A New Project

So I have started a new project.  Again.  That happens a lot.  I have this really bad habit of starting new projects all the time and setting aside the old ones.  It's not necessarily a bad habit, but the problem lies in that I don't always pick the only projects back up.  I really need to get out of that habit.  And I am trying.  I've been bringing back up old projects as well as trying to force myself to edit even though, if I'm going to be honest, I really don't like to do it.  But I think that just comes with the territory.  Anyway, I wanted to share about this new project and hopefully get some feedback.

I do not have a name for it yet or anything like that.  Actually I don't have much of anything on it.  I simply know it is about one of my older characters.  Not older as in age as in she has been floating around my head as this this lovely little benevolent bit of light for a very long time.  So I suppose I should introduce you all to Malak Aarle.  I am not sure how old she will be this time around.  I've played her anywhere between sixteen years of age to about twenty-three.  It makes for a fairly wide age gap and leaves a lot open.  Malak's family is kind of a pet project of mine and has been since I first created her for role-playing on a Harry Potter site probably six years ago.  I have to say that I love Malak very dearly.

The family's main history starts with her grandfather, Falco Aarle.  Falco was born and raised in the Netherlands, a son of modest folk who married a woman from his homeland.  During World War II (see this is where I start dating things), he stepped forward as a spy against the German and became heavily involved in various political intrigues.  He sent his wife and parents to live in England to make sure that they remained safe while he did some very dangerous and clever things that he has never divulged to anyone except for, sometimes, proper channels of government.

After the way was over, he joined his family in England and settled down with his wife having two children with her, a son named David and a daughter.  His children were raised in England though he did still teach them them his native language of Dutch.  For all his children knew, their father was a botanist.  He worked very closely with plants and consulted with the government on various matters.  They never knew of his darker past or even his involvement in things like the Cold War.

David grew up with a very normal life and went into architecture.  He moved down to Saudi Arabia as a contractor shortly after he left school which was where he met a rather modern Arab woman named Ayda.  The two ended up married and while still in Saudi Arabia, Ayda gave birth to twins who they named Malak and Aeyldis.  When their daughters were two, the couple moved back to England near Falco and his wife.  Within the next four years, Ayda gave birth to two other children, Karim and DeWitt.  David's sister had stayed closer to home marrying a banker and giving birth to a little girl a year after Malak and Aeyldis who they named Emerald.

As you can see, I've always given a lot of thought to Malak and her family.  Now the problem doesn't lie with figuring any of that out.  I know her background and when I write about her, it will probably be when she is in her twenties since some very important things happen around the time she is eighteen.  However, the most interesting aspect of writing Malak, since apparently she has already decided the story shall be in first person, is that she is blind.  It brings the story into a new perspective.  Everything in writing is so much about building pictures and here you have a woman who can only do that with her mind.  I'm not sure how I'm going to write it or even what, so far, the story will be about, but I do know that drawing the reader in with a blind narrator should be the most challenging part of all.

Should I go forward with it at all?  I suppose that is the question that I find myself needing the answer to the most.  I very much want to.  I've always wanted to write about Malak, but the question is does anyone even really want to read about her?

I'm Good at Excuses

So clearly I have not been writing lately.  Almost a month at this point which is really not good for you when you love writing as much as I do which I know a lot of you out there do.  I have been writing, but it's been for my roleplay sites which isn't a bad thing.  It's really good for socializing and it's also very good for character development.  So I won't knock it, but I haven't been focusing on my actual writing either which is the bad thing.

And I'm really good at making excuses for why I'm not writing or why I can put it off another day.  I'll even just sit there and kind of stare at a document sometimes and say well I can't think of anything so maybe I'll try again later.  And that is not the way that it is supposed to work when it comes to writing and I know that very well.  So I guess at this point there is no real excuse.  I have to stop doing this to myself.  I have to start sitting down and forcing myself to write unlike I have been.  Which means working on everything.  It'll help in  less than two weeks when Camp NaNoWriMo starts.  Of course I'll have to kick my butt into gear and write about ten times what I would normally write which is good for me because I think I need it.

I need to start looking at my writing more seriously.  I have the free time to do it these days.  That is what happens when you get laid off.  Not that I'm not still looking for a job.  I wouldn't be getting unemployment if I wasn't looking.  But when I'm not hunting there is no reason why I can't be writing or editing.  I have to get through my novels and start actually getting them ready for a point where I could reasonably publish them which is definitely something that I want.  It is a goal that I have never forgotten despite my failings in the area of my writing.

I am getting back into my writing though.  Just last night I decided to dust off an old idea and see if I could breath some new life into it.  I have actually been doing that quite a bit this year.  I am doing that for my Camp novel as well for the novel idea that I am developing for the Two Year Novel Course on FM Writers. So honesty I think that everything is working out really well.  Now the key is if I can keep the momentum or not.

