Whisper Of The Heart

Tonight at writers' group I will receive feedback on my first submission to the group. I submitted a short story about being nervous about writers' group, and then as something extra, I submitted the first three chapters of my novel that I'm putting on hold to write the cooler one.

I'm freaking out and trying not to freak out.

The movie Whisper of the Heart acts as wonderful encouragement to me when I'm trying to write. I should just have it playing on repeat in my apartment.

"No one should expect perfection when they're first starting out."

[offers a geode] "Take a look."
"It looks like a rock."
"It's a special kind of rock called a geode. Hold it close to your eye and look inside." [holds a light behind the geode to illuminate the crystals]
"Wow, look at that..."
"Those crystals are called beryl; there are pieces of raw emeralds deep inside them."
"Aren't emeralds worth a lot of money?"
"Sure, but they need to be cut and polished first. When you first behind an artist, you are like that rock. You are in a raw, natural state, with hidden gems inside. You have to dig down deep and find the emeralds tucked away inside you. And that's just the beginning. Once you've found your gems, you have to polish them. It takes a lot of hard work. Oh, and here's the tricky part: look at the crack in the geode. You see that big green crystal there? You could spend years polishing that and it wouldn't be worth much at all. The smaller crystals are much more valuable. And the may be some even deeper inside that we can't see, which are even more precious."
"What if I look inside myself and I don't find any gems? What if I'm just a rock? ...I'm going to try anyway."

"I'm glad I pushed myself. I know myself better now."

It's time to admit it.

I've recently stopped writing my novel. I still plan to finish it; I'm just so much more excited about my other idea for a novel.

Also, as much as I hate this, I was looking over some questions to ask yourself about your writing. I did great with most of them, but when I asked myself, "Why should the reader care?" I couldn't come up with anything. Still can't.
I realized I'm being stubborn; I have the mentality of "I like it so everybody else should too!" I think this is just because I like the WAY I'm writing it. I think, to a point, all aspiring writers really like their writing style. We're told to get rid of our ego, but what's the joy in writing when you're supposed to think you aren't good enough?

Anyway, with my other novel that I have now started, I feel confident in my answers to all of those questions. So, I'll work on this, then come back to the other and see if there is any way to salvage it.

Words, words, words!

I've been bombarded by words lately! This is no bad thing.

I've been writing, although I haven't written much since something a bit traumatic happened two weeks ago.

Luckily, I had other people's writing to read and proofread! It acted as a bit of a "reset button". I feel ready to write again.

One was a vampire book by my friend Duncan; vampires aren't usually my thing, but I am enjoying this one, even though it's making me a little freaked out waiting at bus stops after dark. ;)

Otherwise, I have weekly submissions from a writers' group to read. Last Tuesday was my first time there, and I gotta say, I was intimidated. I always get nervous having people critique my writing, and the other members were pretty blunt to that week's writer. Not rude, but definitely blunt. She was noticeably nervous, and hadn't submitted since July. She kept putting herself down. I feel like I'm going to be like that. I decided with the prompt from Sunrise that my first submission will be a comedic short story grossly exaggerating my worst fears about writers' group. Hopefully it is well-received and will serve to gently let them know that I'm fragile.

Also, I want to start a club or something advocating the correct usage of words. I get so tired of words losing their meaning to people and being used when it really isn't appropriate.

Suspense VS Predictability

How much foreshadowing is right?

I want to build suspense in my book and have a big twist at the end, but I started the book making it pretty clear that there's something up with the character that will have the twist.

I tend to worry when trying to make foreshadowing that the reader won't pick up on the subtle clues that are meant to increase their curiosity. However, I don't want to make it so obvious that the climax is... well, anticlimactic.

In my favorite old (1908) book, The Lure Of The Mask, there is a plot development that is pretty dang obvious. When the truth was revealed, rather than being shocked, I had the small but satisfying "I knew it" experience. Is it better to make the reader feel good about seeing what was coming or to give them the thrill of the Big Plot Twist?

One of these days...

One of these days, I really have to unpack my books. It's just such a daunting task... exciting, but daunting. Maybe I'll do it after work tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah, "tomorrow"...

It's just, I'd rather write. Or read. Or write. XP
All of my time has been taken up with either writing or working or sleeping. I realized today at the end of my work day that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast the previous day. Oops.

And now I'm temporarily too sleepy to finish this post. :/

Working title!

So today with the prompting of my friend Aviel, I came up with a working title for my book!

Playing Games

Woo, this calls for more ice cream! I think I should take him out for sundaes at Back To Eden for the inspiration. ;D

Ice Cream Reward

Today I will reach 10k words in my book. I'm embarrassed to tell people this if they know how long I've been working on it, but you know what? I took a lot of breaks to deal with life, AND I proofread and edit the whole thing every day before I start writing again. So my first draft is going to be awesome. So nyah nyah.
You know what ELSE? This is my first real attempt at a whole novel, and I'm pretty sure this is already the longest thing I've ever written (business plan not included because that's no fun).
And lastly, I'm going to finish this. I know it.

