The beginnings of Masquerade

Today, I planned out my day excessively so that I could focus on the things I wanted and needed to do.  I think I might have to start plotting it out by the hour instead of just a big itemized list.  I have a lot of trouble focusing on the task at hand and I often miscalculate how long it takes me to finish something (or how long something can even hold my attention).  Even if I can scratch a few things or all things off my list, it never feels like I accomplish enough on my days off.

Happy almost Valentine’s Day to everyone.  I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about the “holiday”, whether I had a significant other or not.  You should celebrate love and friendship, no matter what the day, was always how I thought of it.  Regardless, the fact that it’s almost Valentine’s Day brings into sharp focus that it’s already February.  (And almost my birthday.)

I suppose that since I haven’t been writing in here very often, I haven’t really been sharing my writing plans or ideas with you guys.  I’ve been posting about my hobbies here and there, but I haven’t said anything of what I’ve been working on or even if I have been working.  I guess it was almost a year ago now that I decided to shelve Something of the Stars.  Since then, the wheels have been turning, if at a snail’s pace.  (What else is new?)

I floundered for awhile after I let SOTS go and generally felt pretty miserable.  Finally, I sat down and decided on the things I didn’t want to do for my next project.  I saw my pitfalls in my last project and knew there were things I had to avoid.  In March of last year, I had this void in my heart (can I sound anymore morose?  Probably if I tried.) that I desperately tried to fill.  I was craving something.  I’ve had these types of feelings before; I once desperately needed all things Fantasy-related.  I wanted to devour high fantasy books, watch dragons, unicorns, and magic flash before me.  I wanted to immerse myself in a gritty fantasy world where my actions mattered. (Dragon Age helped that craving.)

This time I was at a loss, because I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I wanted to consume.  It fell somewhere on the spectrum of ill-fated romance meets supernatural; romance where there is other shit happening so it cannot be addressed, but it’s there.  DOOM.  I wanted there to be a goddamned apocalypse on the horizon and gritty desperation.

Somehow, Twilight came to mind.  I decided to watch the movies, as a few had come out since I’d seen the first two.  That’s when I remembered I didn’t care for Twilight because the characters never worked for me.  I’ve always wanted to give a few of them a good smack.  (Jacob was okay.)  The storytelling was just never there for that universe for me, so I walked away feeling very dissatisfied.

I don’t know what happened, but something hit me.  I was moping and pining and then an idea just smacked me in the face.  It started out with me just wanting to write about something of a guilty pleasure sort, but within 24 hours, a whole cacophony of ideas appeared out of thin air.

There are things that I’ve always wanted to write about, but never had the chance.

• I want to write something decidedly science fiction.  Most of the stuff I write falls between fantasy and science fiction.  Never have I attempted something that just feels like sci-fi.  
• I want to write about time travel.  I find time travel so ridiculously fascinating, but I have a tendency to try to over-explain things.  I’ve never written about time travel because I’m afraid I will try to explain every detail of how it works instead of just running with it.
• I want to write about superheroes.  This is a desire that I only realised a couple of years ago.  There is something about a group of people who could transform, with awesome powers, trying to save the universe… It’s so awesome.  This is part of the reason why I liked Power Rangers and Sailor Moon so much.
  

Masquerade hit all of those topics in one wicked swoop.  Finally, I had something completely fresh to be excited about.  New characters appeared and I was able to avoid another one of my pitfalls (only one point of view).  The world was coming together, even, which is something else I struggle with.

Guess what?  I just didn’t write it.  I wrote a tiny snippet, right after my initial excitement, but I was so mortified that I stopped.  Once again, I decided to give the premise some thought and brainstorm.  Once again, I was thinking and writing about writing instead of actually doing it.  The end of 2012 was drawing near and I still had Plot out the basics of Masquerade left unchecked on my to-do list for the year.  Then, NaNoWriMo happened.

