30 Things: Question 3

3. Describe your relationship with your parents.
In a word: complicated.

I love my parents, but they have caused me a great deal of pain over the years. I’m working on forgiving them and figuring out a way to have a better relationship with them. Still, I love them and it’s hard to imagine not having them around, even if I don't talk to them very much.

I'll probably go into greater detail later in this series, but for now, this will have to suffice.

Until then.

Listy Wednesday: Places I've Been Part 3

Today I'll end my series about the places I've been by giving you a list of all the cities I've visited around the world. Well, most of them. There are some towns that I found myself in that I don't remember the names of. Still, I'll include as many as I can, including the country in which they are located if they happen to be outside the US.

1. Austin, TX
2. Rochester, MN
3. Aurora, CO
4. St. Charles, MO
5. Lubbock, TX
6. Minneapolis, MN
7. Rome, Italy
8. Amsterdam, the Netherlands
9. Frankfurt, Germany,
10. Denver, CO
11. St. Louis, MO
12. Colorado Springs, CO
13. Des Moines, IA
14. Denton, TX
15. Post, TX
16. Jacksboro, TX
17. Philadelphia, PA
18. Liberty, VA
19. Mobile, AL
20. Cedarville, OH
21. Savannah, GA
22. Turin, Italy
23. Venice, Italy
24. Guatemala City, Guatemala
25. Chiquimula, Guatemala
26. Zacapa, Guatemala
27. Trieste, Italy
28. Florence, Italy
29. Pisa, Italy
30. Vatican City
31. San Antonio, TX
32. O'Fallon, MO
33. Springfield, MO
34. Rolla, MO
35. Chicago, IL
36. Nashville, TN

I'm sure that's not all of the places I've been, but I'm having trouble thinking of the other cities.

On Friday, I'll continue my 30 Things series.

Until then.

Writing Update: So Close to Done

I got a decent amount of writing done last week, so I'm now at a little over 47k words. I also have about four or five scenes left to rewrite in the draft. That means, I'll hopefully be over 50K by the time I'm done. Which is awesome, since the first draft was so short. Still, 50K is pretty short for a fantasy novel. Although, I already know I'm going to do at least one more draft of this novel, since I think there are some scenes I need to add to the beginning and I need to adjust some things in the middle to make them make more sense.

One good thing about this draft is that it helped me discover the theme of this novel. I know theme is a big thing in novels, but I've found that the couple of time I've tried to write with a particular theme in mind, it hasn't quite worked out right. First Sight actually started out with a sort of theme about truth and lies and how they interact. But as I was working on this draft, I realized that that theme wasn't really working. Maybe because I didn't know what I was trying to say about it, or maybe because it was too nebulous. Or maybe something else all together.

In the end, I realized about 3/4 of the way through this draft that the theme of First Sight is actually trust. Trust in oneself, trust in others. Which is an interesting thing to explore when one of your characters always knows when someone's lying. I found myself thinking about how something like that might affect a person's ability to trust others, particularly if they suddenly found that they couldn't use their lie-detecting on someone they were supposed to work closely with.

Knowing this makes me need to rethink a lot of my two MC's interactions. Which is one of the reasons I know First Sight will be getting at least one more draft.

Okay, that's all I've got today. Come back Wednesday for Listy Wednesday.

Until then.

30 Things: Question 2

2. Describe three legitimate fears you have and explain how they became fears.

1. Never accomplishing my goals.
I am something of a procrastinator, so I worry that I will never get my act together and actually accomplish my goal of becoming a published author. I fear that I’ll keep finding a way to put off doing the things that I need to in order to get published.

2. Failure.
I fear failing at whatever I try to do. I’m scared that if I try something, I will wind up being horrible at it and making a fool of myself. This probably stems from my childhood and the fact that perfection was expected of me in everything and since I couldn’t be perfect, my failures were often pointed out without bothering to point out when I had actually gotten something right.

3. Abandonment
I am scared that those closest to me will at some point get tired of me or realize that they never really liked me to begin with and leave. This probably stems from the fact that this has happened to me on several occasions, and usually right about the time I was really starting to trust the person.

Listy Wednesday: Places I've Been Part II

Today, I continue my series on the places I've been. This time, I'm going to list the states that I've been to. This will include ones I've driven through but not necessarily stayed in. It won't include the ones I've flown over. Enjoy!

1. Texas
2. Missouri
3. Colorado
4. Minnesota
5. Oklahoma
6. Kansas
7. Arkansas
8. Mississippi
9. Alabama
10. Georgia
11. Tennessee
12. Kentucky
13. Ohio
14. Illinois
15. Indiana
16. Pennsylvania
17. Virginia
18. New Mexico
19. West Virginia

As you can see, I've been all over the Mid West, and throughout the South, but not many other places. I've never been West of the Rockies. That's something I hope to fix one day.

Next week I'll list all the (major-ish) cities I've been too, both domestically and internationally.

Until then.

Monday Writing Progress Report

Last week I had a bit of a hiccup in the middle of the week with my writing. My wrists started hurting again, so I didn't get a ton written. I'm up to a little over 45K words now, so only about 2K words more than last week.

