Back From The Dead And Ready For More

The last time I had a chance to update this blog was last year. Yeesh. That was such a long time ago! But, in all seriousness (we'll see how long that lasts), it was been over two months since I have last posted. It saddens me to say that in between November 29th and December 31st I wrote nothing except for a quick scene "sketch"- during one of the more boring matches of December's WWE Pay-Per-View. That, I must say, is quite depressing.


My last post happened to be a little progress report on Nation Novel Writing Month, or as I refer to it now: "The Bane of My Existence". November started off with a fizzle, progressed into a bang, and then ended with a resigned fall over a cliff and into the realm of "I don't give a damn". In short, it was torture.


Now I am sure, in fact I am certain, that there are people out there that truly succeed at NaNoWriMo. What do I mean by succeed? I mean actually making it to the 50,000 word mark. I was not one of those people, though I did come fairly close. My final word count? 32,000+. All in all, it really isn't that shabby, in fact 32,000 words in 29 days is down right impressive. But, despite this accomplishment I was, and am still not, satisfied.


In all honesty the only thing impressive about my story for NaNoWriMo was the word count. I personally describe what I wrote like this: It was a steaming pile of dog crap. Apologies for the visual. I know, I know, it was a draft. Drafts are supposed to be craptastic. But this one really took the craptastic cake. I genuinely feel that I started out with a good idea, and given the time to really, adequately, nurture and grow the idea it could have been a decent story. Then again, I also feel that I'm being very optimistic on the subject.


I think when you get to the point in a story when you just can't pull anymore out of it, no matter how had you try, it's time to walk away. Maybe not walk away forever, but for just long enough to let the ideas and characters grow on their own without you forcing them.


In November I wanted to walk away from this story on several occasions, but I couldn't. I have a competitive nature, and I wanted to do NaNoWriMo. I wanted to feel like I had accomplished something. When it was all said and done, yes, I did. Here's the real kicker, though: By the time November was drawing to a close I very nearly wanted to give up writing completely.


That is a very horrid and depressing feeling for me, and I'm sure some of you think I'm being melodramatic- but I could care less. The focus on word count just seemed to suck the fun out of it. When you get to the point of writing random dream sequences, smut scenes (laughably bad ones at that), and "Hey! Let's kill someone off somewhat randomly in a bloody and descriptive way!" scenes then something is wrong. Though, I will admit that killing off characters is quite fun. Don't judge me.


I think the combination of a dead story, lackluster characters, and the month of November in general (Let's be honest, if you're American November is not the best month to write in.) is what did me in. Of course my month of November was...exceptional. The week of Thanksgiving? 300+ words. That's it. The week after Thanksgiving, the final stretch of NaNo, a couple of thousand at the most. November 29th, my laptop's power cord kicked the bucket and my laptop could only hold a charge for 10 minutes. So, on November 29th I decided that I was done- much to my relief and sadness.

I've been trying to think of the things that NaNoWriMo has taught me. Here's what I've come up with:

• I am perfectly capable of writing 2,000-4,000 words in a day. I hope to take this "new-found" ability with me into my other writing projects.
• If you don't love what you're doing, then it really isn't worth it. It's also soul sucking. I just realised that my NaNoWriMo story was the equivalent of a Dementor...
• Quality is better than quantity. Even though the draft of my urban fantasy novel does mot have the same word count as my NaNo story, it's infinitely better- and it's just a draft.
• November is really a no-go for me. 

National Novel Writing Month was an experience  Not a wholly positive one, and not a wholly negative one either. Just an experience.

My NaNo in a nutshell.

Now we get to shift gears into December.

Let me start off by saying that I love December. I love shopping- for my loved ones and for me (I like to shop. Don't judge me). I love cooking yummy desserts, wrapping presents, and listening to my Bing Crosby holiday station on Pandora. I really love seeing and spending time with all of my family. Plus, my birthday is in December and I think that's just lovely. 

I didn't go into December thinking that I would get much writing done, and I didn't. Well, I did sketch out a scene as I mentioned earlier. But I did keep getting ideas, and the need to write was coming over me once more. 

December of 2012 is going to be refereed to as The Month of the Laptop Perils. Or something like that anyways. As I said my laptop cord died on November 29th, and its replacement didn't come in until mid/late December. Thank goodness for all of the spiral bound notebooks I stocked up on back during the beginning of the school year and the drafts I had saved on a thumb drive that I was able to print out. I carted those suckers around with me most of the month. But, as I'm sure you can imagine, the absence of a laptop began to take its toll on this twenty-something. But, the power cord finally came in and I was back to my facade of normalcy. 

Oh but wait! There's more! Just after Christmas my laptop decided that it wanted to freeze. All the time. Yeah, I panicked. Luckily I'm married to an IT guy and he was able to get it stable enough to pull all of my writing, documents, pictures, and music off of it before it froze again. A few days after that, while he was trying to re-format it (or something like that) the hard drive went caput. 

It was a sad end to 2012 having to say goodbye to my laptop, Galinda (She was pink, and I love 'Wicked', so it worked). She'd been with me through so much; seen so many notes, ideas, chapters, and random bits of dialogue saved in her documents file. She was fantastic, and I will miss her. Now, I have Idris (I love Doctor Who, leave me alone) and there are new adventures to be had.

Adventures are exciting.

