%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
Random thoughts and ideas about writing... |
|
This journal will probably be mostly about new writing ideas and discoveries, with the odd other thing thrown in with it. I'll do my best to keep writing here regularly, to keep the creativity going and keep me in the habit of writing. Plus if I keep coming back everyday to update my blog I should end up writing other stuff on writing.com too... I will trick my imagination into writing if I have to! (hopefully I won't need to trick it, but just in case  ).
|
| So this week is the evil week of doom- or to be exact, Wednesday and Thursday are the evil two days of doom. Wednesday is my driving test (which I am going to fail) and Thursday I get my A Level results (which should hopefully be okay). Actually, if Wednesday wasn't in the way, I would be impatient for Thursday. The results I'm not too worried about, because I don't need particularly high grades to do writing at uni, but the driving test I am going to fail. I have accepted that, but I'm still not looking forward to it. About the membership thing- I've decided that I will just use the points I have to stay on upgraded, and face the problem of it running out in October. After all, when in doubt on a question, put it off!  Similar with the writing; I will put off deciding to carry on or not. To keep my options open, I will continue to write whilst I decide. To be honest though, I don't think I will give it up, but I might lower the target, because I'm so far behind. Or my muse might yell at me and make me write extra  So busy at the moment though (completely with my self imposed tasks such as the NaNoWriMo though)! I've been learning astrology, which I need to catch up on, and I'm going to draw up a birth chart for my nephew (is that spelt right?) and write up the interpretation in time for his birthday. Not that he can read it yet, but he'll be able to eventually, and for now my brother and sister-in-law can read it  I still have a load of sheets to read though, because I haven't learnt about all the aspects and things. I'm learning it from a set of magazines, and I've got about a hundred issues to go |
| That's four bad writing days in a row now. I'm fighting the urge to just give up because it's too difficult- I'm not good at keeping up a sustained effort at things. Which is a pain, since I only like big projects like novels. Although, to be fair, I have no problem keeping up the effort to write a novel- it's just writing it everyday that I struggle with. I normally write for a week, then take a week off, and so on. I've got a similarly pessimistic view about upgrading my account today. I'm starting to think that I might just drop down to basic membership for a few months, to save points in. The only real problem would be this blog, because I'd rather not lose it. Well, perhaps I will have changed my mind by tomorrow. Saving up gift points is just a lot of work, that's all. No matter how many times I figure out the reason why I've been finding it hard to do reviews, a few days later I will be struggling again. The raffle was a good idea, if anyone buys any tickets, but I'm having a hard time convicing myself that anyone will. I guess it's just a 'bleh' day. |
Well, I've been sorting out all my GPs today, so I know how much I've got for an upgrade. As I though, I can only afford a one month upgrade, so to raise some more points, I've started a raffle!
I've got plenty of time to run it, so why not? I quite like organising things like that anyway |
| Well, to make up for writing tonnes Monday and Tuesday, I have written next to nothing yesterday and today. It all balances out in a weird way that keeps my perpetually behind target. Anyhow, I made the item for it here;
Although I have only posted the first six chapters so far... I'll try and add the others tomorrow. It takes a while to go through double spacing it all, and adding italics and things back in. |
| I won first place in the Less Than Perfect contest! Woohoo! Well, finding that out first thing this morning certainly helped fight back the evil inner critic. Even though I haven't written much today I'm still feeling pretty positive about my writing... of course it helps that I stayed up late last night writing and got a day ahead on my novel. Now I just have to decide whether or not to post it here, or hide from the sight of everyone |
| Well, I messed up the pattern, and had two good days in a row! I nearly didn't- I was completely blank of ideas until about 9pm last night- but since then I've been doing a good amount of writing. I say a good amount of writing, because I am convinced that the actual quality is going sharply downhill. The plot has somehow split in two, and one half of it seems to be mutating into a different genre. I have once again fallen into the trap of letting my characters go on a journey; I cannot not write actual physical journeys. I have tried it before and somehow if the characters start to travel too much, all the interesting bits drop out. Now I know that it's normal to think that all your writing is rubbish, and there's no point putting the effort into it, particularly when NaNo writing, so I am doing my best to ignore the little voice that keeps telling me so. It's not easy though! But either way, whether my writing is all boring nonsense or not, I am going to keep writing until I can delude myself into believing that it's good again. My stubbornness is stronger than my inner critic! |
