Much Easier Said, than Done

I'm not saying that I thought writing a novel would be easy, but I certainly didn't think it would be seven years in the making.  Let's be honest, after seven years of stewing over one story and chasing plot bunnies down various Alice-esque rabbit holes, one would think that I would have a pretty solid idea of where the hell I'm going by now.  But I don't.  I'm 17K words in to my first novel and I'm still not sure where the gang is going to end up.
Let's get this straight.  I know the general idea of how I want things to go...but that doesn't mean I know the directions.  And this isn't one trip that my addiction to Google maps can navigate.  Unfortunately.  Believe me.  I've tried.

And my time is WANING.  As in, I have two weeks to complete what I couldn't complete ALL SUMMER.  This is to say, my summer goal was to at least make a dent in my novel.  Technically summer began for me on May 10 at 9am when I finished my last exam and it will end September 1 at about 9am when I move back to campus.  Ugh.  Shoot me. 

And college is a whole other can of worms.  Believe me.  We're not even going to go there.  Let's just say there's a big change coming up for me, as in a move (hopefully into an apartment if I can swing the cash) and a school switch.  I'm not looking forward to it.  Actually, that's a lie.  I am looking forward to changing schools in a sort of morbid way, in that it will be nice to be in a new environment, but it will also suck becuase I will have no friends.  However, no friends could be a pro because then I'd have absolutely nothing else to do with my time than to lie around and work on my damn novel!  This is a great idea.  No friends is looking better and better... 

Well...I suppose that's all I have to say.  Whoever you are, that may or may not be reading this...

On Abandoning Projects

Or not necessarily abandoning projects, just setting them aside for another time.  I currently have put my series on a back burner and am working on a stand-alone.  I needed a break from constantly thinking about this series that has consumed me for YEARS. 

So now I'm working on this new, non-fantasy novel that chronicles the life of a young man through the eyes of his only friend.  I'm hoping that working on this will beat into me the drive that I need to finish my other projects.  Hopefully things will start picking up soon.  My summer goal besides passing the class I'm taking and finding a decently-paying job is to finish this novel.  There is nothing I would love more than going into my next year of college knowing that I can accomplish writing a book.

That would be beast.

Now, I just have to make that dream become a reality.  Well, I'm off to write a little more now and watch some Supernatural with the family.  Should be a good night.  Hot guys on the TV and some hot words on my screen.  Let's go.

There must be more to life than Easy Mac.

As a college student, I find it hard to motivate myself to write.  I sit behind a computer most of the day, either doing homework or procrastinating.  I wish I could say that while procrastinating I actually write my novel, but I don't.  Sometimes, I'm just burnt-out and I don't want to write.  Sometimes (like right now) I really want to write, but I really need to do homework and take a shower and do other, seemingly more productive things.

College is hard enough as it is.  There really is nothing that can prepare you for it.  I'm one of those home-sick types.  I've always sort of been a loner, so that's not what really bothers me about college, I think it's just the overall lack of familiarity.  It is a completely new setting and sometimes it just sucks the life out of me.  I feel tired and upset and I don't want to do the things I have to do, let alone do the things I love to do, like write.  To me, writing is important.  It's an integral part of who I am, I've never not written.  But, here at college, it's hard to continue with the pattern of writing a little bit everyday.  I find myself sucked into an idea vacuum, where all I can see is darkness and the next scene of my novel is so far away it seems like it will never come.  For example, I hadn't written anything of consequence until Spring Break (which happened to be last week) because of this minor success I had a renewed passion for my novel that was promptly sapped from me the minute I arrived back on campus.  I just have lost all of my ideas, all of my inspiration and I don't know how to get it back. 

I look all around me, and I see that I really need to study a map of the Mediterranean for my New Testament course and I need to study meter and rhyme scheme for literature, but I'm just sitting here on my bed, eating wintergreen mints and listening to Disney songs on Pandora.  It's a sort of sad existence.

I would like to say that if I were back home, this would all be better.  I wouldn't be so stressed about school, I wouldn't be so tired, I wouldn't be so moody, I would want to write, I would have ideas coming out of my ears.  But I can't guarantee that it would be that way.  I know I blame my writer's block on school and stress and, yes, that is part of it, but I need to just get my rear-end in gear and write.  It doesn't have to be good.  It just has to be there.  I have to get this story out of my head before I lose it.  Hopefully, progress will continue to be made, we shall see.

All Good Stories Don't Necessarily Start at the Beginning

As is the case with this one.

I'm coming in late in the game, so to speak, in my endeavor to write a novel.  I've been shedding blood, sweat and tears over this particular project since the 8th grade.  Considering I am now a college student, that is a very long time indeed.  However, I am coming to you now to chronicle my struggles and triumphs in writing my novel(s) and then the trial and errors of publishing if it even gets that far and then the future and beyond. 

So, I suppose a little background information is needed.  This novel I'm writing is a first-in-a-series.  I can say, without giving away spoilers, that it's about a boy who sees ghosts.  And no, it's not the Sixth Sense.  The series is about all of the children who have special gifts.  (Not like The Shinning, c'mon people give me a little credit for being creative!)  We'll see where it goes.  Maybe I'll post more interesting tidbits later as this project progresses....We shall see.

But for now, I believe this is a good enough start.  Adios.