Only a Few More Hours

We are a few hours away from the New Years.  Or at least I am.  And I'm excited.  A little nervous for it, but very excited.  I really need to be productive but I have been very lazy today.  I would be lying if I said that I haven't been.  It's not necessarily a bad thing.  I have a lot of writing that I have to do tomorrow.  And I am determined to get that writing done.

I'm excited for this year.  This year's goal is actually for me to write a million words.  I know it's a lot.  But I have faith in myself.  Especially with the fact that I did manage to get a little over a hundred thousand back in November.  I just basically have to go back to that pace.  And I know that I can keep it up.  Especially if I continue my enthusiasm.  That is the key honestly.  I usually don't.  I know that is my problem.  Thus knowing the problem I do have more of a chance to fix it.  I am certain of it.

And it will be good for me.  If I don't set myself a goal that I am uncertain of than I won't know if I could ever do it.  I guess that  is why I want to push myself so hard.  And I have a group that I'm a part of now that will be there to encourage me the whole way.  So I know that I can do it.  So I just have to keep trying.

I know it's a really short one, but I thought I should at least say hello this week.  Happy New Year's!

Call It Progress

FIRST OFF!  Before I do anything else.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Alright, now that I have that out of my system, onto the rest of the blog.

So I have made some progress over the last few days.  Like I have updated a story on fictionpress.com.  You know it only took my like five or six months.  Which is actually better than some of my other records when it comes to fictionpress and fanfiction so I can't really complain too much in that area though I really do need to get better on that whole thing.

I also started a new story on fanfiction.net and deleted several other ones.  Sad, yes, but it is something I felt was necessary.  The ones that I might actually go back to I saved first though so that's a benefit right?  I mean I would like to think that I managed to do something right!  Of course I could be wrong and have utterly screwed up everything but stranger things have happened.

Anyway, I'm starting to get kind of excited for the new year mostly because I am hoping to actually do well this year for WriYe.  That being the year long spin-off of NaNoWriMo. It's unofficial, but still loads of fun and I am honestly looking forward to a lot of the stuff that I have planned for it.  I figure as long as I at least write a little bit every day I'll do a lot better than I did last year.  Not that that is saying something as I made about a third of my goal that I had for last year.  I am much ashamed of that fact.

But let's just hope that everything goes well.  Because with me, you never know.  I might not do what I'm supposed to and that would make me most sad.

Looking For Words After the End of the World

I'm not sure if we should be thanking Renegade and his wife or The Doctor for saving the world yesterday (100 points to whoever got that first reference and 50 for the second).

But since it has been saved, I did get to see the Hobbit last night.  It was amazing.  I loved it.  I'm such a nerd that I'm already planning a huge marathon for when all of the Hobbit is done starting with Unexpected Journey straight through Return of the King (extended editions of course).

But to the true point of all of this.  Despite my general laziness lately, I am very proud to say that I actually did write yesterday.  I wrote quite a bit actually.  Over eight thousand words I believe.  I was aiming for twelve, but The Hobbit called my name.  Well and my boyfriend when he arrived at the mall after work.  But I digress.

I'm really happy that I made myself write yesterday.  It got me through a lot of scenes that I might have put off which I really have to stop doing.  I have to treat this story much like the first.  I have to follow it through to the end no matter how much I may or may not like that conclusion.  But considering how things are going I have a feeling I am going to have to toss my trilogy idea out of the window.  And I really did think I could make this a trilogy.  But I don't think that I can anymore.  There is just too much in this world, too many characters too many paths to follow and ideas to discover.  Especially since even I am discovering new things about the world.

Can't mention what though.  Spoilers and all.

But with Christmas coming up and since I'm off three days in a row after 6:30 tonight, I think I am going to have to force myself to go through more scenes.  It's scary, but it's exciting.  I like discovering things about the characters and trying to figure out why some characters who were only in a scene or two in the book before might become important or have an impact that justifies the scenes that you saw them in before.  Though I'm still trying to figure out why I should let them live, but I am trusting these characters to tell me their stories and I am determined to see it all the way through to the end.  I owe them that much.

They trusted me with their words in the first place.  The least that I could do is make sure that I show them a proper justice.

Consistency

I have an issue with it.  There is no other way to explain it.  I think that I need an active challenge to actually force myself to do something day after day.  Such as a job that gives me a paycheck, or in the case of NaNo, a goal that is in sight.  Even the goals I tend to fall through on.  Though Texas has been pretty good for me on that area, another reason I'm certain I'm meant to be down here.  But this blog is about my writing and not the other issues in my life.  Unless of course they interfere with my writing, but that is another matter entirely.

God I'm rambling.

That might be because I've been up for less than an hour.  I'm going to use that excuse because it sounds better than anything else that I can think of.

So, last night I was writing (novel concept I know, and yes that pun can be counted though it wasn't fully realized at first) and I was having fun.  Fairly disappointed by one of the scenes.  I try to make them about 1,000 words each.  Alright, I should explain this before I get too far into this whole thing and have anyone who comes and actually reads this highly confused.  The latest novel I have been writing, I do an italicized scene with usually no names.  It's short, usually only like two to five hundred words.  Very rarely are there more.  And then I do two scenes which make up a chapter and are thus linked somehow.  Then repeat.  Well the action scenes are the ones that I am talking about.

