On Occasion I Think I'm Brilliant

It's true. It's actually much more frequent occurrence when I'm in the process of editing my NaNo novel, which I find to be a good sign (hopefully). If nothing else, I feel like the massive creative output of NaNo forced some of my best lines out of me, IMHO. Well, it was probably that and the fact that I used a sip or two of rum to overcome writer's block for most of November... but on the plus side, I still think it's funny when the strongest thing I've had to drink is some black tea at a coffee shop that was left to steep for a little too long. Maybe for my next post I shall attempt to find some good sections and see if I'm the only one who finds them funny.

But for now, there is actually something else that I thought was brilliant recently. It was completely unrelated to writing. I was just chatting with a friend, and he mentioned that he could go on for days about the flaws of certain versions of D&D, while simultaneously creating a character and a new campaign. I laughed when he said this, and told him I did the same thing with certain interests. Then I realized that there should be a way to quantify this effect. I decided to call it the "Facebook Effect." You all know this happens. I try to avoid being one of the people who has to post about how much the new Facebook changes stink, since I know full well that no matter how much I dislike them, I'll keep using Facebook. So will everyone else who complains. I thought it was at least clever, and so why not blog about it?

I feel like this happens more often than we like to admit, though. Seriously, there are so many instances where something pops up in our life that annoys us enough that we feel the need to complain about it. Take Windows as another example. When Windows came out with Vista, the complaints started coming within weeks. But those dedicated to PCs still used it, because their dislike of Vista wasn't nearly enough to convince them to switch to Mac. Granted, everyone who had sense upgraded to 7 as soon as it came out, but for the years in between we all suffered in a not-so-silent manner. I've never quite figured out why we do this. Is it just another form of catharsis? A way to make us feel better about our problems? Because, really, for most of the instances I can think of, they're really first world problems. "My computer is so slow, I can barely play my games," and so forth. Slightly less life or death than "I can't feed myself this month."

There might have been a point to this. It got lost in my own personal world and I'm not up to an intense expedition currently. So, just in case anyone ever reads this, I'll end with a question. What do you think of the "Facebook Effect"? Real, imagined, brilliant, or just obvious?

Success!

Now that I've actually posted something and had it work, I feel like I can actually type a full post without expecting disappointment when I hit "Publish" and none of it shows up.

I figured that it was probably time to start up blogging again, especially seeing as I'm possibly looking at freelance writing jobs to bring in some extra funds, and this can only be good practice. Maybe I'll even end up not sucking. One can only hope.

I've recently acquired an interest in tabletop RPGs, and have wanted for awhile now to play. The issue currently is that I have no one in the area to play with, and I'm also a total noob (but admitting it is the first step, I've been told). I'm thinking of going to the used bookstore in the area and trying to get enough money to buy a Player's Handbook for D&D by selling the Twilight books that I can safely say I will NEVER read again. I find this to be a more than fair trade. I only hope that the bookstore will agree. Maybe my interest is rooted in the lack of characters I've created, which after NaNo seems criminal. Actually, even when I was barely writing over the summer I was still creating different characters, though admittedly they were incredibly shallow and needed personality surgery to be viable in a decent story. So the fact that the only one I've created in the last two months has been for my next writing project (more about that later) is odd. It's one of my favorite parts of the writing process. I see RPGs as a way to fix that, and create serious character development skills as well. Now the trick is to find a way to play when all the people I know of who play are about two hours away. And also, learning without my head exploding. But I see that as a minor obstacle.

In writing, I've been doing this project with a friend called the Letter Game. We basically just created characters and a general setting, and then had them start writing letters to each other. It's very interesting, and different than I thought it would be. For instance, I'm used to coming up with basic plots, adding the twists where needed and then letting inspiration drive the rest. That's what worked best for my NaNo novel. I created Point A and Point Z and left the others up to the journey as it unfolded. Harder to edit effectively, but the experience was definitely worth it, especially since it gave me a distinct goal to work towards as opposed to my other, more open-ended attempts at becoming a novelist. You know, the ones that crashed and burned in a fire worth of a Balrog. But for this newest project, I'm not the only one coming up with twists. She is too. It's a rather disconcerting experience, having half a plot already planned out almost out of habit and then having to completely revise it to fit the new information she just provided. It's good for me though. Makes me learn how to be really adaptable in my writing. Now I just have to figure out a way to reply, and I can maybe move past the block in all my other endeavors.

I feel like this is sufficient for my semi-triumphant return to this blog. Perhaps I can figure out a way to motivate myself to keep it up. Who knows... the possibility of money usually helps.

This is a test, because this has been glitching out. If it works, there will be an actual post.

For some reason, the last couple of times that I've tried to post here, it hasn't posted any of the body. I feel like I should figure out why, but first I'm going to try and see if some recent browser reconfigurations fixed the problem before I put actual thought into it.

Oh Yeah, This Thing...

Of Monsters and Mud

Getting Back Into It

It has been a crazy weekend/beginning of the week. I was sick, but running around doing stuff all weekend in preparation for the visit to Rocklin to move a bunch of stuff from one storage facility to another (much cheaper) place. Then, because I was already IN Rocklin, I of course had to visit a bunch of people in the area, and wander around the school for awhile marveling at how much has happened since I left those hallowed halls 6 months ago. And I got to go to the concert with the new advanced choir and the Wind Ensemble, which was so amazing. Can I just say, Eric Whitacre? If you haven't heard his music, look up his Virtual Choirs. For serious. They are absolutely brilliant.

Unfortunately, all of this madness has meant my word count for the weekend was just under 2K for the weekend and a big whopping 0 for the past two days. And today I slept until 1 pm, simply because I was so freaking exhausted from the tail end of sickness, and not getting whole lot of sleep when spending the night at my friend's house on Monday. So I got the whole day started late, and there was a whole lot of catch up on life that I had to do before I could even think about writing. Including writing this blog, because this is sort of my way of psyching myself up for actually getting around to this whole writing thing. It's not like I haven't thought about the novel at all. I mean, I talked about it with all my friends, including the one who helped me iron out a lot of the plot in a pre-November brainstorm. It's just I didn't actually write, not even 750words, which was sad because it means I lost the monthly challenge and my streak. I tried, but even writing on my phone, I couldn't find a half an hour to myself to work on it.

So here's to word counts and getting back into the swing, and hopefully writing enough to feel like I'm caught up with everything and can live my life.

It's Here!!

November is finally here and I have so far spent the whole day on the computer either writing or taking mental breaks! Good times. I decided that I wanted some serious buffer (because next week is going to be especially crazy), so I challenged myself to 10K for the first day. Currently, I'm at just under 8K and I'm going to a write-in in about an hour, so I'm hoping to be able to knock out the rest of it there. If all else fails, I'll write the scene with the eggs... But so far, I've been able to maintain my train of thought.

The only problem I seem to be having so far is something that I probably should have foreseen. I decided to do this novel in a completely different tone than basically anything I've written in the past year or so. I have written in the style I want before, but it's been awhile. So I'm this far in and just now starting to get back into the swing of the tone. But I'm getting better at translating the humor in my head to humor on the page. As I was writing the first 2K, I realized that there was no other substitute for the problem then just working through it and going back on December 1st to edit and actually make the first part as funny as I want it to be. And until then, I will push through. I'm also hoping that the write-in will help me to unlock that part of my brain a bit, as human interaction seems to do.

Next time, I'll try and have some excerpts to post up here. And until then, happy writing!