| I've been having quite a bit of trouble getting into reviewing, and I've finally found out why. The problem I was having, was that I would get to the end of a short story and have nothing to say about it; which doesn't make for a good review. Even if I really liked the story, I really struggled to come up with a review for it. Today it struck me why that was, and the answer was surprisingly obvious. I am a novelist- I hardly ever write short stories, and apart from on writing.com, I never read them. So, I tried reviewing a couple of novellas (novels being a bit too long to read off the computer) and they were easy to review! For once I actually enjoyed reviewing. So from now on I will stick to reviewing novellas and the occasional novel! I may not get as many reviews done as other people (which I wasn't doing anyway to be honest) but the things I review will probably have gotten less reviews than the short stories, because of their length. So in a weird kind of way, I think it evens out. And if it doesn't even out- then I'll just pretend that it does Sometimes my logic escapes even my understanding... I feel sorry for anyone else trying to make sense out of what I say |
Hmm, I think I managed all of 200 words today. Oops  Lets hope that tomorrow really is a good writing day! I spent too much of today on writing.com I think I just ended up reading a whole novella in one sitting- and I don't even like reading for long on a computer. I usually break up anything long that I'm going to be reading. Ah well. I may not have gotten anything done today, but at least I'm in a good mood |
| I can't believe it's day 10 already! I'd heard that NaNo-ing makes time seem to go quickly, and that was part of the reason I wanted to do it, but I didn't expect it to work this well! The reason I wanted time to speed up a bit is really just me being impatient for things. The first thing is A Level results coming out on the 17th of this month- I just want to hurry up any find out what they are. Then next month I'm going on holiday, which I'm looking forward to, and as soon as I get back I should be going off to start Uni to do a three year course on... writing  . Just writing, nothing else at all Today was a good writing day, and I finally got back on track by writing 2000 words. It seems that I just can't write constantly well; I have to have one good day, one bad, one good day and so on. So if I have a bad writing day tomorrow it doesn't really matter, because I should have a good day on Monday. I'll tell myself that anyway  The other good thing is that Leo seems his normal self again today, so I guess there was nothing really wrong with him. He certainly seemed healthy enough when he woke me up early by jumping on me heavily (and he isn't a small cat by any means) and sat there tapping my face with his paw (his claws weren't out though). Now I'm going to go check on my contest entry on worth1000- last time I looked I had moved from 24th out of 24 to 12th |
This blog could really do with having a decent name. I'm rubbish at coming up with names, I always have trouble with it. That's one of the reasons why I find creating a new character quite a painful process  and that's why I prefer writing novels to short stories. You just create one set of characters and then you get your money's worth out of them!Speaking of novel writing, I have to admit to not having written much today. I did try, but it was just going so slowly. I spent all afternoon trying to write and managed a pathetic little 1100. I did get distracted though, because my cat, Leo, didn't seem well today. He kept gagging and acting like there was something wrong with his throat  So I ended up hand feeding him broken up bits of cat treats to check he could still eat alright; he could, but the dog saw me feeding the cat and got jealous. So then of course I had to go and get the dog treats and feed him as well... And then instead of having a nice chunk of writing done I had a load of pet treats on my lap, the cat trying to eat my hand, and the dog drooling on my leg! Thank goodness my other cat, Poppy, stayed out of it! |
| Well today went surprisiingly well, considering that it's a thursday- a day I don't normally get much chance to write. However, I got a good 2600 words done, and am now nearly back on track I made an interesting discovery today though. I always thought that my surroundings didn't make much difference to my writing, but either I've changed or I was wrong all along. At least, in one sense; it doesn't make the slightest difference where I write, just how much noise there is, or whether there are people in the room. It turns out I can't write when there is any noise in the room at all; that's probably why I've not been writing so much since I got my laptop and started writing in the lounge rather than my bedroom. It also applies to if there are people in the room; even if they aren't talking or anything I can't write so easily. I never knew I was such a fussy writer! |
