an old article I found in my Facebook memories. It’s from 2011, but I thought self-publishing readers/followers would enjoy reading a motivating article about success.
See, it is possible!
A new laptop.
I mean, that’s not all I want for Christmas. My list is actually pretty extensive of things I need (mostly clothes. I really need new sweaters for winter – although I’m hoping this is my last real winter…we’ll see about that), but I want to write!
(I won’t lie, I also want to be able to play The Sims again)
Right now, my laptop is a clunky Dell Inspiron that I bought the summer of 2010, right before I left for college. It’s gone through it’s share of drama, including a large-scale malware attack (perpetrated by me trying to watch episodes of ‘House’ for free on shady Internet websites) that resulted in it being completely reformatted.
It’s miraculously still alive, however it’s on its last legs. Right now, I can’t install any new software, I can’t open any Microsoft Office programs, it won’t recognize my iPhone so I can’t put new music on it (frownyface), it will not play videos, the sound doesn’t work, it has to stay plugged in or it’ll die within 5 minutes…the list goes ON AND ON.
It’s time for that computer to have a proper burial. But I need a new one first. I can write on it still (and I did during NaNo this year), but only online via Google Docs.
I can tell you what I wish I could have. Definitely on the Christmas list of my dreams, but I so bad want a Macbook. I had one in high school supplied by the school as a test to see if a “Digital Campus” could work. (Considering all the restrictions we ended up having by the time we graduated, I sincerely doubt it worked.) It’s just too bad they start over $900. Nobody is going to buy that for me. I’ll get one one day. I don’t need a Macbook to keep succeeding at writing. But someday down the road, my student loan payments won’t eat up half of my pay every month, and I can splurge on something like this.
So we’ll see. You can find a good laptop for $300 or less. The other big thing on my Christmas list costs more (possibly), but I can’t say for sure yet which one I want more at the moment.
If you have recommendations, please send them my way!
I’m starting a new segment of my blog, titled Monday Musings, where I write about whatever is on my mind that day. Sometimes reading/writing related, sometimes not. You never know. Here is MM #1.
You know, I started reading a book yesterday off my Goodreads list (a review will be coming soon!), and I’ll tell you — reading books just makes me want to write them so much. But never the current project(s) I’m working on. Nooooo. I always want to start something new.
I get lots of inspiration from what I read. That’s why I tend to read only the genres I enjoy writing in.
The book I’m reading is a thriller of sorts. A man gets abducted after being held up at his work. His life is thrown off schedule. It’s one of those books that makes you think about your life.
While reading this book, I started to think of my own abduction story (I have written one before. It was self-published through Createspace, and it does still exist on Amazon. But I’m not telling you anything else about it haha, because I was a senior in high school, and it’s not good). A basic plot started to form in my head. And I had to catch myself before I got too interested in it.
I already have two projects to finish, brain. Stop it. The worst thing I can do is to have so many projects going at once that I’ll never finish any of them. I’m on a schedule now. I have finish date goals for my two WIPs (see my new page!) and I need to stick to those.
It’s so hard though for me to shelve ideas like these. I’m excited about them now. How do I know if I’ll still be excited about it later? Maybe that’s the thing though. If I don’t love it as much then as I do now, was it not as much a priority as I thought?
What I’m telling myself right now is that I need to finish Cover Up. And when I can sit down and read through it, I can see once and for all if it can be salvaged at all, or if it needs to be completely redone from top to bottom. Currently, that’s what I’m thinking, but I haven’t actually reread any of it yet, so who really knows. If it needs to be redone completely, I can shelve it for awhile. Work on Where I Belong and then MAYBE pick up a new project along the way.
I guess this is all so foreign to me because ever since I graduated from college (May 2014), I took a hiatus from writing. I was reading during the summer while job hunting (I waited tables 4 nights a week. I had so much free time!), but putting my own ideas down wasn’t a priority. My major was English, dangit. I guess I just got exhausted from being forced to read and write for 4 years.
When I picked up on NaNo again this year, it was the first time I’d written since my last semester. Almost a full year and a half. Whew.
And now here I am, every idea swirling in my brain. I pick up a new book, love the plot so much that I want to write my own rendition of it, but then lose interest when another new idea comes to fruition later on.
I guess what I’m going to start doing is writing down my ideas. As much plot as I have in my brain at one time. Keeping them in a notebook full of all my other ideas. And when the time comes to really start a new one, I’ll have a book full of plotlines and characters. And I can choose which ones still get me excited about writing it.
