Reassessing.

I have a tendency to take things a little too seriously. In this instance, it's NYWM. I started it because I thought it would be a fun way to start my character blog and challenge myself in a new medium as well as developing my protagonist from my book further.
Then I missed a day. Then another. And a third time.
I started to get anxious because I wasn't following through with my goals. And I started to get anxious because I thought it was crap and who would want to read it?
The best part was that I was concentrating on my other projects because I was putting off my NYWM goal.

Recently I've started seeing a psychologist, because this worry isn't something exclusive to my writing. He told me I have something called General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It's treatable and already I'm starting to feel better.
However, I used some of the techniques I've been learning to manage the worry, and applied them to how I'm feeling about not following through with NYWM goals.
I've overreacted a little, and realised that the idea behind NYWM (besides the writing of course) was to have fun. At least, that's how I should have been taking it.
And it's something I need to remember about my writing. I write because I love it, and it is ultimately fun. As soon as I start taking it seriously, nothing happens and my projects lie stagnant. The same with Twitter and Blogging. If I take them seriously as 'networking tools', then all of a sudden, I'm overcome with anxiety and nothing gets done.

So, especially for the rest of this month, I'm going to have fun with NYWM. Who cares if my character blog doesn't go anywhere? Who cares if it doesn't make sense?

Right now, I don't. I'm going to have fun.

First day of NYWM!

I have started my new blog! The first post of Long Lost: A Diary, has been posted! Check it out, leave a comment. Or tell me what you think here on Asterisk That Thought.

In terms of responding to comments on Long Lost, I have decided to use them in improving my writing as I go. I won't be editing after I've posted. Just cause that would get messy.

Anyway, enjoy! And I will be back with non-fiction bloggy things as per usual on this blog :D

How to make a book (but not why).

I was with my friend (the one I'm living temporarily with) having coffee today. We're both looking for jobs at the moment, and she showed me a flyer for an acting/extras/modelling agency. I was interested for about two seconds but then she told me that after the interview, you don't get payed until you get a job.
 "No, I need something that gives reliable money. I'm already doing something that needs hard work way before you get payed for it. I'm not going to have two jobs like that."
From here, this came up:
 "How long does it take to finish a book?" she asked, being a person who rarely reads book-length prose.
 "What do you mean by book?" She was confused, "first draft, ready for an agent, or just before it's published?"
 "Well, before you send it off."
 "Well, before I send it to an agent, I have to finish the draft, leave it a few months, edit it. Then when I think it's okay, I send it to some other writing friends who tell me what needs changing."
 "That's before it's even sent off," she said, her mouth and eyes three round O's already.
 "Yep, then I send it to a few agents, hopefully one of them takes me. Then they tell me what to edit, I edit again. Then they send it to a few publishers, and hopefully one of them takes the book. Then they tell me what to edit, and I edit it again."
 "Woah, writing a book is really hard work."
 "Yeah, at the earliest, my first book will be out when I'm 25. And that's if I'm really, really lucky."
 "And then you have to worry about, will it sell?"
I nodded, "and if it doesn't sell well, the publisher might not want my next book."

So why am I doing this again?

Oh yeah, because I can't imagine doing anything else.

No Tener Pelos en la Lengua

I've been a bad NaBloWriMo blogger again *ducks head sheepishly*. Moving on.

For two years now I've been studying Spanish as an elective to my degree. We've only just reached the point where we have covered all the conjugations and sentence structures. A few days ago we learnt a few sayings and this one made us all laugh, but I think it has great relevance to writing, and it will be a little mantra of mine from now on. 

No tener pelos en la lengua is translated by the text book as meaning 'to be outspoken, to be frank'. Literally it means 'to not have hairs in one's language'*. Hairy language, eh?

While we were chuckling about this, I thought it was a good way to think about one's prose or poetry, and in choosing the best words, paring back the language. This is something that John Steinbeck first taught me when I discovered Of Mice and Men in year 11. He's still one of my favourite authors. Then this year I took a poetry class and learnt it again. Then last week, Sarah at The Unwrapping reminded me of it again (go read her blog, it's beautiful). Aqui es una escritora si no tiene pelos en la lengua. (Sorry if the grammar is incorrect).

And of course, I submitted the first draft of my CP for assessment (I got 100%). One of the things my supervisor told me to do when editing is to 'tighten the language'. Get rid of all the hairs. So that is my mission over the next two days. Take my draft and turn it into something concise and sin pelos. 

On another matter, I was reading another Sarah's blog. Her latest post is on something I posted about in the first week of NaBloWriMo, body image. The post touched me, and I was so glad to see someone else speaking about the many intricacies of coming to love one's own body.
Once again, this is a website, and organisation, that is doing wonders for so many people in regards to self-love:

www.thebodypositive.org 



*Something I've yet to master, however.

Duology

Today I had my second meeting with my supervisor about my Creative Project. Last week I submitted the first draft as the first assessment for this unit, and my supervisor sat down with me and told me where my strengths were, and where I needed to work a little bit harder.

My main thing is to tighten the language - to cut out superfluity and repetition. Apparently my structure is good, which makes me happy and means I can concentrate on the language.

Other things that came up though, are that now we can come to the labels for my project. Before now I have just been writing, and writing whatever came out. Now it turns out that what I've come up with is a YA/crossover fantasy. This is okay with me, but it's weird to think about my work in terms of marketability and audience. This kind of thing has always seemed so far off. But the point of this unit is to mimic real-world scenarios and I have to think like a professional.

Another thing I have to think about is that instead of a novella, I am now working on a novel extract, which means that once this unit is finished, I'll have enough material to keep going.
When I first mentioned my Creative Project, I told you that it was going to be the back story of the older sister of the protagonist of my WiP (the poor thing has been so neglected lately). Now it seems like I have enough material for a duology. And I know I'm going to have to finish both before I give any other ideas a go. Sigh.

And I may well be sighing, but this is all very exciting. Things are happening!