Recovery and Relief

I think this is quite possibly the most relieved I have felt in a very very very long time. That's right -- my old hard drive has been recovered. Not only does it have old pictures and documents and other fun things, it also has the thing I have been missing most for about the last month. Finally, after weeks of anxiety, worry, and frustration, I have my outline back.

I underestimated how incredibly excited having this outline back in my hands would make me. Working on developing story line just wasn't the same without it. Sure, I could do bits and pieces here and there, but I never felt comfortable doing too much without having my outline to see where it all fits in. Now there's no excuse. November is little more than 2 months away, and there is still some major planning to be done before the words hit the page on kickoff day.

God bless the maker of the thing I'm using to load my hard drive into my new laptop. God bless my brother for knowing we have one. God bless the people that made the video that told me how to get my old hard drive out of my computer, because I was really freaking lost without that nice little tutorial to help me.

I'm not gonna be able to keep my hands off this sucker for very long. I can tell already it's going to be a long night filled to the brim with me playing catsup and loving every single second of it, even if that means school tomorrow is going to be a witch with a capital B.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Heaven and Hell

One of the most exciting things I've encountered so far while preparing is coming up with some super exciting hidden motif. The sad part is that I'll probably be the only one that knows about it because no one will want to read my book.

Researching is super exciting when you have an end goal in mind. Finding all of the little parts that make up an idea and knowing exactly how you'll be able to incorporate them can make a person feel really satisfied, or maybe it's just me. The only thing I'm still worried about is figuring out how to incorporate other characters into these actions, seeing as a completely one-sided novel will be absolutely zero fun for anyone involved.

My research plans also include watching an episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender, which I am super duper pumped for. Sadly, I cannot mention which episode or I swear to the Lord that it will give my little secret away. I will say, however, that it is one of my very favorite episodes of one of my very favorite television shows, right behind the one about the Secret Love Tunnel. Just thinking about it is heaven. I'm nerdy like that.

On a different note, school starts in less than a week, and it's making quite a few things very real for me.

1) Applying for college needs to happen. More specifically, writing essays for college applications needs to happen. On top of planning for this novel, I have to figure out creative ways to answer questions that are almost always about myself, something I'm horrible at doing (hence the fictitious story I am creating that has zip to do with me and my world).

2) I'm going to be extremely busy. Not only is there homework to worry about, but with all of the activity-related retreats I've been on in the last week has made me remember how bogged down I will be with all of that going on as well. Senior year's added bonuses are college applications and a job so that maybe I won't have to starve to death once I hit college.

3) In just twelve short months, I will be leaving behind almost everything I have ever known and go somewhere (hopefully) far away where I will know no people and be unfamiliar with my surroundings. This is rather scary for me now, even though I am quite excited for it at the same time. You need to understand that I have lived in the same house my entire life. I have seen the same people in and out of class for at least the last 3 or 4 years, some even going on 11. 11 years. That is quite literally more of my life that I have been with them than I have been without them. And in just one year I will be leaving them all behind.

4) Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that November will be a month from hell. Play will be murderous for the first few days (it isn't called hell week for nothing), but come to a quick end. Show choir rehearsals will continue to be the ceaselessly repetitive misery twice a week that only gets worse because "competition season is just around the corner!". Work will start becoming more frequent because people will actually start buying jewelry on a regular and apparently freakishly quick basis for the holiday season. Large group speech contest will start towards the end of the month, but that won't be too bad because I've only ever been in one group so I'm just assuming that's all I will be in this year. The cherry on top of it all will be the lovely novel that I will surely be killing myself to finish, and come hell or high water you can bet this will be the one thing I'm actually going to follow through with.

Ketchup Post

WARNING: This will be yet another post where I complain about my first world problems.

Recently, my computer decided to die. My brother thinks it has something to do with the power button not working, but really I believe that the damned thing had a vendetta out for me. After about four years and absolutely no back-ups, it died without warning, also explaining why I haven't written a new post in quite awhile.

As of now, I am writing from my new laptop, yay! I also bought a flash drive and installed dropbox to ensure that I will not be losing files any more. Hopefully.

However, I sincerely hope that I will be able to retrieve files from my old hard drive, seeing as I had a decent start on my novel outline as well as a bunch of old school essays I've written and would like to have back. But mostly the novel stuff.
Hopefully 16gb will be enough to store all of my novel and school writing, seeing as I have no clue how much space that stuff generally takes up.

On a completely different note, I just returned from a retreat with my Thespian troupe. Is it acceptable to get character inspiration from actual people but tweak it enough so it doesn't completely resemble them and then use it and not tell them? Because that's what I plan on doing sometimes.

