The following piece is one of those object writings I wrote about in the last entry. This was the first one I did. It started off being about a stuffed animal I've had in one form or another since I was about five and spun off into something slightly different. But that's the beauty of object writing. It's not supposed to make perfect sense; it's just supposed to be about writing from your heart and getting some nice turns of phrase. So here goes something real personal.
The brown fur has faded and warn. Who ever heard of a brown furry whale anyway? Stitches can be seen, Frankenstein-like. A gaping hole(s) where white stuffing leaks out. Black shark eyes once painted with crescents of white, but no longer.
You'd swear this childhood was dead by the sound of it. But it's not - just well worn.
I still run the rough, grooved fabric across the skin of under-my-nose, and I can smell. I can smell a sharp tang of age - 28 years or so of existence. I can smell my cats and cuddling on the couch. Can feel putting my feet into my mom's lap to "tickle" them while shared TV, ideas, conversation blared in the background.
A well-worn childhood. Is there dirt pressed into those cracks? There's a smile pressed onto my face, sealed with a ray of sunshine and swinging on a swing set with friends who have scattered to the winds these days. And they have new childhoods to rear. Am I still struggling to let go of mine?
Is that why I struggle to start a new childhood now? I stand on the brink of that, yes, but at great toil and pain and sacrifice. I have worked to have this fun. Is it because I can still smell my own childhood each night in my sleep? Because it lives with me until I drift off and is the first thing I smell when I awaken again in the morning?
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
What (Not) to Write About
I promise, I do live up to the title of this blog, even if the amount of entries doesn't seem like it.
Anyone who knows me knows this is true. If you've spend more than an hour or so in my company, chances are you've seen me whip out my journal and a pen more awesome than any you own and have at it. My journal is like my comfort blanket. (I might have mentioned this previously?) It's everywhere with me - staff meetings, friends' houses, the couch at night. It used to even go to restaurants with me. It keeps me from boredom and lets me feel that beautiful sensation of ballpoint pressing down on stacks of creamy pages, imprinting my words and thoughts for posterity.
(A friend and I had a discussion about pen preference recently. He's gotten into fountain pens; other than a brief stint with their antiquatedness as a child, I've always been a ballpoint person. He couldn't understand, but he's a gel pen man, anyway. They scratch against the paper - I prefer a soft flow. And yes, you're reading this correctly, I'm waxing poetic about pens.)
The thing about writing, about "being a writer," is you're always writing. About everything. Even if it's just internal monologue or planning for your next piece. Really. When I need to not obsess about what I'm going to eat next or get negative thoughts out of my head, I think about the book(s) I'm working on, the editing I need to do, how to solve a writing problem, what metaphor I could use to describe what I'm seeing/feeling/hearing/smelling, making a list of names that sound story worthy.
That's not even to mention the actual physical writing. As previously mentioned, I've been working on a (several) novel(s) for five or so years. I haven't dedicated the time or effort I should to it (I know I shouldn't judge myself, but it's severely hard not to). Finally "finished" it about a year and a half ago during a NaNoWriMo by doubling the NaNo standards. The "book" is over 300,000 words unedited. So yeah. That's a trilogy, easily. It needs so much work. I never stopped to edit as I wrote, afraid if I did I'd get caught up in the quagmire of details that needed work. I ploughed through.
Halfway through the book, I added a main character. I knew I'd have to rewrite the first half to insert him in, but I kept going. I'd get there.
And now it's been a solid year and a half of pulling my hair out with things that just aren't working. Trying to get friends to read what I've written, having them volunteer to do so, and then never doing it/not giving me feedback. (I mean, like, 3 of you did read, and thanks to you, but the rest of you, I'm calling you out on it! Ambiguously!) Finding a place where I can post my writing online and have other amateurs - and some actual real life authors - proof and edit my stuff. That's been exciting, but that's added an extra layer of work in itself. I've learned a lot through that process - like how I use way too many adverbs, how cumbersome the word "that" can be, and how awkward even some of my phrasing can come off. I've also learned that not everyone's feedback is valuable. I'm writing a young adult fantasy novel, and it's not everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone understands how young adults behave. Not everyone respects choices you make as a writer in how your characters speak or the voice of your narration. And certainly not everyone knows where commas go. (Angry face emoji here)
I have gained some great reading partners, don't get me wrong. I was in a group for awhile with three others, novel swapping, until they all petered out on me. Because the thing about aspiring writers is we all have lives outside of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), and that can get in the way of things.