So tell me: What do you do to keep the plot bunnies at bay?
Well, I’m back from my Turkey Day vacation!
+1 wedding dress, +1 great visit with my family, but -1 NaNoWriMo win.
Damn.
I went home with my laptop and all intentions of writing while I was there. I just needed one or two good days for the entire week we were travelling. But when I tried to write in the car, I was afraid we were going to die (I’m a super paranoid passenger in a car, okay). And we immersed ourselves in the vacation. We only get one a year with Brad’s job, so I didn’t particularly want to sit at my parent’s house and not get out and take advantage of the trip. We drove a loooong way.
I’m not mad at all either (surprisingly). I almost saw it coming. That’s why I so bad wanted to be at 50,000 words before we left. When I didn’t make it, I by no means gave up on the idea, but I let myself be okay with not winning this year.
I loved the consolation email I got on Tuesday. It was motivating!
You might not have hit 50,000 words this month, but you did something tremendously important:
-You felt a story stirring in your heart, and you began to explore it.
-You bravely signed up to make creativity a priority in November.
-You created a beginning—a beginning that will lead to other beginnings.
My favorite was the last bullet. I created a beginning of something. Well, more than a beginning, but I digress. Sure, what I do have done will need a LOT of work, but it’s more than so many people have done. And for that, I am proud.
I plan to finish this draft this month. At the very least, I have a 2-week Christmas break from work (yay for working in education!) so it WILL get done.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue avoiding reading anything of it yet. I didn’t do any of the reading I said I would do over Thanksgiving break either, so I need to get on that.
So if you won, congratulations! If you lost, you’re in good company here. Let’s ALL promise not to let this project fall to the wayside forever.
And I promise not to let this blog fall to the wayside as well. I’m determined to continue writing, reading, and posting updates on all of it as often as I can.
As promised, I have a found probably the least terrible snippet of my current NaNoWriMo project. It’s a little long, at 1,300 words or so. It’s the least dialogue-heavy section I have right now.
This is completely unedited (except of typos), and considering the entire novel needs to be reworked from the start come editing time, you can hold any criticism for later on. 🙂 I’m just sharing to share.
For the record, I barely even read this before I posted it. Haha.
Somehow my mind was still pretty numb to my situation. As I started driving away from the lake in Bree’s truck, I found myself wondering what could happen if I got caught. That maybe I’d make the wrong choice.
I could see it now: They found her body, connected my car on the scene and the caliber of my gun to me. I’d be arrested, questioned endlessly until we went to court, where I would have to fight to prove that Bree pulled her gun first. I had no proof, aside from the markings on my body from when we fought. I reminded myself to take pictures of myself when I got back. I needed to prepare myself for a trial. Just in case. I didn’t know if I could convince a jury that I’d only been defending myself.
Then why did she hide the body? Cover up the evidence? Why didn’t she just call the police immediately and explain what happened? Even if I couldn’t convince them I was defending myself, it probably wouldn’t go down as a murder charge. Maybe manslaughter. A lesser charge, with less of a punishment.
But no, because of my cover up scheme, I made myself look guilty. I looked in my rearview mirror. Maybe I had time to go back and fix this. To set the scene right back where it started, before I covered it up.
Nope. I was in too deep. There was no going back anymore. I had to commit to this plan. To mentally move on so that I didn’t manage to give myself away to anyone who suspected me. Which I mean would hopefully be nobody, but obviously I was living in a fantasy world. Whoever reported her missing would know she was at Julie’s party last night, and Julie would tell them that she was taking me back to school.
As the last person to have knowingly seen Bree, I would be suspect number one until they could find somebody more suspicious. And I didn’t know enough about Bree’s life to know if there was anyone more suspicious that they might consider.
Regardless, I was going to get questioned. I needed to get my story straight. But first, I needed to get rid of these clothes and this truck.
I finally made my way back to campus and stopped at the first dumpster I saw. I threw my clothes away, along with Bree’s gun. I had no idea if it was registered or not, but the odds of them finding it were slim. To my knowledge, the homeless people didn’t dumpster dive on campus. I also tossed some of the trash in the back of Bree’s truck into the dumpster. There was a lot back there. Obviously, she ate on the road a lot. I got back in the truck and started driving again, this time to find a spot to park this thing for good.
