MAY? Really? Good god, sorry about that if you were waiting for an update! Anyone holding their breath surely can’t still be alive and for that I apologise.

Have links. The first is for the new(ish) and shiny website on Google Sites for the writer’s support tool I was developing. It’s slow going, but it is still going.

The Imagination Minion HQ

The second link is to the (also Google Sites) website for Ob and my joint project Forbidden Wings. Yes, it has a home. There are a couple of chapters up so far, but more will be forthcoming; there are also places for 21 Steps, the sequel to Forbidden Wings that we’re about half way through, and Twins which is the next project Ob and I will work on together (that absolutely will not start until FW is done and in the mid to late editing stage), as well as information about the worlds and characters of each project.

Forbidden Wings Website

In terms of my writing, I’ve done bits and pieces of many projects and come up with many ideas – as usual! I’m back into fantasy again, not sure why, so Wings is currently getting attention and a new idea called Casters that has mass amounts of plot and not much actually written… Motive stares at me with resentment for my neglect, but Legacy and Soul are too used to it to bother.

I really need to start using this blog to rant more. I just do these updates, dawdle off somewhere for a month or more and then come back only to dump another status update on it. Maybe if I start just writing about projects and their progress, hindrances and such I’d post more… then again I don’t want to do that because it spoils people for what I’m writing. Ob, for example, actually likes spoilers, strange woman, so she’d definitely spoil herself… Should I write them and not make them public until the story in question is done? Hmmm…

Also, finally, I’ve been considering putting draft chapters up on Google Docs for the perusal of my beta readers, so if I start doing that I’ll also put the links on here.

Um… yes. I think that’s it. God I’m so interesting. Prizes for anyone who has any ideas to spice this blog up…

NoteBook Ideas: #637

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Current Works: -

Main…

-Motive (Words: 28,400)

-Soul (working title) (Words: 24,100 – Chapters: 5)

-Wings (Words: 184,200- Chapters: 55 (Draft 0) – 93 (Planned So Far))

-Legacy (Words: 7,700)

Others…

-Tshaya (Words: 6,100)

-Ob’s 2008 Christmas Fic (Words: 4,000)

-Visitor (Words: 4,500)

-Casters (Words: 1,900)

It seems that, for the first time in three years, I have failed NaNoWriMo.

Yes, that’s right, this most humblest of persons grovels to the writing Powers-That-Be for forgiveness after waving her ass in their face despite huge heaps of work.

nanowrimo screenie 2009 final

I am disappointed, but it couldn’t really be helped. There was just too much else to do. Also, and this is the nice part, I’m actually not all that upset about it! And for a very good reason as well, I thought.

I love my story. I know I love all my stories and all my characters and, just, well, everything. But this is ‘Motive’. Only 20,000 words perhaps, but they are good words – I went against the usual approach to NaNoWriMo (another reason I had such trouble) and properly prettied and edited things in those 20,000 words.  I am in love~

This is, I think, the idea I’ve been waiting for since I first huffed at my own uselessness and bashed my head against my desk in the hopes that good ideas might fly out of my ears.

I got a bit stuck trying to do NaNo with Motive at the weekend because I was at the point where things were taking shape in my mind and I needed to structure what I had and start working just a little linearly… NaNo-brain didn’t like that and I spent a few hours wondering what I could write about when I clearly needed a period of contemplation instead.

But, as I’ve said, I’m not too worried about missing the 50k now that I have Motive. I’ll possibly post the prologue on this blog, though I’m not certain I’m happy with it yet, so maybe not. I’ll obsess appropriately over Motive in my next Status Post  :D

Hopefully NaNoWriMo will be easier next year. And hopefully I won’t snicker in disbelief at that comment when November 2010 comes around, like I did this time over last year’s comment.

Here’s to the NaNoWriMo 2010 100k!!

Yes, I’m a big fat procrastinator. I think I even did a post a week last NaNo as well, but I was less busy then I seem to recall, just knackered constantly from the new job…

Well, screenie lies beyond.

first screenshot for nanowrimo

As of yesterday. I’ve done about 1200 words so far today despite it being earmarked for Uni work (or perhaps because). And yes, I’m doing fantastically well again. See Last Time

In actual fact, I’m doing better this time because I actually wrote something in the month of November before the 13th…

On the other hand, considering how much stuff I have going at the moment (three pieces of coursework for final year of Uni, final year project proposal, Eddie Izzard live with Ob, balancing Uni and the big W…) I’m not even considering the idea that I might get my personal goal of 100k and start the onward and upward spiral. Too bad really. Hopefully next year will be better.