The one that disappointed me only got out 622 words.  Looking back for the future of editing: I have no idea if I'd be able to make it longer.  It's a really simple and short scene.  I think I milked it for all I could without drawing it out and making it utterly boring and that would be bad for both pace and my sanity.  So, clearly that is not the option.  I must simply accept that it is a sad fail of a scene length though it did give me some fun play with one of the characters that wasn't very developed in the first novel.

But it's being made up for by the scene I'm working on right now.  I finally got back to the main city from the first book and I have to say that I really missed some of the characters there.  Have no idea what in the world that they're going to be doing in this novel considering where I left them in the last one, but I really do love them!

Shame on Me

So I'm supposed to be writing daily.  Not necessarily blogging daily, but at least writing and I haven't really been doing that.  That makes me a very terrible person.  I know that I need to remedy this, I just keep being lazy and not.  Instead I have been doing other things.  Like I have discovered this site called duolingo.  It's pretty awesome.  Basically you learn a language (right now it has the options for Spanish, French, and German with a Portuguese beta for us English speakers.  And while you learn you also work on translating web pages.  I have come to discover that the only part about it that really frustrates me is  when you have to use the computer's mic to record you saying something in the language.  For some reason it hates me and enjoys making me repeat the sentences over and over and over again before it will admit that I have them right.

It's a very distracting pastime, but it's one that I am coming to enjoy far too much.  So, that leaves me with the other things that I have been allowing to distract me.  I've gotten back into roleplaying.  It's like a drug, a terribly addicting drug.  It is also bad for my writing. I tend to not want to write when I roleplay.  And I know better.  I really do, but I can't seem to help it.  I love the company and I love the story lines that you can create.  So it won't be something that I plan to give up.  I guess that the key is for me to figure out how to balance the two.  I know it is possible.  I just have to be smarter than my desires.

Oh God that sounds like a terrible line.

Oh, I have also picked crocheting back up.  But that is a very good thing.  If I keep at it that means I can start up a side business and make myself some money and I want that.  I very much want to do that.  I just have been putting it off because I am very terribly lazy.  It's not good for me.  I know that, but it would be good if I did it.  And if I could write poetry I could sell that, but I think I need more practice with it.  I'm not very good at writing poetry in my opinion.  If I could get better and improve my penmanship than I would be in excellent condition.  I guess it's all about that perseverence thing.

At least I have my friend at work though.  Miss Emily has been very kind to me taking up on an offer and has started editing my NaNo novel for me.  I plan to edit it as well.  I'm just putting that off.  I have a very bad habit of doing that.  I don't like editing after all.  I'll have to though.  Especially since I have already started the sequel.  That part is going slow.  I think part of that is because I haven't actually been writing daily.  If I did than there wouldn't be a problem.  At least I would hope that there wouldn't be one.

Something Serious

I've decided that I seriously need to throw myself into writing again.  Reading is good.  Playing video games is great stress relief.  Work is essential.  But writing is something that I tend to have a bad habit of doing and then letting slide for several months at a time.  I can't continue to do that.  The more that I do that, the less likely that I will ever be to actually do what I want to do one day which is to be published.

And I know that's the goal of a lot of people who call themselves writes, but this is something I have wanted for years.  It's something I've wanted for as long as I have been writing which has been probably over ten years now.  No, definitely over ten years now.  It's weird to think that I've been writing that long and yet not that long at all.  Writing has become something so essential to me.  It's as much a part of me as breathing or eating.

But I'm really good at neglecting the things that I need in my life.

I guess that's the real reason why I slack, I have a bad habit of not caring about myself.  Because of that, I neglect the things that matter to me and inc this case, that would very sadly include my writing.  So my goal is to use this blog to force myself to write.  That and my lovely friend Emily.  She's amazing like that and since she does have access to me I know that she can bother me into writing and I can do it to her in return.  It's a great system and honestly I think it's something we both need.

Besides, why should I give up something I love so much, something that keeps me sane, just because I don't think I should be cared about.  And maybe I'll get into the habit of writing in this blog daily or weekly or something like that.  It might help to serve as motivation and I think that'll help me out a lot.

Apparently, Texas is very good for me because I have now been in this state for over a year and the first time I won NaNoWriMo was, you guessed it, right here in Texas.  It's as if the state has this miraculous hold on me.  And to make it that much more amazing, both times, I also managed to finish the novel in the very same month.  The first had a working title of London in the Spring, a coming-of-age historical adventure which will probably be edited again several more times.  This latest one, however, is i my pride and joy.  This year I wrote a novel that I call The Faithful, the first book in a series called the Prophecy of the Goddess.  I reverted back to my beloved fantasy genre but added a more dystopic twist to everything.

Thus you have a monster of a novel (over one hundred thousand words in total).  A monster that I am more than a little proud of.  I worked very hard on it.  And now I face the daunting task of both editing it and writing the first sequel.  I'm both excited and terrified at the prospect, but it also fills me with joy.  I guess that's how I know that I'm doing the right thing.  Nothing could make me happier than to do these things.