Lack of Direction

Time for a little transparency from me. Something I'm not always that great at, but here goes nothing. I have no idea what this blog is about. I'm not sure I ever really have.

I started this blog years ago and have let it lapse on more than one occasion. I usually come back to it, and try to pick up where I left off. I try to find something to write about with varying degrees of success. But I've never really had a direction or theme or goal with this blog other than to blog. Cause as a writer, you're supposed to blog. So I wanted to do that.

The problem with doing something just because it's what you're supposed to do is that you quickly learn that there's not a lot else there. I rarely have anything to say, because I have no idea what I want to say. What do you talk about when you feel like you have nothing of value to say?

Cause that's how I feel most of the time. I'm not published, and haven't really taken any steps towards getting published, despite all my talk of doing so. I don't have kids or an interesting job that gives me lots of stories to relate. I mean, who really wants to hear about how I spent all day reading reviews about bathroom scales? Yeah, not me either. I've thought about reviewing things (TV, books, etc) but I don't feel qualified to do that. Who really wants to hear my opinions about those things? I mean, I barely remember anything about themes from my lit classes in college, so who am I to comment on that type of thing in what I read and watch?

Thinking all of these things leaves me feeling as if I have nothing of value to write about. I've already cycled through all my thoughts and processes on plot and character creation. What else can I say?

All this is to say that I'm feeling a little at a loss with this blog right now. I don't want to give up on it, but I honestly have no idea what to do with it. If it's the thing that's supposed to allow readers to peak into my mind, what do I want them to see when they do? Do I have any thoughts worth putting out there? I'm not sure. Honestly, I never feel like my thoughts are worth putting out there. It's why I so aggressively filter myself in real life. My voice isn't really worth anything, so there's no point in talking up.

Which I know is stupid, and surely I can find something to say, even if it's just for myself, but it's how I feel most of the time. There are so many people out there that are so much smarter than me that my thoughts seem pointless most of the time.

But I don't want to give up. I want to build a successful blog. Not just because I'm supposed to, but also because I want to find my voice. It's just right now, I don't know what this blog should be about.

So I'm gonna take some time and think about it. And I'll probably try a few things (like reviewing a show) and see if anything seems to stick. We'll see what happens.

But for now, I'm going silent while I do something thinking. I should be back in a a week or two.

Until then.

Writing Update

So last weeks plans to write got derailed a bit because of crazy work days. Things were just nuts all week last week. As such, I didn't really get a chance to write anything significant. I did do a little work on Alana, but crazy work combined with being mired in doing calculations to figure out time passage rates in two different worlds left me having accomplished very little of substance. I'm hoping to fix that this week, but so far, it's been crazy already.

As for my lists, due to last weeks craziness, I didn't get a chance to come up with new list topics. So no list again this week. Maybe next week.

I will post a question for 30 Things on Friday though.

Until then.

Writing Update

Sorry it's been a bit since I wrote an entry. I've had a bit of a crazy few weeks. This past week was particularly crazy.

Last weekend I got sick and was still feeling unwell by Monday. Then I had a root canal on Wednesday and wound up getting sick again on Friday and staying sick all weekend. And that was just last week. The prior week was also a bit hectic.

Needless to say, I haven't really felt up to writing much. As such, I haven't gotten much more done on Alana. I'm gonna try to get back to it this week, but I can't promise anything.

As for my lists, I'm running out of things to list, and being sick, I haven't really had the time (or inclination) to come up with new ideas. I'll try to spend some time on that this week so that next week I'll have some ready to go.

Friday I plan to post the next question in 30 Things, so that's fun.

Until then.

30 Things: Question 6

This is actually a really hard question for me to answer. So far, it's my least favorite. But this project is about being vulnerable and open, so here you go.

6. What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

The thing that stands out the most is the issues that went on between me and my parents from when I was 16 until I got married at 22. That was, by far, the most difficult period of my life, due chiefly to my very strained relationship with my parents. I don’t want to go into too much detail, since I’ve begun working on healing from the pain that they caused me during that time and throughout my childhood. Suffice it to say that we had nearly weekly fights over some very petty things. They said terrible things to me and called me names and in general were some of the least supportive people I know. I nearly ran away so I’d never have to see them again on multiple occasions. The things they said and did while I was a teenager has damaged our relationship in ways I can't even describe.

I am just now starting to deal with many of the issues that have resulted from my childhood and I pray that someday I will be able to put them all in the past and have some sort of healthy relationship with my parents. But I am getting through it. I recognize it for what it was and I am learning to rewrite my self-image. The Lord is using that pain and hurt to draw me closer to Him and make me a better wife. I know that the scars of those things will never go away, but I also know that eventually they won’t be so fresh and I will be able to use them to point others to the redeeming love of Christ.

