Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Sim*ple Inspiration

Back in school, I went over to my friend's house and she introduced me to a game called, "The Sims". Went on to get all the expansion packs and was excited to upgrade to the Sims 2 about ten years or so later. It's a roleplaying and a highly addictive game. But little did I know that it would start to be the inspiration to my writing.

My other friends and I were talking about Nanowrimo that will be happening in November. We write a novel of 50,000 words; technically, it doesn't have to make sense. I would tell my friends, no I'm not doing it, but I've already told them that whenever I say the word "no", someone always tends to talk to me out of it--which isn't that hard to do anyway.

Heck, I almost forgot about doing Nanowrimo this year. But then when my friends mentioned it, I knew that I had to think of something. Thankfully, I was also playing the Sims 2 at the time and got the idea to use my sims as inspiration. I was paying close enough attention that I've started an outline in time for November. Now if only I can keep it up until December--that will be the real challenge.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Getting to Know You, Getting to Know Us

 Getti

As a human being, I've always liked to stay out of the limelight.  In a way of being an author of sorts, there's a part of you that you have to put out there in order to connect to readers, perhaps to let them know that you're human, not part robot :D There are times though when I'm not feeling this cheery and do feel like a robot, so it's partially true you know what they say.

At least as a writer, we express our feelings not always through facial expressions but through our writing. You can tell when we're feeling rather cheery, and then when we're feeling not so cheery. A lot of the time I know that I show things through an internal, code like thing; feels rather cryptic at times, but some secret code that has been made up over the years.

I'm finding now that it's not just human beings that are unique, but the writers inside.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Goal Accomplished


Hah! Absence undone! I am back. Ehem! I was a little preoccupied with one of the fanfiction stories that I've been working on. You see, I've been working on this particular story for three years, and now after writing blocks, stopping for about a year (don't worry, I just stopped writing this story--not writing in particular.), I have reason to finally celebrate.

It was only three days from the second to last chapter that I put up, that I wrote the last and final chapter. After all the tailspins, cliffhangers from the muse; this baby was complete. A total of 56,693 words had been written. I could rejoice. In fact, I did just that--I got up and jumped up and down. The days previous to this joyous moment had been long, yet all worth it.

I learned a great lesson as a writer, in a whole new level: plug away at every word, line and sentence. Don't ever settle for giving up. The days may seem long when writing, but remember that every chapter or line that you write is a goal accomplished--not just when you finish writing the story.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Welcome to Fiction Land


Have you ever watched a TV show or movie and wished that something had gone differently? For example, BONES is just one of the shows that I watch with a passion. A lot of people have been pining for Agent Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperance Brennan to get together and be a couple.

Well thanks to the joys of fanfiction, you can write them as a couple and do whatever you please. Well, as long as it's logical and not too OOC (Out of character), you can write them into some alternative universe You'll find how rewarding it is when you get reviews from other author's, who might even become your fan base of followers. 

Monday, August 22, 2011

Dead of the Night


My favorite time of the day to write is at night, when the day has ended and the house is quiet. The words just seem to flow better in a quiet environment, period. More is written in a period of time than when there are less distractions. 

In fact, I just turned off the TV and put my headphones on so that I could focus and write this post. It's the just barely the beginning of the day, nonetheless. I thought about writing last night, but the truth is: I was exhausted and needed to close my eyes. 

And now that I've gotten up and made myself comfy, I have a goal in mind to finish that last chapter of my fanfiction story that I started three years ago. All the nights that I must have stayed up, all the lost sleep that was, well . . . lost, will be no more from this story. I will be free to start another--or at least have one less story to worry about in the future.

Friday, August 19, 2011

A Sense of Accomplishment

Someone I look up to, gave me one of the greatest gifts that I could have. She opened my eyes to me when she said, "don't let a day go by where you don't have a goal." We talked about some things and as well as accomplishments and how good it feels to accomplish something.

After trying it out a little, I started to realize what she had meant. The first time that I actually thought about what I wanted to do and I did it, I felt great. After doing it again and again, there was an even more sense of accomplishment--but sometimes there has to be patience, especially when it takes years just to do that.

It may not be published work--out in the world and sold work, but when I first started working on this piece of fanfiction, I was three years into writing fanfiction and still trying to find my way. Well, I'm still trying to find my way but with every thing accomplished, it seems that I've stepped a level.

Three years ago, I also started three stories (three seems to be the lucky number in this case!) with the thought of finishing them one day. And that day is finally is coming to a close for one of those stories as I prepare myself to write the final chapter.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

In the Form of a Song

One day I had allowed a friend to read some of the poetry I had written. I'm not sure on the specific ones that were read, or even on what day, a month--or even the year that it happened. But the thing that she said was "you should make this into a song". And as much as I tried to, I failed miserably to come up with something that worked with the words that had been written.