During the time, I also took some time to explore writing competitions (as previously mentioned). I know I wrote about winning two out of three writing contests I entered; having one short story published online and another in a book. (The one in the book is actually an alternative take on the novel I've been writing, so that was really rewarding. These characters I've been fleshing out for five years finally coming to life? What could be more fulfilling?) And today I just found out I placed third in a 300 word sprint contest, that short writing also springing from my novel. (Go me. I'm so awesome.)
Meanwhile, I've gone through a lot in my personal life. For the past three years, my husband and I have struggled to conceive. Thanks to the emotional roller coaster of hormones, biological clocks, and in vetro fertilization, I am now in my 24th week of pregnancy, and I'm finally enjoying it. But that was it's own emotional toil. In order to tell people about my struggles, I started a blog about that particular topic. Visit it here if you're at all interested.
My insatiable love of Harry Potter also led me to take a "job" with MuggleNet, one of HP's leading fan websites. I've listened to their podcasts for years, even guest hosting twice, and I fell in love with a lot of the people who work on those (in an internet friend kind of way). I wanted to be a journalist with them, though those jobs are ridiculously hard to obtain. Just to get a foot in the door, I took a position on their content team, touching up HTML issues across the site. (Full disclosure: I don't actually know what I'm doing. I've used what others have built, docs with shortcuts, Google, and asking around to figure it out.) Though most of those jobs are small, some of them are larger and require a little bit of writing. (Longest projects with them so far: a name origins page for Fantastic Beasts, and that's not even close to done yet, I just got it started, and some work on a Cursed Child soundtrack page; click on score and composer to see what I've done there.) I tend to look at those jobs once a week or so to just keep on top of that.
Doing that work has also led to my being able to review books for MuggleNet. That means I've received FREE BOOKS! Is there much better? (Other than getting your own works published, of course.) This also means I've had to carve out reading time, which is great as I don't always do that. The actual reviews are pretty short, but reading the books and writing those reviews does take time. So far, I've reviewed a cute YA fantasy book called Order of the Majestic and an amazing book on journaling (really writing in general) called Heart, Sass, and Soul.
Actually, Heart, Sass, and Soul gave me some great writing tips and techniques that got me pumped about writing in ways I haven't been for years. I partook for five days in an activity called "object writing," where you write about something you absolutely love for 10 minutes (or less, but I don't know why anyone would elect to do it for less time; I had to keep going each time I set my timer) without stopping, even if you go off topic. I ended up with some interesting pieces that have some artistic merit. More importantly, at times I felt like I had plugged into a cosmic steam of writing consciousness. I was absolutely buzzing by the time I finished. Once I even used that feeling to do an emotional bit of writing for my novel, tapping into the main character's feelings in a way I never had before. And all that in only 10 minutes a day! It made me feel super accomplished, and I told myself if I could even do that tiny little bit every day, I'd stop having writers' guilt.
Any other writers out there experience the guilt? It comes from not spending two hours a day on the novel you want so badly to get published. Spent time writing in my journal? Prepping thank you notes? Blogging? Only worked for 10 - 20 minutes? Sorry. Not good enough.
It's silly and puts an inordinate amount of pressure on the writer (me). It saps a lot of the fun out of actual writing. Writing is writing. Any little bit of it counts and helps. I need to remember that.
And if all of that wasn't enough, I started writing a new book this week, one I'm pretty excited about. I only have about 1,000 words of it written, though, because I wouldn't let myself do much more than that. The one day this week that I sat down to exclusively write, I forced myself to do some editing on The Seed of Magic, the long-term book. A huge part of me feels that needs to be done way before I let myself indulge in a silly chick-lit book that I still think has a lot of emotional potential.