If you read my blog, you know I have mixed feelings about National Novel Writing Month.  Every year, I get excited, and every year, I ultimately fail.  Well, last year I ultimately failed, but it got me writing.  Only a couple of days before November 1st, I decided that everything could go to hell and I was just going to write some stupid crap that I liked.  After all, I had some basic outlines of some chapters in my head.  I went with it.

Now, those 25000 words are by no means masterful.  Considering the first part of SOTS ended up being just over 30000 words, though, I was pleased that when I pushed myself, I could write something.  There were ideas popping up and I jumped around, writing chapters later on in the story, just because I felt like it. It was fun.  I was having fun writing.  I remember writing one chapter, where I literally giggled while I wrote a scene (it was pretty embarrassing) because I was so amused at the characters’ antics.  ME.  SOMETHING I WROTE.  I WAS LAUGHING.

After NaNo, I kind of left it.  The holidays demand a lot of my time at work and I moved in early December, so Masquerade went largely untouched.  At the beginning of the new year, as the dust settled and I realised some of my initial plans for my life weren’t going to pan out in 2013, I was left with several months of feeling kind of frustrated ahead of me.  I have student debt to slay yet and it wouldn’t be til at least the end of May til I pay it off.  Between now and then, it was looking like I wouldn’t have much to give me a feeling of accomplishment.

Thus, I decided to actually write something that I wanted to write.  I wanted to explore these characters that made me laugh.  I wanted to write some epic fight scenes and have them shout at each other at the plot’s apex.  I wanted people to die, but not be forgotten.  I wanted story mechanics that I wanted to work so much with other ideas to finally work for this one.  I wanted to write Masquerade and finish it before the end of May 2013.

Annnd… that’s where I’ve been.  I ended up cutting out a bunch of the beginning because it no longer fit, so it’s still only about 30000 words, but I’m trying.  There’s still no ultimate end or vague idea for some parts, but I’m still trying.  If I keep putting off writing because it’s too late, I’m too tired, I have other things to do… I’ll never actually write anything.  One day I want to let someone read something I’ve written to completion.  JFC, I want to just write something to completion AT ALL.

Let’s make this work.

When consciousness broke through the haze of slumber, the first thing she felt was sadness. She tasted the residual emotion like a nectar on her tongue: desire. Anna had tried so hard to hang on and to be with her again, but in the end, it was too much and the girl receeded far, deep within them, and there was only Juno.

Sometimes you just need to scold yourself

I’m sorry I’ve been missing in action so much lately.  I’ve been distracted by multitudes of things and somehow it’s October November December now!  (See how bad I am at writing entries?  That’s just sad.)  It seems I’ve been trying to figure myself out a lot this year and not having much luck.  I’ve been writing in my written journal very often and trying to sort through my thoughts and problems and find some way to claw myself up to the plateau of being satisfied with my existence.

As I do that, I’ve … sort of been writing.  I was writing a frivolous and embarrassing story for myself, just because it was in my head.  I finished it too, which is nice.  It simultaneously made me guilty and giddy.  Believe me, that’s one awkward flavour of ice cream.

In more relevant news, I’ve been bullying myself.  That sounds strange, doesn’t it?  I think I’ve written before about how I feel writing has become a chore and a big production.  Over the years, instead of just sitting down and writing something that’s on my mind, I would whine about how much I wanted to write but I would think how much work it was to pull up all my planning and drafts and re-read summaries so I knew my place.  Instead of actually writing, I would give up just as I thought about actually doing it.  I got caught up in the feelings that I shouldn’t even bother if it’s not going to be any good and it won’t get me anywhere.

Look at how I’ve twisted my interests!  I used to write because I liked it.  I never thought about publishing before, but when the idea struck me, I was consumed by my underlying perfectionism.  I would not write unless it was right because it wouldn’t get me any closer to getting out of this rut of fulfillment.  Instead, I would struggle with thoughts and ideas and mope because I couldn’t get them out and I felt really lost.

One night, I got angry.  I wasn’t only slightly peevish; I was raging, hopping mad.  I was mad at myself because I realised how stupid I was being.  Instead of doing something I actually wanted to do, I whined about how I couldn’t do it.  No, I wouldn’t let myself do it.  I wanted to write, but I would just push it aside and waste away on tumblr and YouTube, feeling very bored and sad.

