Well it looks like jury duty is over for me. Wednesday would be my last day and they didn't call me for it so yay! Now it's time to just... do nothing!
Not really. I need to keep on top of my writing and I need to clean some things, finish some late Christmas gifts, and yada yada. Finally got out to see the Hobbit though. Not as good as Lord of the Rings or a lot of my friends cracked it up to be but still enjoyable nonetheless.
Love Thorin.
Hated the book but now I want to reread it because I'm seriously confused. Either it's not at all how I remember it or the movie changed some things. I can't buy the book with my gift card until I know what my friend sent me for Christmas though. Bah!
It's ok though, I bought Wicked and Mistborn so I should finish at least one of those first anyway.
And I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by Mistborn. I'm not too far into it but it's pretty well written and reminds me of the books I read when I was younger. It isn't filled with a million 'was', 'were', anything ending in 'ly', or adjectives. It's a very pleasant read and thus far an interesting enough story to keep you reading even when not much is happening.
I didn't expect good writing, and not because of the writer, the genre, or anything on the book itself. Merely because all I'm ever recommended or find much of anymore is crap; which is not to say I'm any better when it comes to writing, but I can't read stuff like that. Too many writing instructors have taught me how wrong it is. And I continue to believe my teachers.
And certain rules just should not be 'worked around' or 'broken'.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Make It Your Own
Finally got back to writing my story!
I got the enlightenment I'd been waiting for. I was told something like this: "You make your own world, live it, and then open it up for others to experience". Said by a very wise man while waiting in jury duty to see if our names would be called. Luckily they weren't.
And that was just what I needed to hear for some reason. So I rewrote the first page of my apocalypse story... again. But I don't really have a choice, considering the whole plot has now been written out in short story form, I'm just going to have to keep rewriting it and expanding it until it's full length and good enough to be opened up for others to enter.
If I see Sarah this weekend, I may give her my current rough draft for her input and ideas.
Although, I've discovered that it's a little embarassing to have people read first drafts of anything, and though this is, according to my save count, draft ten, and possibly further due to my lazy saves at the beginning, it's still very rough in the added on spots. But I'm sure she won't judge me.
And if she does, that's what critique is for.
I got the enlightenment I'd been waiting for. I was told something like this: "You make your own world, live it, and then open it up for others to experience". Said by a very wise man while waiting in jury duty to see if our names would be called. Luckily they weren't.
And that was just what I needed to hear for some reason. So I rewrote the first page of my apocalypse story... again. But I don't really have a choice, considering the whole plot has now been written out in short story form, I'm just going to have to keep rewriting it and expanding it until it's full length and good enough to be opened up for others to enter.
If I see Sarah this weekend, I may give her my current rough draft for her input and ideas.
Although, I've discovered that it's a little embarassing to have people read first drafts of anything, and though this is, according to my save count, draft ten, and possibly further due to my lazy saves at the beginning, it's still very rough in the added on spots. But I'm sure she won't judge me.
And if she does, that's what critique is for.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Another Day, Another Dollar...
Another writer's block.
If they were real, physical blocks, I could build myself a house. I finished my short story and got stuck on how to expand it and then got five hundred new ideas.
I really like one idea, but admittedly it's inspired by one of my classmate's writing and I don't want to rip off his ideas. But I've been dying to do something Egyptian (his was Norse) and I just don't know. Then I have another idea, but I'm lacking a plot. And then my short story I'm stuck on how to expand it. And my fantasy idea just doesn't have the follow through of a deep story.
Maybe that's the foundation of writer's block.
So in that case, let's say that writer's block is caused by a lack of information for the writer to follow. Let's also say that even the best writer's get this, because I've heard tales, yet no one has ever given me a cure. But if my theory holds true, that it's the lack of information that causes the block to appear.
So we'll use my fantasy idea as an example.
Main plot: man searches for cure for his curse.
Pretty straightforward curse, pretty cliche plotline. He meets, somehow, two companions, maybe a third just to balance out genders... maybe. But anywho, as it stands, two companions. And it's set in a fantasy world. So where does he come from? A tropical area? An island? A desert? A large city? A forest?
Maybe not the best idea; that needs a world.
So perhaps my other idea, because I'm feeling lazy on planning. Man I miss the days when it was just all there in my head...
So scene change to Egyptian mythology. (Though a second theory is nestling its way in my head where writer's block is caused by a writer's laziness to gather needed information -- but I don't know if that would apply to the big namers).
