Busy, Busy Bee

Okay, I admit it. I'm crap at keeping up with this blog. Of course, one look at the sporadic entries in this blog could tell a person that, right? Blah. No, really: BLAH. My problem is that I'm scatterbrained. Out of sight, out of mind. Which is probably why whenever I want to make sure I remember something, I write myself a note on a post-it and stick it somewhere I can't miss it, like the front door, or on my laptop.

It has occurred to me, therefore, to set my blog as my homepage. I figure, if it's staring me in the face every time I log onto the internet, I won't be so forgetful. (Hopefully this theory will prove to be true...)

So what's the life of this writer been like since September? Hmm...chaotic, mostly. There have been a lot of schedule changes and added responsibilities, what with my husband graduating from school and me settling into a semi-workable routine for keeping up with the chores around the house. As for writing, I have been working a great deal on Anemone's Song, but I have also taken on some other work with this shared project that I am doing with some of my other writer friends. So while I edit my book, I am also worldbuilding with other writers and working on some short stories.

Can I just say, though, that Anemone's Song is one--excuse the phrase--long ass book?! Yeah. This is taking forever. Or, as Pinkie Pie would say, FOR-REV-VER!!!

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Never Read Ahead--Even If It Is Your Own Book!

I don't know what's more discouraging: the realization that I have not come as far in typing up my book as I thought, or the realization that my villain is overshadowed by a secondary "evil" character. I never should have looked ahead in my notebooks. Ignorance truly is bliss.

Now the editing and rewriting process promises to be more of a pain than ever. There will be a lot to fix before my book is marketable. My hopes of having the manuscript ready to send out by 2011 look much dimmer.

Well, maybe I just need to type faster, eh? Onward I go!

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@$#!$*^! Deadlines

Two days. Several chapters. 5 hours of sleep. Gallons of caffeine!

I will finish, I will!

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When Life Gets Tough...

...get to writing! Or keep on writing. Either way, this is what I'm determined to do. I missed my deadline to have the book finished by August, so now my goal is to finish before the end of September. I really don't need this book interfering with my ability to write during Nanowrimo, and I'm certain that it will, if I know that it's sitting nearby, aaaalmost finished, but not quite.

Mostly, the reason I missed my own deadline was due to a lot of craziness and stress in my life. Perhaps it's understandable if one knows my circumstances, but to me it isn't. Instead of writing through the pain and emotions, I stopped writing, which only magnifies everything and makes it worse.

I also haven't heard back about my short story that I submitted, even though it's been over the 6-8 week span the publication estimates for a response. I've determined that if I don't hear from them by the end of this week (week 10), then I will write a prompt letter.

August was my month of bad, horrible luck. Each week got progressively worse than the one before, culminating in finding out that my father has an incurable brain tumor, and leaving me ultimately unemployed again (knowing that it is a temporary position does not help in the slightest when one is laid off). I am hopeful that September will be my month of good luck--or at least be my bend in the road toward one that is.

I'm not yet optimistic about life again, but I'm going to write toward it.

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Perseverance Pays Off

Ugh. This post is going to be short because I'm really tired. After watching the third Terminator movie with my husband this afternoon and doing a couple loads of laundry, I spent a few hours making homemade pizza. Considering we have little to no counter space in the apartment, it was both frustrating and interesting trying to knead and roll the dough out to the appropriate size not once, but twice. Yep. I made two pizzas, as my husband and I don't see precisely eye to eye on toppings. But I digress.

By the time the pizza finished baking and we ate, it was already getting kind of later in the evening, and then I still had to do the dishes. After all of that, I finally got to sit down and write. But boy, was I tired. And, being pregnant, my back ached like crazy. But, I did manage to get about three hundred and some words by time my husband went to bed. I felt almost like going to bed then myself, but I forced myself to continue on sheer determination. After all, I was almost there!

So, I forced myself to keep going, and lo and behold--I reached 657 words for my daily total. I think I've more than earned my rest, considering the long day I've had and the work I accomplished. Tomorrow I plan to leaf through my fairy tale collections and reread some of the tales from the list of potential candidates for re-telling that I drew up. I just hope I can retell it well enough for it to be published. There are some strict guidelines and stipulations regarding it, and I'm a bit nervous about it.

Well, that's tomorrow's worry. Time for bed.

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The Beginnings of Progress

Well, I'm very tired but happy. Today I managed to reach my daily goal of 500 words. In fact, I went slightly over it, and managed 560 words. I probably could have even managed more since writing was coming somewhat easily tonight, but my husband wanted me to watch all of the Terminator movies with him (we managed to get through the first two, and we plan to watch the third tomorrow, before the premiere of the TV series), so I was pretty distracted for the majority of the evening. Still, I at least managed my daily word count.

In other writing news, that website, http://www.duotrope.com/, that my friend left in a comment to my previous entry is both quite interesting and helpful. I recommend it highly to writers. It makes finding markets for various types of writing a lot easier. Through my own efforts at detective work, I had managed to hunt up some publications for fantasy, but my discoveries were only a handful compared to the treasure trove that this site pulled up for me. To that end, I began poking around some of the websites of these publications and I found a call for submissions that interested me. It's for short stories, but since I'm hoping to improve mine anyway, I figure why not give it a shot? And since they want fairy tale re-tellings, I figure that it's a good place to start, since I will have a loose framework for my short story to build upon. I'm hoping that something like this will help me ease into writing short stories, and that I will soon feel more comfortable writing my own completely original material (I have already begun a list of ideas, which I hope to further develop in the future, after I finish this project).

So, I'm starting to chug (or is it slug? *wink*) along, writing wise. The momentum is slow, and I don't expect it will speed up noticeably any time soon, but maybe one day later this year, I'll be able to look back and say to myself, "Wow, I've really come a long way and accomplished a lot."

Now why is it I'm having flashbacks to that story my mother read me, The Little Engine that Could? Oh, yeah...that's right. I'm the little engine.

Who says books never teach you anything, eh? That's at least one lesson from a book that I guess I picked up well enough.

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