I’m going to share something with you guys now.  THIS is how I kicked myself to get stuff done.  Now, it doesn’t always work, because I still have trouble pulling myself away from things (like right now!  I shouldn’t really be on the computer still, but oh well) but if I’m at that breaking point, it pushes me in the direction that I want to go in but keep trying to avoid.

I write angry letters to myself.  I scold myself for the way I’m acting and feeling and often, it makes me so sheepish and resentful that I end up writing things.  IN FACT, since I’ve done this, I’ve written 5 400 words of one story and 7 400 words of another story.  Maybe it’s not the most eloquent and engaging fiction in the world, but it’s something.

I know 12 000 words is a drop in the puddle for some and they churn that out in an evening, but I often go months or years without writing anything because I’m crippled by my feelings and actions.  I’ve been wanting to write recently again, but I’ve been putting it off.  I think I might need to break out the stationary and give myself a good written smack.

I’m actually kind of mean to myself.  You know what?  I’d rather be mean to myself like this and call myself out on my self-inflicted emotional injury than to continue to deny myself a happy and confident existence.

I’m going to share my angry letters to myself with you guys today.  They do have some swearing, so avert ye eyes if that sort of thing offends you.  I don’t hate myself and I wouldn’t say I self-depreciate in an unhealthy way.  I think you need to scold yourself if you are being foolish.  There is that dichotomy within myself of knowing I’m acting this way but being unable to stop it.  Somehow, this has kind of helped.  Go figure.

Nuzlocke Challenge – Melly’s FireRed Adventure!

If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a fan of Pokémon and I have been since I was a little girl.  There’s something about collecting little monsters to fight for you that’s always appealed to me. (Maybe I shouldn’t say it like that…)  Anyway, I recently wanted a change in pace in my gaming (having gotten bored of some of the stuff I was playing) and I stumbled on the Nuzlocke Challenge and decided to give it a go!

I thought I would write down my adventures for people to read about… And also because I want to remember!  For those unfamiliar with the challenge, I’ll give you some info.  It’s also known as Pokémon Hard-Mode and it only has two simple rules:

1. You can only catch the first Pokémon you encounter in each new area.

2. Once a Pokémon faints, it’s considered “dead” and you have to release it into the wild.

There are variations and different, harder versions, but those are the two main rules.  For my challenge, I decided to fine-tune some of the rules…

- Legendaries may not be used.

- If the first encounter in a new area is a double, you may skip it. (Instituted June 10th)

- You may use Pokémon given to you or acquired through in-game trade NPCs.

I guess that makes it a bit easier or whatever, but I don’t care!  I didn’t want things to be an utter failure. ^^;  Also, I didn’t limit Pokémon Centre usage or healing items, like some people do.

Onward!

The young trainer “Melly” has such hope for the future!

For my starter, I chose Squirtle, which I haven’t done in a really long time!  Squirtle used to be my go-to Pokémon, back when there were only 151.  Over the years, I warmed to Charmander (pun totally intended!) and fire Pokémon in general (I used to be water and psychic, religiously, but now I’m more interested in fire, dark, and dragon).

I beat my rival (named Gary, of course) out the gate, but that’s not much to boast about.  Tackles ahoy!  My first Pokémon caught were Pearl (Pidgey ♀) and Rose (Rattata ♀) and Reggie (Rattata ♂).  Pretty much standard fare.  As I entered the Viridian Forest, I hoped for a Caterpie…

I don’t care for Weedle and I think Butterfree is super useful!  (I even used it all the way through Yellow.)  I was hoping to somehow catch an Abra after Cerulean, and I knew Butterfree learned Sleep Powder, so I crossed my fingers.  Alas, Wendy the Weedle ♀ joined the party and quickly evolved into Kakuna.

I hate the Viridian Forest.  It was slow going for awhile with lots of poison scares til Pearl learned Gust.