Listy Wednesday: Activities I Enjoy

Today I'll list all the things I like to do besides writing. Most of these I don't get to do too often, since my time is super limited, but I still really enjoy them when I can get to them.

1. Reading
2. Doodling
3. Jewelry making
4. Crafting
5. Researching stuff
6. Watching TV
7. Watching movies
8. Baking
9. Learning Spanish
10. Horseback Riding
11. Walking dogs
12. Going on mission trips
13. Volunteering at church
14. Yoga
15. Drawing
16. Gaming
17. Daydreaming
18. Word puzzles
19. Playing cards/board games
20. Hanging out with friends

On Friday, I'll continue 30 Things.

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.

An Update

For the past couple of weeks I was working off and on on the account of my trip to Guatemala back in June. It took a while because I started it as a personal journal, then turned it into a journal that I was going to post for public consumption. Because of this, after writing the thing, I had to go back and do a few revisions and edits. It's now been published on another blog dedicated specifically to it, so I'm back to working on First Sight.

I got a few scenes done last week, but since I haven't spent a full week working on it, I am waiting to resume my regular blog posting until I do. Sorry for the delay, but I'd like to have something to actually write about when I post my next blog.

I'm planning for that to be next Monday, so hopefully it will be. Until then, you can always head over to my Guatemala blog and check out my adventures there.

A Little Longer with the Break

I know I've been gone for a bit. I was in Guatemala for a week so it got in the way of my writing. Since I've been back, I've been working on another project. Once I get that finished, I'll get back to my normal schedule of posting and writing.

Also, when I finish that, I might have some stuff to write about Guatemala, so bonus.

Until then.

Drafting Update (Sort Of)

So I didn't really get much written last week. My hands were seriously bothering me. That, combined with the holiday last Monday and you can understand why I didn't post any blogs. But I'm back this week, though the blogs will probably be shorter.

In a couple weeks I may have some non writing related blogs to post. Next Wednesday I leave for a mission trip to Guatemala, so hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some stuff to talk about from that.

Come back Wednesday for my weekly list.

Listy Wednesdays: Places to Go

This week I'm going to get a little personal in the list and give you a list of places I want to visit. I'm not sure how long it will be, so we'll see when it's done. As usual, in no particular order, just as I thought of them.

1. London
2. England in general
3. Ireland
4. Italy (again)
5. Greece
6. Spain
7. Paris (mostly just the Louvre)
8. Saint Petersburg, Russia
9. Australia
10. South Africa
11. Jerusalem
12. Japan
13. India
14. Jamaica
15. The Caribbean in general
16. Los Angeles
17. San Fransico
18. Washington D.C.
19. New York City
20. Florida
21. Hawaii
22. Alaska
23. Cancun
24. Chile
25. Brazil

Oh look. I actually made it to 25. Guess it's a good thing I mixed cities and countries together into a single list. ;)

Adventures in Writing this Week

I wrote query letter. Actually I wrote about three or four, well drafts of the same one. You'd think it'd be easier to write one given that I used to write cover letters all the time. It wasn't. While the idea is similar, the execution is quite different. I don't even want to think about what it's going to be like to write a query for First Sight. At least I've always loved Alana. I can't say the same thing about First Sight.

I don't know how many examples of query letters I looked at. The problem is finding ones for my genre. You'd think with the popularity of YA it'd be easier to find example queries. Apparently more traditional fantasy still isn't huge though. Mostly I found examples for urban fantasy and dystopian. Oh well. I think I got it figured out.

Other than drafting a query letter, I've also begun rewriting First Sight again. It's going okay. Now that I think I have a better idea of how she sounds, I feel like the writing is going more smoothly. Of course, I thought that last time too, and it turned into a pain in the butt. Plus I've only gotten a few pages done since I was really busy with Easter week last week. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do some more writing on it this week.

Sorry this post is a little less focused than usual. I wasn't really sure what I should write about. Hopefully I'll have a better focus next week.

Life Getting in the Way Again

My life (more specifically my health) seems like it's out to ruin my . . . well, life. Okay that doesn't seem to make sense, but whatever. After yesterday, I'm not sure much makes sense to me right now. Right now I'm just super pissed at my body for being stupid.

I think this is the point that I should probably explain.

I had a bit of a scare yesterday. I've been sick all weekend and stuck at home. Yesterday I was finally getting out of the house to go to a meeting for a mission trip I'm taking this summer (to Guatemala. I can't wait!). On the way, for some not-completely-clear reason my body decided that I needed to blackout. This was particularly problematic since I was driving at the time. Oh and alone in the car.

