Hit the Ground Running

 This song makes me feel great.

 Okay Landon.

You have put up with enough of this trash. You must be bigger than this novel. (This novel is pretty damn big.)

You know you've just got to get it out of your system. Once you have a foundation, there's no stopping you. 

That foundation starts tonight. It didn't start four months ago, when you first tried to outline this idea. It didn't even think of showing up throughout the hundreds of pages you filled in your Moleskine in attempt to tame it. It definitely didn't want to show its face when you tried to WRITE the story...for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth OR seventh time. No. Tonight is the night.

All it takes is focus, caffeine, and your motivational playlist.

You must be bigger than this novel. (This novel is pretty damn big.)

Wow...it's been forever since I've updated here. I suppose there just hasn't been anything to report. I'm still stuck in the limbo phase (FLESH AND GLASS / New Idea / Just keep pouring out weird short stories) where I can't decide on anything.  The most recent thing I've written was a trippy short story, like, half an hour ago. It was inspired by this masterpiece, and may worm its way into my new novel (...that doesn't exist yet).

And because it's Music Monday...



I can't stop listening to this--especially the first two minutes. It just reminds me of something rainy, and dark and eerie and magical--my favorite emotions to write about pooled into one song.

I'm reading THE BLUE SWORD by Robin McKinley. I LOVED the beginning, and then...I'm a little unsure as of now. I'll just have to see how it pans out. But I love R. McKinley dearly, despite her faults.

 Well, I'm another year older as of Valentine's Day, if it counts for anything. I don't feel older or think older, but the change seems nasty in an abstract way. 

The day was fun, although I had to fight through classwork and the fact that it's still quite dreary outside. Had a few people over, read a bit of INCARCERON (which is fantastic so far, by the way) and went to bed at eight through sheer exhaustion.

Not much to report on the writing front. (Oh wait--it's still winter. Why do I bother saying this anymore?) However, I do have a plan for this Friday when I don't have class: I'm going to lock myself in my room and write for a few solid hours (hopefully around five) until I'm forced to go out and do things others consider to be productive. It's kind of like my own NaNo, or 3-Day-Novel-Contest (which I WILL attempt someday--I swear). Hopefully it'll jump start something (FLESH AND GLASS, to be precise).

Spring is coming. As in, my winterly groaning will cease soon. As in, writing a novel will soon be as easy as breathing.

Ha.

P.S.: Voting is officially open over at SKoW. So head on over, read the nominated stories, and if you're so inclined, vote for mine/one (in the Non-Romance category)!

 So yesterday, when opening up my email, I found a review alert from FictionPress. This seemed really weird to me, as I hadn't even been active on FP since October 2nd. I open the email, and end up gaping at the screen for a good few minutes.

The cause of my awe? Well, this is the review, and THIS is what it deals with.

I was nominated for a SKoW award!

Okay, so even if this was the manliest icon I could find on the site, I'm still proud, in a rather dorky way. Back in my more hardcore FP days, I really emulated the SKoW nominees. Even though I didn't write romance--and I still don't, at least entirely--it really was a good way to highlight talent in the FP community.

So I was nominated for the Non-Romance section. Voting begins February 12th and the final winners are announced March 7th. Definitely check out all the stories linked at the site, and if you so decide, feel free to vote for HEIRESS, because it would undoubtedly make my day.

But first, a story. I've been debating taking HEIRESS down for months--I was shaky about posting it at the beginning. But because I basically adore FictionPress, I went with it. What's weird is that I was really pulling for taking it down just recently--I even saved all the reviews and basically had my cursor hovering over the delete button--but, for some reason, I couldn't/didn't. And now...well, I can't say I'm very proud of HEIRESS, but I WAS quite invested in it at the time, and I think it has its own spark, of a sort.

Feel free to read it, and the other stories. I've been thinking of posting the next chapter just for celebration's sake, but I'll have to see if I have time. If anything, this has reminded me of how dear FictionPress is to me, and how much it helped me grow as a writer. What a cool community.

 Okay. Confession: I'm a whimp. My brain (to be cheesy--heart?) won't give up on FLESH AND GLASS. It wants so badly to be told, and I don't quite know why.

Around Christmas, I discovered this video, and I can't help but think it has something to do with it:


(If you like this, check out another one of his songs that made me freeze up and die gape the first time I heard it. He used to write for metal bands...No, I'm not sure how he came to this, either.)

The simplicity of the song works so well with the graphics, I can't help but watch it over and over and over. In my head, I see the path of my main character--but that's another whole dimension.

I don't know why I'm unable to write a/this novel right now. I can blame it on winter; I can blame it on school work. I've tried starting it so many times the attempts got more and more half-hearted as they went on. I've tried taking a break. I've tried going at it over and until until I would get it right (I didn't). I've even tried giving up.

Obviously, none of that worked. I might have tried the wrong combinations, or not tried hard enough at times, but generally, I'm at a loss.

Lately, I've written a few haikus to let my productive juices seep out a bit, but otherwise, I've been twiddling my thumbs. Maybe my only option left is to try for something new. The only reason this bothers me is that I feel like it shouldn't be this hard to start writing.

