Back in the game I was never really part of

So I'm tinkering around with another blog, a new blog, a community blog, and saw some people listed as followers and thought...I had a blog...I should be a follower, so here I am trying to refresh the blog I never really did much with. I don't know if blogging isn't my thing or what. I mean, I can ramble....boy can I ramble. If you have been unfortunate enough to receive one of my emails, then you would know. I can talk, but I always feel like I should say something important when blogging. I don't know why I'm in that frame of mind considering how open blogging is to everyone. I'm sure there are some awful blogs out there. I admit that not only do I not blog, but I don't really read them. I think it's cause I'm a slow reader and tend to shy away from reading for this reason and for the reason I tell myself that I should be doing something else. Course I usually waste that time with something even less important. It's a new year, right? It is mid February but maybe I'll try to change my ways now. Ha! For the moment...it's back to real life.

Ooops

I did nothing. After class the TV took hold of my writing soul. Eeek!

A Little Improvement

Well, it's day two of Nanowrimo and I'm still not with the daily count but I'm a lot better then I was. Current count is 2726. I stopped to watch Castle. Love that show now. Granted it follows a pattern but the characters are a lot of fun. So back to what I'm supposed to talk about.

So I'm getting somewhere in my story where I think it's going to be more fun for me. I really like dialogue but I suck at it. Right now my character is just running around on her own so it's a little boring. My way of approaching this is still not exactly what I want but I have to push through. Things are clunky and I'm looking less at being strict with myself then what I planned the other night. The other issue is my present tense writing. I have been paying attention to that and the more I just start flowing the more I revert back to past. Eventually I think I won't bother to much on trying to keep with one style or another. There are "flashbacks" in a sense so I'm not sure the right way I'm doing things.

Well, it's after 11 so tonight's blog will be short. Yay!

It begins and I'm behind

Well here is is almost the end of November first. I just woke up from falling asleep with my head leaning again a piled up blanket while I'm still in a sitting position and thank god my laptop is still safely in my lap. I think I have to call it quits for then night. If I didn't have the time change on my side, I'd probably be in a lot more trouble then I am. I didn't reach any great goals including the minimum of 1666 a day, but I did get 690 words down. It's a start. I already promised myself that I was going to do this kind of my way and take it more slowly, try to work in my way of writing while I'm writing. I've failed every other time so why not try it my way? My biggest struggles are getting completely engrossed in the story. That will come with more characters added, I'm sure. And then there is the voice and tense of my novel. I'm doing first person and I want the character to sound a certain way. I don't think she's coming out exactly as I wanted but it's still a much better start from the last attempt. The last is tense. I normally write in past tense. Present always felt weird, but it doesn't feel right to write in past tense for this one and I can't logically give a reason. So I decided on present tense so I have to recheck myself to make sure I don't switch back to my normal way. I know I'm not supposed to edit as I go which is basically what I'm doing when I think to much about the tense, but like I said...I'm doing this my way. Maybe when I get more into the story I won't think about the editing as much. Right now it's my agreement to myself to let a little of the inner editor out. For now I should really get to bed.

Roller Coaster Week

It's still a bit before November 1st, but the day is fast approaching. My main reason for posting before hand is to pimp my stuff. I just had another flash fiction story posted at 365 Tomorrows. If you catch this post today it's here http://www.365tomorrows.com/ There is a new story each day so after today it'll be in the archives for Oct 30th 2009.

My emotions have been very strange this week. Monday I wasn't feeling well and when something went wrong at work, I bawled. Not drop a tear or two, but bawled. Then I bawled at least twice more when I got home. Stupid. Tuesday was only slightly better. I think I only cried once that day. Wednesday was a pretty neutral day. I was alone at work but it was still grand central station so the work I was hoping to get done that day didn't go like planned. No surprise there. I don't even know what I did in the evening. Then yesterday a customer service representative said something that was funny but not hilarious and yet I couldn't stop giggling. I got control of myself for the rest of the call but that kind of stuck with me. Plus I was really excited that I wrote a story for Laurence Simon's 100 Word Story Challenge he has every week. I used to be a regular and then dropped it all together. I'm sure it's been over a year since I submitted anything. I had it all planned out and was very excited to be creating again. That night I actually worked on the Timeline for my NaNoWriMo novel. I actually did something useful with my time. Another shocker. On top of that, I recorded my 100WS and submitted it. This put me in bed later then I wanted to be but at least it was done. Hubby was already in bed and woke up from my arrival and then the giggling started again. I couldn't stop. It was so bad I thought I was going to have to sleep in another room so he could get some sleep. So silly. I didn't even have good reasons to be laughing but I was. It usually doesn't take much for me to laugh but things have been a bit more blah or depressing in my life with the stress of work so I don't feel like I do it as often as I should.

