More?

It's been a couple of months since I've finished the Novel - I haven't bothered to take a look at it since I've had it printed, but I've had a couple of people look at it. So far, the consensus is okay ... not that I really expected anyone to get really excited about it or anything. I'll probably ignore it until after the wedding, then take it back up again and rip it apart. Work is progress.

But I am looking forward to two more writing projects - I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo 2007 and I'm going to attempt another novel. Keep posted .....

I did it!

50, 102 words, all said and done.

I'm exhausted. It's two-am. The enormity of this will sink in later. But now ... I must sleep.

I didn't think I was going to get it done today - I FOOLISHLY decided this morning to start editing. Then I gave her a name (she didn't have one before in an attempt to make her seem like every-woman but when she got into a fight, it was really hard to not refer to her by name) then I added a bit of a subplot which kind of fizzled then I started fraking about with the chapters ... and I still have some to finish! Bad writer. Bad. But now I am done - a week ahead of my birthday - and I'm so exhausted that I'm going to bed now and I'll blog more later.

35,000 words ... and twenty days!

Sorry it's been quite a while since I've last posted. I've been quite busy with other things ... I'd like to think writing would be one of them, but that's not quite true. I have 15,00 words to do in about twenty days, which is quite unnerving. I have a schedule posted and I'm working on it every evening, but this is sure taking a toll on me. Might need a massage after this is done (my heroine does, too).

There's been a couple of things on my mind about this novel: first, I've told several people that they'd be more than welcome to 'read the first draft after I've finished. I'm worried that (a) it's going to suck, (b) they're not going to like it, and (c) if I do get it published it's not going to be as big of a deal as I would like it to be. But I guess I could just limit the number of people who actually read it to those who would give me constructive criticism that I would actually use. Those people are few and far between. But my fiance wants to read it, which is cute. I don't think he quite understands how girlie this little story can get.

Second, I'm worried that I'm going to turn out to be a one-trick pony. I'll spit out one mediocore novel that will be printed by some commercial publisher and forgotten within a couple of months. I would really love to stay motivated to write more. Have I mentioned that I'm going to attempt a gothic novel next? That could be cool ... if I can keep writing.

I think that a lot of my doubts stem from JK Rowling. I'm deep into Book Six and waiting patiently for Book Seven, and I'm always so impressed at her narration and character development. She's so talented, and I have to admit, when I'm in the presence of talent, I tend to doubt my own abilities. I know I'll never be as good as JK, but it does give me something to work towards.

And so, I must depart ... I'll have to come back soon. I love blogging. If anyone knows of a way to earn money doing this, they must tell me. :)

Ahhh ,,, I love laptops

The greatest thing about my day off is that I can decide exactly how much time I can spend writing and where I am going to do it. Just as long as my husband doesn't need his laptop, I can disconnect it and take it anywhere I want to write. Since the weather has been nicer, I've taken advantage of my deckchairs and written outside. Ahhh ... now I have to prevent a funny-looking laptop-shaped tan ...

I'm having fun writing my novel right now. She's like me and not like me, and some events I've been able to just think, "Now what would I do in a situation like this?" and just written down what I would do. I think that's a really attractive aspect of chick-lit - it can be as light and fluffy as you want, and you can give your characters all the cool toys and not have to justify it to anyone. If they want to be successful business women in large firms and companies with men working underneath them at the age of twenty-six, then why the frak not? This is not to say that it's any easier to write chick lit than anything else - it's just a little more appealing to me right now. I am interested in fashion and have a large shoe collection, so why not write about it?

I do think I'll attempt a gothic novel next. But I'll have to do that during the winter. I don't think it'd be very easy to write a dark mysterious novel when the summer sunshine is warming my toes. But I am very excited to actually be writing ... :)

20,000 words

Wahoo! I'm (nearly) at 20,000 words and I'm so excited to be writing again. I've had a pretty crappy couple of days off, when I couldn't sit still long enough to get any writing done. But now I am better! Yay!

My heroine is happy, too. She's off shopping at the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. I haven't decided if she's going to buy anything but I certainly couldn't while I was there. And I've decided to hang with the copyright issues. I just want to write for me, to prove to myself that I could write a novel and have it be any good. If I do decide to try to publish it, I'll work out the issues later. This is probably the first that I've written without wondering if other people will like it. I find it really liberating.

I've also noticed that my writing has gotten a little more serious when I'm feeling a little more serious. Maybe I need to consume chocolate before I write .... :)

15,000 words

I have to admit, I've not been in the mood to write lately. It worries me because I have set up a deadline, and I was kind of hoping that I'd actually keep it. But my Papa (my stepmother's dad) died on Tuesday, so for the last couple of days I've been kind of distracted. I've spent the last two days off just puttering around, feeling blue, and certainly not inspired to write any more. I hope that it doesn't last. Writing is a nice distraction for me when it flooooooooooows.