Which is also ridiculous. I know from the shorter pieces I've done in the last year that sometimes writers need to work on something different to keep things fresh, to stay excited about their writing.
Besides, writing is only a million times more fun than editing. Editing sucks. A lot.
At least I got my husband to sit down and give a cursory glance over my most recently edited chapter. When you're writing/editing, it's hard to know if you've overused phrases or if certain wording is awkward or if your continuity is clear. Especially the way I write and edit, often in 10 minute bursts or while doing something else, so the flow isn't always there. Either way, having a touch of immediate feedback made a huge difference and was encouraging.
As is the fact that I started to share my book with some of my students, who are young adults themselves, thus the perfect target age for reading. When adults read/critique my work, they see through a lot of my ruses immediately. They can predict where plot points are going even with a super cursory mention of something. Younger readers? Not so much. Meaning my plot twists will come through a lot more twistily to them. Also encouraging.
On top of all of that, there's this blog. Severely neglected, I know. But what kind of writer wants to write about writing when they could be writing about not the real world? Again, this thing feels like an indulgence, like something frivolous or unnecessary. I was going to write over my spring break about four weeks ago, but I got side tracked going out to lunch with my mom. I've been sidetracked by all my various other writing projects. By starting a baby registry and unpacking in our new house (we've been in since Valentine's Day, but of course there are still little things to get out of boxes). By a million other little things.
Because even when you love to write, there are so many reasons to procrastinate. Sometimes you just get intimidated or overwhelmed by the amount of writing projects you have going and you end up working on none of them.
The struggle, my friends and dear readers, is far too real.
Anyone who knows me knows this is true. If you've spend more than an hour or so in my company, chances are you've seen me whip out my journal and a pen more awesome than any you own and have at it. My journal is like my comfort blanket. (I might have mentioned this previously?) It's everywhere with me - staff meetings, friends' houses, the couch at night. It used to even go to restaurants with me. It keeps me from boredom and lets me feel that beautiful sensation of ballpoint pressing down on stacks of creamy pages, imprinting my words and thoughts for posterity.
(A friend and I had a discussion about pen preference recently. He's gotten into fountain pens; other than a brief stint with their antiquatedness as a child, I've always been a ballpoint person. He couldn't understand, but he's a gel pen man, anyway. They scratch against the paper - I prefer a soft flow. And yes, you're reading this correctly, I'm waxing poetic about pens.)
The thing about writing, about "being a writer," is you're always writing. About everything. Even if it's just internal monologue or planning for your next piece. Really. When I need to not obsess about what I'm going to eat next or get negative thoughts out of my head, I think about the book(s) I'm working on, the editing I need to do, how to solve a writing problem, what metaphor I could use to describe what I'm seeing/feeling/hearing/smelling, making a list of names that sound story worthy.
That's not even to mention the actual physical writing. As previously mentioned, I've been working on a (several) novel(s) for five or so years. I haven't dedicated the time or effort I should to it (I know I shouldn't judge myself, but it's severely hard not to). Finally "finished" it about a year and a half ago during a NaNoWriMo by doubling the NaNo standards. The "book" is over 300,000 words unedited. So yeah. That's a trilogy, easily. It needs so much work. I never stopped to edit as I wrote, afraid if I did I'd get caught up in the quagmire of details that needed work. I ploughed through.
Halfway through the book, I added a main character. I knew I'd have to rewrite the first half to insert him in, but I kept going. I'd get there.
And now it's been a solid year and a half of pulling my hair out with things that just aren't working. Trying to get friends to read what I've written, having them volunteer to do so, and then never doing it/not giving me feedback. (I mean, like, 3 of you did read, and thanks to you, but the rest of you, I'm calling you out on it! Ambiguously!) Finding a place where I can post my writing online and have other amateurs - and some actual real life authors - proof and edit my stuff. That's been exciting, but that's added an extra layer of work in itself. I've learned a lot through that process - like how I use way too many adverbs, how cumbersome the word "that" can be, and how awkward even some of my phrasing can come off. I've also learned that not everyone's feedback is valuable. I'm writing a young adult fantasy novel, and it's not everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone understands how young adults behave. Not everyone respects choices you make as a writer in how your characters speak or the voice of your narration. And certainly not everyone knows where commas go. (Angry face emoji here)
I have gained some great reading partners, don't get me wrong. I was in a group for awhile with three others, novel swapping, until they all petered out on me. Because the thing about aspiring writers is we all have lives outside of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), and that can get in the way of things.