Thankfully I was still conscious enough that I eventually managed to pull over to the side of the road, though I'm pretty sure it's a miracle that I didn't wind up hitting another car. God was definitely protecting me.

After I pulled over, a kind woman stopped and checked on me. Also a police office. An ambulance was called, I was taken to the ER. After three hours and a few tests, turns out I'm fine. Probably just dehydrated. Which apparently doesn't combine well with my naturally low blood pressure. At least that's what the doctor thinks. Not that they are ever sure of anything when it comes to my health.

Still, it was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life. I'd prefer to never, ever repeat it.

Now I'm just trying to get back to normal. My health has always kind of been an issue and seems to complicate my life (both writing and otherwise). I've always to just be healthy, but that's never really been an option for me. Even when things seem totally fine, I'm dealing with some health-related thing. It kind of sucks.

Anyway, that was my weekend. I'll try to write something about writing next time.

What's Going with My Writing

Despite the long break between posts, I have still been writing. I'm sure that y'all are desperately wondering what I've been working on, so I thought I'd put you out of your misery and tell you.

Basically I'm still working on the same two stories that I was last time you saw me. They've just progressed some. My life has a way of getting in the way sometimes, so I haven't gotten too terribly far, but I have made real progress I feel on both First Sight and my other book (Alana), which I'm thinking of calling The Hero Card.

First Sight isn't much further along than it was when I last posted. Yes, I realize that that was over a year ago and that I'm a major slacker. To be fair though, in that time, I also put in major work on Alana, got a promotion at work, started working on another concept that completely fell apart, and got laid off from work (don't worry, I got another job eventually). I had a busy year. But, a couple of months ago, I did manage to pretty much finish a second draft of it (thanks to being laid off actually). I also realized that while I love the idea, I'm still struggling with the story itself. I think it's mostly cause I'm not sure I've totally found Raelin's voice yet. There's something still off about the story and I'm just not sure what it is. So I've set it aside again to focus on Alana instead.

As for what's going on with Alana, well. I recently finished a fourth draft that I'm having a friend do a line edit of. I'm pretty sure that it may be as finished as I can make it at this point. So unless my friend comes back and tells me I have some major issues still to work out, then I'm thinking I'm going to start submitting to agencies and see if anyone likes it enough to want to represent me.

Of course, now that I've written that down, something is going to happen and my plans will be derailed, since that seems to be my fate when it comes to my writing. We'll see and I'll let you know.

In the mean time, I have a ton of research to start doing. Oh and I need to write a cover letter draft. Which I then should really find someone to critique, but since I can't seem to find or keep any critique partners, I'm not sure that will happen. *sigh* Oh well, I have to try.

Anyway, that's what's going on in my writing at the moment.

See you next time.

Let's Try this Again

Seems like I inevitably have to restart this blog over and over again. Here I am, doing it again. Funny how that happens.

It's not that I don't like writing. I really, really like writing. Even when I'm not writing I'm thinking about writing.

It's also not that I don't like this blog. I do. I love the idea of it. And I understand how important it is to the future I am working toward (which is probably why I keep restarting it).

I think the biggest obstacle I have in maintaining this blog is that I simply feel that I have little of any value to say. Do people really want to read about what's going on in my life? It's kind of a foreign concept to me, to reveal parts of my life to complete strangers. I'm normally a really private person. Ask anyone who knows me. I don't talk about myself much or in much depth. I can count on one hand (quite literally) the number of people who know a lot about me and my story. And by that I mean the people who know what makes me really excited, or what really hurts me, or other deeper parts of myself.

This idea of posting about my life, about my thoughts on things, is so strange and hard for me.

Which is, perhaps, exactly why I need to be doing this. I am not an open person, but maybe it's time that I learn to loosen this death grip I have on my thoughts and share a few things with the outside world.

So today, I'm going to start on that journey again. I still have no idea what I'm going to say, but I'll just have to think of something, now won't I.

Not Much to Say

I don't really have much to say. I've been having trouble coming up with things to write about on my blog. There's very little of interest going on in my life right now.

I have nine scenes left in my draft of First Sight. I still feel like it utterly sucks, but I'm happy that I'm going to get it finished.

I've been working on world-building for another project, but I'm not sure that the idea I originally had works with the way this world is coming together. I really wanted to write this one particular idea, but the more I develop details about the world, the less it seems to work. At least in the form it's in now. But I love the character, so I may just have to find another way to tell a story for her.

So yeah. That's all I've got. Later.

My Obsession with TV Shows

Here's a secret that you might not know about me: I love television. Love it.

