I know Nothing about Nothing.

Yeah, nothing to really update about today when it comes to writing, except that, well, I've been writing.  But I promised myself I'm post on here frequently, so let's see what I can scrounge up.

I sent some of the newer scenes that I wrote to my friend and I got some positive feedback about it, so that boosted my self-esteem x100.  It's great to have a friend that really understands story structure and the writing process in general, which means I can count on her to actually give me solid critique instead of "oh, it's good."  That drives me crazy.  So now I'm even more motivated to get things done.

I keep trying to push the impending re-write out of my brain, but I keep thinking about it.  Its going to be interesting and somewhat terrifying for me, because there are maybe four or five characters that I decided should be added in about half way through.  So now, in this first draft, these characters just pop up out of nowhere and act like they've been there the entire time.  (Imagine my friend's face when I tried to explain it to her before she read through it...)  I'm curious to see if I'll have trouble adding them in from the beginning.  At least I'll already have a strong idea what sort of character they are.  :D

Other than that, I have to be up tomorrow at 4:30am, so that mean a nice, early 9pm bedtime for me!  And a nap in the afternoon tomorrow!

Sirantha Jax is my Hero

I am such a fan of Ann Aguirre it's not even funny.

I've always had a problem with buying books based on their covers, and then I go home and open them up and hate it.  I've discovered over the years that most of the book covers that attract me contain stories I have no interest in, or the writing style turns me off.  Aguirre's Sirantha Jax series was not like that at all for me.

I totally bought her book because of the cover art.

How fucking awesome is that cover?  I want to be Sirantha Jax so bad.  I'm also going to hound this cover artist when I'm ready to publish my novel.

Today I was so excited because I came across her last book in the Jax series over at B&N, and I immediately snatched it up.  And then I got all sad, because it's the end of a great series with great characters.  I'm sure most of you can relate.  Kind of like how you felt when Harry Potter came to an end.

So then I tinkle around with the idea of grabbing her fantasy series, because she is such an awesome writer, but I tend to stay away from urban fantasy novels, because there's only so many hot girl being a total bad ass and running from her past because she has a special power books I can take, which, of course, is what Blue Diablo is all about.

Kinda wish all of Aguirre's novels had the same artwork.

Who knows?  I'm hoping this series will pull me in like Jax did, and there are some awesome urban fantasy series that I love, like the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman.

 This cover is so emo.  Look at him up there, perched high above the city in the rain, thinking dark thoughts about the troll under the Brooklyn bridge.

This series is awesome, one of my favorite fantasy series, and I was so happy to find out that Rob Thurman is totally a girl.  And might I just add that Cillian Murphey is 100% Cal Leandros, and I expect a movie to be made some time in the future.

 How can a man possibly look so good?

Anyway, can't wait to dig into these books.  If you haven't read any of her stuff yet, go for it!  <3 br="br">

My Dog Hates my Writing.

So I knuckle down and start doing writing things, right?  And then my dog comes along and tells me she hates my writing, and then shows me just how much she hates it.

Mom, your writing sucks, you should be doing productive things, like rubbing my belly.

There was no stopping her, either.  And she's too darn cute to yell at about it.  I'm sure she'll move when she's confident her message has sunk in.

Still plowing away, however.  Getting this ending done pretty soon!

I know Nothing about Ending a Story.

Oh man, so much has happened since I stopped posting.  I wish I was better able to stick to goals such as writing every day, but for some reason I just haven't had the motivation.  I could make a bunch of excuses, but that's just what they'll be read as: excuses.

I moved two weeks ago, and now I've set up base in lovely Ventura, CA, and the weather is wonderful and the beach is wonderful and my bookshelf is up and it's wonderful and suddenly I had the strongest urge to write.  So I've set a new goal for myself: I AM going to try and write every day, even if it's for just an hour or two, even if it's just a sentence, I'm going to try and write something.

....And this time I mean it!

Ha, I know, how many times have you heard that from someone.  All I can really do is shrug and try my hardest this time, and promise myself not to give up and hope for the best.