The worst feeling, though, is trying to remember what it felt like to be in full swing of writing and drawing a blank.

Conclusively, I don't know if I could ever write something to match the beauty of this piece/video, but it does make me want to take another shot at it.

Today has been a grim day.

Why?

First, and probably least importantly, MuggleNet announced Alexander Desplat will compose the score for DEATHLY HALLOWS: Part I. Which may not sound all that earth-shattering, but I must say my hopes were set on John Williams. *Sigh* Oh well.

Second, exams are this week, which are never fun. But those don't matter much, either.

The cherry topping to this grim night? This. When I read the tweet that announced it, I didn't let myself believe it. Then I clicked the link, and my head quickly gravitated toward my keyboard. With force.

Why?

Sleeping-Beauty-through-Maleficent's-point-of-view was going to be my NaNoWriMo idea this year (until I switched to SCARLET'S WOOD, like, three days before November). Actually, I had been stewing over it for some months. Maleficent really stuck out to me whenever I would watch the movie, and when I got curious and researched the myth (read: combed through hundreds of sites for every ancient rendition of the story ever imagined), I fell in love with her--or rather, the amount of her character I could embellish--even more.

Needless to say, I hadn't been so pumped for an idea since last spring, and I spent hours--I mean hours--plotting, doing obscure research, world- and character-building and the like. Then suddenly, right before November, I felt like my love for the story was kind of...stifling things, and I was trying to dig deeper into it than it would allow--I don't know how to describe it. It just suddenly felt like trying something else for NaNo would be more suitable.

Flash forward to early January 2010. My writing rut was (/is) getting wicked irritating. My lack of writing drives me nearly to insanity. I begin drifting back to older ideas, hoping for one to spark. And, of course, the Sleeping Beauty retelling catches my eye. I begin considering it again, among other things, in the back of my mind.

Today happens.

There's no way I can write that novel now. I wouldn't be able to write it with a clear conscious, if that's the term, and I couldn't share it with anyone, and there's definitely no way it could be sold, anywhere or under any circumstances. Tim Burton's too much of a genius, and I have nothing to my name.

Now, I guess, it's just a matter of me coming to terms with its death. It's just...a coincidence. That it was my idea. That it happened now. That it's Tim Burton.

But every lost battle is a learning opportunity. Although chances are Burton didn't steal my idea (see below), I think this has taught me to keep my ideas to myself--to a degree, and at least until they're written. Just for safety. Or maybe just out of superstition. But I'm too unlucky of a person to flaunt things.

I can grow from this. Maybe this is just saying that the concept was too unoriginal. Maybe, however unoriginal, I could've made the story a gem. Maybe Tim Burton will. However, in general, I think this is the universe's way of telling me to move on a bit. Think further outside of the box--whatever that box is. I'll get over it.


So here's my hunch. On the brink of November, when I was mired in controversy, I decided to take advantage of the NaNo forums (Fact). I posted brief summaries of my two ideas, asking for advice (Fact). People responded heavily in favor of the Sleeping Beauty retelling, piqued by its creativity (Mostly Fact). Then (Here's where you use your imagination) Burton's surfing the 'net, stumbles upon this cool little site called NaNoWriMo, wanders into the forums, and Bam. He suddenly has an idea. My idea. But he's Tim Burton, so it's his, and I cease to exist.

It's plausible.

I really need to get editing SCARLET'S WOOD, or I might go crazy. I try not to let myself think about it, but the story is quite haunting (to me, at least). I just want to dive into the manuscript and see what I can do to make it as magical as I can...Because I know there's some form of gem hiding somewhere in there.

I've decided I need to just give up FLESH AND GLASS, at least for a while. I'm getting the feeling that there's no tangible form of the story I can get down at the moment. So I'll leave it to itself; maybe I just jumped in too quickly. I've been thinking another fairytale retelling would be fun--obviously, though, something not as heavy as SW--because that really seemed to give my writing a weird glimmer that I hadn't seen before. After all, SW was the first novel-length retelling I've written. There seems to be much experimenting left to do.

When a friend first showed me this, I was a little too mesmerized by the video to focus on the song, but now that I have it on repeat on iTunes, the lyrics have slipped slyly into my mind, and I can't help but love the concept.

Holy crow--a new year already? It came so quickly, but maybe that's just because I was out of town for New Years' and this break is turning out to be nothing like a break. Exasperation prevails...

Anyways, 2010 feels like an awesome number--just...absolutely awesome, and I can tell it's going to be a great year. Because I can. And I have goals.

Ah, yes, goals! I'm sure you haven't seen enough of these on your friends-pages lately, but I feel the need to post them so A.) I have some motivation to achieve them and B.) I can reflect come 2011 (which feels like a funny number...but let's not think about that now). This year, I'm basing my many small goals on ten (kind of) basic goals.


I have a new system of a sort, in which I plan to make a small goal for each day, and hopefully fulfilling (most of) those small goals will amount to fulfilling these ten large goals. Among all these things, I'd also like to...