Pre-NaNo Freak Out

It's that time of year again~

Which means it's time for me to casually panic about a great many things that I suddenly don't feel like I have time for.

NaNoWriMo: You're gonna suffer... but you're gonna be happy about it.

So, here's how things stack up:

As you might already be aware, I have this stupid habit of planning to do things. These plans are usually very dumb and get scrapped quickly or else are very good and somehow don't work out because I still lack the follow-through needed to actually do them. I have no idea which camp, if either, this plan will fall into, I just know that I have made myself known in the overachiever's thread on the NaNo forums this year and I doubt there's a lot of going back from that.

So:

• Writing totem thing: My Sherlock fandom key ("I can open any door in my mind palace with this.")
• Minimum Word Count Goal: 50k
• Target Word Count Goal: 100k
• Dream Word Count Goal: 300k

That's what's on the little slip shoved in the front of the binder for you.

*deep breath*

For right now though, just today, I have some money to make, an email to answer, a chapter to write, and then maybe some videos to watch and an outline to fight with.

But first, I really need to eat something because my stomach actually hurts and I'm getting obnoxious cravings for stuff I don't need.

Also, I just got really excited because an order I did for a client was approved. Being an adult is dumb. (Well, actually that little assignment paid me almost 80 dollars, so that's not that stupid a thing to be excited about, I guess.)

Here, Have a Blog Post

NaNoWriMo 2014 Survival Kit

In no order:

1. Laptop running Open Office
2. USB/Flash Drive
3. Youtube playlist/Pandora Station
4. Coffitivity
5. Rainy Mood
6. Paperback books (you can't write if you don't read)
7. My writing buddy~ (she's a friend of mine who I dragged into this. Can't help but feel a little responsible...)
8. Outlines (both for main and back up novel because I'm being an overachiever this year)
9. Novella to edit (for breaks and stuff)
10. Water
11. Coffee
12. Chocolate
13. Fruit (apples, strawberries)
14. Sugar cubes
15. HabitRPG
16. Pinterest broads
17. Blank paper in my red writing folder
18. Pens that work
19. My notes on Esperanto (because why not try to learn a language?)
20. My meds
21. Twitter (quick updates and word wars and stuff)
22. tumblr (I have friends and an 'official' blog there so... yeah)
23. The NaNo Forums
24. A token (so I know if I'm awake or dreaming)
25. Other writers' NaNo vlogs
26. A comfortable blanket

I might also look into Final Deadline, since that seems like it might be interesting.

For right now, though, I think I'll try to chisel my way through the mild case of writer's block I seem to have going on.

*waves*

I Should Not Be Allowed on The NaNo Forums

Why?

Because I stumble into the Overachievers' section.

Granted, this was something I was planning to do beforehand but this whole community of insane goals certainly didn't help.

So, here's the list for the next little while:

Dailies:

• Make between 5 and 10 dollars a day.
• 3,208 words per day with get the ghostwriting project done before the end of the month.
• Work on Outlines for NaNo Projects
• Edit your novella
• Take your meds. I get the feeling you'll need them.

Before NaNo:

• Complete ghostwriting project one
• Complete outlines for both NaNo Projects
• Set up goal list

A month of craziness:

• 10k Day One
• Break my old record of 14k in a day
• Do at least three 5-hour 10ks
• End the month with at least 100k/two rough drafts

Insane? Yes. Productive? HELL YES.

So that's where that is. I made my five bucks today so I have a good long while to get chapter eight done.

You know, now that the preview for that novella is up on the site, I feel like I kinda wanna keep the ball rolling you know? IDK I'm just feeling vaguely optimistic about my life/writing right now.

I'll probably go out into the living room here fairly soon, eat something, and then see what I can or can't do in terms of work. Well, I'll probably take a shower before all that just because I'm feeling kind of grungy, but yeah. Shower, then food, then work.

Good plan. I like that plan.

*lies in darkness*

I'm doing that because I woke up with stomach cramps and general aches and I'm just kinda doubting everything right now.

By that I mean, I'm doubting my:

• Pen name
• Abilities
• General plan

Which amounts to basically everything right now.