Also, shockingly, I’m not doing Wings this year! I know, surprising isn’t it. I’m actually doing an idea I love and got quite close to the start of NaNo; it has no title at the moment, I refer to it by the two main characters, ‘Remy and Faith’ or some combination thereof.

Perhaps I’ll give more details later, maybe even an extract of the first chapter, for now I should return to chortling about ‘fuzz testing’ and imitating Ob by playing with many different coloured highlighters (I know why you use them now!).

Ta ta.

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I’m in a weird place, writing-wise. I want to write. I have that digging feeling, like someone trying to find something with a shovel.

But when I think about what I’m doing I just feel… dissatisfied. I go through my projects in my head and it feels like I’m being naive and slow, like I’m heading in the wrong direction. I feel frustrated that I can’t seem to write anything I’m proud of. I have love for what I have and what I’m doing, but it’s like I’m playing and not taking it seriously enough.

I feel like I’ve lost my sense of humour somewhere along the way. I remember writing for the pure pleasure of it, writing because I couldn’t stop. I remember reading it back and laughing – look at what I did! – and over time I seem to have lost that. I write now because what else would I do?

I think I need to expand. I think subconsciously I’ve been trying for a while now; I have notes all over the place for different writing exercises I could do – inspired from music, the Seven Song Sensation, characterisation from photographs, all that – and I keep toying with other genres in my mind, twisting the desires into knots in the hope that at some point they’ll form plotlines I can use.

Maybe I just have writer’s block. Just some weird, cruel form of writer’s block. I’ve had writer’s block before, a few times, where I would just sit down and stare at the screen or my notebook and nothing would happen. As if my body was conspiring against me and my hands would rather I surf the Internet randomly instead of commit words to the page like I wanted to. I’ve never had this particular flavour of writer’s block, this overbearing ability to write things I’m not sure I like while still appreciating it for what it is. It’s usually love ‘em or hate ‘em.

Maybe I’m just tired. Or stressed. Maybe I’m stretching myself too thin, giving too much of myself to other things. Think I’ll get better if I come up with the best excuse? I hope so. It seems to be all I can do at the moment.

Still, I suppose I should be glad I can write at all. On the other hand, I can write… but look what I’m doing instead. Whining. Great.

I think I need to hire someone to be my verbal punching bag; they can sit there and listen to me rant on about life and writing and my projects and interject with questions as if they’re interested for hours on end. They’ll be there entirely for my abuse so there won’t be anything of theirs that I need to consider. I wouldn’t need to listen to them or care about their time/life/sanity. A writing aid.

I’m making myself laugh. For some reason my ‘writing aid’ is mostly naked, shiny and very male. I wonder how much I would even get done.

Regardless of my dreams of a ‘writing aid’ though, I find it difficult nowadays to meet people who even care. It never used to matter either, which irritates me somewhat. My parents have as much interest in my writing as they do in being thrown bleeding into piranha-infested waters and I didn’t really talk about it with anyone else until at least college. I don’t really know what changed. Did I change? Do I want the acknowledgement of others more now that I’m an adult? I feel more confident than when I was an awkward, uncertain teenager, so why do I now need confirmation from other people? It makes no sense.

Life, right?

Oh shut up.

Maybe I’m trying too hard to be something I’m not. Maybe I’m just a writer. Maybe I don’t need to be successful or accepted or even good. I’ve always just written for myself, why can’t I keep doing that? I don’t want to write things because other people will like them…

Maybe it’s the Magic 23. I set myself a goal years ago to have something at least being considered for publication by the time I was twenty-three and I only have a little over a year left now. I barely finish anything. I haven’t finished anything substantial in two years. Even my current Big One, even Wings gives me a fair share of doubt. Even if it is good, an idea that makes my mouth twist in that way I’ve noticed myself do when I don’t like that I’m unsure, I don’t know how well it will appeal to anyone else.

Okay, my best friend likes it, but she’s the only one reading it and, no offense to her, but she understands me too well. I don’t know how much her being so close to me affects her judgement of it. I love her and I trust her, but even she can’t reassure me with this. If I don’t trust my own judgement then I’m not going to accept anything but intelligent and entirely impartial. Someone who has never even heard of me before would probably be best.

So my writing aid should come with three settings, ‘Shut Up and Listen’, ‘Criticise With Brutal Impartiality’ and ‘ Ruthlessly Reassure’.

