Chronic Lack Of Sleep

Headache!

Feeling the strain.

Need sleep.

Going to

in a bit.

Just Write It

You don't have to like it, just write it.

The whole process is just fill with decisions and more decisions. What is the color of your main character's eyes? How tall is she? What is her personality? How many siblings does he have? Does he get along with them? If not, are they at each other's throat all the time? Why? What brought about this?

So many questions to ask and so many questions to answer. Some of them I don't even know how to answer.

Yup, don't like it but just write it. And if you don't like the answers to some of those questions? Change them. You're allowed to. Just write it down. Alter it later.

Sixteen Days?

I'm doing math again. If thirty days and one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven words per day was alarming numbers, the following will just blow the mind. Yes, I'm talking about something more intense and more stressful than 30 days.

If you think 30 days and 1667 words each day are stressful, then four thousand words in 16 days would be just outrageous. The image of the writer in Stephen King's 'The Shinning' keeps popping up in my mind as I'm doing the math in this 4000 words per day for 16 days. The total of this makes a 64,000-word novel which gives one room for edits, cuts, trims and polishing until it's a shining (pun intended) piece of work. I'd be crazy to go for it.

After reading some writer's routine, how they write and the writing process they go through I'll have to do some real thinking and planning. Character charts, outlines, scenes, ending, beginning chapters, settings, point of views, and lots more. Yikes!

So, is it sixteen days or thirty? Well, first thing's first. I've got to plan to plan and I'm on it as soon as I get my assignments out of the way. Urgent assignments and I'm on it.

Ciao.

Thirty Days?

I'm doing the math today. I need one thousand six hundred sixty-seven words consistently for 30 days. Then, I'll get exactly 50,010 words. I'm going to stay away from the word 'novel' just for the moment. At most I'll call it a first draft.

After the first draft there's the editing, touching up, adding, subtracting (told ya I'm doing math today), polishing and basically doing everything to get it good and great. I guess this is the meat of the process.

So, for 30 days 1667 words. Easy. Nothing to it. Just think, in 30 days you'll have a first draft to tweak and polish till it shines. Sweet. I'll let it brew and simmer but I'm watching for when it starts boiling then, I know it's time.

All New

Hi. You would have noticed that there's an all new color design combination here. Yup, I'm changing. This blog is changing ... for the better I hope. I'm going for the darker, more sinister feel and I started with the previous entry. Take a look here.

Change is coming it's for sure. Check back often to see.

In the meantime, writing is torturous.

Uhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa.............

Writing is ...

Writing ... is ... murder.

The Magic Wand

I wish I had a magic wand and every time I wave it things get done by themselves. Things get cleaned, clothes get washed, books get written and . . . , you know what I mean. We live in a modern world where we are advanced in technology and even as I write, the technology is ever advancing supposedly to make our lives easier and better. To a large extent it does and it did except we are not advanced enough to that stage where our thinking is done for us. We still need us. We still need to do the darn thing. We still need to write the words to form the story and finally the book that we want written.

No one else can write that book for us. You are the only one who can write that book that is in your heart, your soul. Yes, you and I have to write that book that is bursting to come out. Alone. There is no other way. No other person can write it precisely the way we want it.

Many are called but few can take the challenge. This thing that grips writers is given to many and many are on the road but will they reach their destination or pit stop, as the case may be, is yet to be seen.

No two ways about it and there aren't any shortcuts either, Learn it, keep at it until you get it. The hard is always there but do it no matter how, no matter what. This is where the phrase, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" comes in so succinctly and we've gotta bite the bullet, so to speak, dig in our heels and just do it.

I don't know whether it's just me or whether it happens to everyone but whenever I use this phrase "just do it" Michael Jackson's song "Beat it" plays in my mind. Then, the lyrics change into Weird Al's version "Eat It" and it ends with my words, "Do it, just do it".

"Do it. Just do it. No time for anything. Do it. Just do it."

Scene By Scene

Novels are not only divided into chapters, they are also guided by scenes. Scene by scene moving the plot forward until the denouement, solution, finale or any other term you want to call it.

Scenes are within the chapters and chapters are within the structure of the book.

Outlines guide the creator to move the plot from beginning to the end.

Looks easy but not easy at all. It's like a sheepdog's work, guiding stray sheep from wondering off the trail to the finale. Any wondering or stray sheep that happened to be left behind reflects the shoddiness of the sheepdog and he will be reprimanded severely.

Reworking the plot or scene is another common occurrence that is both frustrating and rewarding in the long run. Why is this so? That's because it means, first, you're not facing writer's block and, second, you are moving the story forward. The final solution is now within your grasp and you're getting ever closer to your goal, which is, "The End".

All these work that seems useless are actually well worth the creator's time.

I'm going to practice scene writing and moving my plot forward to the final denouement.

The End.

Breakthrough Writing

What is the hardest thing to overcome in writing? If your answer is writer's block, you are not too far from the truth but not exactly hammering the nail on the head. Well, writer's blog is hard to overcome, yes, true but writer's blog is just a symptom of the number one brick wall to writing success.

So, what is the hardest thing to overcome in writing?

The answer is: our mind. Our mind is where apex from where we conjure up our stories, characters, plots. It is where everything starts or ends. If our minds is not first conquered we face mountains and mountains of writer's block time and time again.

