Update

So I haven't blogged for awhile. There are several reasons, a big one being that I was on vacation in Hawaii for a glorious week. And though I spent a majority of the time as red as lobster, I had a great time relaxing on the beaches and not worrying about anything. For the most part the family got along, oddly brought together by our morning ritual of watching HGTV. I've never really watched that channel before and probably won't again, but it was addicting.

Another reason is this whole decision to "start over" on my novel has given me some major writer's block. I forgot how terrifying it is to be at square one. I do not like this square, even if I technically have some of the following squares already filled in. I'm hoping this weekend will be when I things turn around, but I think that about basically every weekend. There just aren't enough days in the weekend, which may really be the true, underlying reason why everything is so jacked up in our country. Think of how well rested we'd all be if three day weekends were the law. But whatever.

I did have a story idea inspired by my job about a woman who drags along her teenage daughter on a road trip to return a giant chaise that the company has either stated they won't take back, or that they wouldn't pay for her to return. She doesn't care. She's going to make them take it back. This is not based on a true story, but is also not out of the realm of possibility, I fear. I include the daughter because a trip of just one person is boring, and obviously I'm focusing on writing YA right now.

While that idea did not come from a dream, a lot of my ideas do. What's cool about it though is that it often becomes a dream within a dream. I have the dream of something interesting that could make a good story, and then I either "wake up" or just change scenes in the dream and start cataloging everything that happened in the interesting part. I just go over and over everything so that I don't forget it. And then when I really do wake up, I remember most of it and write it down. I don't want to brag, but my brain is pretty smart. If only it could remember to turn off when I'm trying to sleep. Or develop a skill that will place me in a field where I can earn a decent amount of money. But you know, this is good too.

Thing I don't understand: how I can be so tired and on the brink of death in the morning, and then basically human and normal in the afternoon. I think someone should call the guy who writes the DSM and have him put in some kind of allergic to morning disorder. Then I can get a doctor's note that prohibits me from having to be somewhere in the morning, but that also somehow keeps me from having to work too late in the evening. It's tricky but doable, I think. If your mood can be altered by the season (which it certainly can) then I don't see how it can't be altered by the time of day. I have a degree in Psychology, I vaguely remember. So I think I know what I'm talking about.

Starting Now I'm Starting Over

There comes a time in every writer's life where they want to carefully unplug their laptop and then chuck it across the room.

Well, I'm only guessing. But for several weeks, I've stared at this particular section of my book and just wanted to catch it on fire, to throw it out the window and then stomp on it until it was dust.

Of course, my laptop is new and then I wouldn't be able to watch Netflix, so I have managed to hold off on said destruction. Instead, I like to slam my fist against my flimsy desk and then give the computer screen a good glare, an If Looks Could Kill sort of thing.

Luckily for me and my fist, a super awesome friend of mine recently read Book 1. Afterwards, she provided loads of comments and suggestions that finally enabled me to see what direction I need to take to get this book to be what I want it to be:

I need to start over.

Of course, I'm not really starting over. I'm going to be using a lot of scenes from the previous drafts, tweaking them as necessary. I am rewriting the beginning, but I've been planning to do that all along. Alex has always been on the plane to her aunt's house, thinking back to the event that got her there in the first place. Now i'm thinking about starting the book maybe the day after that event, so that she's still in her hometown and so she might be able to interact more with the people she's leaving behind. I really just want to have an awkward scene of her being driven to the airport by her (ex?) best friend. We'll see how that goes.

I also decided to read over my Nano project for a bit of comic relief as I dealt with a sore throat this weekend. Maybe it was the medicine I was taking, but I found the draft hilariously terrible, like those singers who go on American Idol and look like they really believe they can sing wonderfully, even though everyone else is doing their best not to cover their ears. It was like past me really believed that I was telling a story in an interesting way, while some kind of subconscious Randy Jackson was shaking his head at how terrible it actually was.

