Fail

I realize that I completely failed at least at one of my new year's resolutions. The one where I would post at least twice a week. Yeah... I guess I should've said once every other two months or something. But I have an excuse! You probably saw this coming, but I swear that it's a semi-valid excuse that will hopefully get me in the clear.

The past two months have been pretty crazy for me.

Sounds like an everyday doctor's note, right? But I'm serious. I've had work (which you already know about) and I started school on January 18, so that added to the time suckage of my life. Then when you add in a social life and a wildly active reading/writing life, you find out that all of the other little things you always wanted to do just don't seem as important as sleep at the end of the night. It's really been a crazy start to 2011.

But with that excuse out there, and a sincere apology to those who have probably already forgotten about this blog and will be confused when they suddenly get a notification that the rambling author's journey has just posted another entry about what she PLANS on doing, I hope that it will be enough to draw you back in.

If you follow my other blog though, Suspiciously Apt Book Reviews, you've probably seen several posts since I normally don't cut reading time out of my life. There are a few good book reviews from the past couple of months that might interest some of you. I just put one up that covers BEFORE I FALL by Lauren Oliver. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read, I'm not kidding you.

But back to what this blog is SUPPOSED to be about (this will be short for tonight):

I have finally made a decision on which idea to write a novel about (only took me what? a year? And that's only as far as any of you have been reading this). I can't tell you much about it yet since it's still a tentative development, but I know that it's definitely what I want to do. The real journey starts tonight. Who has time to wait for NaNoWriMo, right?

See y'all next week! (Double dog promise you!)

Farewell 2010

2010 was kind of a bad year for me. It was like a tail spin of unmade decisions and loss. Great loss. I went through a tough time finding a job, couldn't make up my mind about which book to write, couldn't return to college this past fall, and just this past month, my beautiful siberian husky, Luke, passed away...



You may remember him from my post "Why I Should Join IPCA" when I entered the PARANORMALCY ARC contest. He was 9 years old. I don't want to get into the details because it makes me cry every time, but he was beloved. I picked Luke out on Halloween night when I was ten years old at Pet City. It was this cute little pet shop in the mall where we lived in Boise, Idaho at the time. He was just so adorable and so breathtakingly beautiful (er, I mean handsome. Guys prefer handsome, correct?) I just couldn't walk out of there without calling him my own. My dad caved. He'd always loved huskies. And ever since then, Luke had been more than a friend or a companion. He'd been family. It's amazing that he lasted so long. He was known for getting his stomach pumped at the vet's office. He'd tried to eat chocolate covered raisinets, batteries, and fireworks. Yes, people... fireworks. That dog was a wanna-be curious cat. And I loved him so much...

I don't want to make this blog post too depressing, and I want to TRY to keep my eyes dry if at all possible, so... I will carefully segue into a farewell to the past year.

Goodbye to:

Uncertainty.

Indecision.

Inconsistency.

Hello 2011...

This is the year that I will walk forward with sure steps.

Resolution

There's just something about starting fresh...

Seeing as I've been the new kid in school about a dozen times (nope, I'm not a military brat, by the way), it's a little unbelievable to say that I like change. I mean, after so many times you have to get sick of it, right?

Wrong.

Each and every time I moved to a new town, I always had this bubbling sense of enthusiasm. It's new. It's fresh. It's a chance to start over and reinvent yourself. Who doesn't want that? Sooo, of course with that attitude, it is correct to presume that I have made a few New Year's Resolutions. And here are some of them:

1. Get healthy. (Not that I'm sick or something, but the cliche resolution to lose weight and stay in shape. Annnnd try to reassert my will power. Wherever it went...) And with this resolution I've decided to take up running again. I used to love it. Why can't I love it again?

2. Seriously. Write. My. Book.

3. Read 75 books this year. Yes siree.

4. Transfer to a University.

5. Write at least once a week on both of my blogs. Hopefully my followers will like this one. Hee.

So, there's a few good ol' fashioned resolutions. If I didn't have a killer head ache right now and if I wasn't so tired (some of us had to work today. meh.), I would probably try to liven this up with a quippy joke or maybe an all too serious post about writing and time and writing resolutions... Alas, I can barely make my fingers hit the right keys. Tomorrow is a new day! Tomorrow is a new year!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope 2011 will be the year to beat! Be safe out there!

Hectic Schedules and Brainstorming

So! Last week I went on a long rant about age and experience and titles. Yeah, even the calm ones get fired up sometimes. But as for this week, I've been brainstorming about what to do next in the writing field. Well, in my novel's writing field at least. It's a considerably smaller arena and one that I like to fence myself into a lot. However, it's complex enough that I can talk about it over and over and over again. So, here goes.