During the time, I also took some time to explore writing competitions (as previously mentioned). I know I wrote about winning two out of three writing contests I entered; having one short story published online and another in a book. (The one in the book is actually an alternative take on the novel I've been writing, so that was really rewarding. These characters I've been fleshing out for five years finally coming to life? What could be more fulfilling?) And today I just found out I placed third in a 300 word sprint contest, that short writing also springing from my novel. (Go me. I'm so awesome.)
Meanwhile, I've gone through a lot in my personal life. For the past three years, my husband and I have struggled to conceive. Thanks to the emotional roller coaster of hormones, biological clocks, and in vetro fertilization, I am now in my 24th week of pregnancy, and I'm finally enjoying it. But that was it's own emotional toil. In order to tell people about my struggles, I started a blog about that particular topic. Visit it here if you're at all interested.
My insatiable love of Harry Potter also led me to take a "job" with MuggleNet, one of HP's leading fan websites. I've listened to their podcasts for years, even guest hosting twice, and I fell in love with a lot of the people who work on those (in an internet friend kind of way). I wanted to be a journalist with them, though those jobs are ridiculously hard to obtain. Just to get a foot in the door, I took a position on their content team, touching up HTML issues across the site. (Full disclosure: I don't actually know what I'm doing. I've used what others have built, docs with shortcuts, Google, and asking around to figure it out.) Though most of those jobs are small, some of them are larger and require a little bit of writing. (Longest projects with them so far: a name origins page for Fantastic Beasts, and that's not even close to done yet, I just got it started, and some work on a Cursed Child soundtrack page; click on score and composer to see what I've done there.) I tend to look at those jobs once a week or so to just keep on top of that.
Doing that work has also led to my being able to review books for MuggleNet. That means I've received FREE BOOKS! Is there much better? (Other than getting your own works published, of course.) This also means I've had to carve out reading time, which is great as I don't always do that. The actual reviews are pretty short, but reading the books and writing those reviews does take time. So far, I've reviewed a cute YA fantasy book called Order of the Majestic and an amazing book on journaling (really writing in general) called Heart, Sass, and Soul.
Actually, Heart, Sass, and Soul gave me some great writing tips and techniques that got me pumped about writing in ways I haven't been for years. I partook for five days in an activity called "object writing," where you write about something you absolutely love for 10 minutes (or less, but I don't know why anyone would elect to do it for less time; I had to keep going each time I set my timer) without stopping, even if you go off topic. I ended up with some interesting pieces that have some artistic merit. More importantly, at times I felt like I had plugged into a cosmic steam of writing consciousness. I was absolutely buzzing by the time I finished. Once I even used that feeling to do an emotional bit of writing for my novel, tapping into the main character's feelings in a way I never had before. And all that in only 10 minutes a day! It made me feel super accomplished, and I told myself if I could even do that tiny little bit every day, I'd stop having writers' guilt.
Any other writers out there experience the guilt? It comes from not spending two hours a day on the novel you want so badly to get published. Spent time writing in my journal? Prepping thank you notes? Blogging? Only worked for 10 - 20 minutes? Sorry. Not good enough.
It's silly and puts an inordinate amount of pressure on the writer (me). It saps a lot of the fun out of actual writing. Writing is writing. Any little bit of it counts and helps. I need to remember that.
And if all of that wasn't enough, I started writing a new book this week, one I'm pretty excited about. I only have about 1,000 words of it written, though, because I wouldn't let myself do much more than that. The one day this week that I sat down to exclusively write, I forced myself to do some editing on The Seed of Magic, the long-term book. A huge part of me feels that needs to be done way before I let myself indulge in a silly chick-lit book that I still think has a lot of emotional potential.