… And then I almost lost Bryce, my Squirtle! ºAº Some Rattata got a critical on him.  It was a close call, but we pulled through.  Off to Pewter to take on Brock!  Of course, it was a cakewalk with a water starter, so without too much trouble, we came away with the Boulder Badge!

A Return to the Internetz

I know it’s been such a long time since I’ve written a post and I apologise!  The truth is, I’ve been very busy working on something special and I was devoting most, if not all of my free time to it, and I felt guilty if I wasn’t working on it.  Ho ho, I bet you’re good and curious now, aren’t you?

Well, for the first time in six years, I went to Anime North!  From 2003-2006, I went to Anime North in Toronto every year.  Once I moved to Toronto, I stopped frequenting the convention for numerous reasons, but every year in May, when it would roll around, I would entertain the idea of popping in again.  Something always came up.  Truthfully, I wasn’t as into anime or manga as I had been, and I didn’t really know anyone who was going.

Last June, I booked a room with a co-worker, just on the off-chance I wanted to go.  I was sort of excited, but part of me thought I would just back out, as I always did.  March 2012 rolled around and the deadline for the discount on early registration was drawing near, so I sat down and thought about it for real.  I bit the bullet and bought my ticket.

It was really happening!  The real question was, What was I going to wear!?  I have always gone to Anime North in costume.  These past years, I have missed cosplay so much.  It lost its luster along the way when I no longer knew anyone else that was into cosplay.  Without having a soundboard to bounce ideas off of, I lost my will to make things.  To be honest, when I cosplay, I dive into it; there are no half-measures.  I am a perfectionist in regards to costume quality and caliber.  It must be as close to the original design as possible and it must look good.  Needless to say, it gets expensive and time consuming.

I also try to find the medium between niche and popularity.  I like having a unique costume, but I still want to be recognised.  I think carefully about what cosplay to undertake and I do a lot of planning before I make purchases.  I like to have an idea of how I’m going to do each part before I commit to a costume.  There’s nothing worse than having a meltdown the night before the con about how you don’t know how to get the fabric on the helmet you constructed.  (I speak from experience!)

After much consideration, I decided to go with the Female Protagonist from Persona 3 Portable (fandubbed Minako, though I named her Hanako ♥).  I loved the game to bits, and she was a lesser known character from a popular series.  (I did get recognised quite a bit, though someone thought I was Yukari… º~º;;) There were other people dressed as FeMC, but I had so much confidence in my costume’s accuracy and quality, that it didn’t bother me at all.

I had a good time, and the most important thing is that I started doing something I enjoyed again.  It’s been so long since I’ve successfully constructed something that I forgot how fun it is.  Finally, my perfectionism lends itself to a hobby!  At times, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t get everything together in time, but I did, with a week to spare!

I’ve been making secret posts about it while I sorted ideas out and so I had a good check list I could maintain. So, thank you, blog!  You’ve helped me more than you know! XD  I might post a section to house my cosplay photos and costume information.  I do use Cosplay.com, but it would be nice to have everything in one place, where I can have a bit more creative input.  (Especially since I prefer .png!)  Also, I plan on doing more cosplays in the future and I want to make posts about my status updates.  After all, this is a blog about my creative projects as well.  I would also like to get more pictures in the mix and this would be a great opportunity!  So maybe in the coming weeks, now that I have some downtime, I will add some new sections to this little creative niche!

In other news, I’ve been doing a bit of writing here and there.  I will probably write more about it at length, in another post, but I have two story projects on the go.  One of them (code-named Samurai), I just jumped into the mix and started writing, as I had some ideas already and I figured the rest would come as I went along.  (I was wrong! =3=)  The other (code-named Masquerade) is more of an epic that I’m planning in a similar way I planned SOTS: with a composition book and a lot of “Maybe so and so is this person’s daughter!!” and a lot of what-ifs.  It’s fun, but frustrating, as I don’t have anything to work with right now and definitely don’t have enough to even dive in.  (Or when I did, it was terrible.  No joke.)  So I have a lot of stuff to work on with that one, but it has some potential!  Once I figure out the Big Bad, I think I’ll have an easier time of it.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to update a little on what’s going on, since I’ve been so quiet lately!

