I'm Moving!!

Song of the Day: Mr. Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan

I disappeared for a bit. Dropped off the face of the planet for a few weeks. Not cool, I know. On the plus side, there is a reason for it! I moved!!!

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few years (or on another planet, maybe) the economy in the U.S. is not so great right now. Therefore, those of us graduating from college in the past few years have not had an easy time finding jobs. Spending a semester abroad didn't help to pad my bank account, either. So, when I graduated, I moved back in with my parents. (Horrifying, I know!)

I was lucky enough to find a temp job only a few weeks after returning home, but it didn't pay me enough to move out. Just recently, I was hired on to a big corporation and am finally earning a decent pay. My bank account is back up to acceptable levels, and I can now pay rent! Since the beginning of the month, I've been cleaning and fixing up the place and moving my things in. The most exciting part: I have an office! (Well, technically it's a second bedroom, but since it's just me, I'm making it an office.) I still have things to do, and I don't have internet service yet, but it's mine, and it's pretty, and it's quiet!

Since I've been so busy lately, the plot bunnies have been on the prowl, attacking at every chance they get. I now have a thought for an immediate prequel for my WIP, a far prequel/world building piece, several post...quels (is that a word?), and one that has nothing to do with that particular universe at all. Good thing I have markers, white boards, and flash cards, no?

What have you been up to?

AIM Day 13

Word count: same as yesterday
Song of the Day: Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet

Today's inspiration is brought to you courtesy of Virginia Beach. Change of scenery! Yeah, so I'm not getting in any sort of word count today, but my characters are seemingly enjoying the salty air as much as I am and are talking much more freely. I'll have a lot to put on paper--er, screen--when I get back.

AIM Day 12

Word count: uhh...roughly 1k more than yesterday
Song of the day: Toes by Zac Brown Band

Yeah, so I'm on the road and therefore don't have access to my documents, but I got in more than a thousand words today. Yay!

Anywho my brilliance for the day: set a time limit. Those more than a thousand words today? I wrote them in two half hour increments. While answering the phone at work. Doable!

Do you set time limits for concentrated writing?

AIM Day 11

Word Count: 4,540
Song of the Day: Rollin' in the Deep, by Adele

It's entirely possible that I'm not entirely sane.

I know what you're thinking: "NOOOOOO, really?!? Shocking..."

But, hey now. Don't go judgin' me too harshly. There's a bunch of other artistic types out there, and can you honestly say you're not the same way? I mean, honestly?


Today's inspiration: Embrace your insanity. It makes you who you are; it flavors your work; without those voices and pictures and whatnot in your head, where would you be? I, for one, would have nothing of the incredible adventure I'm in the middle of interpreting. My life would be no where near as interesting. I am partially insane, and I love every minute of it. Or most of them, at least.

Anyone else ready to admit to their insanity?

AIM Day 8

Word Count: 2,966
Song of the Day: Imperial March by John Williams

Today's inspiration: sleepless nights.

Ever spend a night staring at the ceiling because the voices in your head won't shut up and want you to tell their story RIGHTFRAKIN'NOWTHANKYOUVERYMUCH!!!?? Yeah, me, too. However, that is not the cause of my sleeplessness. (No, that would be the doctors, who are 99% certain I have Celiac, but want to do the definitive test, and therefore want me to eat all the foods I'm likely allergic to, which causes my iron levels to plummet. In case you were curious.) It is, however, making me an absolute mad scientist over my current WIP. Today, I got in a LOT of brainstorming and a good scene, plus started a scene I've been procrastinating on. And they're good! (Or, I think they're good, because I'm too tired to think otherwise. Either way works for me right about now.) (I like parentheses. Can you tell?)

While I would not suggest keeping yourself up at night just to get in a solid word count, should you find yourself sleepless, use it to your advantage. Who knows what you'll come up with?

July is Madness

Word count this month: Erm...1500. *sobs*

Song of the day: "Tangled" by Fools For Rowan

I had a dream. I dreamed that all mankind...was being eradicated.