Which is also ridiculous. I know from the shorter pieces I've done in the last year that sometimes writers need to work on something different to keep things fresh, to stay excited about their writing.
Besides, writing is only a million times more fun than editing. Editing sucks. A lot.
At least I got my husband to sit down and give a cursory glance over my most recently edited chapter. When you're writing/editing, it's hard to know if you've overused phrases or if certain wording is awkward or if your continuity is clear. Especially the way I write and edit, often in 10 minute bursts or while doing something else, so the flow isn't always there. Either way, having a touch of immediate feedback made a huge difference and was encouraging.
As is the fact that I started to share my book with some of my students, who are young adults themselves, thus the perfect target age for reading. When adults read/critique my work, they see through a lot of my ruses immediately. They can predict where plot points are going even with a super cursory mention of something. Younger readers? Not so much. Meaning my plot twists will come through a lot more twistily to them. Also encouraging.
On top of all of that, there's this blog. Severely neglected, I know. But what kind of writer wants to write about writing when they could be writing about not the real world? Again, this thing feels like an indulgence, like something frivolous or unnecessary. I was going to write over my spring break about four weeks ago, but I got side tracked going out to lunch with my mom. I've been sidetracked by all my various other writing projects. By starting a baby registry and unpacking in our new house (we've been in since Valentine's Day, but of course there are still little things to get out of boxes). By a million other little things.
Because even when you love to write, there are so many reasons to procrastinate. Sometimes you just get intimidated or overwhelmed by the amount of writing projects you have going and you end up working on none of them.
The struggle, my friends and dear readers, is far too real.
Friday, April 5, 2019
Vernal Equinox
So, briefly, it's been a rough week. Two days ago, a woman had a heart attack and passed away in the building in which I work. I worked moderately closely with her, and I've been having a hard time coping. She was only 51, was set to retire in June, and seemed perfectly healthy. I saw her walking the halls in the morning, and everything was fine.
Then she had an episode where she very suddenly became short of breath, and that was that. The end.
It's been a too real lesson in mortality and how precious life is. All the platitudes we know and memorize come to slap us in the face.
I wrote this piece to cope with that. Here goes.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Then she had an episode where she very suddenly became short of breath, and that was that. The end.
It's been a too real lesson in mortality and how precious life is. All the platitudes we know and memorize come to slap us in the face.
I wrote this piece to cope with that. Here goes.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Vernal Equinox
The First Day of Spring doesn’t necessarily feel like the first day of spring. They are different times, separate events, though both easily recognizable somehow. There’s a difference between the vernal equinox, when the planet stands in equal lengths of light and darkness and there’s some bogus legend about standing an egg on its end, and the first day of spring, when you leave your house still wrapped in a coat despite the air quality being different. There’s an edge of warmth that wasn’t there before, an undertone to the scene of fresh dew, birds singing a sweet song rather than geese honking garishly on their journey south. It smells fresh and warms the bones and the heart and the lungs. It feels new.
Ironic, because it is not new. It happens every year, the same way. And yet it somehow evokes a sense of rebirth, even though that birth is right back into the same patterns we’ve had all our lives. We still wake up and go to work. We still drive home, though maybe now it’s with the window down, though we did that last year, too. We might go for a walk outside - again, only new this calendar year, not a brand new notion. We might breathe more deeply. We might sit on our porches. We might do all the same things we did last year but with the thrill of it being the first time in months we’ve been able to.
Time makes everything new again. Spring makes everything new again.
Parents take their children to the park, where they can run around and climb on jungle gyms and roll in the grass, which isn’t fully green yet and is still wet with the last remnants of winter. And dirt will pick up on their clothes, but at least we don’t have to be cooped up inside anymore, right? Oh, those pesky children who drive us utterly out of our minds. We’ve been stuck inside with them for so long, forgetting that this is what we wanted, that when we were children, we dreamed of having children, that as adults we may have planned and tried to have them, that there are many who can’t have them or struggle to make those dreams come true.