Letting go and moving on

I was going to make a joke about how my title sounded like I was writing about a relationship, but then I realised that it’s actually pretty analogous.  Be prepared, everyone, because this is bound to get depressing fast.

I realised something was wrong last year, when I finished my first draft.  I sat down and wrote about what was bothering me in my brainstorming book.  At that point, I had two solutions: write it as two books or write it as one book.  Most of book two at this point was just feelings and a mish-mash of ideas and scenes.  I hadn’t plotted out the entire continuity of it, as I had with City of the Stars.  (I still haven’t plotted out the second book.)  If I decided to make them two parts of one book, I had a fuckload of work left to do.  I had to sit my ass down and work out all the kinks of TLATL (book/part two) before I could actually write it.  I didn’t rellish going down that road, as it had taken years just to plot out COTS.

I took the easy road, which I guess, in hindsight, was foolish.  My reasoning?  I guess I’m just going to have to make book one so good that the reader wants to continue with the series.  Why?  Book two is where all the good shit happens.  It’s where you find out all the whys and the hows and the true conflict.  It’s where characters find their strength and stride and where love blossoms.  In comparison, book one is an extended prologue.  It sets up the characters and their relationships and the theme of the pair: identity and forging your own path.  … And that sometimes, even with the best intentions, we can’t control the outcome or make it right.  Some things just go to hell.

After I wrote the first draft of book one, I was extremely discouraged.  After the initial relief of completing it abated, I sat down with dark thoughts.  All I could think about was how weak the conflict was in book one and that if I was reading it, I wouldn’t stay with the book, let alone for a second one, no matter what the cliffhanger.  It was so true.  Book one was weak and I tried to find ways to make it more interesting and worth reading.  I added some conflict and tried to make the characters more likable so that no matter what, you were willing to follow them through the books.

I failed.  A hopelessness settled over me and I struggled with draft two, not only because I wanted to make the prose better, but I wanted to make it compelling.  I couldn’t think of anything…  It was just the same story, with different words, and even I didn’t want to be along for the ride.  In short, it was boring.  I was floundering for excuses to keep writing it.

Earlier this week, I was doing the dishes.  We’d left them too long, so I spent over an hour washing, rinsing, and drying.  I hate doing dishes, so I usually listen to music and let my mind wander.  A bunch of songs came on that reminded me of SOTS and suddenly, an immense sadness took hold of me.

I realised that at this point in time, there was nothing I could do to fix City of the Stars.  I’d tried all these bandaid solutions and even going on a break for awhile, but nothing worked.  I was still unhappy and uninspired and I was sick of dealing with it.  I had reached my breaking point.  I no longer wanted to vacation in the world of the Dreamers and their firekin.  I was done and I wanted out.

But just like with a relationship, there is that sense of regret and loss.  “Maybe this time we can make it work.”  No, we can’t.  Sometimes it just doesn’t work.  No matter how much you rotate the piece, if it’s not the right piece, it will not fit.  I almost started crying while I dried a plate.  I did cry later that night when I wrote about it in my journal.  It’s like losing a piece of yourself or your family.  SOTS has always been in the background.  Songs make me think of it, I dream about it, I have my own special jokes about it.  And now… it’s dead.

How do you get over something that has been part of your life for so long?  How do you move on and let it go?  I don’t want to let it go, but I have to.  I’m not giving up forever; maybe in a few years, I will have some fresh ideas, but this isn’t a break either.  It is over, unless I have enough will and new thoughts on it to make it work.  I have to change my way of thinking before I change COTS.

It has been suggested that I just work on book two instead, since that’s where all the cool stuff happens.  I don’t think that would help.  The fact that book one exists already would hamper anything new and clever.  I would be spending the whole time using book two to make book one make sense and to validate it, if you understand what I mean.  Book one is not good and book two would suffer from that.  Besides, I did try to work on TLATL.  I think that because of my frustrations with COTS, I am sick of the project as a whole.

