New Month! New Things!

Tomorrow is April 1st! And that's no joke! Ahahaha...... Sorry, I had to.

Anyway, with this new month comes a flurry of new things. Next month is The A to Z Challenge AND Camp NaNoWriMo!  I'm just crazy enough to do both at once.

For A to Z:

 I will literally be opening the dictionary, blindly picking a word, and seeing what creativeness comes out of me. I told you I'm crazy. Ok, not so much crazy as total procrastinator. I didn't have time to think of a real theme so I came up with this simple solution. We'll see what happens!

For Camp NaNo:

I'm going to count the words I write for AtoZ, which should get me maybe 3000. Then I hope to finish a short that I have been working on for awhile. That should round out to about 5-7000 more words. Then I got a new idea to run with and if I get to it then I should get plenty out of it.  My goal is 15000.


I can't wait to get started. Let's just hope I can keep real life at bay.

Week of the Writer Wrap Up

Another Week of the Writer has come and gone. Let's see what has come of it.

• Finished one short
• Wrote all (except one) letter but didn't mail it yet
• Read one book, 'The Last Dead Girl' by Harry Dolan
• Sorta blogged about it?

Four out of six isn't bad.  I didn't think about Camp yet. I think I'll use it to finish my other short I've been working on for a while. I also need to think of my theme for The A to Z Challenge. I believe that I missed the theme reveal day though! Sad day. Oh well. I have a slight idea of what I could do. Only time will tell.

Until next time!

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!

Who put this brick wall where my brain was making words???

I've been stuck for at least 2 days. I just can't get the words from my brain to the page.  I never did 'Plot All the Things' like my last post suggested. I think that's the problem. If I don't have things written down then it's like having permission to over think it and end up like this. Almost 3 days behind.

I'm going to bed early tonight.  Going to bed so that I can wake up, eat, make coffee, and write like the wind.  But hopefully, whether before bed or while in bed, I can get get some semblance of an outline written out so I don't have to 'think' (stare at nothing and end up watching YouTube) so much and hit the ground running.

We'll see! Maybe I'll update tomorrow. Until then, keep writing!

Hello, October.

With October comes fall, Halloween, pumpkin flavored everything.

It also means its Plot all the Things month.  Well, unofficially of course and only for me that I know of.  National Novel Writing Month starts in less than 29 days and I like to give myself the extra challange of not plotting until October hits.

I know.  Pantsers around the world might be saying 'You give yourself a whole month?'

Yeah.  The problem is if I don't outline stuff I then have a reason to stare into space and call it 'thinking'.  And the problem with ploting is that you have to have a solid idea in the first place.

Anyone else in the plotting boat with me or are you simply waiting till November to go where ever it takes you?  Either way, here's to getting those creative juices flowing.

A Marathon Unfinished

Well, I fell short again this year in the A to Z Challenge.  But also just like last time I had a lot of fun!  I wrote stories that might have otherwise never come to my mind.  I might have even found my inspiration for this year's NaNoWriMo.

I'm hoping to get better with my writing habits, as it was no fault of anyone's except my own that I didn't get further than I did.  In fact, I had two post ready to go that for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to put up.  What is it with me lately?  I haven't been writing.  I haven't even really been reading.  Am I just not that in to my work or my current book?  Am I just becoming that lazy?

I digress.

The A to Z Challenge, though I tried twice and have to follow through to completion, has brought a lot of more things to my attention than just a few interesting plots.  I'm glad for that.  Besides, you can't leave something unfinished if you never started it in the first place.  At least I tried.

Jilted (A to Z Challenge Day 10)

It’s been like clockwork.  The sound of the school bus stopping, followed by it chugging off, and finally…

“Hi, Ms. Carson!”

Through the front door and right into my office comes the neighbor girl.  I’ve had to change my schedule to fit her distraction if I want to get anything done with my day.  I think about shooing her away but somehow I keep the door unlocked and let her in.  Kids and their fragile, doe-like look of innocence…

“Good afternoon, Taylor.  What brings you in to my office today?”

“Nothing.”  She smiled.

Honesty.  That’s appreciated anyway.

A strong scent wafted by as she circled the room pawing things that I wish she wouldn’t touch.  An overwhelmingly fruity scent.

“Have you, uh, been in your mother’s perfumes?”

“Yeah!  Now I smell like she does when she goes to work.”

“Mmhmm.”

She shuffled her feet.  “Moms been at work a lot.”

“I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”

“She hasn’t been home yet.”

“It’s only four.”

“But she’s usually home in the morning…”

This gave me pause.  “Are you saying she hasn’t been home all day?”

She nodded.

“Has she talked to you?”

“Well, not recently.  She put me on the bus Monday…”

It was Wednesday night.

I tapped my desk, thinking.  Dad was never in the picture as far as I knew.   If he was then he could be any of the suitors that I’ve seen holding her mother’s hand on the way out their door…

“Are you hungry?”  She nodded enthusiastically.  “I always make too much for one person.  You’re joining my tonight.  Start on any homework at my desk while I get it started.”

I grabbed my phone and slipped out of the room.

It's not the perfume that you wear
It's not the ribbons in your hair
And I don't mind you comin' here
And wastin' all my time

--Just What I Needed by The Cars