Noooo

Would you look at that, I forgot to blog. Again. How extremely un-shocking.

My trip to LA was wonderful, the first couple of days were pretty cold (it was cloudy), but then the sun came out and it was lovely. We went to Universal Studios, which was very fun despite my headache. I met some very cool people at a collaboration group, and I'm looking forward to working with them in the future.

We also went to the beach a couple of times, which was really nice. It's been years since I saw the ocean. Sadly, it was too cold to actually get in the water, but there's time for that later.

I've started MORE writing projects since I got home. There are about six screenplays and a couple of new novels, pushing my project count over 60. Hopefully I'll be able to finish the screenplays quickly though, the process of writing a screenplay is much faster than that of writing a novel.

And it is magically 1am, so I'm going to go to bed.


Who am I kidding? I'm gonna stay up until 4 and binge X-Files on Netflix.

Music

I've recently found some songs that I absolutely love. Here are a few, they're all great for writing, and I think Illuminated is (maybe) my favorite out of these. But then, my favorite writing song changes from week to week or day to day. Have fun! Write things! Enjoy it!

G'day

Actually it's not g'day, it's g'night. But anyway, I'm really falling behind on my blog updates. Again. I've been house sitting for 5 days in a canyon with no cell service and somewhat terrible internet. I am taking care of two very large German shepherds and four slightly grumpy horses. It's been super nice though, the house is gorgeous and the area is stunning. If I was really, really trying to be productive, I probably could have finished editing the other half of my book by now. But sadly, I've only done a little editing. I have however been reading two non-fiction books, which I almost never do. One is about writing novels, and is shockingly good, and the other is about writing a screenplay. I've always wanted to try a screenplay, so hopefully this will be informative.

A friend made a deal with me. He would try Fringe if I would try Breaking Bad. I tried to watch it, I really really did. But alas, I couldn't make it past the third episode. I found myself irritated with every single character and all of their absolutely terrible decisions. I'm about 99% sure that, if I found out I had terminal cancer, my first choice would NOT be making meth. Especially if I had a relative who's apparent life goal was to hunt down the drug lords in town. Oh well. At least my friend likes Fringe (but how could you NOT like Fringe?).

I have to actually wake up before noon tomorrow, not a common occurrence for a Saturday. This time though, I have the very effective motivation of the San Diego Comic-Con badges going on sale. They sold out in 90 minutes last year, so I don't exactly have high hopes, but I do have hopes. I do hope I'll be able to get badges for all four days, but who knows.

One more thing before I force myself to sleep. A couple of weeks ago, I finally remembered to stop at Wal-Mart to get some EOS lip balm. I must say, that was an excellent decision. I didn't think I'd ever find a lip balm that could compare to Burt's Bees, but EOS definitely does. It's organic, stays on for a long time, smells fantastic, and tastes lovely. I've mostly used the Summer Fruit, but all of the other flavors are amazing too. Definitely worth $3 (especially since EOS is almost twice as big as most chapsticks).

I have more awesome news I'd love to rant about, but I think I'll wait until it's official. G'night!

CONTEST

Yesterday, I discovered that the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest is back. Last time I looked for it, I couldn't find ANYTHING about it. Now, I have until March 2nd to completely re-edit my book. That's 350 pages of editing. And actually, I need to get it done by tomorrow. The sooner I enter, the better. They close the contest as soon as they have 10,000 entries and that happened nearly three days early last year (I very nearly had a panic attack at that point, what fun).

I would very much like to win the contest, the prizes are quiet enticing.

Grand Prize: $50,000 and a publishing contract. (Yes please, that sounds lovely.)

First Prize (there are four of these): $15,000 and a publishing contract. (That also sounds lovely)

No idea if there are other prizes after that. But if nothing else, I could get picked up by Amazon Publishing. At this point, I'm very ready to be done with querying agents.

I had to cut down my first two chapters to 5,000 words for the excerpt, which took most of the day. Actually, I did a lot more than that. I renamed the book (used to be Sevan, it's now Sedition), renamed the series, and did some actual research to make sure the names made sense. I have so much more editing to do though, I feel like I might go a little bit crazy.

My word count goal is going down the tubes, but at least I'm getting something done! I've had awful writer's block for the past two weeks. Editing is certainly better than nothing. Well, must go do productive things now.

Make Me Stop

I must be crazy because I recently started yet another book. I really like this one, which is currently titled The Under. It's actually kind of tempting to drop writing my sequels and work on The Under full time. But no! I shall continue to work on these sequels until they are finished! I'm determined to finish at least one of them this year, if not both. There's a slight chance I can do both, if I keep up with my writing goals. Anyway, back to The Under. I have so many different ideas for it, I don't know how I'm going to pick one! I'm not going talk about it much since I'm paranoid about having my ideas stolen, but I will say a few things.

1. It's thousands of years in the future (many thousands)
2. It's sci-fi apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic 
3. There is space travel

There you go, that's all I'm going to post. This one just looks like SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE! I tend to stick with dystopia, so extreme future sci-fi will be a nice way to branch out. 

Writing Progress

So a couple of weeks ago I set myself a goal. That goal was to write at least 400 words per day. I am extremely pleased to say that, despite having to miss a few days, my daily average is slightly above 600 words per day. I've found that when I actually sit down to write, I generally end up with 800-1000 words, which is awesome. If I keep up with those numbers, I'll have more like 220k at the end of the year instead of the original goal of 146k. This is very good and I'm quite thrilled that I'm managing to stick with it so far. I was originally planning to stick (mostly) to one book, but with a word count like that... I have the freedom to skip from story to story. That's actually a good thing considering I have so many projects now. In addition to my two sequels, two fanfictions, poetry, and short stories, I've taken on another project with Kelsey, which will be pretty big if it actually happens.

