Tag Archives: Word Wizard

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 4, 2019

Posted under

All About That Process, General Writing Stuff, Writer By Night

Comments

Leave a comment

Love & Inspiration

Oh heeeeyyyyyy… it’s been a while, huh?

Look, I have a life, you know! I mean, I definitely do not spend most of it sitting alone in my house playing video games or reading NOPE NOT ME.

Anyway, I’m here to give you an update on that thing I’m always talking about, you know the one. It’s been awhile because life stuff. Like dang life you so crazy!

Okay, so writing. What am I even working on anymore?? I am working on A Novel. It doesn’t have a title. It doesn’t even have a real working title. I’m calling it S&S right now, which makes no sense unless you’re me, so I guess let’s call it Novel S.

I actually started the very beginnings of Novel S two NaNoWriMos ago. Not last year, but the year before, I started with almost nothing. I wrote about 13,000 words that year. Then I kind of messed around with it for while until NaNo came around again.

Last year’s NaNoWriMo was by far one of the best I’ve ever done. I actually wrote 50,000 words!! That almost NEVER happens! It got kind of dumb toward the end, though, when all my characters got super formal and stopped using contractions.

So yeah, I wrote a ton that month. I’ve also finally figured out how my process works, which is something I never fully understood until now. This was mostly due to my belief that all books must be written the same way. As in, you need an outline and character sheets and you should write a little bit every day and don’t start over and then when you’re done you revise and so on and so forth.

Rubbish, I say!

I am NOT an outliner. Character sheets are useless for me, too. This is because I will write out all their info before I start writing, but then as I write practically everything about them changes. I’m way too lazy to go back and fix all the stuff in the character sheets, so they just remain forever inaccurate, which I think kind of defeats the purpose.

I also don’t write every day. My junk needs time to simmer in the pan that is my brain. It’s like I spend several days cookin’ up hash browns so I can sit down to a mountain of seemingly endless inspiration. Mmm yes hash browns.

My point is, I’ve figured out the right way for ME and that’s what matters. Everybody is different. Everyone will find their own way. I had to realize that I didn’t have to do things the way someone else says I should. In the end, who would even know? As long as I finished with a book, who cares how I got there, right?

Another thing I do is rewrite. I do start over. I have to! My process actually DOES NOT WORK if I don’t start over. The trick is learning when to stop starting over, but don’t worry, I’ve finally figured that out, too.

Right now I’m working on the restart. I’ve got another goal of 50,000 words, but I’m doing it in three months instead of one.

I MEAN MAYBE?

I was PLANNING on three months, but guys I’m writing SO MUCH. It’s insane. Depending on how long this lasts, I might be done with 50k in less than a month.

This is it, I think. I feel like I’ve arrived. I feel like I’ve been riding the train for almost twenty years, but I kept getting distracted by other people’s stations instead of getting off at mine.

I’ve rambled about writing in the past and I’ve written a lot of blogs that said stuff like THIS IS IT and I FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT THIS BOOK GUYS and I’M ACTUALLY GONNA FINISH THIS ONE. And then none of it was true.

So I’m like, yo, no expectations for Novel S. The only way for me to really feel like I can write something I enjoy, something that I will finish, something that I can be proud of is if I have no expectations for it. If it gets published one day, that would be great, but if it doesn’t, that’s also fine. You have to fail before you can succeed, that’s just how life works. So why stress about failing to the point where I can’t even finish something? That’s really just another form of failing, anyway. If I never finish a book so that it never gets rejected by potential publishers/agents/readers, isn’t that worse than failing?

What matters to me right now is that I’m doing the thing that I love. I’m spending my time writing instead of feeling guilty about not writing. I’m doing it because I enjoy it. I’m doing it because when I see it starting to take shape, I get so excited it’s like I’m floating. I’m doing it because I love that feeling of being a Word Wizard who casts Spells of Fiction.

I found a quote recently that blew me away with how relevant it was to this feeling I’ve been having.

