10,000 words and it feels SO good!

Time for a quick celebratory blog post!

Y'all, I officially hit the 10,000 word mark on my story tonight and I am SO excited. It may not seem like a big deal, really, but what you don't know is that I've never actually made it to 10,000 words on a story and I've certainly never written 10,000 words in a month. Yeah... That's what's even cooler. At the beginning of the month, I set a goal for myself to write 4,000 words and TWO WEEKS IN to the month, I completed that goal. So, I set a second goal for 10,000 words (including the initi 4,000) and well... I just knocked that goal out tonight. Now, since I have a week left in January, I have set a higher goal. So, I'm thinking it's going to be 12,000. Surely I can do that... Right?

Oddly enough, this story is probably the LAST one I would've thought I'd get this far on since it was supposed to just be a little writing practice for the weekend I left my flash drive at school by accident... However, I must confess that I've fallen in love with both my main characters AND their two quirky friends... Looks like my fiancé is going to have to share. =) 

Forgotten Flash Drives and Such: Blessings in Disguise

Well, I officially started back to school this past Thursday and let me just say I am SO glad to be back! Don't get me wrong. Taking time off last semester was a good thing for me. I really needed the rest and the time to recoup and regroup, but after a month or so of all that, it got to be a little boring. Okay. REALLY boring, actually, but whatever. All that's over and I'm no longer a lazy bum. Thank God.

Anyway, one of the classes I had Thursday was my Technology for Educators class, so I was forced to use my flash drive in a computer that wasn't my own for the first time in forever. *Translation: When I got up to leave, it wasn't sticking out of my laptop for me to notice and put back in my purse where it belongs.

Well, that night after I got done eating supper with my family and fiancé (and had gotten this idea for a cute story from a conversation we'd had at the table), I went digging in my purse for my flash drive -not to work on this new idea, mind you, but to attempt to add my cursory 200 words per day to my current (struggling) WIP. I reached into the pocket I always keep it in, but didn't feel it there. No need to be alarmed, though, I figured. I'd probably just dropped it into the main compartment by accident. So, I dumped out my purse and quickly went though the contents. No flash drive. I checked the side pocket. No flash drive. At this point, my panic was 100% justifiable. Words have been hard to come by lately and most of my most recent writing was on that flash drive. In a final grasp for hope, I checked the bag I had my books in. Nothing.

Then it dawned on me.

I'd been using my flash drive to start on that assignment for my technology class and when I was logging off and getting ready to leave, the teacher had interrupted me to give me a handout she'd forgotten to give us -and being easily distracted like I am *SQUIRREL!!!* I'd forgotten to take my flash drive out of the computer.  #writerfail

Epic, epic writer fail...

I kind of wanted to cry and punch myself in the face. Mostly the latter.

Of course, because I'd seen the LOST FLASH DRIVE sign hanging over a designated spot in the computer lab, I wasn't too worried about getting it back or anything. I was mostly upset because my current WIP was on it and I wouldn't have access to it all weekend (and possibly until Tuesday when I'm back in the Education building again). #writerfail

Or was it?

My mind flitted back to the little gem of an idea I'd had at the table earlier. I'd decided at the beginning of the year that I wasn't going to story hop anymore. I was going to work on finishing what I started and following through until then end... but I hadn't factored in the possibility of not having access to my WIP for four days. I eyed my laptop and my spare (empty) flash drive on my desk.

I could either start something new and be a writer or I could just sit around and not be a writer and do nothing.

Well, that changes everything...

To the computer I went, probably a little bit too accepting of the misfortune that was allowing me to be flaky and start a new story.

That story, though... Y'all, by Saturday night, I'd hit the 4,500 word mark, which is almost unheard of for me. Especially lately, when 200 words a day (not even my standard "Nifty 250") has been a major, MAJOR struggle. It felt SO good.  Now, I haven't done a stitch of plotting or character profiling and I'm pretty sure this story is just going to be a novelette or novella (found out today that there is, in fact, a difference), but I'm still so excited about it. It's nice to be able to sit down and write and love the fact that I'm writing rather than dread it and spend the whole time stalking that word count number just to make sure I don't have to go three words over 200. I actually feel like a writer, today -and that is exactly what I want to be... #win


Why I Write

I recently read a blog post on one of my favorite blogs, Christ is Write, about why she loves being an author. At the end, she prompted fellow writers to post their top reasons for writing. At first, I was really excited about it… until I started trying to list out some reasons why I write.

Honestly, I don’t know.

I tried to come up with some reasons like Tessa did, but none of them really captured the real reason why I write. At the end of the day, all I really know to say is that I write because I don’t like not writing. As I described in a previous post if I don’t write for a few days, I start going slightly crazy. I get to feeling depressed and utterly unproductive in life. It’s probably not even healthy what happens to my psyche when I neglect my writing. Journaling is sometimes good for inspiration, but it doesn’t always fix the problem.

 

My old Bible, new journal, and favorite pen. =)

Basically, I write because I have to, even when I don’t want to.

