Fill A Quota?

To my understanding, many established writers have a daily word count that they write. I haven't yet tried this, unless you count NaNoWriMo [daily word count on steroids!]. What I would like to know is what their average is, how often they fill quota, and how busy they are. I know, I know, you have to make time for writing!

By day I am stalking the NaNo Forums. It's the first official Camp NaNo session, so threads are buzzing. It's hilarious to read posts made by the sleep-deprived. I'm kind of sad that I won't be able to participate in either Camp sessions, but hopefully, I'll still be up to November's NaNo!

To connect the two topics [and hopefully keep myself from rambling] there is a program that many people talk about called 750words. I tried to check it out, but it seems like it's just like a blog? I like the idea of Morning Pages. Perhaps that's what my quota will be?

Until Later!

More plots?

The more I learn about writing, the more my eyes are opened. I am suddenly getting tons and tons of ideas for stories. Most of them are inklings, won't be able to fill more than a short story/novella type. But I've discovered that when I combine ideas, I find gold.

Sadly enough, my next novel will most definitely be historic, although I'm not sure what time period to put it in. I'm debating the French Revolution and Nazi Germany. I know those are both totally unrelated, but still. I'll have to do more research, that much I'm sure of. Ohhhh, this is going to be a dark, dark road I'm going down. The last thing I want is to be bogged down with research so much that I don't want to write. Or that I like researching too much and I never get to writing.

What else am I afraid of? That I might get too wrapped up in plotting or thinking, I stop working on my actual novel. I still need to finish it. I still need to edit it. I can't start anything until I've at least finished it. And I will finish it.

On a different note, I'm going through and adding tags to all of my posts to try and make them more relevant.

On a different different note, Adele and I have finally got our writing blog opened, but I won't start linking until we've started posting. I think that's about it!

Over that Hill.

Writing is rough for me. It always has been. Half of it is finding the motivation to pick up and push straight through. The other part of the problem is that I don't write fluffy things; when I sit down to write, I have to cut in, I bleed. The words come that way. [I know what you're thinking. In my case though, it's all metaphor. I don't really cut myself, but that is sure what it feels like.] Putting my characters through everything is personal torture. You have no idea.

I try to have some sort of message, I guess, so that people won't feel as if they have wasted their time. I need some redeeming qualities, because I need to pull myself out of that hole too. When I write heavy stuff, I'm sucked into it. I get sad. I cry. If there is a message, it's a light. I have something to say that is worth saying.

Tetra has been really rough and difficult to write. As I get deeper into it, I find hidden meanings, new things that have created themselves. I become more attached to these people and their pains. I bleed for them and their story is told. I know that this has only started one of many hills I'll have to hike through before I get to the end. And even after the end, I have to backtrack. I need to fix the beginning. It's terrible. My brain hurts to think about it.

But I will get there. Even now, I'm devising ways to deal with my blocks. Adele [a friend] and I decided that whenever we get stuck on our respective novels, we draw melodramatic and lame comics about our characters until we get so sick of it, we have to keep writing. I noticed that whenever I read about a particularly sobering event in history, I need to write. It just comes to me.

I think my next project will be historical fiction. Oh snap... (:

Not What I Thought It'd Be

Trying to find motivation to write has been rough, but after the Teen Writer's Conference I attended, I've been able to write more in one sitting and I can focus on the story and characters now. I'm glad about that, at the very least.

Here comes the disappointing part: I missed the Createspace deal. Winners of NaNo were given a deal by Amazon to get a free proof copy of their novel through Createspace, and the deadline was on June 30th. I have only myself to blame for missing it, and I completely regret it. Hopefully though, by missing it, I've opened up a more free form flexible aspect to my writing and I now feel like it's okay for me to work on other projects. Yay!

In other news, me and a friend of mine will be opening up a writing blog together in the near future! Writing Stripes is my personal writing blog where I can post updates to my personal writing. This new collab blog will talk about writing specifically, the art and structure of it. I'll talk more about it and post links as soon as we have it up and running!