Take for instance, a full-time writer. She has no other source of income except churning out story after story. She has to get into the mindset that churning out stories is her livelihood. No stories, no money. No money equals no food or the basic necessities of life. Writers say that writing to them is a business. It so happens to be something they do, something they like to do and that they are moderately or sufficiently good at. Some say that it's their life, which is very true also.

Conquer the mindset that keeps you from succeeding as a writer. Conquer that suffering inner editor that puts down everything you write. Shut him up but not for good though because you need him for the later stage of your writing to weed out unnecessary trimmings of your writing.

A process of self-encouragement, conquering mountains of self-doubt, perseverance, determination, arming yourself with loads of just-do-it mental attitude and slog on with a come-what-may attitude. Coax your mind. Do whatever it takes to get the first draft out for that darn editor you've shut outside your mind's door, knowing that he's waiting and hungry to edit your first draft should get your writing engine going.

You are a writer. Those feelings you're feeling every time you set out to write are exactly what every bestselling writer feels. They are normal feelings. They write passed those feelings to get to the plain golden meadow where the free writing spirit roams.
(Read: I'm normal)

Keep telling yourself you're writer. No stories, no food. Writing is a business. Writing is your job like any job. You have to spend time at it. Only you can write your stories. Nobody else can. So, you have to write it.

Conquer your mindset.

I'M NORMAL

Finally, I'm normal. Yay!!!!

I've just come from Sue Grafton's website. She has a journal section where she chronicles her writing process on some of her books. Oh, those questions and obstacles she encountered as she wrote her Kinsey Millhone mystery series are so like some of the questions I have faced as I tried to write my stories. I was so discouraged that I have all these unanswered questions about my stories. I remember squirming in my chair and scolding myself for not knowing all the answers to these questions I have at the time. As I read Sue's journal notes I heaved a sigh of relief. I'm normal. If Sue Grafton has all these unanswered questions at the time of writing then they are no big deal. I'll just have to think them through and solve them as I write my story. It doesn't mean I am not a writer or a bad writer because of them. I just need to work them through as I write. That was what and how Sue does it and I can do it too.

Get the darn thing written first. Think and work out the questions as I write out the story until I reach the end. Boy, this writing process is becoming clearer and clearer.

I'm singing right now. I'm just a normal writer. I'm a writer. And a writer with questions is a writer with questions and a story to write. Wooooohooooo....

Can you picture me with my arms in the air doing the move of pure joy and happiness?

I'm singing. Man, I feel like a writer again. I'm a writer. Writers write, writers have questions, writers solves and answers her questions and the story moves.

Yay!!!!!!!!

Writing the Story is Only the First Step?

How funny can this be? I found out just now that writing my story was only the first step. All the while I thought that was the be all and end of all of being a writer - writing the story. Once I've written my story I'm done. Who would have guessed that it was just only the beginning, albeit an important beginning, I would believe. No, I want to choose to believe that it's a very important beginning. Then, comes the hard part - the edit.

I've read somewhere that if we do not have anything written, we won't have anything to edit and nothing to turn into a book.

After this revelation no wonder I'm always so blocked. That brick wall that's always before me is there because I've not written it away. This is really a tremendously light bulb moment for me. I've got to write the dank wall away in order to get over to the other side. What a revelation!

The story doesn't need to be perfect yet. I just need to get it written down in the general sort of way to go from point A to B to C and finally E which is the End. So, what I gotta do is make sure I know where the way is, write my way from starting point or the beginning of the story to the next point which is B and then on to C and all the way to E.

Forget the edits at this stage. Get to E first and go back to clean the path of its thistles, briars, weeds, stones, rocks, poison ivy and what-have-yous that shouldn't be there.

Revelation moment! How succintly divine.

I've got it. Have you?

What Makes You You? #2

Humour. Humour is what makes me me. Or shall I say my particular humour leaning is what makes me me. You see, I like weird or slightly warped kind of humour. For instance, I was reading a writing prompt the other day. When I saw this prompt: Write about a person who gave you encouragement or encouraged you in some tremendous way. Other people were writing how this or that person helped them, said something that encouraged them to do something but my mind was thinking something totally warped. I had this person in my mind that was bad, evil and cruel to say the least, doing things that should discouraged me from whatever I wanted to do. But in some opposite way propelled me positively to do things that was totally not according to what the cruel act was meant to achieve. Like a cruel act of teasing made me better myself. Or an act that was meant to humiliate resulted in goading me to achieve or do things I'd never thought I could, or had the courage to, do if this cruel act was not committed. Strange, huh?

This really made me think that my warped sense of seeing humour in the worst sort of circumstances is what makes me me.

What Makes You You? #1

Passion makes me me. Hot, gripping passion for something I totally believe in that drives me on and ever forward. This passion defines me, who I am and essentially what makes me tick.

What would I do without passion?

Why would I do without passion? Not by choice definitely. But what if forced to? Oh... definitely no way can passion be taken from me by force. My heart, mind and being would keep the passion alive.

What Makes You You?

What a remarkable question. It opens so many doors and so many possibilities. Digging into the psyche as well as the character of the innermost being of a person. Wow, I'm blown away but this question. So blown away that I'm going to spend the next few days dwelling on this question.

My days are fulfilled until I find the answer to this question.

Adios.