But we complain anyway, ignoring the burning hearts of others, because they aren’t us.
Time has forced us to forget our dreams and replace them with complaints and complacencies.
We are aware of our own ticking time bombs, at least tangentially. We may not think of it at every turning moment, but it has burrowed into the backs of our brains, and sometimes it reaches it’s tickling tentacles out to poke us.
But sometimes, time slaps us in the face with it.
While children play, and new life grows in wombs, and adolescents wander carelessly through fluorescently lit hallways, absorbed with themselves, death takes away. It robs. It strikes without any sense of fairness or age or health.
There was a woman, and she was beautiful. She walked with poise and grace, and she cared about others. She worked to make lives of children better, and whether or not you agreed with her opinions, she was pleasant and polite, and she tried her best. And one morning, the morning of the first day of spring, April 3, 2019, her breath was stifled and stolen, and a freak blockage stopped her heart. And among adolescents and adults, men and women and children concerned with their own lives and stresses, she gasped her last struggled breath and left this mortal coil.
No more sunshine on skin.
No more dew on grass.
No more fluorescent lit hallways.
No more sounds of children playing.
No more hopes and dreams forgotten.
No more sloughing off the cares of others.
No more.
Time is the great equalizer. With time, none of us will exist. With time, we may destroy the world due to carbon emissions or nuclear war, certainly through lack of empathy, but either way, we will not be here to see the end result. Nor will anyone. We will be equally dead and dust.
We will be equal.
And the grass will grow. And the rain will fall. And spring will come back. And things will be reborn.
The same.
But different.
Writers Write... Blogs?
Writers these days are supposed to have blogs. That's just the way it is.
So... <tap tap tap> Is this thing on? Here I am I guess. Blogging away in the blogosphere. Which I've done multiple times over in the past. It's how I met my husband (in the early 2000s when it was still kind of new and weird to meet someone online). It's how I've been coping with my struggles of infertility.
But that's for another blog. (Just click on the link above if you want to read about that uplifting journey!)
This one is just to be like, Hey guys! I'm a writer! Look at me write!
Because that's what writers do, isn't it? They write. All the time. Like breathing. Write like they're running out of time.
So here I am, a writer, writing. I mean, if you know me personally, I know you've seen my writing in action. I carry pens and notebooks everywhere with me. I'm the weird girl who sits at New Years' parties scribbling away in my journal. I'm usually better conversation than others anyway.
I have huge writing aspirations, so I figure I'd better start my "author blog," get it up and running, maybe even get a following. Oh my! Readers for my writing! How wonderful!
The kind of ironic part about this is by spending time writing here, I'm not spending time working on my Great Novel, which has so far been a labor of love, frustration, years, and ink stains. In its original draft form, the dang thing is over 300,000 words. For comparison, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is 76,944 words long. The longest book in that series (and my favorite since I'm a glutton for punishment), Order of the Phoenix, is 257,045 words.
So 300,000 is a bit excessive.
That's without the major editing its been receiving for the past year and a half already. Of course, editing is its own painful process that often leaves me whining aloud, "Writing is haaaaaard." Editing is so much harder than writing. I'm learning to love it, though, and take pleasure in cutting three words down to one. It's just painstakingly lengthy.
Especially when, halfway through your first draft, you invented a character that you now have to go back and add in to the rest of the book...
I often wonder if I'll ever be done with the thing. (Things, really. I'm fully aware that I have to split this baby up, probably into three or so books. But I hear publishers these days are into multiple part stories, so I'll have that going for me.)
Luckily it isn't my only project. Last year, spurred on by Jen Sincero's super fun self-help book, You Are a Badass, I entered a few writing contests I had to compose short stories for. The first one I entered? Yeah, I got honorable mention in it.
Wahoo! I'm not the only one who thinks I can write! That was life affirming.
The story can be found here, if anyone's interested.
My second contest was a bust, boo hiss.
But the third? Another honorable mention, which this time led to a publication! I had a short story published in a Young Adult anthology about Lust (which I know is a little weird, but it was the last in a series of anthologies about the seven deadly sins). It can be purchased here. I don't get any exciting proceeds from it, but whatever.