Now, it’s time to close the books, tuck the papers away, and let it get out of my system.  Even when I was on break from writing, it was still in my blood, in my mind, and in my heart.  I have to let this project go, so that I can move on and tell a different story.

Goodbye, Shara.  You never had a chance to grow into yourself and put your past behind you.  Hell, you never had a chance to learn the entirety of your past.  I’m sorry I never gave you the chance to find your strength and realise who you were all along.  They are all just bells and whistles.

Goodbye, Leander.  May you find some other way to tame your anger and the flames.  I hope that one day you can curb your temper and be the voice of reason I always felt you were.  You were the one ruled by passion and impulse, but after the day is done, you were the warm comfort of consistency.

Goodbye, Navan.  I always hated you, but I knew that you could be redeemed.  How, I still wasn’t sure.  You were raw power and endless logic.  You were so smug that I wanted to kick you in the junk.  There’s no denying what you were and I knew you would find a way to make amends, and not just for your own gain.

Goodbye, twins of Gemini.  You grew to be my favourites.  I’m sorry about what I did to you.  I didn’t want to turn you into a plot device, but it happened.  I loved your banter and I always knew that your fight scenes would be the coolest.  Lai, you are the sister/best friend I wish I had, and Evan, you are the boy I’ll eternally crush on.

Goodbye, Something of the Stars.  You started as a daydream, became a comic, and settled into a splintered novel.  You were always there when I needed focus and I’m sorry I let you down.  I want to tell your story and make it work, but I need to draw strength from other ideas now.  Maybe there will be a day when it will be right and I can work on you again…  Until then, thank you.

Promo picture from when SOTS was still a comic. (2003)

 RIP – Something of the Stars - April 2003-February 2012

An excerpt from City of the Stars

“People don’t commit crimes anymore.  They are afraid of losing their minds and themselves.  They don’t want to become brainwashed citizens.”  He paced the length of the hall, trembling with the effort to remain calm and coherent.  Finally, he stopped, his back to her when he said, “There are few rules for us to break.  There is only one law that we, the Sovereign Elements, cannot break.”  Her expectant silence urged him on, “We serve the Royal Family completely and wholly.  We exist to maintain their divine connection.  We must never put another before them.  We are removed from our families, denied friendships, and forbidden to love.  I broke that rule.  Once.”

An excerpt from The Lady and the Lion

They called him firekin, this army of vessels that held him in captivity.  He paced in his cell for hours, seething and rattling the bars when the rage consumed him.  They also nicknamed him the Red Lion, which wasn’t far from the truth, but only fed his fire.

Well, that’s all she wrote… literally.  I think I need some time to – for a lack of a better word – mourn.  This was the closest I ever came to writing something to completion. I have to start from square one now, and it’s a scary thought.  There is emptiness and sadness, but somewhere buried, there is also hope.  This might not be forever, but it’s sure upsetting.

She shivered as she walked toward the open gateway.  Its clean whiteness hummed and beckoned her into the vast unknown.

Writing wisdom

As I’ve mentioned, I keep a journal, and I have since I was 10 years old, or so.  Over the years, my journalling has migrated to places like diaryland and LiveJournal, but I’ve been pretty consistent.  I chronicle the boring, the nonsensical, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the undecided, and I’m glad that I do.  If I didn’t, I would lose some of my amusing stories, or even the catch phrases I had.  I would lose bits and pieces of my past.

When I was 19, I started keeping a written journal again.  It was thorough and sometimes harsh.  I critiqued myself and my friends, and it was often no-holds-barred.  With an exercise like this, I was able to really look at myself and be honest, which is something I find doesn’t happen on the internet very often.  My journal became a very therapeutic experience and it brought me closer to the person I want to be.  Without it, I wouldn’t have dealt with some of my gravest issues or worked through some of the hardest parts of my life.

