Writing

Okay, so I know that all Bloggers must love writing, and that therefore I am only one of the many, that -hey, I might not even be unique, but I have to write this post anyways. I started writing in third grade, with my very first short story The Lonely Duck. Cute, right? But I only ever really wrote for assignments and projects until eighth grade or so. And even then I was writing pretty much because one of my close friends wrote (and she had been writing for a while, too), and I figured 'if she can, I can.'

And so I started to write seriously, for me, and with the distant intention of getting published. It was all horrible scribblings at first, as I couldn't help but half-mimic the types of books I'd recently read. If I read Ella Enchanted, I would start a fairy tale spin off story, or if I read Nobody's Princess (about a Spartan Princess), I would switch to writing a mythology type book, if I read a book about magic and knights, so would I, and so on. It took me a while to find out which style was mine, and which was only a copy of another's. It's hard to do that, find yourself, that is, as a writer. Notice how I don't call myself an author- and I certainly won't until I finish a book I'm terribly proud of (as much as anyone can be) and get it published. Because that's how it works in my mind- only published writers are authors. Anywhoo, I've definitely started to discover what kind of a writer I am (not saying I've got it completely figured out yet, but we'll see).

This last November I discovered NaNoWriMo, the most amazing site ever. I got four of my friends to so it with me, two of whom were serious about it like me, and two of whom quickly gave up (but I don't blame them- it was damn hard!) NaNoWriMo, also just called NaNo, stands for National Novel Writing Month- which is November, apparently. It starts At midnight on October 31st and ends the last day of November, again at midnight. The goal is to reach 50,000 words. They don't even have to be good words, even. The only aim for NaNo is to get people to write without going back every few minutes/days to edit something. As they say, you can always edit a badly written page, but you can't edit a page that hasn't yet been written. I don't know if to anyone reading this is 50,000 looks like a lot or not, but I can assure you, at least for me (a non-professional, virtually beginner writer, and a full time high school student) it was nigh impossible. That is, if I remember correctly, 1670 words per day. I think. And that's a lot. But I finished it, with the help of an all nighter write-in with my other participating friends, at 50,011 words. I could have gotten more, but as soon as I looked up to see my counter was past 50,000, even just by eleven words, my brain deflated, victorious. The two friends who were trying finished too, both with more words than I. But I didn't really care- I was over my goal and it was heaven. Editing is still proceeding, slowly, slowly. We three plan to do it next year as well. To check out the site (it won't have much activity until October or so, but just for the heck of it), click on the cute picture of Dumbo to the left somewhere.

My problems that I need to work out with myself pretty much all deal with self discipline. I need to force myself to sit down and work on my stories, or books, or whatever the correct terminology is. And then I need to force myself to finish it, and then to edit it. So far I have not succeeded with any of these things. First off, I edit waaaaay too much before I even finish. The plot is like liquid in my head, always changing, messing things up, and waterlogging all my thoughts. And these are things that only I can help myself with. For some reason, I haven't yet finished a book I'm proud of, if I've finished any at all. Heck, even my main character's name changes several times throughout each story. It's awful of me, but I can't get myself out of this rut- my wheels are spinning, but nothing happens, you know? This blog was started so I could still get in writing practice to help with my new year's resolution of writing every day, because I just can't seem to get myself to work on my story, whether it's editing it or writing it. At least here I can write about whatever I feel like, instead of trying to browbeat myself into staying in line with the plot. And yes, I know that I'm just supposed to let the plot take me wherever it wants to go, but then I always end up having to change other major pieces in the beginning, and then return to the current plot, and only then to write more and go back again. It's frustrating, and I don't really know what to do.

I wish I could write more like my friend, code name Aries, who was one of my NaNo buddies. She's finished around four books, and her only problem is writing too much- as in she writes multiple books at once. I haven't a clue how Aries does it. She spends just as much time writing as she reads, whereas I am guilty of reading far, far more then I write. Always writing snippets of character conversation, or description in every one of her school notebooks, when the teachers are talking (and no, her grades definitely do not take a hit from this- usually they're equal to or superior to mine.)- and I don't know how she manages. Yes, I'm jealous of Aries, and it's stupid of me, because I could just as easily make myself take out a pen and write in my notebooks too, and spend more time writing and editing at home, like she does- yet I don't, because I lead myself in cursed circles like I was saying above, and now I'm just plain complaining and whining, and this really doesn't suit me well...

Despite everything, I still want to become an author someday. More than anything, I think. I want to be like Kristin Cashore, Tamora Pierce, Gail Carson Levine, Chris Paolini, even like Aries as far as work ethic goes. But I want to be different from them, too, my own. The most important thing is that I want to be my own.