The Sweet Escape

Just a widdle post to check in and catch up. I’ve been having a little bit of a block, lately and having a hard time getting in the frame of mind to write anything.  FINALLY, today I was able to actually get some words down and I am a happy girl!  I got a little over 4,000 good, keep-able words. YAY. This moves one of my stories a bit further, so it can stop bothering me.

Also, if you happened to like my short story prompt The Storm, it was entered into the January contest at Prompted to Write. Voting is open, so if you could please go vote for MissM!

Since I wrote today, I kind of dont want to look at the computer anymore. Off I go to enjoy my evening!

Today is the 31st, which marks the last day of the first month of Get Your Words Out, a totally insane writing challenge for 2010. My challenge goal is 300,000 words in 2010. I’m positive I can do that… last year I missed the cut-off so I decided to do it on my own and ended up well over 350K thanks to NaNoWriMo. This year is panning out to be great as well… I checked in with an amazing 31,325 words for January.

So, what comprises my word count? Whatever I write on purpose, for pleasure. I include updates to current WIPs, drabbles, writing exercises, book reviews, and blog posts that aren’t written for a specific purpose like some kind of commercial post (which I never do anyway). I also don’t include short ‘hi, bye’ posts. My word count isn’t suffering so I don’t feel the need to waste time sending that through a word counter.
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Last night as I was tiptoe-ing through my Google Reader, I opened a post from a writer I’ve been following. She’s currently editing a book and sent out some queries and is trying to get published. She posted last night about a website that she found the is sort of an auto-editor. It looks out for things like cliche’s, overused words, sentence structure, all things I wouldn’t normally look at, when I’m editing. I’m always more concerned with does it make sense, do you care about my characters, are there any misspellings?

Well. WHOA, mama. The wesbite is called AutoCrit and it does some things I’ve never seen a website DO! This is, of course, not made for a rough draft or even first pass, but if you’re past the point of seeing your faults, this will definitely show you new ones!

I love constructive criticism (concrit). I want my pieces to read the best that they can and if people can see where there is a flaw, I want to fix it. I don’t want strangers pointing out my literary failures, if that makes any sense. So, even though I had just written the beginning of a new chapter in my (hopefully) novel, I plugged in the first 800 words and waited for the result. When it popped up, my eyes lit RIGHT UP.

Suddenly I was seeing things I hadn’t ever seen before. How many times I use certain words; whether or not I used too many -ly words (I rarely do) how many times I use ‘just’ (which I’ve been trying to get away from, but in an 800 word sample I used it 8 times! EIGHT! I feel like the clouds just parted and the sun came out. STUFF I CAN DO TO MAKE IT BETTER!

Of course, that’s only the free version, which limits you to five times a day at 800 words a pop. For shorter pieces, and if you’re only concerned about the basics, it’d do you fine. I’m salivating over the option to upload up to 100,000 words in that baby and have it spit out a report.

But first, I have to FFFFIIIINNNIIISSSHHHH IIITTTTT. GUH! I cannot seem to get going on this thing. I think I’m freaking myself out by thoughts that this might actually turn into a book. I waiver between thinking it’s really very good and I’m impressed with myself and then thinking it’s so dumb, no one will want to even look at it. Put it away and move on. No matter what, I don’t want my parents to know about this book. They are religious and it is…. It’s uhm. Explicit. Holy Gah… if my mom ever…*passes out*.

Hoookay. Well. Since I have a book to write, I am going to skiddadle and get to writing. I’ve written about 1000 words this weekend, which is completely underwhelming for me. I’ve found everything to do BUT write, and it shows.

Pen in hand,

I am backing out of  the Original Fiction Big Bang. I would love to do it, but I have so much on my plate at the moment and some projects I NEED to finish. It’s not that it would be a waste of time, just that I need to spend the time I would put into poring over 20,000 words and put it toward other things. I have goals I’ve set for this year and I’m stressing myself out, trying to do everything that comes up. Rather, I need to pick things that are going to give me opportunities and things that are going to push my writing forward, both in skill/quality and exposure.

I’m not all that upset about it. I didn’t know, really, what I was going to write on. It just sounded like a good idea. And since I already have an original fiction project I need to be working on, it’s not like I’m abandoning anything. I feel good about it and feel a little less anxious removing that from my projects list.

I had a good talk with one of my writer friends yesterday. She is the second person to tell me that I should definitely un-fanfic my NaNo piece and try to turn it into a novel.

“Really?” I said. “I was thinking about never looking at it, ever again.”

“Well you are wrong,” she said, “to think that.”

So, maybe. I don’t know. It’s still unfinished and I’m really uninspired and unmotivated to finish it. I haven’t even planned out the ending. It would be totally easy to push out a few chapters and finish it off. I just can’t seem to get to it.

I’m considering writing a short story to enter into the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Contest. 3000 words or fewer, due at the end of February, to be posted in the Glimmer Train publication in April. That’s more my speed, and I’m currently aiming at getting something published, even if it’s someplace small. Considering I’ve never read the publication, I’m not sure if my writing is skilled enough to be printed but I won’t know until I try, no?

I’ve totally lost my oomph for my writing prompt for the Author Culture  Spin the Wheel contest. Entries aren’t due till Feb 12th, though, so… if I just buckle down and write something I could get something out. I just do not have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do, read everything I want to read, keep up on what my peers are doing and show support, write everything I want to write and still have a life.  I don’t like rushing through this process. Something has got to give.

Ugh. It is 6:45. Morning seems to be the only time I can get any time to blog anymore. I really wish my writing made money and I could do it full time! Till then,

Hi ho, hi ho,

Well. Now I’ve gone and done it. I got an email in my box this morning about a  ”Novel Big Bang” challenge. It’s 20,000 words of original fiction. Rough drafts would be due in July. Posting would be in October. Since I have a hurking, lurking word count goal this year, that would definitely help. And it would give me great practice for NaNoWriMo in November.

I don’t have any idea what I’m going to write. It has to be original, no fanfiction. I’m scared! Lol.

Maybe I’ll use the prompt wheel and flesh some things out, see what feels like it could expand into 20,000 words. For NaNo I didn’t get my storyline until a week or two before it started.

I have no idea what I’m doing. *eep*

Lazy Sunday. I’m experiencing another lazy weekend morning. I woke up, on my own, around 7am. Hasn’t happened in awhile.  I remember when I used to wake up at 5 am, easily.

I used the peace and quiet to edit a prompt I had entered into a contest. I wasn’t going to edit it, but I thought I’d better not try to act like I’m perfect or anything. Writers can be incredibly narcissistic. My words are golden, because I wrote them. I don’t want to delete any of them! In the end, the feedback was useful and I managed to add some things, move some things around, make sense of it all. I think. I hope.

I have yet to begin work on my 2nd prompt, due February 16th. I had some ideas but I just haven’t started writing it yet. Hopefully I can get some quiet time today to contemplate, get something down so it can be edited later. Maybe I need the pressure of a deadline? Need to get started though. Give it time to marinate.  (more…)