After I wrote that rage-tastic post on here last week, I churned out 400 words on chapter three and then went to bed.  The next day, I was still feeling pissed off and jaded, so I stomped around, did some errands, and then finally wrote about it in my written journal.  As I was writing, I came to a startling and wonderful realisation that helped me move on.  I want to share what I wrote and elaborate more on it.

I look at my stories from ten years ago and goddamn, have I improved.  I’ve improved so much.  My ideas and prose will become richer as I write and I’m still young.  Everyone has to start somewhere.  Maybe this won’t be the one to get published; maybe it’s not good enough.  If I don’t edit it and finish it, though, I will never know.  Once it’s done, I can send it out, but I can also move on.  I have other stories to tell, but I can’t focus on working and building on them yet because I’m already knee-deep in a project and I want to see it through, because I can.  This story needs to run its course.

It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.  I’m getting all bent out of shape about this book because it’s the closest I’ve ever been to completing a novel.  You know what, though?  There’s a difference between completing a novel and getting published.  What my focus right now should be is completing City of the Stars because getting published is a whole other battle.  And you know what?  The cold, hard truth is that when it’s all said and done, maybe this novel is not my peak or even worth publishing.  It’s hard to say because of the state it’s in right now, but maybe by the end, it’s not my breakthrough piece.

That doesn’t mean it can’t help get me there or be a stepping stone along the path to publishing.  When I am happy with it and have plotted out the remainder, I do want to send it off and see what happens.  I need to finish this story.  I don’t need to finish it because zomg i need to be published naoooo!!!!  No, I need to finish it because it has to leave my system and my brain.  I have to get this story out to make room for something new and fresh, because I have other stories to tell.  It needs to run its course.  If it doesn’t make the cut, maybe I will revisit it someday or even rip it apart or merge it with something else.  COTS actually absorbed another idea of mine, so who knows what the future will bring?

All I know is that I want to finish it to finish it and I think I was letting the stress of making it good enough to publish completely consume me.  I will make it good enough by my standards and see where that takes me.  Without my written journal, I probably wouldn’t have come to that conclusion.

While I’m far from being zen, I think I’ve calmed down and am taking editing less seriously now.  I still grimace when I write something shitty, but I tell myself, “Well, it’s better than it was.  Now it’s less shitty.”  And it’s true: with each re-write, it gets better.

I find that I’m really liking Scrivener, if only for its features.  I don’t need a fancy word processor, so I just work within the program.  I like that I can have the screen split for multiple documents and I like that I can add labels and tags to files.  The cork board and outliner viewers are great to see the project at a glance.  Then you can easily tell which are your weakest pieces and fix them up easily.  I know there is so much more I can do with the application, but I’m still discovering new features.  Only today did I find the tick box to enable typewriter scrolling, which ZOMG I cannot live without it any longer.

It’s a great program and I heartily endorse it, especially if you work on projects with many parts.  It’s just so easy to work on drafts this way!

It’s a relief to actually use a program for once instead of just loading it up to fiddle with the features and then letting it gather dust, like I did with WriteItNow.  It’s exciting to have a simple way to organise everything again, and make editing a lot less painful.  Hell, I even started and finished chapter four today, and it was even longer than my original draft.  It’s only sitting with the label of It’s okay, but it’s still getting better.

As you can see, I’m no longer seething.  I’ve calmed down and hopefully I can get some work done in the coming days!

Frustration

Warning: Full of anger and gruesome gifs.

It’s weird.  I started this blog as a means to organise my thoughts and ideas about writing.  I like WordPress because of all of its organisational tools.  I can throw things into categories, search through my entries easily, and even add pretty pictures to make it all come together.  Somewhere along the way, I tacked on my thoughts on video games and the odd book review and once again, it’s become more like a misguided journal dumpster instead of what I wanted it to be: a place where I could honestly talk about my writing and my difficulties.

I guess I kind of wanted to make it a popular place.  I wanted regular readers and comments.  Somehow, I always fall into the same trap.  This should be for me; it should be my outlet and if people comment, fine.  I lost track of that along the way and as I sit here, struggling to edit a draft, I feel crestfallen.  I think, I need somewhere to vent my frustrations.  I wish I still had that LiveJournal.  But, wait!  Here I have this blog, and what was it meant for in the first place?  What’s the point of having this if I sit around and wait for the perfectly formed blog entry to smack me in the face.  What is the goddamned point?