My weekend away has also helped to remind me that dialogue is hella important. Props to acting for being mostly dialogue (minus soliloquies and monologues, etc.) and reminding me to not forget about that crucial part of creative writing come November.

Hypotheticals Suck.

It's really cliche for ideas to just hit you in the middle of the night when you're trying to go to sleep. On that not, I do believe I have a very rough outline of what I want to happen in this book, which will eventually become a series, which scares me.

For reals, bro. I was laying in my bed when all of a sudden the ideas were just there. I knew what the major conflict was, and I'm telling you it was good. There are so many things I want to say right now that vaguely describe my midnight (actually, later than that) stroke of genius, but in the back of my mind are a bunch of really stupid hypothetical questions preventing me from doing so. They are as follows:

What if you do get published some day? Couldn't this blog post technically spoil the ending to the first book? Would it prevent some really cool opportunity from happening if that's the case?

My life right now is just one big gorram if, and it isn't adorable like those old insurance commercials that had snoopy in them.

Excuses

Gonna be honest here. I haven't worked on planning in a while. I could lie and say it's because I'm really busy and haven't had any time to write, but it's really because I'm a lazy bum that has zero effort to overcome writer's block.

Getting started on an outline is scaring me. I don't want to put too much work in too early, but I feel as though I won't know enough about who my characters are and who and what needs to be there until I do get a move on. Also, I have yet to install word 2007 onto my computer and I refuse to scratch and scribble an outline onto notebook paper until then.

As far as long term goals go with this, there really aren't any. I certainly don't intend on becoming a professional writer in the future. There's a really wonderful pipe dream I have that some publisher will want to pick up my book and I'll be able to go to college and pursue writing and write more books and be rich and young and beautiful forever until I die. The end. Likely, right?

So far, my working title isn't where I want it to be. Alas, isn't that why it's called a working title? If anyone comes up with another fancy word for story that isn't super widely used (chronicle, saga, series, etc.) then please clue me in. I'd really appreciate. As of now, I'm using parable, but I'm really not too fond of it.

Work Sucks, I Know

I worked for 8 hours today.

I may sound like a wimp, but I'm exhausted. The longest I've ever been at work for so far is 3 hours. My body is no longer used to being at school all day, my circadian rhythms are off, and I got about four hours of sleep the night before.

My day didn't start out too horribly at all. After my coffee I was actually excited to be at work, vacuuming floors and wrapping gifts. The morning hours passed quickly and nicely.

After lunch, my day went to shit. The hours passed slowly. I was starting to get tired. I had a splinter from climbing into the attic to get boxes. And then I broke what was very likely the messiest thing I could have broken.

When I dropped the flower candle votive thing, it sounded like an instant waterfall. Oil went everywhere, small shard of glass littered the floor, and I felt absolutely horrible. Luckily all of the kind ladies I work with helped clean up and told stories of when they broke things for the first time, partially helping to console me. After cleaning everything with soap and water I still had an hour left before I could go home, and I was bored out of my mind.

All in all, I'm glad the day is almost over. On the plus side, I've found some major character motivation and quite possibly a name for the one currently known only as 'Young Man' in my planning journal, though I'm not significantly attached to it and it may sound just a bit girly.

I need to go do some writing, or I'm gonna fall behind before I've even really begun.

It has begun

I have decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, the condensed name for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place over the month of November. The goal of the month is pretty straight forward -- to write a 50,000 word book.

I don't know what compelled me to sign up for this. I have a tendency to set lofty goals for myself and then never achieve them. Alas, here I am, preparing myself over the next 100 or so days for a month of what I expect to be a sort of brutal, self-inflicted hell.

I'm also assuming no one will ever read this unless I make it public knowledge that I'm attempting to do this. One one hand, if I tell people I will have no option but to go through with it, relying on the fact that my friends will want to be kept up to date. However, if I don't tell people, I can prance about on December first with 50,000+ words and people will be in utter shock that I was able to complete such a daunting task without informing them.

I fully expect myself to cave if I don't give up before November arrives.

Until then, I have plenty of prep work to fill my time. Character backgrounds, rough plot development, and the creation of exciting (hopefully) settings are all I feel the need to think about currently. College application essays will have to take a back seat.

My plan, if at all possible, is to get my butt into a creative writing class first semester and somehow use anything I do in that class for my novel. Maybe.

The title of this blog has dual meaning. Firstly, I had no clue what to call the blog. Secondly, "What Should I Call This Thing" was already taken. Thirdly, I have found that I have to name things in my novel, and I don't know what to call them. Finally, if anyone ends up reading this blog, I may ask you what I should call something. I'll keep you posted (unless this ends up like anything else I start and never finish).