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” -Ella Fitzgerald

I’ve always believed that to be true. Now I’m actually applying it to my life. I’ve got the love and the inspiration, so you better believe I’m never giving up.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

December 11, 2017

Posted under

General Writing Stuff

Comments

Leave a comment

Literary Mayhem

BA HA HA HA HA HA.

I AM BACK.

That’s how I feel right now, full of villainous laughter and the feeling that I’m back to being who I’ve always been. IT FEELS GREAT.

I seriously considered ending this blog post right here, but then I thought that would be kind of mean. Though “kind of mean” totally fits with my vibe right now.

Okay so let me start with this: it’s about writing. You should not be surprised. It’s always about writing. Okay, it’s almost always about writing. The next post is gonna be about not-writing, I promise.

ANYWAY.

In case you didn’t already know, I have been really strugglingwith my writing for the past forever. It had less to do with writing and more to do with my outlook… maybe go back a post and read about Sisyphus, then you’ll get what I mean.

Basically, trying to write filled me with agony and pain and suffering. Every word, every sentence, felt like a punishment. And so whatever I wrote was also really bad. Really bad and really sad and just not at all what it used to be like when I was young and joyous and free.

Now what do you think I mean when I say I AM BACK?

Normally I write a lot of blogs during NaNoWriMo, but this year I didn’t. There were a couple of reasons. Reason number one was that writing was still painful and I honestly didn’t think I’d do much of it. Reason number two was that the story I was writing was nothing but a single character. It has since evolved into a few different things, but I was starting with practically nothing. It had been a long timesince I had done such a thing – starting a story with nothing to go on but a character. So I figured that I wasn’t going to get far and there was no point in blogging a ton about my barely there NaNo efforts.

I was right. The goal? 50,000 words. My ending total? 13,033 words.

More than I was expecting, but nowhere near the actual goal.

So I think I made the right choice not blogging about NaNo this year.

Now that it’s over, though, I’m really liking where my story is going. So I decided to keep working on it.

I just finished writing a scene for this story. And the feeling I got when I had finished was the feeling that made me want to be a writer back when I first got serious about it sixteen years ago. I get a little shiver of excitement down my spine that makes me feel like an EVIL MASTERMIND OF AUTHORIAL MADNESS and all I want to do is Evil Laugh.

Thus the BA HA HA ing at the beginning.

Not only did the scene turn out better than I expected, but a connection I needed showed up quite nicely for me.

That one character I started with? Not in this scene. This one was about a completely different character that I had made up during NaNo because I was getting bored. Their stories didn’t collide in any way that I could see. But I wasn’t trying to make it all work. I was trying to just go along with whatever happened.

I still couldn’t help trying to figure out where their stories crossed, though. I thought about it occasionally, as I went about my normal days. I even thought I might have to separate the stories.

And then tonight, as I worked on a new scene for the second character, one word that I added on some kind of whimsical writerly inspiration connected the stories. One word was all it took. And that’s when I started feeling a bit like a VILLAINOUS MAD SCIENTIST.

It didn’t help that the word also kind of made this second character really dark.

This is a feeling I’ve had before. Back when writing wasn’t painful. Back when writing was more like experiments in a lab coat with a hunch backed flunky. Back when writing was like a dark cauldron bubbling over with neon goop. Back when all I wanted to do was be a Word Wizard that would Cast Spells of Fiction over all my Unwitting Readers.

I missed this feeling. It’s why I write. I thought I lost it forever, but it turns out I just had to dump my PAIN AND SUFFERING by being my own Word Wizard and not someone else’s idea of a Word Wizard.

I’m a discovery writer, folks. That’s the long and short of it. I don’t plan. I don’t create outlines. I can and I have and I tried to make myself do it. And I was miserable.

BUT NOW I AM BACK.

Maybe one day you’ll get to read my Spells of Fiction. I know some of you have been waiting a long time.

Fear not for I sense the day is nigh! My wizardly word fingers are tingling like they haven’t tingled in years! My villanous laugh is deeper and truer than it has ever been! Prepare for literary mayhem!

BA HA HA HA HA HA!