WEEK OF THE WRITER!!! Number.... 3? 4?

Hello all!  I've returned. Blowing the dust off of this old blog and making a return.

Again.  But never mind that.

A few years back, whenever Spring Break would roll around I would deem it the Week of the Writer. (Seriously though, is this 3 or 4? *checks old posts* Is it only two? Huh. Ugh. Who's counting anyways!) Week of the Writer is when I take a bunch of writer related goals and shove them into the crannies of free time that I wouldn't have during a regular week.

Can we get real for second?  I haven't been really writing lately. I let the blog go, I wasn't writing my stories, and I even stopped reading. It's been ridiculous. Every time I think about writing it seems like this far away thing that I've missed out on or something. It's hard to explain exactly, but I know that 3, 5, 10 years from now I don't want to think 'what if... If only...'. I should take this daydream and turn it into something more tangible.

.....Ooook. Now that that's been aired out let's get down to business.

Week of the Writer Goals

1. Finish 2 Shorts
2. Mail my letters from InCoWriCo
3. Read the small stack of books I've had too long from the library
4. Come up with my AtoZ theme
5. Plan for a potential Camp NaNo?
6. Blog about all of it

I'm sure I'll come up with something to add to this later but this is what I'm looking at right now. Here's to a productive week!

And the NaNoWriMo verdict is...

...that I WON!! :D

It took me to the very last minute but I got there.  You probably know that I write my NaNo by hand but when it got to 10 pm and I was still about 3k words away from the 50k I got on the computer and typed the last bit up in the last hour and 15 mins.  Lol.  I couldn't let myself not finish when I was that close!

FINAL word count: 50005/50000

Yea!

So I didn't finish the entire story yet but I think that I will.  I want to do a little outlining first I think but the very last sentence that I wrote was in the word document: (*Marcia* was my 50000 word I think)

They had to figure out a way to get out of trouble or to at least to not look like they were being suspicious and so they found a wall and Adan cornered *Marcia* and started to kiss her!


So how did my fellow Wrimos do?  Did you make your goal?  It's December so have a rest now everyone.  You deserve it!

(Huh, just noticed that this is my 100th published post.  Appropriate!  :D )

Things Only a Writer Should Say

• There are so many characters in my head.


• I'm really sad I had to kill him off.


• Finished. Now I can go to the bathroom.


• The characters are telling me what to do again.


• I like this guy. It's too bad he's imaginary.


• This whole conversation is being written down.


• I need a soundtrack for this.


• The end is near!


• This really sucks but that's ok.

You ever find yourself saying something that would probably sound weirder coming from someone who wasn't writing a book?

The Week of the Writer!!!

It's Spring Break. FINALLY! So with out classes to worry about I have a bunch of extra time to do whatever my little heart desires. It wants to do writerly things. That is why I declare this week THE WEEK OF THE WRITER! (I found that I like themed days even more after starting this blog.)

Events of The Week of the Writer will include but not be limited to:

Really wants
Putting up a desk in my room
Finish the 2nd edit of Nano 09
Finish at least one short
Read
Blog

Maybes
Facebook fanpage
Youtube channel
Print business cards

We'll talk more about these in detail later. I'll keep you posted over the next 9 days. For now I'm off to finish Graceling by Kristin Cashore. It's awesome so far by the way. See you tomorrow. :)

The First No of Many

I don’t know if I mentioned this before but about a month ago I sent in an application for an internship. Now I’ve recently found out that I didn’t get it. I’m disappointed obviously, quite so, but being the Captain of Optimism that I am I like to look on the bright side. I’m trying not to take it personally, only thinking about what reasons they could have to say no and how I could’ve done things differently if it won’t help me get better for next time, because as a writer I should be use to this.

One of the first things you may here when a writer talks about querying is that they’re expecting a ‘no’. This may sound really pessimistic but it’s just reality. Querying is hard, so I hear. Agents probably get a bunch every day and they have to say no sometimes. I’m looking at this as practice for that.

They may have said no but there’s always next year. I’ll just make myself better, dust myself off, get back on the horse, walk it off, insert other ‘try again’ catch phrase here, and that’s how I’ll go into my future as a writer. There will always be another year, another internship, another query, another agent, another review, till you get just that one YES.

No more feeling bad about no’s. From now on they will only be fuel to my fire and I won’t leave the kitchen because of the heat because my glass will stay half full and I’ll drink it if I get hot and fill it back up again!

Ok, I’m getting carried away with the clichés.... I’ll end with this: No’s will not make me stop!!

Life of a Student Writer

Here we are once again, another school year has begun. Students all over the world are gearing up, excited to see their friends, and then immediately counting the number of days till next summer. Parents, on the other hand, are kindly waiting till their children are out the door to do the happy dance.

What does this do for a writer though? I just finished my first week at a new university. Exciting? Yeah. Tiring? YES. It’s all I can do to be writing this post instead of going limp on the couch. Plus it’s the first time I have to travel any distance to get to school. Add the travel time to the other obligations the day requires plus homework, studying, extra credit that you know you need, random life occurrences, and what’s that thing that most people do every day? Uh, oh that’s right, eating and sleeping. I forgot about those.

This is where I want to give parent/writers a big, virtual, gold star. Now, I’m not a parent but this is what I imagine a day might be like. Get kids up, get kids dressed, feed kids, make lunches, get kids to school, grocery shopping, changing diapers, coming home, clean house, get kids from school, take kids somewhere, bring them back, make sure homework is done, bathe them, stop fights, argue, hug, change, and put them to bed. Did I get everything? Probably not. Moms and Dads have a lot on their plates.

That being said, where do we put our writing time? It’s a little tough when something in our real life is constantly calling our attention and if we don’t time it right then something gets the short end of the stick. Too much attention to writing can cause school work to slip our minds. A late night means getting to class late and not being able to pay attention. I know I do that.

This is what I told myself about my schedule: Do things early. Simpler said than done, I know, but hear me out. If I can do my homework during my break between classes instead of waiting till I got home I’ll have the time when I get home to write. Study a little everyday instead of hardcore studying the week before the test. Cook meals ahead of time so all you have to do is pull things out of the fridge or the freezer and heat it up. Give it a try.

Have you tried this before? Did it give you more time? What do you give up for your writing time?