| Okay, so I only wrote 1500 words on my NaNo novel, which means that I'm not any further behind, but I'm not any closer to catching up either. However, that wasn't all I wrote today, because I just remembered about an offsite competition I'd signed up for; I checked it, and had 10 hours to the deadline Admittedly, that site only does flash fiction contests so the word limit was 800 words, but the main challenge was actually fitting my story into that. I might actually expand it a bit and put it here some time... it was fun to write anyway My NaNo characters got a bit of a reprieve today, since instead of starting to write in a bad mood I started writing just after receiving a five star review So I allowed my elf character to regain consciousness, and now I've just got to find a way to make her less transparent (an unfortunate side-effect from a spell I love writing fantasy). The rest of the group I let go off and get drunk |
| After three days of not writing my NaNo novel, I am back writing again! I didn't manage to completely catch up, but I'm only one day behind now instead of two (I was a day ahead before). So, done 2600 words so far today, and you never know, I might go write some more later. Day 6 is still good, I just need to make sure day 7 is good too... Actually it was kind of helpful having to write today, because I was in a bad mood earlier and I managed to write myself out of it I do pity my poor characters when I'm in a bad mood though  Still, none of them are permanantly injured, so it's not too bad. I'm nice to them most of the time anyway... |
| Well I didn't get to do any writing yesterday, and so far I haven't done any today either. I have excuses though! Yesterday I was out in the day because it was my Grandad's birthday, and then in the evening I went around my sister's house, so I couldn't write then either. Not got quite such good excuses for today, because I quite honestly could have written something this morning, I just didn't feel like writing. And yes, I know I should have done anyway. This afternoon though I have a really excuse for, though, because I went around my brother and sister-in-law's house for a barbeque. *whistles and doen't mention about writing now* On another topic though, I got a couple more donations for my contest There are about fourteen entries now too! And there're still about 18 days left! |
| Well the second day went well too! Actually the second day went better than the first I did about 2600 words today, which is quite good for my lately. I used to be able to do 3000-4000 a day, but a couple of years ago I wrote 4000 everyday for a while (on top of going to school all day and doing homework) and I haven't been able to write that much since. I really messed up how I write when I did that, now I can't help staring at the wordcount more than I'm actually typing. No matter how hard I try not to check the wordcount, I still do I'm hoping that NaNo will cure me of that, and enable me to write as much as I like without worrying again. I really hope it will do that... for a year and a half this habit has been annoying me and stopping me from writing. |
| I started the NaNoWriMo today, and so far it's working great :) Instead of putting off my writing I just wrote, which is exactly what I wanted to do all along. Hopefully after a few days of writing it will get even easier. As I said before, I've never attempted NaNo before, so I don't honestly know whether this is the case of whether the opposite will happen, but I will keep telling myself that the more I write, the more I will want to write. |
| Well, I've found the solution to my writing problems. I'm going to do a summer long NaNoWriMo. Okay, half of the summer is already gone, but between tomorrow and September 17th I will write a novel at least 75000 words long. As yet I'm not entirely sure what the novel will be about, by hey, that's kinda the point of NaNoWriMo isn't it? I haven't attempted any sort of NaNoWriMo writing before, but this should be good practice for the real November one... as well as being fun now |
| Well, I finished writing the last journal entry and promptly got distracted so I never wrote anything at all. The exact same thing happened yesterday as well. Today I will try to write, but will no doubt be distracted. Bleh, why does that always happen if I don't have a deadline? |
| Now I'm going to write an entry not about contests of any kind! Now I am going to complain a little, because my mind is being just plain awkward. Why? Because I want to WRITE! I want to sit here writing away at some story, probably for the rest of the evening. What's the problem with that? The problem is that my dear imagination hasn't let me in on the secret of what I want to write. I know there's a story there somewhere, but I haven't the faintest idea what it is. I don't even know if it's an existing story or a new one! Ah well, guess I'd better go see if I can shove my imagination into telling me what it is. I'll carry on with something I've started until (if) it does. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