Needless to say, that story is on the back burner. It's really for the better, as I still can't decide if the  main character should really be pregnant or not (the draft is written so that she's not pregnant). That decision obviously would take the book in very different directions, so it's something I'll sleep on.

Instead I'll focus on Alex and Book 1, and the companion books that I want to write from the points of view (point of views?) of the other characters in that book. I still can't decide which one to do first, but I obviously have time to figure that out now. Maybe I'll lay out the choices in another post. Or maybe I won't. Life's a mystery.

Writer Trials

They say that a writer will write no matter where they are, no matter their circumstances. If they have a full time job and a barrel of children, they'll still find the time to write every day. Writers are dedicated to writing whenever they can.

Right now then, I'm not really a writer. I think about my books when I'm at work, I write notes in between tasks, before I go to bed, I go over ideas over and over in the shower so I'll remember them when I get out. But when I get home from work...I'm tired. I'm hungry because I don't adequately feed myself during the day. I'm crabby because another day of my life has been lost to a job I don't really want to be doing, to a life I don't really want to be living.

So I don't write. I browse the internet and look at the lives of my friends and family going in positive directions while I stay stuck. I watch TV and see the creativity and hard work of so many people come to life and wish that I could find the energy to do that too.

Somewhere in the last few months my fire has been put out. I wrote the first draft of my book in a month and a half over the summer, coming home after work each day and writing a few pages, writing 20-30 pages on Saturdays and going over it all on Sundays. I was unstoppable.

This November I wrote 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, something I didn't even think I would accomplish until the last weekend, especially as work was getting busy for the holiday season. I wrote nearly 10,000 words in one day.

So what happened? I guess part of it is the effect of winter. Its just a dreary time. Part of it is that a couple weeks in a row of overtime at work is one thing, but when you're on the third straight month of craziness it gets a little old. It gets very old and feels so pointless. Its not like I'm helping to produce clothing for the homeless or food for the hungry. I'm helping wealthy middle aged women get everything they want when I have no clue how to do the same for myself (aside from marrying rich, I suppose).

Really, I'm grateful to have the job. Not when I'm there, usually, but when I get home to my own apartment, watch TV I've recorded on my DVR, or sleep in my magnificent bed, I'm grateful. I'm not pinching pennies like I used to, sharing a bathroom with my siblings or roommates like I used to. I can pay for things without flinching.

Yet somehow it's kind of terrible.

I have enough money to go three months without working and it's so tempting to make it happen, to give my notice and quit and try to enjoy life for a little bit. To stop going through the motions and actually feel alive. To write late into the night, which has always been my best time and clearly does't mesh with the 9-5 lifestyle I am entrenched in.

It would be a risk, though. I'd obviously have to find another job before those three months are up, a not so easy task these days. I may have to settle for something that pays less than what I make now. I may have to work the kind of job that I had previously congratulated myself for avoiding. Or I might find something even better, the kind of office with people on the parks and rec side of craziness (aka, awesome people). Who knows what could happen.

I wish there was a way to predict the future, to make the risks less scary and the playing it safe less boring. But at some point in the near future I'm going to have to figure something out and go after what actually matters to me. Or else I might lose myself completely.

Writer Fail

Going into this Christmas weekend, I had two goals: sleep a lot and write a lot. I've certainly succeeded in the sleep department, but I've failed miserably at writing.

I've been working on this same God forsaken scene for weeks and I'm almost at the point where I think I should just go back to how it was and continue on. Forget the changes. Forget improving the book and just focus on finishing the draft so I can move on to other things.

Except...I can't do that. I can't leave something crappy just because it's hard to fix. Okay, that's actually a lie; I've left lines and paragraphs here and there that I know I need to fix but couldn't figure out how to. But that's a paragraph versus a 3,000 plus word scene. It's a little different.

It's also possible that I haven't been focusing as hard on this as I should have. Accomplished authors always say that the most important thing is to get your butt in the chair and write. To be fair, my butt is almost always   in my desk chair, but I am far too easily distracted by the pesky internet. It might be the real reason why I write better at night - there are simply less people posting online to distract me.