I've also decided to take on another goal, which was actually suggested to me by a friend (thank you Kelsey). Every day, I'm going to get a slip of paper and write down at least one thing that makes me happy. Then I will put that paper in something (she has a jar, I currently have a hollow book) and at the end of the year, I'll have at least 365 things that made me happy. As a person who tends to be pessimistic if not downright negative, this seems like a good exercise in positivity.

Happy New Year!

Well it's 2014! I feel optimistic about this year. I don't know why, but I think it's going to be a good one. I have a lot of things I want to get done this year. One of my favorites is: Write at least 400 words per day and at the end of the year, I'll have a 146,000 word book. That sounds excellent to me. I think that's an wonderful and fairly easy goal, and all of you writers might consider it.

A couple of my other goals are (not in order):

Audition for The Voice.

Go to Comic-Con so I can actually wear my sword and huge purple cape.

Meet some of my online friends for real.

Finish Seizure and (hopefully) Showdown.

Retitle Showdown.

Find an agent/publisher or self publish.

Get a job.

Start writing my new apocalypse book.

Read the books on my reading list.

Now I must go to bed so I don't start off the year feeling (and looking) like a zombie!

Audiomachine

Audiomachine has some of the best instrumental music I've been able to find. Here are a few of my favorite songs (aka songs I can listen to over and over again while writing because they are perfect for whatever the scene may be).

• Lost Generation
• Guardians at the Gate
• Knights and Lords
• Unfinished Life
• The Last One
• Creation
• Solace
• Breath and Life
• Sirens of Hyperion 
• Spirit Within

Those are just my top ten, just search youtube for Audiomachine and you're sure to find something awesome. I hope the links work/are accurate.

Curing Writer's Block

I often find myself plagued by writer's block. Anyone who writes anything knows this pain. It os a horrible horrible thing. You have a million ideas but you simply cannot put then down on paper. So I've decided to post my list of things that usually work for me when I can't write exactly what I want.

• Skip Ahead. Go forward five or ten or twenty chapters and write something from the middle of the story. A scene you know you want, an even that needs to happen, even the ending!
• Listen to music/switch what you're listening to. I find that music can be a massive inspiration, so find something that fits the scene/story and crank up the volume (but don't go deaf 'kay?). Two Steps from Hell and Thomas Bergersen (all instrumental) are a couple of my favorites. There are a lot of random songs that always make me feel more author-y too, I shall make a post about them some other time.
• Eat something. Come on, awesome food makes everything better! Can also help when writing a dinner scene etc.
• Write something else. Start a sequel, write a short story, start something completely new, it doesn't matter. Just try writing something other than whatever is driving you crazy and you might actually get some writing done. 

Hey look, the first letters spell out SLEW. So there's a slew of the things that help me the most.  If I think of anything else, I'll post that later. 

Oh I can't forget one of my favorites.... listen to this Binaural Beats track. I don't know if it works for anyone else but I love it to death. Maybe it's all in my head, but I swear it helps me concentrate on my writing.

Losing My Mind

Oh look at that! I managed to go months (AGAIN) without a blog post. Good job. This was partially due to my getting a job at a dude ranch that required me to get up at 5am 5 days a week and left me brain dead by the time I got home. Also I started watching Supernatural on my way home from my trip to Tennessee in June. Let me tell you right now, if you want to have a life and emotional and mental stability, DO NOT watch Supernatural because it can and probably will take over your life. I watched all 8 seasons in 4 months.

I'm also feeling a little insane with writing. I've had writer's block when it comes to Sevan and Seizure for way too long, and yet I've taken on at least four more extensive writing projects and I have a ton of queries to send out. I know everyone thinks I'm insane for have so many stories in the works at once (I think I'm at about 30, although most of those are on the back burner) but once I get an idea in my head, I just have to write it down or I drive myself nuts thinking about it.

1. A collaboration with the girls from my writing group. Horrible apocalypse, people dying, weird thing happening. Should be very interesting. Especially considering the fact that we want to write it for NaNoWriMo.

2. A Supernatural fanfiction which started out to be small and simple, and has now grown into a long, partially plotted, very disturbing novella. Seriously, it would seem that I simply cannot write a short story anymore.

3. A collaboration Supernatural/Once Upon a Time crossover fanfiction with my insane fangirl friend, Kelsey. I initially thought it would be short, but now that we've got the BASIC plot, I can tell that it's going to end up being long and time consuming as well, what with subplots and plot additions and who knows what else. But it will be fun and interesting so what the heck.

4. Another collaboration with Kelsey, this one a Supernatural/Fringe crossover, with possible Once Upon a Time appearances. This one probably won't actually happen for a while because I'm STILL waiting for her to catch up on Fringe.

There are probably more projects that I'm working on but I can't think of anything else right now because my brain is trying to write three fanfics at once. So, bye for now!

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Floccinaucinihilipilification: the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.

Seriously, this is possibly the best word ever. I love it. I must find somewhere to use it now, this is not a word to be wasted. It’s sad, but I don’t think there’s anywhere I can actually use this at all. Psh, I’ll just throw it in somewhere as a chapter title, just to make myself happy.

....

Chapter 12: The Healer 

Chapter 13: Cheyenne

Chapter 14: The Family

Chapter 15: Floccinaucinihilipilification 

....

Oh yes.