Coming Back Again

So I decided to swing by my blog today when I realized that I have been failing miserably on my whole goal of writing in this blog once a week.  In my own defense I have had some issues with my life that have come up lately, but honestly that should have pushed me closer to writing and not further from it.  And I know that looking at it.  Logically I can see that, but I guess logic isn't always something that we look at.

Over this last month I was laid off from my job.  I loved it.  But unfortunately the corporate office decided that there were too many people.  None of us had done anything wrong.  So they had to resort to the two of us who had been hired last and unfortunately I was one of them.  And that has been really hard for me.  I know that I have to find a new job, but I haven't been able to find anything.

I have applied, but I haven't been able to get a job yet.  And it's affecting me.  I know that it is.  I didn't even cry or throw a fit when I was laid off.  I think I've been burying it.  I haven't felt anything at all about it.  And I hate that.  I know that I should be able to feel something.  I know that I should have been upset.  The other girl was and I wish that I could have been as well.  But I have nothing.  It's like I died a little inside instead.

I died and I haven't been able to admit it to myself.

And maybe that is why I haven't been able to get myself to write.  I've been so worked up about what I lost and not knowing how to express it that I have virtually stopped writing.  I guess I'm still doing some writing.  I have been role-playing, but that isn't the same.  And I know that.  I think it helps that I have started a collaboration project lately.  I'm part of a facebook group from a group of us from NaNoWriMo.  Myself and one of the other women are working on a fantasy novel together and we have just meshed really well.  We both have somehow managed to just combine our ideas brilliantly.  It makes for a beautiful process.

And it's really encouraging me too.  It makes me want to go back to my writing.  That is why I decided that I am going to retry Milwordy.  I was supposed to start back in January but I only made it a few days before my brain just kind of gave out on me.  So it left me with about twenty-four thousand words for an entire month and that is a rather pathetic accomplishment.  At least it is for me.  I know that for other people it is really good and I am very proud of them.  But for me I know that I can do better.

That's why I am going to be starting another blog.  I'll still be using this one and trying to get back to the once a week posting of it.  I think it helps me a lot.  It helps me to get my thoughts in order since so much of my life revolves around writing.  Besides, I like this blog.  I enjoy being so frank and just getting to say what's on my mind.  I can't really do that in real life.  I don't think any of us can because we have to play parts or else we push everyone away.  Sometimes because we're too honest and sometimes because we have to admit that they drive us insane.

My parents and my ex-boyfriend (God I wish that ex wasn't there) fit into two different categories there.

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.

A Few Days, Just A Few Days

That's what I keep telling myself at least.  It's kinda hard when you're really excited however.  I mean, who can blame me?  I'm a writer.  Sure, I'm a student in college and that stuff is important, but writing is something...it's something key to my life.  It keeps me sane.  And yes I do mean that.  Writing is the perfect outlet.  That and I love just being able to do whatever.  I love being able to have some kind of control since me and control usually don't know each other, well...at all.  It's a simple fact of life.  That's why me and writing get a long so wonderfully.  And in five days, is NaNoWriMo.  Those of you who know it either think I'm insane or are right there with me.  That is another simple fact of life.

But I'm really excited.  I have my plot thought up.  At least the beginning.  And I have several characters though most of them are just kind of...well...they're more names than anything let's face it.  I mean they have positions in life, but that's about it.  I have no idea what kind of people they are, what they look like, none of it.   I just know why I need them in the story.

Though I have one far more serious problem.  My space key.  It keeps being evil.  I want to strangle it.  After all, if my words are sticking together, how can I properly number them?  Maybe death...naw, I probably just need to use some cotton swaps or something to clean out the junk under/around the keys.  I know that *sighs* I just really don't wanna >.<  I am such a bum.  It's terribly pathetic sometimes.  Like right now I should be working on reading through an assignment for a test.  Instead, I'm rping, playing on the NaNo forums and writing up this blog entry.  Yeah, definitely bum status.

Despite my bum status however, I still have my wonderful boyfriend.  And he is wonderful!  He's really sweet, great sense of humor, and he's doing NaNo too.  It's epic!  He's going more the fantasy route however which makes me uber jealous.  I love doing fantasy, but I'm trying to be good and write a novel that's strictly realist.  Yeah, it's gonna be hard for me.  I'm not a realism person.  I can be, never doubt it, I just happen to enjoy fantasy a lot more.  Especially when it's done right.  I have my opinions on fantasy, but I can mess with those later.  For now, I'll sign off and tell myself to study: a.k.a.- continue to mess around.