Another goal I've set for myself is to finish up my outline.  The ending has been so very vague and so very up in the air that I decided to just suck it up and get something more solid down on paper.  Of course, a vague, three-paragraph end turns into ten or so pages of an ending outline, but once that's done my main characters will finally have some direction.

I've noticed that my main characters have started to almost wilt in their rolls because I don't have much of anything for an end thought up yet, and I've come to the conclusion that it's because I'm wilting without an end.  This needs to be fixed asap.

What is your next writing goal?

I know Nothing about Snow...

Aaaand it's still falling....

And still falling...

And falling some more.

It's a good thing I like the snow. I like snow better than I like rain. Rain just makes you wet instantly. At least with snow you don't know you're wet until you're inside, and by then it doesn't matter! Plus, you can't make rain-balls and have rain-fights.... T.T

Anyway, I was going to hop on here and talk about the benefits of Fanfiction for young writers, but I just finished typing up a heated debate about it elsewhere, and I just can't bring myself to write about it anymore today. I'll put it on my topic list though, and it will be posted up in the future.

It's supposed to snow all day tomorrow, and I'm hoping I'll at least get the morning off so I can do some writing on my novel. I haven't opened up the document in weeks, and it's eating at me. I'm slowly going insane. Plus, work is picking up (lots of privates, birthday parties and babysitting gigs coming my way - I'm super-busy), so I'm just not getting that writing time in that I normally would.

It's okay though, I just have to bide my time.

The end is so close I can taste it. The epic ending is coming so fast, I just can't wait to get it done so I can go though again and build it up into something even more amazing. The hardest part is just finding the time to get to it.

I know Nothing about Procrastination...

Although I certainly wouldn't call what I'm doing now procrastination in the least. Actually, I would LOVE to sit down and write about my characters and difference scenes and whatnot. Unfortunately, I can't at the moment. It's driving me crazy. CRAZY.

It's not like I haven't tried, either. I've sat down and pulled up the HUGE word document and stared at the screen as the TV is on and everyone is moving around and I just can't. I need to be alone or with someone else who is writing, and I need to have quiet. I need quiet to write, and I just can't get it where I'm at at the moment. T.T

The only thing I can do is jot down the ideas or changes I come up with and wait it out until I can find the time. That and hurry up and find a new place I can call mine again.

I didn't post yesterday because I had a raging headache. A stress headache. I tried, believe me, I sat there with this new post page up and just stared at the screen. I couldn't even think up a title for the post and they've all got the same theme. Maybe next time I'll just try and post that I have a headache and leave it at that?

I spent all day yesterday driving around with my boyfriend and a friend of ours and looking at places my real estate agent sent me. Two of them were awful, but I did like a few. :) I'm hoping to get out there next weekend and check out the insides and maybe by the end of the month I'll have a new place. Here's hoping.

Anyway, it's Monday today, and Monday's are always hectic. I wake up at 5:30, am out of the house by 6:30, drive to the train station and take the train into Philly, then walk a few blocks to school. The next four hours are a flurry of beautiful photoshop skills. After school, I trek it back to Jersey where I rush over to work and spend the entire afternoon/evening kicking and punching and yelling, and then a Private lesson to two bo-staff-wielding young boys. After that I go home and pass out.

Here's to starting my day!

I know Nothing about Dreams...

Waking up is a strange thing. Some people just can't do it. My brother is one of those people. It doesn't matter the occasion, he'll sleep until 3pm then get up and still be tired. I remember Christmas mornings waking up at 6am and being so excited that I'd instantly be awake. :) I'd rush super-fast into my brother's room first, and it would take minutes - minutes - to wake him up. When he was younger, muttering the word 'Christmas' was enough to get him up and out of bed. Closer to when I left the nest for college, I'd really have to work at getting him up (is it strange that at 18 I was still excited to get up and get on with Christmas?).