This is particularly maddening since I'm within about seven scenes of being finished with this rewrite of the story. I'm hoping this week will be a little better with my hands, since it's not raining too much and I've been exercising them (my hands that is). I just find this very frustrating. Being limited by how much pain I have is so annoying. There are times when I wish I could just sit and type for hours, but I can't because my hands hurt too much. I utterly hate having fibromyalgia at times like this.

I know I randomly mention when my writing is affected by my health, but I rarely talk about my feelings about my health. That's probably because most of the time, not being able to physically do things doesn't really bother me that much. I've adjusted and learned how to work within my physical limits. It only ever really gets to me when I weeks like last week, where doing anything hurts and nothing helps make the pain go away. It's at those times that I'm reminded how much I hate how useless this condition makes me feel.

Okay, enough ranting about things I can't change. I'm looking forward to finishing this draft in the next week or so.

Until then.

30 Things: Question 1

I'm always cautious to reveal too much personal information about myself. Letting people in is scary. That's why I don't say much about me or my life in these posts.

Recently though, I've realized that this isn't the best idea if I actually want people to connect with me. There are things in my past that, while I dislike them, may help you understand me more and may help us connect better. After all, that's what I want my writing to do, so if I can't open up how can I expect my writing to connect to people. So I've decided to try and write posts that are more personal and show you a little more about me beyond just what I'm writing.

I'm going to start by doing a series of 30 posts answering a series of questions about myself. I found this series through a pin on Pinterest on this blog. I liked it so I decided to fill it out. I never thought I'd post the answers, but turns out I am. Go figure.

Okay, let's get started.

30 Things

1. List 20 random facts about yourself.

1. I am a Christian. When I say I’m a Christian, I mean that I believe that Christ is the Son of God who came to earth to live a perfect life and then die before rising again on the third day all because we as humans are broken by sin and can't have a relationship with God without Christ's sacrifice. I also believe in the complete validity of the Bible and a few other things that you can feel free to ask me about.
2. My sense of smell is very weak. I can only identify a few things by smell, and I can only smell things that a very strong or that I am thinking about smelling (i.e. someone says smell this and then sticks something under my nose).
3. I talk to inanimate objects, mostly telling them to stop moving or stop acting stupid.
4. I like to practice talking in non-native accents, especially after I hear someone else speaking with an accent.
5. Over time, I tend to pick up accents and mannerisms of the people I hang out with or spend lots of time around.
6. I am not scared of reptiles, amphibians, or rodents; in fact, I think they are pretty cool.
7. Other than the nickname my family used/uses for me (Kat) and the one only one of my childhood friends uses for me, I didn’t have a nickname until well into college and no one even uses those for me anymore.
8. I love the smell of fresh mulch.
9. I sing along with pretty much any song I know even part of, sometimes despite hating the song/artist.
10. Often if I hear just the title or a few words related to a song, the part I know best will get stuck in my head.
11. I don’t watch R-rated movies and I avoid explicit music and books as much as possible, but I play M-rated video games.
12. I love re-watching shows and movies I’ve already seen.
13. I would rather be half an hour early that a minute late.
14. I never played any sports or instruments in high school or college, nor did I join any clubs, teams, or groups, except senior year of high school when I returned to homeschool choir.
15. I’ve only been out of the country three times in my entire life. Twice to Italy and once to Guatemala.
16. I was 18 before I saw a beach or ocean for the first time.
17. I’ve never been skiing, even when I lived in Colorado for 18 months.
18. Despite being a major klutz who routinely runs into stationary objects, trips walking across flat ground, and falls up and down the stairs, I have only fallen out of a tree once when I was about five. I’ve never fallen off a ladder or off of any other objects I have climbed.
19. I’ve never broken a bone, but have had 20+ stitches and several very bad sprains.
20. I'm a major introvert. And I'm kind of shy. No those aren't the same thing.

There you go. Come back next week for number 2.

Until then.

Listy Wednesday: Places I've Been

Today I'm going to list some of the places I've been. This is going to be a series of lists actually because I'm going to break it down into countries, states in the US, and cities (both US and international).

I haven't really traveled that much, so this first list will be short. As usual, there are in no particular order.

1. Italy
2. Guatemala
3. The Netherlands
4. Austria
5. Germany
6. The United States (technically since I was born here, I'm not sure it counts as a place I've been, but I'm including it anyway.)

I've flown over a number of other countries, but never actually been in them, so they don't count.

Next week I'll list all the states here in the US I've been in.

Friday, I'm starting my new series of personal posts.

Until then.

Writing Progress

Last week I didn't get as much written as I would have liked. I've been fighting migraines, pain in my hands, and just generally not feeling well. Still I got a little bit done. I'm now up to about 43K words.

I'm still having trouble with the ending. I've been considering ways to change it and make it better, but I still am not sure. The part I'm having the most trouble with is where they actually confront the antagonist. It just doesn't feel right. Most of the rest of the ending feels okay, but that particular part just rings false to me for some reason. I'll definitely have to work on it and let you know what happens.