Modern day sort of. In a fantasy word. Desert, befitting Egypt. Probably just do these for drabbles to get myself into the writing mode. But I don't want these to be detective stories; because it seems everyone takes mythologies, especially Norse, and makes them into modern detective stories. So how do you take something as crazy as sibling marriages and inter-family murders and make them not detective? And not the definition of dysfunction?
Maybe I'm just not as into these as I thought. Maybe I need to return to the story idea that got this whole ball rolling again...
Guess my little theory got nowhere, would help if I didn't get distracted with book buying. Ha!
If they were real, physical blocks, I could build myself a house. I finished my short story and got stuck on how to expand it and then got five hundred new ideas.
I really like one idea, but admittedly it's inspired by one of my classmate's writing and I don't want to rip off his ideas. But I've been dying to do something Egyptian (his was Norse) and I just don't know. Then I have another idea, but I'm lacking a plot. And then my short story I'm stuck on how to expand it. And my fantasy idea just doesn't have the follow through of a deep story.
Maybe that's the foundation of writer's block.
So in that case, let's say that writer's block is caused by a lack of information for the writer to follow. Let's also say that even the best writer's get this, because I've heard tales, yet no one has ever given me a cure. But if my theory holds true, that it's the lack of information that causes the block to appear.
So we'll use my fantasy idea as an example.
Main plot: man searches for cure for his curse.
Pretty straightforward curse, pretty cliche plotline. He meets, somehow, two companions, maybe a third just to balance out genders... maybe. But anywho, as it stands, two companions. And it's set in a fantasy world. So where does he come from? A tropical area? An island? A desert? A large city? A forest?
Maybe not the best idea; that needs a world.
So perhaps my other idea, because I'm feeling lazy on planning. Man I miss the days when it was just all there in my head...
So scene change to Egyptian mythology. (Though a second theory is nestling its way in my head where writer's block is caused by a writer's laziness to gather needed information -- but I don't know if that would apply to the big namers).
Modern day sort of. In a fantasy word. Desert, befitting Egypt. Probably just do these for drabbles to get myself into the writing mode. But I don't want these to be detective stories; because it seems everyone takes mythologies, especially Norse, and makes them into modern detective stories. So how do you take something as crazy as sibling marriages and inter-family murders and make them not detective? And not the definition of dysfunction?
Maybe I'm just not as into these as I thought. Maybe I need to return to the story idea that got this whole ball rolling again...
Guess my little theory got nowhere, would help if I didn't get distracted with book buying. Ha!
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Editing, Rewriting, and Nothing
Bleeeeeeeeeh.
I don't know what my problem is, maybe it's because I'm just so tired. My body aches, I've put in extra hours at work two days in a row now (just to find out that I may not have a job come next year), I slept an extra ten minutes on accident this morning, and I could barely keep my eyes open through most of the morning... But I've been staring at my word document for over an hour now and nothing is coming. I can't focus on it, I can't see the bigger picture of it, I can't see how things are going together.
I need an outside voice, but of course none of my friends are available.
I'm on page... two? Which I think I just shortened to one. I still have eighteen or nineteen pages to edit...
And what's worse... I have nothing of the first story left in the beginning and I'm thinking of cutting out more of the original...
UGH. I get the feeling I"m not doing myself any good here...
I don't know what my problem is, maybe it's because I'm just so tired. My body aches, I've put in extra hours at work two days in a row now (just to find out that I may not have a job come next year), I slept an extra ten minutes on accident this morning, and I could barely keep my eyes open through most of the morning... But I've been staring at my word document for over an hour now and nothing is coming. I can't focus on it, I can't see the bigger picture of it, I can't see how things are going together.
I need an outside voice, but of course none of my friends are available.
I'm on page... two? Which I think I just shortened to one. I still have eighteen or nineteen pages to edit...
And what's worse... I have nothing of the first story left in the beginning and I'm thinking of cutting out more of the original...
UGH. I get the feeling I"m not doing myself any good here...
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Congratulations, You're the Millionth Attempt
So I've done this... too many times to count, but in an attempt to write regularly and collect my thoughts about works-in-progress and to clear my head for the writing process, I am yet again attempting to create a blog solely for my writing. This shall include things I'm reading, because that's important as a writer as well. So, I suppose to begin, I shall start from the now-so-titled beginning.