There isn't a much greater thrill than seeing your name in print.
And knowing that your record for short story contests is 2 for 3. Having confirmation that yeah, you really are at least a halfway decent writer. *Phew*
Sometimes I feel mediocre at so many of the things I love. To know that I really am good at something like writing that I spend so much time doing?
Guys, it's awesome.
Don't worry. This whole blog isn't going to be me tooting my own horn all the time. More likely than not, it'll be more like my next entry, which I have to go proofread (soon). Getting my feelings out in a well written way.
Hey. The last time I did that, I posted a paragraph about snow on Facebook, which I later used in my first contest mention, White Blanket.
Just hoping to get some good writing fodder going here.
Coffee and cupcakes to all,
Shauna
So... <tap tap tap> Is this thing on? Here I am I guess. Blogging away in the blogosphere. Which I've done multiple times over in the past. It's how I met my husband (in the early 2000s when it was still kind of new and weird to meet someone online). It's how I've been coping with my struggles of infertility.
But that's for another blog. (Just click on the link above if you want to read about that uplifting journey!)
This one is just to be like, Hey guys! I'm a writer! Look at me write!
Because that's what writers do, isn't it? They write. All the time. Like breathing. Write like they're running out of time.
So here I am, a writer, writing. I mean, if you know me personally, I know you've seen my writing in action. I carry pens and notebooks everywhere with me. I'm the weird girl who sits at New Years' parties scribbling away in my journal. I'm usually better conversation than others anyway.
I have huge writing aspirations, so I figure I'd better start my "author blog," get it up and running, maybe even get a following. Oh my! Readers for my writing! How wonderful!
The kind of ironic part about this is by spending time writing here, I'm not spending time working on my Great Novel, which has so far been a labor of love, frustration, years, and ink stains. In its original draft form, the dang thing is over 300,000 words. For comparison, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is 76,944 words long. The longest book in that series (and my favorite since I'm a glutton for punishment), Order of the Phoenix, is 257,045 words.
So 300,000 is a bit excessive.
That's without the major editing its been receiving for the past year and a half already. Of course, editing is its own painful process that often leaves me whining aloud, "Writing is haaaaaard." Editing is so much harder than writing. I'm learning to love it, though, and take pleasure in cutting three words down to one. It's just painstakingly lengthy.
Especially when, halfway through your first draft, you invented a character that you now have to go back and add in to the rest of the book...
I often wonder if I'll ever be done with the thing. (Things, really. I'm fully aware that I have to split this baby up, probably into three or so books. But I hear publishers these days are into multiple part stories, so I'll have that going for me.)
Luckily it isn't my only project. Last year, spurred on by Jen Sincero's super fun self-help book, You Are a Badass, I entered a few writing contests I had to compose short stories for. The first one I entered? Yeah, I got honorable mention in it.
Wahoo! I'm not the only one who thinks I can write! That was life affirming.
The story can be found here, if anyone's interested.
My second contest was a bust, boo hiss.
But the third? Another honorable mention, which this time led to a publication! I had a short story published in a Young Adult anthology about Lust (which I know is a little weird, but it was the last in a series of anthologies about the seven deadly sins). It can be purchased here. I don't get any exciting proceeds from it, but whatever.
There isn't a much greater thrill than seeing your name in print.
And knowing that your record for short story contests is 2 for 3. Having confirmation that yeah, you really are at least a halfway decent writer. *Phew*
Sometimes I feel mediocre at so many of the things I love. To know that I really am good at something like writing that I spend so much time doing?
Guys, it's awesome.
Don't worry. This whole blog isn't going to be me tooting my own horn all the time. More likely than not, it'll be more like my next entry, which I have to go proofread (soon). Getting my feelings out in a well written way.
Hey. The last time I did that, I posted a paragraph about snow on Facebook, which I later used in my first contest mention, White Blanket.
Just hoping to get some good writing fodder going here.
Coffee and cupcakes to all,
Shauna
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