One Day More

Not only is that one of my favourite songs from Les Mis (my absolute favourite is probably Red and Black), that's also my NaNoWriMo count down! Cue hamsters singing! I'm so excited. This is my favourite month of the year, and something I always look forward to. It doesn't matter what else is going on that's yucky, this always makes everything brighter. Why? Because it gives you an amazing sense of purpose. I love that.

Anyway, I have homework that needs to get done ahead of time so I don't fall behind on WriMo. Good luck to all the other participants!

P.S. I'm pretty sure I've used that to title a post before. Obviously, I really like Les Miserables.

Another Way to Find Me

For those of you dying to see what I've been up to, I have twitter. I update it far more often than I blog, since it's better for being passive aggressive. Like usual, I'm littlestnewt - go follow me!

The Difficulty of NaNoWriMo

Or lack there of. Quite frankly, I don't find NaNoWriMo to be all that difficult. I can write a day and a half worth of words in half an hour, so except for the days when I fall behind and have to frantically drag my numbers back up, it's really not all that much of a stretch. This is why I can never understand why people find it so crazy. Realistically, it's not. It's, like, 15-20 minutes to get your daily word count. If someone were to put down their video games for that long, they could pull it off no problem. People are just scared of failing and if they don't try it, they can't fail. It's reeeeally hard to fail. 50 000 words is not that insane. It's just a first draft. You get used to it. So people who fluff around it need to get their heads in the game and give it a shot, or else just not talk about how crazy it is. Until you've tried it, you haven't got a clue, so don't be discouraging others from trying. It's worth it in the end.

All you need is a basic idea, and you're good to. Let it take you somewhere, and maybe it'll actually work for once and you'll like your characters because you're listening to them and what feels right. When it comes to a first draft, go with your gut instinct. You can run against the grain during your revisions, but spit out the goddamn story or it'll be in your head forever. Cheers, and good luck. Remember: it starts on Tuesday!

The Trouble With Length

I like to write novel length stories. Not the ridiculously long door jambs that are 1500 pages and usually full of suckish drivel (and commonly fantasy), but on the in between side. Generally around 75 000-100 000 words, so somewhat on the shorter side, depending on what genre you're looking at. My mind just thinks in ways that produces plot bunnies for really long story lines. Which is why I struggle with short stories. I simply cannot condense my ideas, and my mind won't give me anything straight to the point without millions of little subplots that need to be fully fleshed out to make sense. Therefore, the submission work is going slowly. I was just struck by an idea I had a while ago that would probably fit right in with one place. Whoot! Anyway, I wonder if I'm the only writer who struggles with this problem. I have a feeling I am.

Proper Submissions

I've decided on what shall be my new projects. In preparation for NaNoWriMo (less than a month away!!!!!), I'm going to be attempting to write a series of short stories. When I say series, I don't mean series series, like Harry Potter, I just mean a succession of them. They aren't going to be the same. At all. Hopefully. That's my goal, anyway.

Unfortunately, though, I shall be the only one to see these. For now. You see, it's long been a dream of mine to actually have something published, and since I've realized that the novel publishing just isn't going to happen for a while and I'm not even going to attempt it because people who are pretentious enough to write a first draft and assume it's good enough should never be published. In fact, they should have bricks thrown at them and rusty nails driven through their feet and the roofs of their mouths. I have very strong, hypocritical opinions on those who automatically assume that they're publishable that I shall likely address properly in another blog post at some time (I'll write myself a note on a sticky so I won't forget). Aaaanyway, I'm going to be writing these particular pieces in the hopes that after some serious revision, they may be ready for submission for the 2012 unsolicited season. While some places are okay with the work having being posted elsewhere, many places get very upset, so I'm not going to risk it. Therefore, my writing shall be kept strictly secret until it's either published or turned down so I can avoid legal ramifications. Besides, while I won't give away too much about the plot, I'll be blogging about NaNoWriMo non-stop, most likely, to give those of you who are too lazy to give it a shot an idea of what it's like. It's really not that hard. Seriously. I'm not one of the crazy people who can get a hundred thousand words before it's half over because I happen to have a life, but there's no reason not to try. Try it at least. Seriously.

POINT IS I'm writing again. Yeehaw.

Surviving

So, I'm having a bit of a rough time of things at school, but I'm getting through it. Hopefully I'll be able to get over myself enough to keep writing. I've been kinda keeping a journal but that's definitely for my eyes only, so it'd be nice to have something to show everyone for once. I may take to posting snippets of the story I'm working on on here. Probably not the entire thing. I don't even know if I'll ever show the internet the entire thing, but some of it will come to light. Cheers.

Startling Realization

I just realized that today is my last normal day at home forever. Tomorrow's my last day here, but the evening'll be different because I'll have to be ready for the morning. After Monday, everything changes forever. It's extraordinarily terrifying. But also exciting. There are a million new opportunities now. Anyway, back to writing my BRAND NEW STORY (that's actually going well). Cheers!

Walls

I've run into the wonderful problem that is writer's block. I'm hoping that by writing this blog post I can get into the proper head space to crawl into the mind of a character and get writing. It's at the point where this is causing me physical pain. I keep tensing up just about every muscle in my body (especially my forearms) and now everything is strained and sore (if it's not seizing). Plus now I keep psyching myself out. I can't just relax and write. Now I'm left just kind of struggling for a fully formed idea (I can't come up with enough plot for a paragraph, let alone an entire story - not that I usually write with a plot in mind). I keep thinking I have one and then I lose it. So we'll see. I'm going to go give it another shot. Ta-ta for now!