And you know how I can tell I'm getting better about things? I'm okay with this. Yes it's annoying. But I get that it doesn't mean anything concrete. Before, I never bothered with that. If I was feeling this way, than that meant that this was accurate - some kind of immutable fact of the universe.

Thankfully, that isn't the case.

But it doesn't mean it isn't annoying.

So. What I think I'm going to do is go curl up in bed because comfort is necessary right now. There's really nothing on the paid content sites I feel I can do right now but things change there pretty quickly and it's very early in the day yet. I'll edit a bit... write a section of the chapter I'm working on... maybe poke at the NaNo outline and see if more words spill out.

I don't know if a change of scenery would help but if I'm still feeling like this in a while, I might try.

I'll check in again soon. And till then I'll just try to keep moving. Which is more than I would have done a month ago.

Small victories.

Yet Another Blog Post

Because I have a lot to say, apparently.

First: I'm watching Markiplier play 'The Evil Within'. It seems like a really interesting game, with a lot of references to other games. The Chapter One CLEAR thing makes me think of Devil May Cry and that makes me happy. (It's a PS4 game though and I am no good on PC when it comes to survival horror.)

Second: I... kind of want to write this splatterpunk/maybe dark erotica thing and I'm not sure how to feel about that. I mean, I have a cover and a new direction and everything for the book I was planning to do. But I love the idea of this one... What do?

Maybe sleep on it? Sleep on it might be a good idea.

In fact:

-----------------------------

It's now late tomorrow. I still want to do the splatterpunk thing. And I want to do the original thing I was planning on doing. The result is that November will probably make me want to fall in a hole and die but I still wanna do it.

I also need to look into Wordpress as a website (even though I hate the interface with a passion) since it doesn't have that stupid page limit like blogger does.

For right now, I need to just relax and plan so that everything that has to get done, gets done. Tomorrow, I'll be 22 and so I'm essentially taking the day off to hang out with family and just not worry about much.

So, I'm going to go away now, maybe down some coffee and try to figure out where exactly I need to go from here.

Bye for now, everyone~ Bye for now.

On a Slightly Serious Note

I have things.

These are interesting things, I think.

The first thing is this: A tumblr blog where I can reblog inspiration and things.

The second thing is related to the first thing: The second thing is a website.

I'm showing you these things now so that you can get used to the fact that they exist. Because they do. And I intend to use them. Therefore, I shall post them here and hope that a few of my WriMo friends will help to keep me accountable. (Even if they don't, I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now and I'm going to do my best to keep that going. So there.)

Well. that was about all I had for that. I have a novella in edits right now about an asexual high school girl falling in love with a mermaid while visiting her father in Astoria, Oregon so... I think that's pretty neat.

Anywho... I'm going to let you get back to your thing. It looked kind of important.

Bye for now, everyone~ Bye for now.

On Becoming an Artist

Well, first off, let me clarify that 'becoming an artist' here has the meaning of 'accepting yourself as an artist'. Owning it, for lack of another way to say it.

Moving on. I realise that this will sound very melodramatic and all that. I don't actually care much. I want melodrama right now, much in the same way that one wants a cupcake.

I look at my 'becoming' an artist much like people might look at becoming a vampire. It's a painful and wonderful process that you notice in spades only after nearly all the life has been sucked out of you. The first step to immortality is death.

The first step is a kind of slow death wherein you're worn down by the life you're trying to live until you find yourself just playing at attempting to seem all right. This step is uncomfortable, to say the least. The encouragement received from friends and family seems hollow, as though made of nothing but fine ash, stuffed full of smoke that will dissipate at the first whisper of a harsh wind. Nothing matters much and while you have the occasional victory, the occasional flash of wondrous purpose, it never lingers. All the world is gray.

The second step is crucial. Something outside of your own head must reawaken something that once existed in you. This can happen in many ways but for me it was simply the rediscovery of NaNoWriMo. Remembering a time when the fire of artistic purpose was not some distant candle but an internal drive, a steam engine that forced my hands and my head into action and feeling the gears begin to turn in my head again was what ultimately brought me out of this state of artistic death.