Now it's January of 2013. A new year filled with new possibilities. I've made resolutions like every other person on the planet- loosing weight and getting back into shape being one of them. I made one other resolution for this year as well. This year shall be the Year of the Draft. By the time 2013 draws to a close, I want my urban fantasy novel's first draft to be complete. I'm 20,000+ words in, so this is very attainable. More importantly, it's very exciting. 

Allons-y! 

Aimee

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P.S. Random bit of random: Can I just say that I am in love with 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'? I'm a rabid fangirl, and am not ashamed to admit it. 

End Of Week One, I'm Still Alive

   Week one of NaNoWriMo has come to an end. I have managed to survive, thus far, on a healthy diet of coffee, tea, smoothies, Nightwish, and Led Zeppelin. I am also happy to report that, for the most part, my sanity is intact. 

   Has it been sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns? Oh, how shall I put this? Ah. I've got it: Hell No. My first NaNo got off to a very rocky start. Once I was finally able to sit down at my computer everything seemed to be falling apart. My outlines weren't working, and what I thought were chapters were actually just scenes- and a lot of my initial beginning was completely scrapped. I was woefully behind the word count goals I had set for myself, I was even behind the standard 1,667 words a day goal. Then the frustration and stress set in, and I fet very close to an emotional breakdown. In fact, I looked something like this:

   It was not a pretty sight. 

   I related all of my woes to my mentor on the NaNo forums. All I have to say is thank goodness for Holly. Right off the bat she was like: You are taking this way too seriously. She was absolutely right, I was. My inner perfectionist was coming out and and was trying to murder me in a slow and painful manner. Then she told me not to even think of this as a first draft, but a zero draft. Then it all suddenly clicked. I pulled what I had written thus far from my yWriter program and slapped it onto Open Office, and just wrote. 

   I'll be perfectly honest, it's not pretty. In fact I'd even go as far to say that it's pretty damn hideous (hello oxymoron!). But, I'm getting it all out of my system and that's what counts. Slowly my word count started going up and up. I was able to do anywhere from 2,000 to nearly 4,000 words in a day. By the time Thursday the 8th came around I was sitting on just over 16,000 words. In a week I had reached the point where I could say with confidence that I was a third of the way there. 

Then came Friday. 

Yesterday was just not a good writing day. In fact most of the day I sat at my computer looking quite like this:

Rest assured, I didn't plant any corn yesterday. I swear.

   I was only able to get my word count up to 16,585. 500+ words. That was it. Why was only able to pull this meager amount of words out of my mind? Hang on! Hang on! I know the answer to this! 

   I hate my characters. I hate this story. I've threatened it with death by knife, gun, and flamethrower several times.

   I know what you're thinking, hate is such a strong word. Yes, it is. It is also quite possible that I'm exaggerating just a little. However, the fact still remains that I have no emotional attachment to this story what so ever. Truth be told, this makes me a sad panda. I know that these characters, that this story, have the potential to be something. As it stands right now, they most definitely are not. I've been telling myself over and over that this is a zero draft. Actually. Scratch that, this is a -5 draft. All of the problems that this story has (inconsistency and plot holes, I'm looking at you bitches) can be fixed. I've just got to keep going Jason Voorhees on my inner editor, that pesky bugger, in the mean time.

   Luckily, though, I've had some epiphanies about a few of my characters that has me very excited. Also, due to my emotional estrangement, I know who I'm going to kill off. Is it wrong of me to be excited about that? Oh well, I am and I have no shame about it. Yes, my inner voice has been singing "I know who's gonna get it!" since yesterday. 

It's true. I don't.

   So, that has been my writing week in a nutshell of crazy. I should expect next week to be much the same- you have been warned.  

   I cannot tell you, though, how happy I am to have a little reprieve from writing like a maniac. It's so nice to be able to sit down at my computer and spend a ridiculous amount of time on Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube without having my inner voice telling me to get to work. After all, all work and no play makes Aimee a dull girl. I'll most likely get back to the grind tonight or in the morning. It's worth it, though. Totally worth the insanity.

Aimee

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Bouncing Off The Walls

I am officially bouncing off the walls. Though, I admit that a lot of it could be the Grande Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino that I just sucked down. So yeah, I'm bouncing.


One more day until NaNoWriMo! I'm about to the point of counting down the hours until I can get started. I have seriously been chomping at the bit here- it's getting to the point where I am going to have to sit on my hands or something. We all know that tactic isn't going to work.


So what have I been doing to feed my writing addiction until November 1st? Why writing Fanfiction of course!


Fanfiction, in this particular situation, is neutral ground for me. I'm able to keep my writing gears greased, but I won't have to worry about getting truly distracted. Let's face it, right now would not be the time to pull out my main novel and start working on it- it would completely throw me off. With Fanfiction I can start it, put it away, and then pick it up again in December (since I won't be pulling my main novel back out until January).


Let's just be honest Fanfiction, and really anything in the universe of Fandoms (i.e. Fanart), is just plain fun. It gives us the opportunity to play with our favorite characters (you can take that statement any way you want), and gives us a chance to practice keeping a character in character. What it all boils down to is that being a fan is just plain fun.

So, this long spiel was just to say that I'm writing un-publishable content to keep myself occupied until November 1st. If anyone is interested to read the Fanfic that I am working on, let me know in the comments and I'll post an exerpt.

Aimee
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