one third

I have so far managed at least one poem every day this month (and on some days more), bringing me to the total of 15. Not spectacular, but enough to be happy with. I'm on page 43 of 100 in my script, and I haven't written in it today. That 43 is in text pages; in pages that I've laid out to later be drawn I now have over 100, which I'm rather proud of. Plenty of material for drawing in May.


Speaking of May, I just signed up at 750words today and entered myself in the May challenge to write 750 words every single day (for the month of May); going along with my more personal goal to sketch 3 semi-good pages of my script every day, I think I might need to be institutionalized. Especially since I know I tend to break, not bend, under pressure. At least it'll be during summer break, which, incidentally, is when I'm also planning on adding at least four boxes to my garden . . . umm.

Anyway, today I wrote my first 800 words on the site as just journaling/brainstorming, as is suggested on the About page, and I found it was very freeing to just push the words out like that. I've been greatly in need of some brainstorming, for both my script and my NaNo novel, which is still in progress. I didn't get that far in my Screnzy-storming, but I think I may have finally figured out my NaNo villain's motivation, which is amazing for my motivation on finishing that story. I then wrote 600 words in that novel, getting past the roadblock I'd set myself up with last time I wrote in it, and opening it up for more writing tomorrow. And proving that I can sometimes hop from story to story like a crazy jackalope.

Which is important, because I've once again let myself get too many projects without having an end in sight for any of them. I now have, in progress: a quarterly challenge story for my writing group, a story for my Facebook writing group that promises to be a novel, my Screnzy, and my NaNo novel all biting at my heels. My highest priority right now is, of course, Screnzy, but besides that I know I need to finish my NaNo novel. I only worry that if I put the other 'fun' stories to the back burner, I'll lose the vestiges of the universe that I've created for them in my head and no longer know what to write.

This is a phenomenon I've experienced before: there's a point I hit--usually during NaNo or when I first start a story--where I'm so very into my current story that I spend a good deal of the day just playing with it in the back of my head, trying out different scenes and conflicts and motivations. And I can't capture that, no matter how many notes I write down, no matter the amount of brainstorming and character building--once I stop for too long, my little universe closes up shop and I have a lot of trouble resurrecting it. You'd think that would stop me from opening up new projects in the middle of others, but sometimes I just get the perfect scene (I always get pictures, never actual what-if ideas), and hope that it'll resolve into a quick short story.

With my track record, that's a pretty ridiculous hope, (my current NaNo novel being at 160k words and not done yet), but it's somehow worse to just let the lines and ideas and scenes just slip away. If I start them, I have the possibility of going back to them someday. Even though it's much more likely I'll just find a new scene or inspiration when I'm in need of one, there's at least the hope I'll finish something instead.


edit: I've decided my blog posts are more and more just big blocks of text. And I really do need to use my tablet more often (so I can get better at drawing with it), so I might start to put pertinent sketches in here more often. Excuse my (awful gradeschool) drawing skills, and my cluelessness about how to draw well on the computer.

So here's my visualization of seeing my novel universe with the inside of my eyeballs. Yeah. Anyway. 'Gold' is the nickname I've given this project so I can easily refer to it. Each of those people-ish things is one of my characters. Sorta. Bah, now I don't want to keep it up here! It sucketh greatly.

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Listening to: Between by Vienna Teng. I'm obsessed. This is great music to write to. I've been listening to Der Glöckner for Screnzy inspiration, but the rest of the time I've got Vienna Teng and Missy Higgins competing for my attention. This song and Drought are also great to garden to, especially on lovely stormy days.