January Challenge Day 3

     Today I edited 26 pages of my novel, Slayer, and wrote 575 words in my YA fantasy novel, The Land of Faiyan. I've been doing all of this with a raging sinus infection so I'm pretty pleased with myself. I also figured out it takes about two handwritten pages on my cute legal paid (it has pink plaid at the top which makes it cute) to equal five hundred words in my word processor. It's nice to have some sort of idea where I'm at with my goal when I'm handwriting. Even better for my OCD, I managed to end this session of writing not only at the end of a section in the story but also at the end of a page. Sweet! In other news, I got to get out of the house for a little bit today with a good friend. We went to a local boutique market - a bunch of vendors share booth space in one large store - and I picked up a new writing mascot.

     I call him Pepe (like Pepe the King Prawn from The Muppets) the Penguin. He's been a great little muse this afternoon, something to fiddle with with one hand while I edited with the other. I love penguins so he's a perfect addition to my little stuffed animal collection. I'm a very tactile person - I learn kinesthetically and I love different textures and fabrics, especially super soft things like silks and microfiber blankets. I have two micro raschel blankets I absolutely love to snuggle under because they're so soft and soothing (One is Deadpool and the other is the TARDIS in case you were wondering). Anyway, many welcomes from me to my little Pepe mascot. Just a random, little girly type thing that made me happy today. I've been having a little bit of a rough couple of weeks so even though it may seem childish my penguin makes me happy and I thought I'd blog about it. Anyway, Pepe and I are off now, looking for some eggs.

Challenge Day 2

     Day two of my challenges and I have met my goal! Actually, I exceeded it by 189 words. I'm very happy with that, even though I'm not quite up to the 1-2k per sitting I used to crank out. This feels good, though, I feel my creativity stretching and waking up again, even though I feel like it dries up more quickly than it once did. In addition to the new section in my YA novel, I also edited nineteen pages of my sci-fi novel. This was much better than I have done the last two days trying to edit. I think the difference is, I printed my novel and edited by hand with my favorite purple felt-tip pen. I also made sure yesterday that my YA novel was at a clear stopping point/section end so I could easily begin handwriting it instead of typing directly into the computer. As soon as I got going with my purple pen (All hail the mighty purple pen. Hail!) again, the ink flowing onto the paper, it was like my brain woke back up and shook the cobwebs and rust off of a part of itself I was afraid I no longer knew how to access. As a matter of fact, I knew that I was close to making the 500 word goal for today, based on what I'd already typed into the computer, but the scene and the words would not stop flowing and I literally (Yes, literally.) could not stop writing. It felt so good to have ideas flowing like that again, to hear what the characters were saying and writing as quickly as possibly to transcribe their words from my mind's eye to the paper. I have always handwritten all of my work first and I loved that part of my writing process. It's such an organic experience, watching and feeling the words flow from my brain through my arm and my hand to the pen and onto the paper. I write in cursive, as well, which adds something to the smooth, flowing process of the writing. That's why I'm so picky about my pens, I think. I absolutely cannot have a break in ink flow - it destroys my entire train of thought, throws off my concentration, and my relaxation in the flow is gone because there is no flow - it's been interrupted by the skipping ink of the faulty pen. This, though, today, felt like magic. I think when I first started back into this on New Year's Day, that was part of the problem. I was coming back to electronic manuscripts - a novel that needed edited and another that had already been transcribed from notebook to computer. They felt like foreign pieces to me. I didn't recognize them as my own works. I couldn't connect with my stories or my characters - a lack of connection I felt most strongly in my YA novel. It was like the ink was skipping. Once I had the stories back in my hands, could touch the paper and let the words flow freely, uninterrupted by keyboards and computer screens and word processor spacing errors, I felt free again. I felt like me again. I felt my characters again. I remembered what I was so impassioned about with this YA novel, where I wanted to take it, came up with new ideas for it. No, I didn't write as many words today as I used to, but I think, for the experience alone, these were some of my favorites I've written.

Motivation

     It seems I felt I needed a lot of motivation for this first month back at writing. Not only have I signed up for the January writemotivation.org plan, I also signed up for the My 500 Words thirty-one day challenge. With this challenge, I am supposed to write at least five hundred words every day. I'm excited about this challenge - I think it will help me set a steady routine and keep myself focused on my goals I set for Write Motivation. This is a really short post since I only have a few minutes but I may post again this evening with an update on how I've done with my first day of writing challenges and goals. Excelsior to me, as Stan Lee would say. I'm definitely going to need some energy to get through this, though. Maybe I need some eggs.

"I'm back, baby dolls!"

     Yes, the title of this post is an HIMYM quote. No, I don't go around randomly calling people "baby dolls." But I digress.

     It's been a long time since I've blogged about writing or did any writing for that matter. Because reasons. I'm back now, though, and I'm enjoying creating and editing again. I'm prepping my first novel for self publication and I have several other projects I'm working to complete and prep for publication. To help keep myself motivated, I just signed up at writemotivation.org for the month of January. My three goals:

     1. Finish final editing on my novel in prep for publication.
     2. Finish the rough draft of my YA novel.
     3. Add to the rough draft of my novel's sequel - I want to go from 1/3 complete to 1/2. It depends on where I decide to end the sequel, I may be moving from 1/2 to 2/3. At any rate, I just want to add to it.

     According to the site, I need to blog once a week to update on my progress with my goals. So, this is me, with my inaugural post for the new year. Not that imaginative, not that long, but it's a post, it's writing, so I say it's good.

     Now if only my aching head and clogged sinuses and sore throat would stop making me so miserable I can't focus on anything except how much my head aches and how clogged my sinuses are and how sore my throat is. Maybe I need some protein. Eggs. Somebody pass me some eggs.