However, I too went through phases where getting up early is simply impossible. Can't do it, no way no how. And now that I'm on the early schedule again (with home-brewed coffee every morning - Yay!), I look back now thinking how I was so sluggish and sleepy at work, even though I was still getting the same hours of sleep I am now. The time of morning I wake up to changes everything for me. Does anyone else notice this in their sleep pattern?

I tend to have very realistic dreams when I'm on an early schedule as well. There was one pretty recently about the giant Walker machines from Star Wars and the American Military and the stars.... I won't get into it, but it was amazing (in fact, it was so amazing, maybe it will be changed around a bit to be written as a short story?).

Last night I dreamed about my boyfriend entering Medical school where he accidentally did heart surgery too soon and ended up creating a super-human who then tried to kill him.

See? Weird, vivid dreams.

However, I've only been inspired to write through my dreams once or twice, and even then only one amounted to anything, and that was a very successful Inuyasha fanfiction (which you can view here). You hear about authors like Stephanie Meyers who had a dream and - BAM - millionaire. Gee, wouldn't that be nice?

The novel I'm working on did not come to me while sleeping. Nor did I simply think up an idea and - hello! - plot. I had two completely separate story ideas before I was able to mesh them together and create something much better. And it was much later after that I was able to create an expansion of characters and plot lines for the novel.

It amazes me how some authors can come up with amazing story lines and instantly go into them, and then come out with something beautiful. Now, believe me, I know the process of true writing, but I just can't believe how authors such as Orson Scott Card do it so fast.

Hey, OSC - send some tips my way, would you?

I know Nothing about Blogging....

And yet, I'm going to go ahead and blog for the next 365 days. Well, I'm going to try anyway. Maybe by then it will just be habit, and this blog will just keep going forever.

Work is overloading me know, which financially is what I need, so I'm going to say it's a good thing and leave it at that. Although I will add that I've also discovered 5 Hour Energy shots to work fantastically for me (expensive, though! $18 for a six pack?!!), so I chug one every Monday after I get back from school and head into work. Then I'm ready for an evening of crazy karate kids and private lessons.

Getting in an extra flow of cash is always good. However, as I stated in my last post, I just don't have the time to write. Really, I go home, eat and then lay down. I can rarely find time to read now, I'm so tired and busy.

I'm going to talk a little about the book The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, which I'm in the middle of reading right now. The book is science fiction and deals with time travel. A Historian is sent back to the 1300's (middle ages) and something goes wrong, but we're not sure what. In fact, I'm 200+ pages in, and I still don't know what went wrong when she was sent back.

The historian gets sick as soon as she gets there, but I still don't know exactly why or how. They never fully explain it (yet), and I'm beginning to get frustrated.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a clean, good read, and I'm dying to figure out what happened and how the heck she's going to get back. The only problem is I'm finding only minutes at a time to pick up the book and read, so it's slow going. This is killing me, because I'm a fast reader.

I'm inspired to start working on my novel again, now if I could just find the time to do it...

Okay, so I know SOME things....

...about exciting karate demonstration teams. I know stuff about them because I run a karate demo team. I also know something about chopping up and mashing together a song to make it fit a routine. I love it. All of it.

My demo team won at the Amerikick Internationals Philadelphia last November ('09), and since then I've lost some long-standing members to my schools black belt team (run by the head instructor, not me. T.T), and I've had to replace them.

Oh how I forgot over the year how horrible and messy it all starts out before they begin to shape into something. It's a good challenge, I just wish more of them were serious about it. Sorry, kiddos, but having a friend sleep over or a cousin visit is NOT a valid excuse to miss practice.

Anyway, what does this all have to do with writing? Nothing, but it's what I'm doing instead of writing, as I haven't been able to write anything in a while. Damn, life always gets in the way.

Have to pay the bills though, and unfortunately, my debut novel has not been seen by any eyes yet. ...Not anyone who could make my writing dreams come true, anyway....

Back to what I know about the demo team.

I know how to chop up and put together the music, and I love doing it. Almost as much as I love Photoshop, and almost as much as I love writing. ....Almost. :)

....Photoshop ftw!