La la la

I should be going to bed right now, but I'm not tired.  Naturally, I was exhausted at 7pm and therefore dozed in my chair for 15 minutes which rejuvenated me enough so that I'm not tired now at 11:30pm.  Well, I don't suppose that caramel frappuccino helped either. :)

I'm also going back and forth about a boy.  Isn't that always how it is?  To trust or not to trust.  Is he telling me the truth or just what I want to hear so he can get what he wants?  I need a good night's sleep to escape these thoughts, but obviously from the above paragraph, I'm having trouble achieving that.

Ooh wait, I think I'm starting to feel tired...

Whenever I have a problem that I want to escape, I always imagine some alternate life where I don't have to deal with it.  Unfortunately, as I've gotten older that has become more difficult to do as I see things more realistically.  I can't just pretend to be a princess of one kingdom while a prince from another kingdom woos me (a scenario I played out often).  Now I think of what countries actually have royalty, instead of being able to just imagine out my own countries/kingdoms.  (I actually still have a map of one such kingdom in an old notebook.)  I loved creating my imaginary worlds and I miss that I can't do that anymore.  Maybe that's why I like to write.  Though I'm not in them, these worlds are still created and I can put my own characters into them.  And one of those characters always has red hair. :)

I have three ideas that I'm working on right now, but I'm trying to figure out which I should put first.

1) I have 10,000 words on this one, but it needs to be redone to better fit its audience.  And the outline isn't complete because I'm not quite sure how to solve the major issue.

2) About 7,000 words written and only basic revision is needed.  I just recently got some new ideas for this one, but I'm not sure if the overall story is strong enough and what else I should put into it to make the stakes higher for the main character.

3) More difficult to tackle, with a rotating POV between 4 girls.  I have each of their story lines completely outlined, plus an overall situation to tie them together, but I'm not sure how to weave the stories together.

I need to find a writing partner or group to help me figure this out.  It's so difficult to analyze what needs to be done on my own!

Well, at least I'm distracted from my unpleasant situation.  But I won't go to sleep any easier with my brain active with stories. :)

10,000 Words!

So I'm super excited because I finally reached 10,000 words on my...novel.  I normally just refer to the things I write as stories, but it is on its way to being a novel, so I might as well call it that.  Although, that means admitting that I'm writing one.  But anyone who reads this pretty much already knows about my literary ambitions.

For those not in the know, teen novels and chick lit novels are usually about 50K, meaning I'm 20% of the way done!  It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's the most I've ever written before, so it's a nice accomplishment for me.

Just 40,000 more to go!

Writing Block Crumbled?

Though I didn't officially sign up for it, my plan was to try and follow along with NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which happens every November.  The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel.  It doesn't have to be good; quantity, not quality, is the point.

Let's just say that having only 10% of that isn't very good for it being November 17.

To be fair, the story I'm working on is actually one that I've prepared more for, so I at least know where it's going.  I have an outline for eleven chapters.  But then I got stuck on one of the major plot lines.  So for weeks I've been trying to figure out how to resolve that story.  Last night, I decided to read a few chapters from Someday My Prince Will Come (I cannot stress how eerily similar the author is to me!) and when I turned the light off, I started thinking about the relationships/non-relationships she had just described in those chapters (since that's sort of what my plot has to deal with).  Two perfect, lovely English guys who promised to call never did.  A third perfect English guy turned out to be gay, but offered her marriage, so that he could have the perfect identity for becoming prime minister and she could remain in England once her visa expired (living in England and marrying royalty being her lifelong dream).  She describes how her father wouldn't care, but her mother would be very disappointed, which made me think: if I had to choose, would I pick my family/common sense or a boy/the life I've dreamed of?  What would my character do?  What would you do?

In-Store Playlist

I feel like such a B&N dork.  My current favorite playlist on iTunes to listen to while writing?  My Leona Lewis/Carla Bruni list, both of whom came from the B&N in-store music.

Leona has an amazing voice and her songs are catchy.  They also lean more towards the ballad/moderate speed, so I'm not encouraged to jump up and dance around.  Plus she's British, which always puts someone ahead in my POV.

Carla is the new wife of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, but before that, she was a singer/songwriter.  Her newest album definitely reflects her new love, with songs like "La Amoureuse," and there's such a cute, folksy French sound to it.

Both albums are quite relaxing and again, not distracting, which is probably the point of a bookstore's music playlist anyway.

Do you have to have a kid to get published?

This is a genuine (okay, partly sarcastic) question I've been asking myself lately.

I've taken to reading a lot of author blogs recently, particularly ones by writers who are about to get their first books published in the upcoming year or two.  The trend that I've noticed?  They all seem to have a child under two!

As someone who believes that step is about ten years away from her, I seriously hope that this isn't the case.

I really don't see how it happens.  From what I understand, babies are a lot of work.  So when would a new mother even have the time to write a 50K word novel?

This is all kind of random nonsense, but I really hope that I get published before I have children.  And before I get married.  Then I can keep my last name on the cover. :)

Café Writing

So I played at being JK Rowling yesterday.

I had to go to B&N anyway to pick up a special order and put in some scheduling requests, so I brought my laptop along to get some outlining done.

I actually got work done!

There are far too many distractions at home or when I was at school, but while working at the B&N cafe, I was actually productive, even with people around.  I guess it helped that they weren't interacting with me.  I don't want to go too often though, since I work there and don't need the other employees thinking I have no life.  But it was fun sitting there, typing and brainstorming away with my cup of chai.

Though I suppose for the full JKR experience, I should have used napkins to write on and not had the typical American Starbucks throwaway cup.  Oh well.