The bottom line is I failed this weekend, wasted all this free time I had to write by doing other things. Not that those things were always bad - I spent some time with my family and friends, which was certainly not a waste - but I didn't take advantage of the extra time like I should have. A week ago me thought that this weekend could be not only the weekend where I fix this scene for good, but also the weekend where I complete the 3rd draft. Har har har, past week me. You're a real knee slapper.

Thing I Don't Understand:
1) How I ever accomplished anything in college, much less two degrees, with such a short attention span.
2) The game app Bad Piggies. Let's not even talk about how my little sister figures it out as I sit there in bewilderment.
3) Why my little sister left these sweet tart candy canes here and why I've taken it upon myself to eat all of them.

A Post Devoted to What I Don't Understand

There are a lot of things in this country to be worried about, whether it's the fiscal cliff or the sad state of music on the radio, but it wasn't until Friday that I realized something was missing on my list: I now have to be concerned that some psychopath might decide to walk into my sister's elementary school and shoot up her classroom.

The tragedy in Newtown is proof that there is no longer anywhere in this country that you can go and not worry about being shot. People have been shot in hospitals and malls, churches and movie theaters, coffee shops and grocery store parking lots, high schools and now, elementary schools. I just don't understand why this keeps happening.

There's nothing new I can say here that someone hasn't more eloquently said. But having a little sister the same age as the children that died just eats at me. The loss of my little sister would be the loss of everything to me. Just thinking of it is unbearable. I was there when she was born seven years ago, 10:23 on a Tuesday morning. Since that moment she's changed my life completely, in all wonderful ways (though I would appreciate it if she could stop turning my queen size bed into the width of an armrest when she spends the night). I can't imagine life without her smiling face, without the pictures she draws me or the notes that she writes me in her giant handwriting.

That now 26 families have to somehow go on without their children, siblings, or parents is just heartbreaking. And I think at this point, after all the senseless killings we as a country have endured, that we have to make some major changes if we ever hope to go more than a few months without this occurring again.

I'm not naive enough to believe that stricter gun control would mean the end of these shootings, that all guns would magically disappear. The sad truth is when a person intends to do evil, he will find a way no matter the laws in place. But that doesn't mean we should do nothing and cross our fingers that this trend of massacres will end. Stricter gun laws will at the very least decrease the number of people who own guns and thus decrease the likelihood of this occurring again. Other countries, such as Australia, have banned assault weapons and gone more than a decade without a mass shooting. They instituted a buyback program for these weapons, something I don't really see happening here. But it worked.

Even more important than that, though, is the improvements necessary for our mental health system. In this article, I Am Adam Lanza's Mother, a woman talks about her son's illness that often leads to threats of violence. The part that most struck me was when a social worker told her that the only way that her son could get proper help is if he were to be charged with a crime. What sense does that make? That we have to label those with certain mental disorders as criminals in order to justify spending money on treating them?

There's a reason I became a writer, and it's not just because a hermit lifestyle suddenly seems preferable. I can create a town and make sure that everything functions normally, I can control who walks into 1st grade classrooms and who gets a hold of a gun. I can make things terrible for a character all the way through, but then give them the happy ending that everybody needs.

I can't do that for those who lost their children on Friday. I can't fix the plot hole that is our mental healthcare system and solve all the problems. No matter how much I want to.

All I can do is pray. Pray that our government forgets political parties and comes up with a plan. Pray that God be with these families and that town as they grieve and try to go on. Pray that people get the help they need before it's too late.

Pray that this never happens again.

By Golly, I Think She's Got It

I've officially had a headache for more than 24 hours. I've almost forgotten what it's like to not have a headache, to not be constantly aware of my head and the pings and stabs inside of it. Luckily it's not as bad as it was early today and last night. Now it's like the lingering smoke after fireworks, except there are few a stray sparks shooting out into the sky. It's like the echo of  drum, not as loud as the initial smack but still loud enough that you can feel it course through you.