I always think that having a writer friend would work, but thinking about it now I imagine it wouldn’t actually help all that much except in the ‘same boat’ sense… After all, writers as a breed tend to be ridiculously self-involved. Look at me.

And I’m still whining instead of writing.

Ah, fuck it.

-

p.s. And yes, I am aware I spelt ‘Colours’ wrong.

General: -

Once again, I was crap and forgot about updating. Yay me. But, rather rubbishly, I also didn’t manage to do so much that the stats for my WIPs were massively different… Fail.

I did a lot of planning, at least. For Soul and Wings mostly. I also resurrected Tshaya and planned and wrote more of that.

Branka still hasn’t completed its mahoosive overhaul so there’s no word count for that currently. I need to have a rant at Ob about it, but since that hasn’t happened yet the project is essentially in stasis. I’ve had a few odd ideas and had big urges to write for it, but nothing has really happened.

Wings was a bit awkward – I loitered around one chapter for ages and then got inspiration for a later two-part and wrote bits of that instead and then bits of other chapters and then went back to the chapter I was supposed to be writing and then went back to the two-parter… And then I bitch-slapped the chapter ordering and the two-part is now closer and therefore it was less crap of me to keep going to it… I like the new ordering far better, it flows more easily and the lull isn’t over-large anymore.

I also did a good deal more random writing – idea, write stuff, toss aside, repeat – in the last month or so. Some of it will be useful – murderers! – most of it won’t.

This is just a quick update, but hopefully there will be more large numbers soon. NaNo is upon us, after all. November would be the busiest month of the year, wouldn’t it *rolls eyes*

NoteBook Ideas: #454

Current Works: -

-Branka (Words: ?)

-Soul (working title) (Words: 19,600 – Chapters: 5)

-Wings (Words: 175,200- Chapters: 53 (Draft 0) - 100 (Planned So Far))

-Legacy (Words: 6,000)

-Tshaya (Words: 1,900)

-thinking (working title) (Words: 600)

-Labyrinth fanfic?? :O

-Ob’s 2008 Christmas Fic (Words: 4,014)

Regardless of what they say or do, they are parts of me whether I like it or not. They are parts of me that should only really be themselves. And so I write for them. I speak for them. I give them words, lend them my hands, show them freedom. Because with my hands they are no longer parts of me, with my hands they are themselves and can reach out to others as they please, show and touch and speak as they please.

So for a while my hands will be Killing Hands. For them. So that they can stretch their legs and move their mouths and have others hear them. So that they don’t become restless. So that my hands can be their Killing Hands and not my own. Because while they have my Killing Hands they are not a part of me and I can write without fear. They are the hands of killers and while the blood still comes through words, everything can just be fine.

I have three killers and two Killing Hands. No hesitations. They are no longer a part of me, now my hands speak for them.

-Killing Hands, a new project

For Janus, Rohan and Vatusia

My beloved murderers

 Tshaya and the four corners are dead. Forbidden Wings is very much alive.

 For some reason I’ve recently been distracted from my projects by FW. Usually when I get busy and tired I fixate on something or do nothing, but I’ve never been fixated on FW like this before. It’s good, but also not good. If I stay like this for too long I’ll lose inspiration for more than just Tshaya and the four corners, the latter of which was withering to death slowly anyway.

 FW is doing well. We’ve done about thirty-nine out of forty-six chapters (yes, that’s right, another has been added!). We finished one interlude and have finished the main part of the other shared one. I’m enjoying it  :D

 Wish I could split my exhausted focus though…

 Did a little work on most of my projects, but not a lot to any. Wings got it most, I think. I’ve also reconstructed the entirety of Branka into parts:

 Part I – Vampires

 Part II – Weres

 Part III - Demons

 Part IV – Oh My!

 Yes, I know, it amused me. Aside from that, I was going to work on Ob’s seriously belated x-mas fic, but I think I’m just too tired today… I was in work far earlier than is natural and my appraisal (whoo 20% bonus!!) and the IT Department meeting kept me until almost six  D:

 I think I’ll just sleep. Ja.

NoteBook Ideas: #422

Current Works: -

-Branka (Words: 54,100)

-Soul (working title) (Words: 19,200 – Chapters: 5)

-Wings (Words: 170,000- Chapters: 53 (Draft 0) - 100 (Planned So Far))

-Legacy (Words: 4,800)

-Tshaya (Words: 1,900)

-the four corners (Words: 16,700 – Parts Completed: 0)

-thinking (working title) (Words: 600)

-Labyrinth fanfic?? :O

-Ob’s 2008 Christmas Fic (Words: 4,014)