Here's to hoping that my foggy brain will clear soon, and that I'll keep to my goal.

Hmm.

Ever since I've dreamed up the plot for the story that I'm working on, it has centered around a pivotal point in which the heroine finds out that her fiancé is leaving her. I knew exactly how they were going to act, how they were going to yell at each other, what was going to happen (don't worry - happy ending!) But somehow I managed to get to that point already, and I'm, like, a fifth of the way through my goal of 50,000 words! So, now I'm like, what the hell?

I'm also nervous that I won't be able to reach my goal. I've got 61 days to write 39000 words - that's 639 words a day, but I certainly don't have enough time to write every day. I'm a busy girl. I sell pants! I know that some days I'll have to really buckle down and get a fire lit but I don't think I'll be happy until I'm in the clear.

I always thought that my birthday took soooooo long to get here after my brother's in May. Now it's coming too fast!

10,000 words!

Yippee! I'm so excited - last night/ early this morning I hit the 10,000 word mark in the novel. Not only that, I finished the first part of three, so I'm well on my way. With 40,000 words to go, and about 2,500 words per chapter, that's another 16 chapters. I'm going to sit down later and sketch out exactly what's going to happen during those remaining chapters. I like to plan out so that I know what's going to happen when and not leave some things hanging.

I was worried for awhile that I was becoming too focused on the word count rather than the quality of the work that I was producing. But now I can see that it's a goal for me to beef up what I've written. Take last night's work for example. I had a chapter to write in which I knew exactly what was going to happen. I also figured that I should keep to the 2,500 word-per-chapter length, which is what the other chapters have ended up at. But when I got what I wanted written, I was short about 700 words. So, I went back and read and thought to myself, what can I add here? How can I describe this more accurately? And before I knew it - bam! Another 1,000 words without even thinking about it. Wahoo!

Wow. That was so interesting. Sorry. I just woke up. Never blog on an empty stomach.

So now I get to fly my character to a popular American tourist destination, where the majority of the novel will take place. Since I've only been to this place once, I hope that I will be able to remember enough to use it as a backdrop for my little story. Of course, I'll have to make up a bunch of it - I'm not sure how to hotel names and tourist locations without stepping on toes. I guess since this story is for my own pleasure I won't have to worry about it much.

7500 words!

Hello all!

I'm at 7500 words - that's 15% of my 50,000 word goal. With 75 days to go, that's about 566 words a day! I'm so excited ... I'm hoping to have 15,000 by the end of this week.

Luckily, my 11:00pm genius stretched out to past midnight - I've got such a crazy busy week that I'll be writing late into the night. Good thing I've got no late shifts this week! :)

Writing while working

I work in retail; I sell pants to ladies who complain. No, that's not quite true - they don't all complain. Some of them are appreciative of the effort that I put to finding them the perfect pair of pants, and to those I tip my hat. If it we're for you, ladies, I'd probably be writing full time by now.

But since I'm one of those girls who don't have a wealthy fiancé to pay all my bills for me, I have to split my time between working and writing. Of course, I have a few chores to fill in the spaces - due to my dust allergy, I can't just leave piles of stuff all over my house. But once in a while, I am blessed with a few moments here and there to jot down a few paragraphs and accelerate toward the 50,000-by-25 mark.

There are two chances that I have to write: the first being my day off - OFF - that means no work other than to park it at the computer and writewritewrite for six to eight hours. Surprisingly enough, that produces quantity but I spend a lot more time thinking and trying to product quality. The second is a lovely space of time between nine and eleven in the evening where the genius flows smoother than wine and I don't worry so much about the quality of my writing as I know it's good. (If you couldn't guess by my extensive run-on sentences, I'm not anywhere near that sweet nine-pm spot.)

And so I pose this question to you, dear reader, who have found my little blog to be somewhat amusing: when is your best time to write?

5000 words!

Milestone! 5000 words! Only ... gulp, 45000 to go :( I shall keep on keeping on ...

Am I Crazy?

I started this project about a month ago - I had four months until my birthday, and I honestly thought that if I just SAT DOWN AND WROTE that I'd have no problems .... of course, I forgot to take into account social life, work, and housekeeping. But I'm doing better than I thought that I would. I'm at the 5000 word mark, and my story is even making sense! (insert happy cheering here)

But I'm having trouble staying motivated, especially when I can't help but edit edit edit as I write. I'm second-guessing everything that's typed down. I'm starting to second-guess my talent and ability to write. I know that I'm not going to publish the Novel of the Century - at least not any time soon - but it's awfully discouraging to think that I might not even be able to spit out just one short novel!

I shall keep persevering - writing - exposing my self emotionally on paper. Let's see how I do, eh?