Trying to think of analogies is making it worse. I'll stop.

I'm writing today to talk about this great idea that I had last week that I'm still excited about*. In fact, my excitement is so high that I'm having difficulty completing my revisions for Book 1 or even glancing at the mess that is the beginning of Book 2.

* This feels like the intro to an infomercial. Sadly, there are no special offers for tuning in today.

I am going to write books from the POVs of the other characters in Book 1. I'm going to start this with Alex's enemy, Bethany (though she doesn't factor into the book THAT much, so maybe enemy is the wrong word to use). I'm going to start it either just before a big scene between the two of them or immediately after it, and then go from there in Bethany's perspective. So there will be overlap in the two books, but it won't really matter in this case because the two don't interact after this scene.

I'd kind of like to do it with other characters too, say the love interest or the best friend, or the quirky other friend who doesn't get delved into as much as the others did. It's a way to have sequels without really having sequels, to have he series that so many readers like to have without creating some lame cliffhanger so that people will wait for the next book (lame because this isn't the right genre for that). It's also a cheat for me because I would get to write the characters that I love so much. That's what we call a win-win my friends.

Now I just need to find the focus and time to juggle all of these projects. I particularly need to finish editing Book 1, something I meant to complete over the past weekend but did not do. I'm beginning to wonder if I should not make the change that I've been planning to make, as it has completely stopped me in my tracks. I know challenging myself is a good thing and I should keep at it till I figure it out. I think the book is better off with he change. But by golly it's getting on my nerves!

Okay, that's all for now. I hope this headache is just a one-off and not something that's indicative of an oncoming illness. I'm going to go eat an apple just to be safe.

A Post About Writer's Block

I don't know if it's because I've decided to make this post about writer's block or what, but I am having a terrible time beginning this blog post. Except there, it's begun. Phew, thank God.

You might think that once you get past the first draft of a book that the days of writer's block are over. All you have to do now is tweak, cut, and add pretty words here and there to make yourself sound smart. You might also think that when you get to the third draft of a book that revisions must be really easy; I should just be correcting "form" to "from" and putting commas where they should be and deleting repeated words. Simple stuff.

THAT IS NOT THE CASE AT ALL. 

At least, not for me. I decided in a late night haze that I was going to completely rework a few scenes of Book 1, scenes that happen to be integral to the story. I decided this mostly because one scene in particular was feeling really draggy. I had a character explaining something that happened in the past and she was just going on and on. Really, I think if I were to actually be in the room with her that I'd either get up and leave or stare pointedly at my watch.* 

* I don't wear a watch, but then I also am unable to transport myself into fiction worlds so really what kind of realism were you expecting you from this?

So it was definitely the right decision to try to fix this. The problem is I seem unable to actually do it. Every attempt I've made so far has been terrible, and that's when I wasn't staring at the blank page. I even did the thing where you lean in towards the computer screen, as if the secrets are right there and my poor vision is all that's preventing me from accessing them. I have no idea why this is so hard. The character is revealing what's been secret for the entire book! 

Well, I guess it's the pressure to make the reveal worth the wait, to not have people rolling their eyes when they find out why this character has been acting this way. I want it to be sympathetic to readers, to be relatable in some way. 

Basically, I want the scene, not to mention the book, to be amazing. I just read a book that made me want to throw it across the room due to its lameness. I want to write a book that does the opposite of that. Yeah, I want you to throw the book AT YOURSELF. (Please wear protective eye gear.)

Thing I Don't Understand:

I am eating a salad right now and I don't understand why this ranch dressing tastes so awful. Yes, I did buy the cheapest one at the grocery store, but I also bought the cheapest croutons and they're magnificent. 

BONUS thing I don't understand: Why is my vitamin pill so big? What if I were to die while choking on a vitamin? The very thing I'm taking to improve my health? Hmm, I could kill a character off that way, come to think of it....