 

However, if I were to give a more glamorous reason for my writing, I'd have to say that I hope to inspire others through my words.

 

A few years ago, I was sitting in a British Literature class and--feeling a bit bolder than usual--asked the professor, "Why is all the 'great literature' so depressing? Why don't 'the greats' ever seem to write about the good things in life?"

 

"Well," she said. "Perhaps the good things just aren't noteworthy."

 

I'll never forget that moment. I was shocked that anyone would say such a thing. "I beg to differ," I replied quietly. "I believe the good things in live are very noteworthy."

 

To this day, that exchange haunts me every time I sit down to write. I decided that morning that I wanted my writing to focus primarily on the good things in life: Love, joy, hope, faith, family, friends... things that make us feel alive. Loss and grief are still part of my writing because they're part of life, but as Monica Wood puts it, my goal it to "write toward light."

I think that phrase sums up my purpose pretty well because I feel like it doesn't exclude the reality that pain and grief exist. So even though stories should feature real emotions, fears, and insecurities, at the end of the day, I hope to achieve something positive. 

I write because I have to, but I hope to inspire others. Not a glamorous manifesto, by any means, it's just the simple truth.

You know you're a writer when...

You know you're a writer when you STOP writing. 

Yeah. I said that. No, I didn't make a mistake. 

You know you're a writer when you stop writing... under the guise of a "mental health break"... and within three days of going on said break you think you're going to lose your mind. 

Because you're driving to meet your boyfriend for a coffee and a movie and this great first line of a short story comes to mind as you're getting onto the highway.

Then when you get to the coffee shop with your boyfriend, you whip out your nerdy little padfolio and write down that line -and a piece of a second line that came to mind when your boyfriend said something. 

Then, after you've had some coffee (which your boyfriend calls "syrup" because of the amount of cream, sugar, and... er... caramel you put into it) and your mind's now racing along with your heart, you start to the movie theater and pass the newspaper office. A setting! You have a setting! 

At this point, you're not sure what to do with your life because you are a writer and you are not writing -but you are writing in your head. You get to the theater and decide you're going to focus on the movie. Maybe analyze the main characters or something writerly like that. 

However, every single preview sparks a new idea. Some not even related to the story you've been writing in your head for the past hour. One idea would make a great idea for that one idea you had a week or so ago. 

Eventually, you settle down for the movie. You are going to focus. You must focus. Your boyfriend, who is also nerdy and dabbles in the writing craft, will want to discuss the "effectiveness of the plot" or something like that when the movie's over. 

So... Your watching the movie. You are. You have no other choice at this point because it's too dark in the theater to whip out your phone or nerdy little padfolio. 

Soon, some random minor character comes on screen and it hits you! That's exactly what the character from the story you're going to write starting from that first line you came up with when you got onto the highway looks like!!! Exactly. What's that actresses name? You need to look her up. 

As the movie progresses, the ideas keep coming. And coming. And coming. You're dying. You're going to forget all this great stuff if you don't write it down, but you can't. You get annoyed and restless. You hate movies. You hate life. You hate writing. 

The movie (a sci-fi) goes on forever with way too many "man floats around in space" scenes for your deprived-writer-brain-in-overdrive. 

By the time it FINALLY ends, you're in a terrible mood because you've managed to lose AT LEAST half the great ideas you had while watching the movie. 

You briefly discuss the plot with your boyfriend before saying goodbye and heading home. You realize the plot for your new story needs developing. 

Wait. What plot? You have a first line and a half, a character, and a setting. Dang it. 

You stew all the way home because you realize your productivity has again been impeded because you don't know what the pretty blonde with the killer opening line for her story set somewhere around a newspaper office is actually going to DO. 

You've long crashed from the syrup-coffee and the time spent in space (where there are stars and no sound) has made you kind of sleepy. 

When you get home, you scribble down as many ideas as you can because you're just too tired to actually WRITE anything. You hate writing. 

But you don't. You love it. Really. You do. You know you do because you can't stop writing... even when you try to stop writing. It consumes you. 

Your mental health break from writing nearly broke you mentally, but it's over--thank goodness-- and you're happy again because you know you're a writer. 

You were starting to wonder... =)

Experimentation...

Let's just get this out of the way: I failed NaNoWriMo. I'm not even going to try and justify or explain, either. I just failed. 

Shall we move on?

Let's. 

I have decided to experiment, a little. For years, I've pretty much limited myself to one genre (romance) and two age ranges (YA and Contemporary adult) but I'm about to try something new. 

My new project (while my NaNo story cools) for the moment is a whole new genre and a whole new age range -and I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Why am I quitting NaNo and then jumping ship on my age group and genre? 

Sometimes you just have to step out into the unfamiliar to accomplish something awesome. 

My hope is that in doing this, I'll be able to get out of my head and get something onto the page. The fact that I don't know what I'm doing kind of excites me, actually. If I do it all wrong, so be it. 

So... Middle-grade fiction, here I come. As for the genre, I'm not even quite sure what you'd classify it as yet. Supernatural, maybe? 

Don't worry. There are no vampires or werewolves involved. Promise. =)