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).