I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Bree was doing with her life now. But then I remembered that it didn’t even matter, because there was no continuation for her life anymore. Today was her version of The End.
Holy shit. It could have been mine instead. All over a dumb argument that could have been avoided had Bree just not ditched me. On that same note, however, if I had been more responsible for myself last night, I probably wouldn’t have had to rely on her in the first place. But it didn’t matter. She took it too far. She threatened my life, and I did what I had to do.
I stopped at the Walmart that was about three miles from campus. The shuttle picked up every thirty minutes, so I could hop that and get back to my dorm.
I imagined just how freaked out and angry Katie was going to be when I showed up. But I knew she’d instantly panic when she saw my beat up face. She would insist that I go get looked at. But I was fine. Physically, anyway. Emotionally I was probably pretty wrecked. But the shock had yet to wear off. It would hit me in a couple hours, I was pretty sure of it.
I parked Bree’s truck in fullest part of the parking lot, knowing that it would be full for most of the day. I didn’t need her truck to stick out like a sore thumb. Then I walked over to the door where the shuttle picked up at and waited.
I realized quickly that I must really look like shit at that moment, because of all the people to look at me judgmentally, it was semi-embarrassing to get looked at the way I did by people who were shopping at Walmart. I had nothing against people who chose to shop here. But when you saw the group of people walking through the door wearing overalls, or shorts three sizes too small, or the family with the matching mullets, and they were all judging you, that was hint number one.
I remembered I had a compact mirror in my purse, so I dug it out. It took a minute or two to find with the addition of my entire car stuffed into it. When I found it and opened it, I gasped at myself. I had two black eyes, a fat lip, and most of my face was red or purple. I started to wonder if maybe I did need to go get checked out physically.
Before I could make an executive decision on that, however, the shuttle showed up. Nobody got off, but when I stepped on, I noticed that there were about five or six students currently on the bus. Thankfully I did not recognize any of them. Unfortunately though, that did not stop them all from freaking out when they saw me. I pulled my hood up over my head and crouched down in the front row.
The shuttle driver looked right at me before he closed the door.
“Do I need to call the police for you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No sir. Can we please get back to the college?”
He pursed his lips, and then nodded and closed the doors. I tried to ignore the other students behind me, but that became severely difficult when one of them came up and sat next to me. It was a woman, with long red hair wearing very little makeup.
“I’m not trying to pry,” she said, “so please don’t be offended. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Just a little fight with somebody. It’s over now.” I refused to make eye contact with her.
“If it’s your boyfriend, you don’t have to stay in the relationship, girl. There are people to help you.”
I looked up at her, the beginnings of anger starting to form in my eyes. “It wasn’t a guy. It’s really none of your business. I’m fine. I can deal with it. So please, leave me alone.”
The girl nodded, put a hand on my shoulder for just a few seconds, and then went back to her original seat.
The rest of the ride I was stuck in my own mind. I had no idea what anyone was saying about me. I was thinking about being interrogated, how awkward that was going to be. I thought about being on trial, in front of a twelve man jury, being degraded and made to feel guilty by the prosecutor. There was no doubt that if they had enough evidence, I could go down for all of this.
I made the wrong choice. That feeling would forever stay in my mind. Not the wrong choice to shoot her. She was most likely going to shoot me first. But to cover all of this up. To pretend that I was guilty of murder and hide all the evidence to avoid getting caught. To a jury, this was a no brainer.
Well, here we are. I took this screenshot at 11:30 last night.
I FREAKING CAUGHT UP.
I’m so proud of myself, and knowing I’m sooo close to the homestretch is pushing me forward so hard.
I know I haven’t won yet, but I really want to thank you wonderful readers/followers for your kind words and motivation. I truly appreciate it. Really, thank you.
I’ll probably thank you again WHEN I win NaNoWriMo this year. And if I ever publish this thing (right now I scoff at that idea, but anything is possible), I’ll thank you all there too.
Now, I’m going to try to push ahead some more. I can’t handle the stress of getting behind again this month. Especially not so close to the end.
I really am going to try and find an excerpt to post later today. No promises though. 😉
Well I finally got to that elusive 30,000 word mark! It’s been a tough week NaNo-wise. Full of a lack of motivation to write, full of utter dislike of my novel and where it appears to be going, and full of disdain for myself for letting myself get off track and ultimately behind.