Step three is simply to look with your artist's eyes. You begin to see the world in colours again and they build, hue upon hue, until all the world's ablaze. And day does not link to day in a finite choke chain which keeps you tethered to a small back corner of a world you now see in all it's awful glory, but rather there is night folding into night above an endless, darkened sea.

And then your struggles make perfect sense. And you move on. And you create.

I've been thinking.

Not very hard, but...

I used to have a lot more... muchness. I think I've lost it somehow. I used to be much more... mucher.

I'll try to put this little revelation into proper, understandable words. The key word there is 'try'.

So, this really started because NaNoWriMo is getting closer. (National Novel Writing Month, in case you didn't know for some reason.) That means 30 days spent writing. 1,667 words a day. I've written 100k in a month before so that seems fairly easy now. I love NaNoWriMo, okay? I love the gut-wrenching anxitey, the countdown to midnight on the very first day, the stupid dares and challenges on the forums. I love the aches and pains, I love the sleepless nights and caffeine overloads. I love the feeling of having that countdown timer always running in the background and, maybe more than that, knowing that I wasn't the only one who could see it.

I was trying not to like the whole NaNoWriMo thing for a while but I'm starting to feel like the link between me and crazy, stupid, artistic crap is just never going to be severed. In actuality, this is probably a good thing.

So, I figured 'eh, why not?' and since I had an account under my 'new' name (Rabbit), I just filled in the details. and then I made my first mistake: I got caught up looking around the forums and remembering how great it is when everyone's around and writing and complaining gently and not-so-gently about life and word count.

Mistake two came a bit later when I remembered the Night of Writing Dangerously, which is this amazing social event/write-a-thon thing held in San Fransisco. In a ball room. On the fifteenth floor. This year's theme is 'Noir' and you don't have to dress up but you can if you want to, and I've wanted to go for years but I've never had the money and we usually lived much farther away than we do now.

The third mistake came from looking over another WriMo-er's blog (and watching the NaNoWriMo Musical). And it occurs to me that, for all my good ideas, I'm not getitng anything done because not only do I not have the self-confidence that allows me to stand up and say 'I am talented, I have something to say, and I deserve to be noticed', I also don't have the same artistic fire that I used to. There was a time when men were kind. When their voices were soft, and their words inviting when I used to essentially say 'Can't eat now. Writing. Go hell.' and  'Sleeping is for the weak and sickly. Damn it, Jim, I'm an writer!' And I don't do anything even approximating that anymore.

It takes me forever to read a book, I haven't actually finished writing anything over about 2.5k, even non-fiction articles (which really don't require much thought anyway) take me way longer than they should.

But why?

Is it possible that a lack of a strong community could really make that much difference? Or is the root of the problem deeper? Possibly, I'm holding myself back because I'm afraid of what I can do. It's also possible that my lack of confidence is rooted more in a dislike of what my life currently is, not what it has the potential to be.

Whatever the reason, this is something that warrants investigating. I'm getting tired of not being dangerous.

Plot Twist!

Though not a big one.

Pfft... 'big one'.

I'm sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah.

I was originally planning to make a little website off of Weebly since they had a template I liked and they were really easy to use. Then they decided to be stupid and restrict their free account to five pages only. That dog won't hunt, so I had to scrap that plan.

(It's this pesky aesthetics thing - I want to live and work cheaply not because I'm cheap but so that I don't get caught up in 'I have to have this so that people think my work is good'. I just want to do good work.)

So I'm thinking of just using tumblr.

I know, but hear me out: I already have a presence there, and I can order things how I want to, and there are tons of themes out there so that shouldn't be a problem. I can reblog things I use for reference and basically have everything all in one spot. If I want a more static site for previews and junk, I can always use blogger for that stuff.

I'm still thinking on it but it seems like a solid enough idea.

(IDK, but I think my meds might be kicking in a little. *cheers*)

So that's where that is.

In other news: I made the mistake of starting to read 'Interview With The Vampire'.

And that's all I'll say on the matter for right now.