Augh.  If you couldn’t tell, I’m frustrated.  I’m so mad and upset and tortured over this.  I sit here, staring at the screen, reading my first draft, and I come up blank.  “How can I make this better?  Is there any way to make this better!?”  How is it I can sit around, nonchalantly writing RP posts, but I can’t write something that actually matters?  Why is nothing coming out?  Discouragement hits and I give up for the day.  “Oh, maybe I’ll do something tomorrow.”  But I don’t.  The days drag into weeks and into months and I’m still on goddamned chapter three.

This was not how it was supposed to be.  Editing was supposed to be easier.  I guess I failed to realise that I didn’t have a lot to work with.  I wrote what I could, because I need to have something.  As I sit here, though, nothing better comes to mind.  I feel like a failure and a fraud.  I’ve written about this before: how I want writing to be my career.  Yet, how can I live on this if I don’t get anywhere.  I think that’s part of the problem.  There’s this heavy weight on my shoulders and whispers in my mind.  This is all you’ve got, Melissa.  This is the only solid idea you’ve worked out.  This is the closest you’ve been.  You have to make it work.

I’m stressing myself out, I know.  Some people might say to take a break and leave it for awhile.  I can’t do that.  I’ve done that for the last few weeks and every day, I feel obscenely guilty.  How am I going to get anywhere if I avoid it?  And then it all boils over again and I ram my face into this wall.  AUUUUGH.  I’M JUST SO GODDAMNED FRUSTRATED.

Writing is fucking hard.  I don’t care what anyone says.  Sure, sometimes, if I’m lucky, I catch a break.  Sometimes, I sit down and miracles sprout and it sounds awesome and I’m just glowing with pride.  The rest of the time is like this.  It’s hard and frustrating and discouraging.  But I’m trying, damn it.  I’m actually trying so everyone can go sod off if they think I’m putting on a chapeau, sipping my latté, and calling myself an auteur.  It’s hard, I’m trying, and it’s work.  It’s not some damned pipe dream; I intend to actually make this a career someday, somehow.

Okay, this helped a bit.  Writing isn’t always this difficult for me.  I’ve been having a good run at Blood and Ashes, the Dragon Age RP.  It’s fun and casual and it’s been really helping my vocabulary and my work as a whole.  It’s just allllll the rest of the stuff.  COTS is not solid.  It’s a wobbling house of cards that needs fixing, but it’s not getting anywhere as it is now.

One thing I know for sure, my editing process is not working.  It’s awkward and hard to focus on.  AND FRUSTRATING.  DID I MENTION THAT!?  Blargh.  I’ve decided to take a different approach and try editing on the computer, but I feel like I come out even worse.  I just sit there, fiddling with the typography and staring at the screen, shaking my head.  Working on the computer leads to posts like this, full of RAGE.  Sigh.

I’ve started using a new application called Scrivener.  I’d heard of it before, but it was only available for Mac til recently.  I’m only testing it out right now, but I enjoyed the tutorial I went through yesterday.  Unfortunately, I’ve already forgotten most of the snazzy features it introduced to me.  I’m glad to have the chance to finally try it out, though, and maybe it might help.  Who knows.

What I might do… is start from scratch.  I’ve read through chapter three (and given it a tentative name… finally) and high-lited the phrases and sentences I liked and wanted to keep.  They totalled all of four.  inorite!?!?  AUUUGH.  (Okay.  I need to stop raging.  It’s just too frustrating, damn it.)  Anyway…  What I think I’m going to do from now on is read through the chapter a couple of times (and if it’s already longer, read through parts of it) and then start a re-write from scratch, especially on the ones that frustrate me so much… like this one.  It’s less than 600 words!  THIS ENTRY IS ALMOST TWICE AS LONG!  I just need a clean slate… and maybe it will help.