But I think in the end, you find out who you really are based on how you react to failure. While I haven’t lost yet (there are still 9 days left to write!), I started to consider just giving up. Stopping where I was at. My first draft is terrible anyway.
But I’d written so many words already! More than most people will ever write in their lifetimes! And dangit I wanted a first draft of something. So I pushed on.
Finally last night I had a breakthrough. Just over 2,000 words and I finally pushed over the 30,000 word hump. I don’t think it’ll get easier yet. 40k is the home stretch, where you see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I’m pressing forward.
I’m gonna have to write on our thanksgiving vacation, but that’s okay. I’m just going to try and write as much as I can before 3:00 on Wednesday so that I have less to worry about.
Write on, fellow writers. November isn’t over yet!
My current word count is sitting at 27,118. I went through just over half the month without letting my word count dip below the line, but it has finally happened.
I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I knew the wall I hit in week two wasn’t “The Big One.”
Week three is hard. The newness of my novel has worn off. I’ve begun to realize that this is going to need lots of reworking when it’s done. I still don’t even know what’s going to happen next, or how the novel will even end!
I’m rereading all of my own blog posts this morning to motivate myself. I’m not necessarily that far behind. I’ve had two or three days this month where I’ve written enough that would catch me up right now. I know I can do it.
My other reason excuse for not writing these past couple days is that we got a new Playstation 4 and I’ll tell you that thing is distracting! We got the Darth Vader PS4 with Star Wars: Battlefront and even though I know nothing about Star Wars, the game in itself is pretty fun. (A rip off too though, but that’s a whole other unrelated blog post.) Even when I’m not playing it, I get enamored when Brad is. I just may need to start taking my laptop in the bedroom or something. Make playing the PS4 a reward for writing first.
I’m not worried yet. I still have plenty of time. I want to win, dangit!
I was flipping through posts tagged ‘NaNoWriMo’ (as I do at least once a day) yesterday and saw a post where somebody wrote all the things they hated about their novel up to this point. (UPDATE: THIS is the post that I read. Thank you to voeko for reading my version and commenting so I could give credit where it is due!) And considering the wall I’ve appeared to hit as of the last couple of days, I think venting out my writing frustrations will do me well.
So here’s my list of things that I hate about my novel (so far):
). But in my head I start envisioning this conversation, and because my mind runs faster than my fingers, I just have to get the conversation down. But who needs the action going on around it? Who needs scene descriptions, or reactions, or casual hair flipping and head scratching? Obviously no one reading this draft of my novel, that’s for sure. I really need another straight up action scene. But how do I do that without throwing my story off the deep end? Because I mean I’ve written a novel where I needed words so there was an explosion and one character almost died. It was in your face ACTION and it was AWESOME. But I don’t have room in this novel for that. I guess if I get desperate for the word count though…Okay. I think I have vented enough for the day. Time to get writing so I keep up my everyday streak of not missing the word count.
What’s something you hate about your novel? Share below! And KEEP WRITING.
Today is actually day 6, but I wanted to get a post in early (before I’ve actually sat down to write any more).
Last night I crossed over the 20% mark! I went to bed right around midnight with my word count sitting at 11,150. Here’s my progress bar to prove it:
I’m doing well so far keeping ahead of schedule. Trying to keep that momentum going as long as possible until I hit the inevitable wall. Plus I’ll be travelling/out of town for the last six days of November so it’d be nice to finish early.
I think if I sit down and really think about it, I’m finally at a point that I can write a synopsis for the darn thing! So hopefully I’ll be able to share that in the next couple of days. And then maybe I can finally come up with a darn title!
This has come along pretty well so far. Most of my writing has been done during word wars, not because I have to force myself to write the story itself. Rather I rely so much on them because I have to motivate myself to write period. I’m so out of practice with writing constantly. I think I just go back to college in my head and having to sit and write papers constantly. Ick. Then I remind myself that this is all for fun. But I still need motivation, so we do word wars. It’s working for me so far!
What bothers me most about this draft is how bare bones it is. I’ve never been great at including very much description – of characters, of situations, locations, etc. As it stands, it’s a lot of dialogue. But I think that’s what will make editing fun is going in and adding more! I’m already kind of looking forward to reading this when it’s over – just so I can keep adding to it.
Hopefully I can keep my momentum going. But I’m preparing myself for the wall I just might hit.
How’s your word count doing? It’s still early if you’re behind! Happy writing!
The Caffeinated Writer 