Anywho... It's getting pretty late, so I'll either go to sleep like a normal person or else I'll wind up writing/watching movies/a million other things that are not resting and be very tired tomorrow. I'm honestly not sure what will win out right now - I have a lot going on in my head.

For right now though, I hope you all have a wonderful day and I will check in again soon. Bye for now, everyone~ Bye for now.

Rambling

Because I'm having an interesting day.

First, some creepy stuff:

Creepy Confessions Blog: [X]
Creepy Ambient Tracks [X]

Aside from that, I started my new meds and I wrote about five pages while sitting out in the living room with the TV on and everything. So I'm thinking that's helping.

It's weird when you know what you want to do with your life but at the same time it's like 'don't do that, do something less stupid/dangerous/weird/etc.'

Thing is, life is not about 'why?' It's about 'why not?'

Really, though, if I was anything like the version of myself I have in my head, I'd be about 105 pounds, with dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep. I'd also probably be dressed in Lisbeth Slanader-esque punk clothes and be surrounded by paint, canvases, yarn, and books (some of which are mine). I swear, the me in my head writes pretty much constantly too, like: 'Scary stuff, gay stuff, scary stuff, break~, Scary stuff, gay stuff, scary stuff, break~, Scary stuff, gay stuff, scary stuff, lunch~' Of course, the Rabbit in my head also paints cityscapes in the little loft section of hir apartment/artist space in the middle of some big city like New York while singing 'Defying Gravity' so... yeah.

It's about ten at night right now and I'm actually tired so I think I'm just going to go to bed pretty soon, curl up, and rest for a while. Today has been better and I think I really do want to start working toward being more like the me I see in my head. The me in my head is vastly more interesting.

So. I hope you all have a good night and a wonderful tomorrow and I will see you all in a little while.

I Think It's a Focus Issue.

Meaning I'll have to re-tool my meds.

Annoying but at least it should help me actually get things done around here.

Really, though, it makes sense. I'll start on something but then I'll get distracted about half a paragraph in and go do something else for half an hour. It's a bit like I just forget that I have anything to do at all. Which is very frustrating seeing as when I have my focus, I can fly through pretty much anything you throw at me. I mean, I even understand Homestuck.

So...

You know how many breaks I took while writing that? About four. Ridiculous.

But, I have new meds for that now (which I start in the morning) and hopefully that coupled with my anti-dissociative will essentially kick this thing to the curb because I have stuff that I actually want to do. Like, finish reading the rest of the books I have earmarked to be read and then either added to my permanent, real-world shelf or else donated so someone else can read them. Like the copies of The Vampire Chronicles that Darling gave me, or the copy of Anna Karenina I just got today.

I was also considering making Minecraft maps of some of my main story locations (like, some of the main series cities) and making those available for download. I mean, yeah it would take forever, but personally I think it'd be really cool to be able to download a map made by the author and be able to basically just walk around in the world they must have seen in their head while they were writing. Then again, I'm a weirdo. And we all know it.

Oh, yeah, and I'll be taking a train trip in February~ First off, because a train trip in the snow? Are you kidding me? In what way is that not awesome? Secondly, because I get to see Darling for Valentine's Day which makes me very happy <3 We'll be staying with her and her family for a few days so that'll be an adventure, I'm sure.

I'm also sure that I had about a million other things I wanted to mention here, like 'I want to try to do the Goretober thing with Outlast short fics because it's hella good practice' but... well, I just said that and I can't really think of anything else. So. I guess that's really all for right now.

Although I did find this thing buried in a folder on my computer:

Begin, again, along the way
Through birdsong and fresh dried hay
Along the riverbanks and though
To bring the shoreline into view

Before the storm lies crashing waves
And the bitter wind which howls and saves
The high song of a meadowlark
On a distant shoreline, running dark

With the setting of a golden sun.

The rain, the grey, the mist, the cold
All things flow out from the fold
Of fluttered wings and echoed song
For such a place can do wrong.

I vaguely remember writing this a while back. *shrug* I don't know, I just think it's kind of pretty.

Bye for now, everyone~ I hope you all have a wonderful day/night/whatever and I will see you all again soon.