a little on Caitlin's story. And of course on top of all of that I have a ton of books in my TBR pile and WoW characters that need a little playing. I guess it's a good thing that I'm so broke I have no money to do anything but hang out at home.

Now that I'm back, blog schedule will proceed as usual, although Tuesday and Thursday are swapping this week. Bits and Pieces today and book review on Thursday. Here's to getting things rolling.