Up until about a week ago, I was playing around on the piano again. The house was quiet which pushed me even further, and I soon found that the song that I was coming up with--sentence after sentence-- turned out to be okay.

I found that writing a song is like writing a novel--but in a different way. The first song was okay . . . but the second is even better. And I betting on that just like any kind of writing that is worked on continually, that it just keeps getting better from here.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Typing to the Beat

I tweeted this a few minutes ago, not thinking--but not excluding--the fact that it would spark a blog post. "Anyone else have music that you specifically listen to while writing? What are your favorites? Tell me, what gets you into the writing mood?" 

So I want to know--do you have a writing playlist, or would you rather write in silence? Here in this house, it depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Sometimes the world is a crazy place and I just want to plug in my headphones and escape the world for a little while: enter into the world of the words that fill my mind. But yes, that is why I have a writing playlist specifically for that when I'm in the mood.

I have to say, I'm looking at my list right now, and there's definitely a great mixture in a rather long playlist of songs that have been collected over the years. A lot that has filled the list is Owl City, to me is perfect writing music. They have a new CD out. It's pretty good, for the most part. Each one of his CD's (Yes, one person sings in this band. His name is Adam...you're welcome) are unique in their own way.

Iyaz, Blue October, Howie Day, SafetySuit, Enigma, are also others that have made my list. If those music artists don't set the mood, I usually take the whole day to try and write. If I can make it that far that is (or have the time) before I decide to close my computer and move onto something else for a little while. You know, that's okay too.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Where You Can



When I was working at my first job, I found that I always to have a paper and pen or I was in trouble. Despite being up to my knees in work, my mind was apparently going a million miles a minute--and so is the writer's mind. Welcome to it.
Even though I was working long hours, I was tired and my mind was almost numb, but I often couldn't wait to get home to write, and that's when I could say that was when my writing skills were put to the test.

I remember having pages upon pages of ideas, or a saved document full of ideas just waiting to be written waiting at home. I would literally pull papers out of my pockets when I came home from work.

My mind usually tends to go faster than I can usually write, even still to this day. A lot of things that I've written down, still haven't been written. Original story ideas are still on the waiting list and I work to write all of it before more ideas spark.



A couple months ago I began writing poetry again. As an aspiring author, I would love to write enough of them to publish a book one day. I would even love to learn how to focus enough to write an original story and really get my name out there. All comes in due time, I suppose.

IMAGE CREDIT: http://www.futurefiction.com/

Thursday, August 11, 2011

What I've Learned From Writing Fanfiction

1. Having an idea about a story, and then actually writing the story are two different things. It takes a lot of time to come up with all details and to actually write all the chapters. Maybe even a little more time than you thought it would take--even when writing fanfiction.

2. Research! Can't stress that enough. Just like any book, there are characters. There are details that need to be researched in a story so it seems well put together. Not everyone minds the quick stories, but with other people it can annoy the heck out of them and even turn them away from the story.

3. Two words: spell check. Another important thing is checking your spelling, grammar and spacing. It can also turn people away from actually reading your story. You might also get some nasty reviews from people trying to run you out. No joke.

4. Reviewing can be a good way for an author to improve. Although it's nice to get reviews, knowing that people are reading your story. I even need to improve on this one, but it's nice to get more than a "that was a good chapter" kind of a review.

5. When writing, it sparks the creativity. You can write just about anything, and we see both the good, bad and the ugly.

And that is just the beginning of the things learned from writing fanfiction; just from the top of my head.

Have a good night.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

I Can't Seem to Write Anything, Alright.

First off: yes, you can! 

When I first started writing fanfiction six years ago and then poetry, I felt like I wasn't that good. Yeah, it's no secret. Whatever you start at first won't always be good, so don't be disappointed when it happens to come out that way.

Whether you're blogging, starting a book, publishing online, writing poetry, etc. Any of those things require much patience with practice, so don't ever say that you can't do it. Instead, replace it with an "I can." I can do it. You may not think that you're good at it, but just keep writing and then wait for a year and see if you're not any good at it. Best of all--keep practicing and look back in a couple years to see what you've accomplished. 

So if you think that you're not good at anything--think again. Talents are worth a million bucks. If you keep with them and write every day, then you can improve. If you let it go, you become rusty and lose the talent. So if this is what you want to do, keep it up. It doesn't matter what you're writing, just write something!