Random trips to the desert and writing progress

In case you haven't heard the Lyrid Meteor shower went on this weekend. As a person who has never seen one of these events, I felt it necessary to experience this phenomenon. So what started out as a quiet evening in bed, ended up being a random half hour drive to the middle of nowhere at midnight.

If you've ever found yourself on a dark, deserted road in the middle of the night, then you know how quickly your mind wanders to monsters and murderers hiding out just waiting to get you. You jump at every little sound. When a car drives by that late at night you think they're up to no good. My friend and I blame it on watching too much Walking Dead.

But in-between those moments of fear are moments of peace. Staring up at the night sky and realizing how small we truly are to everything. I only saw four meteors, but I jumped with glee like a little kid every time.

Even as I stood in the desert full of fear and wonder my writing brain refused to shut off. I thought the whole time I wonder how I can use this in my story? Every experience can be turned into a great story, which is why it's so important to take time to experience the little things in life. Whether it's sitting in the desert waiting for someone to come hack you up into little pieces or just taking a random road trip to see something different.

The night ended when it became too cold, but that only encouraged us to come back the next night. Where we experienced a whole new fear: wild animals.

As far as my writing progress, I'm on page 40 and going strong.

Until next time, I hope you find joy in your writing!

Back in business.

Hello everyone, it's been a long hiatus and I'm coming out to say I'm finally writing again. I fell away from myself for a little bit. Writing is what makes me happy and it's time I get back to that. I've started a new novel. It's an idea I've had running through my head for awhile now. I'm finally putting it down on paper. I'm on page 27. I started writing again two days ago, so that's a huge feat for me. Especially, after not writing anything for months.

A shoutout goes to Stephen King for writing a great memoir on the craft of writing. It's given me the inspiration to get back to doing what I love.

I probably won't be blogging as often as last time. I want to focus on my novel completely, but I will still stop by every so often to say I'm still around : )

Until next time I hope you find joy in your writing!

2012: Review of last year's resolutions

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I flew home before the holidays to spend some time with my family. Sadly, I didn't write while I was there, but I gained some great memories of my family. Most of my time was spent with my four month-old nephew. I won't be seeing him again for another 6-8 months, so it was nice babysitting him.

As the new year arrives I began to think about last year's resolutions, which can be read here: 2012 New Year's Resolutions

I planned on finishing my novel and I did.

I planned on quarrying agents and I did.

I also said I would write every day. Okay that one didn't happen.

Even though my book still isn't being published and I don't have an agent. I have to consider 2012 a writing success because I finished my book and put myself out there. Even this blog has been alive for a year now.

Did you accomplish your writing resolutions? What do you hope to achieve in 2013?

Happy Birthday Bram Stoker

Just wanted to take the time to say it's Bram Stoker's 165th Birthday today. If you haven't heard of him then surely you've heard of Dracula. So Happy Birthday Bram Stoker, the original writer of vampires!

My status on Nanowrimo

I feel as a writing blog I need to address the fact that November is Novel Write Month. To all of you who are participating this year I wish you good writing and good luck. Last year I wrote 75,000 words in a month, which was a record for me. It was also my first year ever participating in Nano.

This year I have decided not to participate in Nano for personal reasons. I am still writing and you can find my newest travel articles on Hubpages. I also started a new novel a little bit ago, but I'm using November as my personal goal to continuously write it. I don't have the time or energy to try and get 50,000 words this month on top of my other writing, so I'm settling for writing every day. If I do make it to 50,000 words then that's great!

I support everyone who is participating in Nano and would like to give you some links of resources that I have found.

Writer's Digest is offering a free download for everyone every day that has something to do with writing.

Nathan Bransford blogged some old Nano resources that can be used any time. I found his information about characters very helpful.

Veronica Roth, author of "Divergent" reposted one of her Nano advice blogs too.

Again, I wish everyone good luck and if you have any other Nano resources that you feel will help people out please feel free to leave your advice in the comments below.

Celebrating Banned Book Week

It's that time of year again: where authors, publishers, agents, librarians, teachers, students, journalists, and anyone who enjoys the freedom of censorship come together and celebrate. That's right, you guessed it. It's Banned Book Week.