So I'm having a hot fudge sundae to celebrate. :)

Oh hell.

I have really fallen off the wagon lately... double oops. At this point, I'm not going to promise daily posts anymore. I will try, but I really have to get cracking on packing.

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Today has been a day of indulgence. I think that's allowed, considering.

On a completely unrelated note (heh), how many things can I soak in liquor and/or light on fire before consuming?

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We decorated the Christmas tree the other day... Yes, one of those days that I didn't write a post on here...

This is the first real Christmas tree we've ever had. Once we used a tiny fake tree my mom got for my doll when I was a kid. It was nice, but you know... just not the same. I love the smell of a Christmas tree. We were hoping to get a Balsam Fir, but apparently nobody in town had any, so we went with a Noble Fir. It's a little shorter than me, and admittedly I was a little disappointed about that at first. I have grown to love it though. I think I was just comparing it to Christmases past, when the tree towered over me when I was a kid. I do prefer trees bigger than I am, but I can get the same effect by sitting by the tree instead of standing. And it does look lovely with the lights and beads and ornaments.

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The other day while cleaning up, I found a book that I don't even remember having. It is astonishingly fitting to this part of my journey though: How To See Yourself As You Really Are by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. "In How To See Yourself As You Really Are, [HHDL] shows readers how to recognize and dispel misguided notions of self and embrace the world from a more realistic—and loving—perspective. Step-by-step exercises help readers shatter their false assumptions and ideas and see the world as it actually exists." That is pretty much my main goal of life right now. I know this book will not fix everything for me, but hopefully it will make my journey faster and easier. I am so tired of my learned misconceptions of the world and myself causing me, and people I love, pain.

Wish me luck.

This just in!

So, remember how I said that reading and writing (for enjoyment) seemed to be helping more than the counseling?

Today my therapist said that I should keep writing, as it is "extremely therapeutic".

Go figure. ;)

So bully to this; I'm gonna work on my book now! I don't have anything interesting AND real to say here at the moment anyway. Might as well make up something interesting to say in my book. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Corny beat poetry!

Mayan cocoa in my hand
I hear the wind in the trees
As they shower me with leaves
Zip zop as I walk
In my corduroy pants
Autumn is here
Winter is near
Before we know it
It'll be the end of the year

Oops, I did it again.

I forgot to make a post yesterday. It still feels like yesterday as I write this at 2am...

Not much of note to report, I'm afraid. Still coughing like I'm gonna die. And my acupuncturist is on vacation for a week, o woe is me.

I was thinking a lot about writing today. Too bad I didn't have a chance to get any of it down. Hopefully my brain has a vault where it keeps all of my good ideas until I can write them down.

Is it acceptable to toast with cough syrup?
...here's lookin' at you, kid.

I figured out the problem.

I think I mentioned earlier that I began writing a new story that I really like the concept of but I hated what I came up with when I tried to start writing it. I have a pretty good idea of the outline of the story, and I have some details in my mind too—how I want to describe certain things and whatnot. I couldn't understand why I didn't like what I'd written so far. Then it hit me; I didn't like it because I was still writing in the style of the story I put on hold. I don't know if I can switch writing styles... I'm probably just not good enough yet to flow in and out with different writing styles.

So I decided to continue with the first story. I'm gonna finish it, dammit, and then it'll be out of my system and I can discover the style that is appropriate to the new story.

Go team.

I'm a writer, I swear.

I always feel like I have a story in me, trying to get out. I like putting things down in writing and playing with words, and people tend to like what I come up with... Either that or they're very polite, which I appreciate.

I was working on a book—you know, an honest to goodness novel—but I quit. Again. Last time I tried to write a whole novel, it got too personal and it was more like therapy for me. So I quit. This time, it was a mixture of not knowing enough about the subject I was trying to write about, not really being able to do research about the subject, and the subject just being too controversial. It wasn't too controversial for me—I like shocking people a bit sometimes—but I don't want to make people close to me too uncomfortable and cause problems. So I quit (kinda). I hope I can resume someday. I think it's a good story and it was coming out very naturally and effortlessly for a while there.

I have another story trying to get out; it is a fantasy with potential for very fun imagery. I should be able to make it a full novel, too! (Look at me, talking like I know what I'm doing!) Again, I know I'll need to do research, but this research will be much easier. I started writing this story the other day; I wrote about a paragraph and hated it. Beginnings are hard for me, but I have a linear brain. I can't start in the middle. I just CAN'T. It's WRONG. (OCD, anyone?) The only thing I felt good about was my main character's name. I gave her the old Irish name Ciara (pronounced "kee-ra"), which roughly means "dark one" (referring to someone with dark brown eyes and hair). This is incredibly appropriate, considering that she's a Selkie. I've loved Selkie lore since childhood and I'm excited to write some of my own. I will take some allowances and add some details (that will be presented in the book as "corrections") to the mythology to serve my purposes. Honestly though, I think my addendums make sense and aren't that much of a stretch.

Wish me luck in my efforts to write the gorram thing.