Okay so I don't love it as much as I love reading, and I totally freak out more about not having a book to read more than I do about nothing good being on TV, but still, I love TV.

Let me clear though, I do not like what passes as reality TV. In fact I loathe reality TV. The times I've gotten sucked into a reality TV show have been very few and very far between (it's been two or three years since the last time I watched a full new season of a reality show) and i plan to keep it that way. They are just annoying to me. I don't get reality shows. Now, this could be because they blatantly masquerade as being real when everyone knows they aren't and that rankles my (overly) honest tendencies. Or it could be that I just don't find them entertaining. Or it could be a combination of the two. But all that is beside the point.

To return from the rabbit trail, I love good non-reality TV. You know, the shows that have really good characters, great (or fairly good) writing, quick wit, engaging storylines. And I'm a sucker for a good romantic sub-plot (I've been pulled into more than one not-so-great shows by those). There is something about watching good acting, hearing great dialogue, and seeing intriguing stories unfold that just draws me in and makes me want to watch and rewatch episodes. Good storytelling gets me every time.

Example: recently I discovered Grimm. I didn't watch the first season when it aired last year because it just sounded weird to me, sort of gimmicky. And one thing I really dislike is a gimmick (which may be another reason I eschew reality shows. They're all just big gimmicks). Also I did not realize that it combined two of my favorite things. But I was at the store the other day and the DVD of season one had come out, so I decided, eh why not? My reaction: "Fairy tales and crime solving? Awesome!"

See, I'm a huge fan of fairy tales and of character driven crime solving shows. They are two of my favorite things as far as entertainment goes. I don't know how many re-done fairy tales I've read. Tons. If I find one, I gobble it up. And one of my writing dreams has been to write a re-done fairy tale series. It's one of my many projects in development. And don't get me started on procedurals. For a long time, the only type of TV I watched were procedurals of some kind or another (Now my viewing palate has expanded a bit, but I still love crime shows). So discovering a show that manages to creatively combine those two things was kind of mind blowing.

Overall the storytelling is what really pulled me into the show. It takes a base of fairy tales and twists it and spices it up in such an interesting way that I can't get enough. It doesn't hurt that the acting isn't horrible and the writers have a decent sense of humor. Still, it's the story and the characters that have really pulled me into this show. I can't wait to see what happens next.

So what shows have pulled you in recently (or not so recently)? What's your favorite part of the shows you watch?

Weddings and Freedom

So my younger brother got married this past weekend. Actually that's the reason I haven't posted anything since last Monday; I've been crazy busy helping him and the new wife get everything ready for the wedding. I kept up with my writing, mostly. I got a scene done every day except Saturday (thanks to wedding craziness) and Sunday (thanks to exhaustion due to wedding craziness). But I'm back on track now.

It's funny though, I got back online today and saw a post by Veronica Roth (Think Divergent, only one of the best books ever. If I had heroes, she'd probably be near the top of the list.) that made me think about this weekend in a strange way. She wrote about letting go and giving yourself room to mess up and just be free in writing. As I was thinking about her post and how perfectionism is one of my greatest weaknesses, I got to thinking about this weekend and how it was actually kind of fun and how that was possibly the weirdest thing ever.

See, I never think of weddings, or really any large gathering of bunches of people I don't know, as fun. I especially don't think of them as fun when I am part of the wedding party and have to stand in five-inch heels for an hour or walk across gravel to take five or six pictures or talk to strangers who may or may not be drunk or dance in public, or so many other things. To me, weddings and other large gatherings of people are just torturous punishments to be endured until I can finally get away and be by myself again.

But this wedding was different. Maybe it was because it was my brother's and I love him like crazy. I'm sure that was part of it, but looking back on the night, I realized part of the reason this wedding was as close to fun as I get at large gatherings was because I just let myself not care what happened or who was looking. I decided that I was going to do my best to have fun and make it a good night for my brother. And it turns out, it became a good night for me too.

So maybe I'll loosen up more in the future. I hope I do. I'm kind of sick of not having fun at parties. And I'm pretty sure it would help me be a better writer.

Currently

I'm writing again. And I don't just mean here on my blog. :)

I mentioned in a previous post that I've been struggling with my writing lately and just wasn't motivated to get anything done. Well, I've moved past that finally and have been writing consistently for a couple of weeks now. It makes me really happy to be writing again.

What have I been writing? Well I finally finished a second draft of Alana (the one I've been working on forever). It is officially in the hands of a couple of critiquers, getting torn to shreds again. It took me a while to get it done (see unmotivated above), but now that I've completed the draft I'm happy. I feel like I'm making progress again.