No, seriously, I did. But it was no where near as forward-thinking as MLK Jr's. Ever seen Battlestar Galactica? I haven't seen the old one (probably because I much prefer Starbuck being a girl), but the new one? My dream was quite similar. And you know all those Battleground: Los Angeles commercials? Yup, a lot like that, too. There's a lot of apocalyptic/distopian pieces cropping up lately. (I suppose that's what you get when you have out-spoken televangelists predicting the end of the world every 6 months.)

I also have the intro to an Angel/Demon/Nephilim piece that I was planning to do for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And then there's the superhero piece I'm going to attempt for a Samhein submissions call.

In short, my brain's in overdrive. There are so many new voices adding to the nonsense up there it's taken me a while to sort it all out. I'm still not sure I've got it in any semblance of order. It's putting a serious damper on my word count. However!!! I have a goal; I'm going to attempt 10k words this week. That gives me a goal of 2k per work day, and leaves me two extra days should I fall short. So!! Who's with me??

Young Adult Lit and Finding Inspiration

I didn't read the article from Slate on YA lit, but my twitter feed was filled with angry authors, agents, and publishers who had. I haven't had much to do with YA since about middle school, just because it became too fast and too easy a read to be much fun anymore. I wanted more of a challenge, and thus moved on to things like SciFi and a tiny bit of thought provoking/philosophical stuff. When I saw the comments on how these ladies said it was for immature authors or took little to no effort, I was offended FOR the hard-working YA writers. I had a moment of, "Hmm, I want to write the most complex, in-depth YA book the world has seen, just to show these women up." 'Cuz I'm just that kind of person.

So there's my rant for the day. (Well, second rant of the day, actually, after this morning's WA meeting.) Moving on!

I think most authors will tell you that some days, inspiration is rather hard to come by. No matter how much you read or what you look at or where you go, nothing sparks that little train of thought that gets the ball rolling. The brave (or maybe just the less lucid) will even admit to anyone who asks that they're begging for the voices in their head to start talking again. These are the days when most authors, myself included, are positive that they need to check themselves in for Psychiatric help. (See? This is the part where Insanity is winning the battle. You're not an artist. You're a schizophrenic patient who's finally gone sane.)

I should probably mention, at this point, that many writers do indeed have "voices" in their heads. We like to call these voices "characters". Instead of spinning a tale of intrigue, or whatever nonsense we like to spew, we're really just listening to the people only we can see and hear, and recording their stories as they tell them to us. This does not make any sense to many people, such as my mother. My dad is also an author, but if we start talking about our characters like living, breathing people while Mom's around, she'll look at us like we have 12 heads. (It's highly amusing, actually. Sometimes we do it just to see her face.)

Anywho, I had a moment like this a short while back. As I tend to do when the voices shut up, I became moody and irrational. Finally, I decided something had to be done, so I spoke with a friend of mine and arranged a meeting. This particular friend, who shall remain nameless (just kidding, she's the ever-talented Rachel Wright), is an art major at JMU. I bribed Rachel with food and a promise of monetary compensation, and a few weeks later, I ended up with this!

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Qhuincey Ahislyn Isodora, stage name Qai. Drawn by Rachel in her rockstar persona, Qhuin is quite the character, and had been giving me loads of trouble. She isn't in anything other than super-rough short stories as of yet, but she was always sitting there, giving me the silent treatment and hushing everyone else when they were trying to talk to me. Like the grieving mother out for retribution (who, by the way, Rachel is drawing for me next. More pictures to come). Long story short--or, slightly shorter, anyway--I absolutely fell in love with this picture. Once she was laid out on paper and put in a place of honor or my writing desk, Qhuin finally settled down enough to give me cohesive stories through again.

So, now that I'm on to my novel in progress again (and everyone is positive that I'm thoroughly insane), it's back to writing! But I don't think I'm reaching my goal of 10k words tonight. That was a bit excessive to begin with, yeah? Thoughts, anyone?