I'm gonna end here because honestly I don't have a lot else to talk about with First Sight at the moment.

So come back on Wednesday for a fun new list.

Until then.

Character Ideas Part IV: Antagonists

I realized that I never finished this series, so here's the last entry in my Character Ideas series of posts. I've already talked about where I get the ideas for protagonists, side characters, and love interests. Now it's time for the antagonists.

Typically my antagonists come from the needs of the story. Most of the time when I'm coming up with the story, the antagonist is one of the last big pieces I work on before writing. I've never had an idea that starts with the antagonist, but that could happen in the future.

I don't want to tell you too many specifics about the antagonists in my two novels because that might give too much away. Instead, I'll just talk in generalities. Both needed specific qualities to cause the plot events for both stories. The mean specific skills and back stories to make their motivations make sense. I actually probably spent more time on their motivations than my main characters. This could be because I have a tendency to write stories where the MCs get thrown into situations, whereas the antagonists are causing the issue so they need to have a specific plan and course of action and the motivations to make that plan take place. So I know exactly why both my bad guys did what they did, what drove them too it and why they didn't choose a nicer path.

I guess you could say that the plot is really what gives me the ideas for my antagonists. Again, this might not always be the case, but at the moment, it's what I have.

Next Firday, I'm going to be starting a new series, but it's not going to be about writing topics. I've decided that since this blog is called Writing through Life, I should probably talk a little about my life. So next week, I'll start doing just that.

Until then.

Listy Wednesday: 100

Since it's my 100th post today, I decided I'm going to push myself and list 100 of the names I like best. See, I like names. Who am I kidding, I love names. I have a bunch of baby name books (have since I was a teenager) and I'm always looking up new names and what they mean. So naturally I have a list of names I love. And today, I'll share 100 of those.

This list will consist of both male and female names in no particular order. They are names that I like for a wide variety of reasons, whether cause I would name my kid that or because it's a cool name, or because it works for a character I may one day create. As usual, I'm not telling you which is which. Feel free to guess. Also, tell me which names you like best from my list, or which ones you think I should have included.

1. Lucas
2. Caleb
3. Gavin
4. Brandon
5. Zachary
6. Levi
7. Nathaniel
8. Bryson
9. Cole
10. Braxton
11. Gage
12. Collin
13. Reuben
14. Brice
15. Benton
16. Efrain
17. Callan
18. Alden
19. Justus
20. Rowen
21. Emmitt
22. Matthias
23. Teagan
24. Brendan
25. Brennen
26. Zechariah
27. Emery
28. Braeden
29. Trent
30. Travis
31. Malachi
32. Corinne
33. Lorelei
34. Livia
35. Elaine
36. Kassandra
37. Virginia
38. Elisa
39. Elaina
40. Phoebe
41. Alexia
42. Genevieve
43. Tessa
44. Alexandria
45. Cora
46. Elise
47. Lydia
48. Victoria
49. Chloe
50. Sophia
51. Samantha
52. Zoe
53. Rebekah
54. Piper
55. Brant
56. Aidan
57. Alexander
58. Andrew
59. Asher
60. Benjamin
61. Bennett
62. Blake
63. Braddock
64. Bradly
65. Brent
66. Brody
67. Bryant
68. Cale
69. Camden
70. Christopher
71. Cody
72. Colin
73. Connor
74. Cullen
75. Gideon
76. Daniel
77. David
78. Dyllan
79. Ellis
80. Eli
81. Elijah
82. Elliott
83. Ephraim
84. Ethan
85. Evan
86. Everett
87. Ezekiel
88. Gabe
89. Geoffrey
90. Graham
91. Ian
92. Isaac
93. Isaiah
94. Tate
95. Alaina
96. Amelia
97. Aubrey
98. Tyler
99. Titus
100. Tobias

What are your favorites from my list? What names are missing? I know there are a bunch of guys names, so what girls names do you think I should add?

I'm Back

I was sick last week, so I didn't get blogs done. I'm still not feeling great, but I figured I need to try to do these even if I didn't feel well. So here I am.

I started working on First Sight again last week. I've been trying to get two scenes done a day, since I really want to get this draft done. I'm not always successful, but I've been pretty good about it. My current word count is just over 40K. That's right at what the first draft was when completed, so I'm pretty happy about that. I've added quite a bit that I hope makes the story better.

Currently I'm working on the last third or so. It's officially my least favorite part of the story. I'm not sure why. Maybe I don't totally like the resolution, but something about the end feels off. Or maybe it feels too easy. I'm not sure. Before I finish redrafting, I might reread that section and see if I can figure out what's irking me about it so I can fix it. I don't want to just regurgitate a bad ending if I can fix it.

That being said, I really want to get First Sight done cause I want to get back to Alana. I think I know what needs to be done, so I want to get busy doing it. I've been rereading some really well written books that have really inspired me and that makes me want to work on Alana.

Okay, that's it for tonight. Wednesday I'll have a list for you. Friday will be the last post in my Character ideas series.

Until then.