I got a new job. No, seriously, I really did get an actual job in the real world so I can save up for college next semester. I really needed one, and I've been hunting non stop for the past six months, and now finally, I have one! But I've been thinking about how this is going to effect my schedule, and honestly... I might not have all the time in the world to write anymore. That means I'm going to have to be more diligent about fitting it in and making deadlines- not the easiest thing for me. You see, I pride myself on my spurs. Otherwise known as my spur of the moment nonsense code that I live by. Even term papers were part of this conventional style of mine. However, since I'm not very good at getting my books finished (I just got to 64 pages and it's been two years since I first came up with this idea), I know that I'm going to actually have to push myself to write.

You see, there's always something that seems to get in the way for writers. Unless you're amazing like Kiersten White and can finish your book in 3 weeks, or Abra Ebner and jot down every word in eleven freaking days (so jealous), then you're going to HAVE to push yourself to write. And it's a grueling process. Luckily, I'm not like White where I have two kids to look after. You see, she really IS Superwoman. But I am going to be working a LOT to save money for school and then in January I plan on being back in school while still working this job (if everything goes right). Sooo, I'm going to have even less time. And my whole goal (while crazy) is to finish the first draft of my novel by January so that I can work on editing in-between my homework and everything else that interrupts without knocking.

Man, life really is stressful.

All in all, life is short. There's always something or other to deal with, but if you love writing and you have a dream- make time for it.

I would like to say thank you to Lacey, one of my best friends, for giving me a planner. I didn't know it then, but I'm sure gonna have a use for it!

Happy scheduling folks!

Doubts

When I started this blog, I knew that there would be ups and downs. And I knew that there would be a lot of work put into this writing situation, but... I decided to do it anyway. You see, there's so many decisions a writer has to make when they're trying to put together a novel. There are millions of paths that one can choose from. And seeing as I'm a person who can't make up their mind to save their life, this can cause a very tricky predicament.

One thing I've always wondered, but don't hear much about in the writing world is, how does an author choose between two really great ideas for two completely different books? It seems like there would be a very simple answer to this question, but I haven't found one so easy in all my experience with the written word. I have two storylines that I want to do, and will do, but which one do I choose first?

I've been asking around and have received several ideas for a solution, but... it just doesn't seem that easy.

I put a lot of weight into my decisions, maybe more than I should, but I want to make sure that I make the right decision at the right time. For instance, how much book am I ready for? Have I experience enough to write about either of these storylines with credibility? I want to make this as good as it can be...

But it seems I might be putting too much thought into this. Others have said to just write both; "when you get sick of one story, write the other one for a little bit." But I'm afraid that I might not concentrate on one as much as the other...

I have so many doubts that it's choking my creativity... Perhaps, if I step back and choose to shorten my sights on simply writing what I love to write when I want to write it, then maybe everything will just flow...

One can only hope.

My advice to any writers out there that might be reading this, is to write just because you simply love it. Don't worry about making the right decisions. The good thing about writing is that you can always edit it later. Don't change something just because you're scared that it won't turn out the way you want it. Push through and let it fall into place.

You know, I should be taking my own advice more often.

What I Wouldn't Give For...

More time.

I know, I know... I haven't posted anything in a week and a half. I've already begun to wipe the smashed tomatoes off of my computer screen as I write this. Unfortunately, the reason I haven't posted anything is because... I haven't been doing much in the field of writing this week. Unless you count obsessively checking my goodreads account several times a day.

I've been using The Author's Outline (not as much as I should, but I'm still using it), and so far I'm still only in the character summaries. I'm almost done with that part, but I have a lot of side characters to think about, and I don't want to rush this process. If I end up rushing it then I know I'll get about 80 pages into my novel while I'm writing it and then suddenly want to change the whole idea for a better one that pops into my head. I'm just crazy like that...

I must say though, one good thing can come from a site like goodreads. There are a bunch of groups on there for writing and this can get any author feedback on their work. Which is very helpful in my opinion. I've also received a lot of tips on how to outline my book and stop the madness that incurrs too many ideas at once! Exciting, indeed!

Back to the topic I was hoping to discuss in this post: time. I never seem to have enough of it. I've spent half the summer looking for a job and promising myself that I would finish plotting my novel and start writing it. And tomorrow I'll begin my new job. And hopefully, tomorrow I'll get further in the plotting process as well. But the job part has been worrying me. Am I going to have enough time to write? How am I going to balance my job, my family time, my social life, my book, and reading all into my life's planner? How do I pencil all of this in?

I have no idea.

All I can do is keep living life, I guess. And hope that it all falls into place. Of course, I'm going to keep writing. It's been seven years now and I haven't stopped yet, so why suddenly give up, right? I'll still follow my dream and keep working towards that publication date where I find out that my words are going to be publicly printed and sold to the masses, no matter how many masses that might be.

So now that I've cleared that up... Sorry for the late post. As you can see, I've been dealing with some new news in my life and some internal writing struggles that I had to face. But now that that's all over with, I say let's get back to normal! I'll be posting again this week about creating a character and all that that entails. Until then, please... no more tomatoes. The spaghetti noodles miss them far too much!

Catch you later! I'm going to go read some more :)