Now that the second draft is finished, I'm spending the next month to two months focusing on churning out a full first draft of First Sight. I completed scene summaries a while ago, but put working on it on hold until I got Alana done. Now that she is, I'm finally getting back to FS.

Working on a completely new story is a bit nerve-wracking for me. I'm super worried that I'm going to hate how this book turns out. Or that there won't be enough conflict. Or that the story just stinks in general. But I really want to finish it because I really need to finish something new. Plus, I really do like the story idea, and now that I know how each scene is supposed to work, I feel like I know where this is going. At least the first draft. Of course, I may wind up having to completely rewrite it later, but my goal is to get every scene fully written. And I have a plan to do just that.

My plan is this: write at least one scene a day. Pretty simple, right? But so far, it's working great. I've typed up five scenes (I started working last week) so far. Technically I already wrote those scenes, but I wrote them by hand, in a notebook, between projects at my day job. So right now I'm basically typing up what I've already written. And I'm still writing at work, so maybe I'll keep ahead of myself. (Okay probably not, since I only write for five minutes at a time and I only get about two to three of these mini-sessions in per day, but a girl can dream.)

Another part of my plan is to try and post on here how the writing is going. It worked really well when I did BIAM, so I figure, why not try it again. I'm trying to get more focused in this blog thing, especially after reading a couple books about developing an author platform.

So yeah. Writing is going well. Life is interesting. Overall, I'm good.

I'll post stats on First Sight progress another day, since I don't have them in front of me at the moment.

Time Passing

I've been meaning to write a blog for a while. I just . . . haven't. It's probably because I've been having trouble doing much writing lately. I've been slowly working through my draft of my novel, but it's so hard sometimes to motivate myself to write.

Life hasn't been much help. Some really . . . heavy stuff has gone down of late and I'm trying to deal with it all.

I'm also trying to figure out how this blog and my faith fit together. Cause I want to be more open about my beliefs, but I'm not completely sure how to do that. Being a Christian and wanting to publish in the secular market seems to be a tricky thing. Plus, I'm just not good at opening up in general.

So yeah, I'm working through a few things right now. But I have a few ides for some blog posts, and I'm going to try and write them, and publish them. Because the only way I'm going to get anything written if I don't sit down and write it.

What's New or Where I Talk about what I've been Writing Lately

So I thought I'd tell y'all how the writing is going. Ya know, since that's kind of what this blog is supposed to be about.

For the past few months, I've been slowly writing up drafts of each scene in First Sight, my second novel length project. I made myself a promise last October that I would finish some kind of draft of it before I went back and starting editing the latest draft of Alana. I thought I'd get done a bit quicker than I did (clearly I was wrong). But the good news is that I finally finished up the first draft of all of the scenes. Well, all of the scenes that I thought of at this moment. I already know that I need to go back and add in a few more scenes exploring the development of the relationship between my two main characters. And between my main character and her family. And I may need to rework some of the events because the plot points may need some tweaking. But the point is, I finished drafting the first draft of the novel. I at least have the skeleton worked out and an idea of how most of the major scenes are going to work. At this point I need to go back and actually write out the action and description and dialogue, but I know the framework that all has to fall around.

And the best part is, I actually have an ending for the silly thing. See, for a really long time, I had no idea exactly how the story would end. I had vague musings about where I wanted it to end up, but I had no clue what the actual events of the climax and resolution were going be or how they'd work or how I was going to maybe set up for another book, just in case this isn't a one off idea after all (that's how it started. I really have no idea what I would do with the characters next, but maybe that'll come to me later).

Not having an ending was actually kind of a complete switch from Alana's story (my first, and still title-less, novel). With Alana's story, even way back when I first got the idea, I knew how it had to end. I knew that two big things had to happen and I knew pretty much how they were going to happen. It was just the way the story was set up even at the premise stage. The hard part with Alana's story was the middle, the events that got her from the beginning to the end. I only had a vague notion of what those would be. Well, the beginning was also tricky just because getting someone to another world from our world takes a bit of setting up and finessing to make work. But the end, the end was always solid.

Not so with First Sight. I had a really good handle on the beginning of First Sight. It was some of the middle and all of the end that gave me the trouble with that one.

But now I have the end figured out. Which means I may actually be able to put together a coherent story with this idea after all.

The other thing finishing the scene drafts mean is that I get to start making edits to Alana again. I haven't worked on Alana since last August when I did BIAM and rewrote the entire story in first person and moved several major plot points around. Now, after getting feedback from a few critique partners, I get to start tearing into it and hopefully improving it. I'm actually really excited about it because I got really good feedback from the people who read it for me. Good feedback is the best. :)

So that's what's been up with my writing lately. Good things all around.