From Sept. 30- Oct. 6, all readers unite to honor the books that have been banned or attempted to be banned from libraries, school's, etc. At least once in your lifetime, you've probably read a banned book. For example, the famous Harry Potter Series. Can you imagine a world without Hogwarts? I know I can't.

As writers and/or readers it's very important that we have the freedom to express ourselves. A lot of Young Adult books are frowned upon by parents because they paint a harsh reality that they don't think their kids can handle. Some explicit material incl., drugs and sex. Please someone find me a teenager who doesn't get asked to use drugs or the chance to have sex because I'm hard pressed to believe that most teens don't experience this. Books don't put these ideas in teenagers' minds, they're already there in their every day lives. Books do, however, give teenagers an escape. A way to let them know they aren't alone.

If you would like to join the celebration, go read a banned book. More information on Banned Book Week can be found here.

I can't help it, I'm a Pantser

I've been trying to outline this novel I'm working on and while I have some great ideas written down, tonight I began to write what I outlined for the beginning. I wrote 1700 words tonight and I think that's a very good start. I can't help myself, even as I outline what I want to happen, I'm constantly running dialogue through my head. I decided not to fight it anymore.

I am a Pantser and I'm okay with that. I am going to continue to outline, but if the mood strikes me to write down what I'm thinking I'm going to do that too. There is no wrong way to write a book as long as you get to where you want to go. Sometime even that will surprise you.

Until next time keep on writing and reading!

Outlining by a "Pantser"

In my last post I talked about attempting outlining before writing a word. Here is my progress so far:

Outlining has actually been very successful. I found a book writing blog, http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/archetypal-characters.html which gave me eight steps in an outline. The steps this blog gives you to creating an outline gets you to the thick of your story. I had problems outlining my existing story, which means there are more problems than I knew about. But I was successful with another story.

I've had this idea for a story in my head for a while now and I haven't pursued writing it yet. I figured I would try to outline both my stories at the same time and see which one had a better flow to it. My new story now has a beginning and an ending. I still need to figure out the meat of the story, but the idea is clear. The goals are set and the stakes have been decided.

Outlining the new story is easier. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because everything is new and still undecided. Now I have to make the decision which story I want to spend all my time with. Even though my original novel is technically written, I'm thinking about putting it on the back burner while I see where this new story takes me. What would you suggest? Have you tried outlining yet?

Pantser or Plotter?

Last year around this time, I began writing my first novel. Everything I wrote came directly from my head as I wrote it. I didn't have anything written down and I had no idea where my novel would take me. Trust me, having ideas constantly running through your mind makes for very little sleep. Whenever I had an idea I would write it down, so I wouldn't forget it. But as far as plot and character development goes, I had nothing. This is called writing -by- the- seat- of- your- pants or the other famous term, a Pantser.

It's pretty safe to say I am a Pantser. In fact, I'm writing this blog post to you right now as the words come to me. But after reading numerous stories of authors who have to outline everything in great minute detail before they write a single word (Plotters), makes me wonder if maybe I should give outlining a fair shot.

The story I wrote last year has been edited over and over again and I haven't ripped the entire thing apart...yet, but I started a major rewrite a couple months ago and I feel stuck. I'm worried I might be hurting a story that could have had a chance. I wonder how you know when you should give up on a story, but that's a post for another day. So back to this novel I wrote. I'm thinking about changing pretty much everything and before I go through and destroy a year of work, it might be a good idea to outline my ideas.

I'll leave today with a word to my fellow Pantsers: We may let the story come alive under our fingertips and a surprise even we weren't expecting may come to us at any time, but try to switch it up. Try plotting everything out before you write a single word and see where that takes you. Plotting isn't for everyone and I honestly can't see myself liking it, but I'm going to try it. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!

Defy the Dark Contest entry sent!

I told you a couple days ago I was working on a short story for a contest. Well, I turned it in this morning. I am attaching the link to this post if you would like to check it out. I won't know who wins until September 15. It would be really cool to win this, but at least I entered in the first place.

Here's the summary I wrote on the figment website: 
Kylie Shuler is a happy sixteen-year-old girl, but when an accident takes away her sight she must learn to live life in the dark or give in to her anger and let the darkness destroy her.

Waking to Darkness