I have learned...no, I probably already knew this so I have confirmed that I love being creative. When I created a dance to use for audition, I was so excited and obsessed with it. It filled my mind with such joy. The same has happened with the writing. Even something as simple as 100 words got me excited. Well, it was the writing and the planning for the recording. It's all parts to one big artistic piece and I think it turned out pretty well. I'll never be happy with what I do but you have to finally give in and just throw out there what you have. Once it's out there, you can't really stop it.

That's it for now. I'll be back on Nov. 1st. I'm going to go play with my flickr page for a few minutes. Oh, did I tell you that my hubby did some photoshop pictures for my banner and cover art? No? Well, you can find them when you find me on Nanowrimo or you can find them on my flickr page. As always and forever, you can find me under Laieanna.

The End, The Beginning, The Later Rebirth

I don't now how long ago I set up this thing, but the point of it was to promote my podcast....which I let die. Now I have a new use for it.

As you may or may not know, Hodgepodge Point was once a tiny little podcast where a tiny little woman rambled about her pointless life and then read something she wrote or a submission given to her by friends. Sadly that died over a year ago.

I don't feel like Hodgepodge Point the podcast is completely gone. I will one day bring it back. The problem is my laziness and lack of focus. The point was to use it for pushing me to write. Then life just felt a little heavy on my shoulders even though it probably wasn't that bad. Then I lost my desire to write for awhile. Not along ago the spark came back. It was smaller but there. Now I'm trying to work my way back into writing.

One of my writing goals is to write up my fairytales. I've had created over 70 different original fairytale ideas. I'm very excited to do those, but I'm having trouble finding the style. I don't want to be simplistic like childhood fairytales, but I don't want to draw each one out to a novel size. There is a happy medium in there somewhere that I have got to find.

During the summer I watched Twilight for the first time. The movie appealed to the girl in me and I broke down and read all the books of this series. Those who know me know that I shy aways from "kids" books. I have not read a single Harry Potter book though I've seen all the movies. Movies are different...they don't take up as much of my time. Twilight seemed a bit more adult. I didn't find the writing to be anything fabulous but the books did appeal to my romantic side which I tend to bash down half the time and it fueled my need to write something umm...I don't want to say in the same realm but something that I can pretend would have the same impact as Twilight has had on the nation. I'm not describing this very well, but the point is that it made me want to write one of my novel ideas. So I started planning and planning.

Now it's October 22 and November is just around the corner. What does November bring? Turkey, family visit, the beginning for Christmas preparation? Yes, but it also brings Nanowrimo. If you don't know what it is, it's National Novel Writing Month where you try to write 50K in 30 days. I have participated in three previous Nanowrimos and about three or four other month versions and have yet to come anywhere close to 50K. I have learned that I am a planner. I don't wing it for something this big. So with fingers crossed and lots of notes and several character writeups, I'm hoping I will succeed this year.

Just recently I tried to write for Gothnowrimo this October and less than 3K in words, I realized the character's voice was all wrong. They say to ignore your inner editor and keep going. My inner editor and I are apparently very close. We like to think out the story as we're going along and the itch to redo what was all crap was to strong for me to ignore it and keep going. So I had quit. I made the decision to start again in November. Now here I am...a little more than a week away from November and I'm excited to try again. I have never written a novel and I think it's important I try. I can spit out the words, I juts need to find my right way to do it.

After all that rambling, you're thinking "God, get on with it." I'm good at saying nothing. As an additional push into achieving the 50K, I'm going to try to blog my progress here on blogspot. I may put up snippets, but the point will be to discuss the process or at least put a record of how I'm doing. Perhaps when I type it out I'll see that I should be ashamed when I fail and try harder or be proud when I do well and keep going. We'll see how it goes.

I think that's it for now. Life outside the internet is really calling to me. I should mention that even though my inner editor and I are close when writing stories, my inner editor is always sleeping when I write things like emails and posts so be warned. I will not reread this post and there is no telling what's contained inside. Hope you have a good day!