Ursa Major. It's now nineteen, newly roughly written pages long, which is the problem. I have too many things I want to do with it, too many ways to go, and too much yet to explore to cap it off at twenty pages, which is the class requirement. Ultimately, I will carry it out much longer and make it last several days rather than now two. The hard part, again, is telling the shortened version of the story in twenty pages and two nights/days. Which is why I haven't work on it in, oh let's say, a week?
And every time I go to sit down and work on this, I see that daunting nineteen pages and leave the word document for another day. Well with probably about a half hours time before my father gets home and the hecticness of adding more Christmas decorations to our house, it's about time I get to work, but I can't. I have two pages, because I am allowed to go that very last allowed period on page twenty, of wiggle room. What do I need to put into this wiggle room? A connection of her deciding she needs to look for water and her recollection of being eleven and hearing the announcement that the virus has become a problem. The edits to the beginning and the water issue, the expansion of the memories, the revised description of this disease, and probably a few places here and there that need editing, revision, and add-ons... In two pages or less...
So to help collect my thoughts, I have created this playlist:
1. Safe and Sound Taylor Swift (feat. The Civil Wars)
2. Deliver Me Sarah Brightman
3. Into the West Howard Shore & Annie Lennox
4. Gollum's Song Howard Shore & Helen Hobson
5. Run To Your Mama Hardcore Superstar
6. Hide and Seek Imogen Heap
7. I Dreamed a Dream Elley
8. The Last Unicorn Declan
9. Come, Little Children (Someone off Youtube)
10. Nocturne Secret Garden
11. Lilium (Saint Version) Manga Star
12. Celtic Requiem Simon Power
13. Pearl of the Stars Coheed and Cambria
14. In The Sea Ingrid Michaelson
15. Illuminated Hurts
16. A Conversation with God Darren Hayes
17. Angeline (Radio Edit) Groove Coverage
18. Atonement Dario Marianelli
19. Remember Josh Groban
20. Lullaby Emily Rossum
21. Anymore Emily Rossum
22. It's In The Rain Enya
23. Once Upon a Dream Anael
And that's sort of what's putting in the setting for this, though I wish I had some darker things. Oh well. Let's see if we can get the main rough draft done by the end of the day.
Ursa Major. It's now nineteen, newly roughly written pages long, which is the problem. I have too many things I want to do with it, too many ways to go, and too much yet to explore to cap it off at twenty pages, which is the class requirement. Ultimately, I will carry it out much longer and make it last several days rather than now two. The hard part, again, is telling the shortened version of the story in twenty pages and two nights/days. Which is why I haven't work on it in, oh let's say, a week?
And every time I go to sit down and work on this, I see that daunting nineteen pages and leave the word document for another day. Well with probably about a half hours time before my father gets home and the hecticness of adding more Christmas decorations to our house, it's about time I get to work, but I can't. I have two pages, because I am allowed to go that very last allowed period on page twenty, of wiggle room. What do I need to put into this wiggle room? A connection of her deciding she needs to look for water and her recollection of being eleven and hearing the announcement that the virus has become a problem. The edits to the beginning and the water issue, the expansion of the memories, the revised description of this disease, and probably a few places here and there that need editing, revision, and add-ons... In two pages or less...
So to help collect my thoughts, I have created this playlist:
1. Safe and Sound Taylor Swift (feat. The Civil Wars)
2. Deliver Me Sarah Brightman
3. Into the West Howard Shore & Annie Lennox
4. Gollum's Song Howard Shore & Helen Hobson
5. Run To Your Mama Hardcore Superstar
6. Hide and Seek Imogen Heap
7. I Dreamed a Dream Elley
8. The Last Unicorn Declan
9. Come, Little Children (Someone off Youtube)
10. Nocturne Secret Garden
11. Lilium (Saint Version) Manga Star
12. Celtic Requiem Simon Power
13. Pearl of the Stars Coheed and Cambria
14. In The Sea Ingrid Michaelson
15. Illuminated Hurts
16. A Conversation with God Darren Hayes
17. Angeline (Radio Edit) Groove Coverage
18. Atonement Dario Marianelli
19. Remember Josh Groban
20. Lullaby Emily Rossum
21. Anymore Emily Rossum
22. It's In The Rain Enya
23. Once Upon a Dream Anael
And that's sort of what's putting in the setting for this, though I wish I had some darker things. Oh well. Let's see if we can get the main rough draft done by the end of the day.
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