Month: October 2016

Writer’s Block & Writing

It’s one of the most frustrating things I encounter while writing.

It used to be that if I got writers block, I would not write, and I found that, that wasn’t the way to push past it. Not writing meant that no writing was getting done, no words were getting on the page – which meant no progress.

I feel like everyone has probably struggled with and through writers block. Sure, I’m talking about writing stories, but I had my fair share of writer’s block while trying to write college papers and assignments. Sometimes my brain just wouldn’t let me get the proper words down on paper, and it’s frustrating. Not being able to figure out how to phrase and word sentences, what words to use to best describe what it is you are trying to write about. It can make a relatively easy assignment into a multi-hour or day ordeal which is just stressful.

My biggest times for writers block is normally in the month of November, and then December. You might be wondering why those two months. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo – I do have a video coming out where I talk about NaNoWriMo and my experience with it so far, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here). The goal of NaNo is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, 30 days. It can be tough on top of school work and jobs, but I alway enjoy it every year.

The point of bringing up NaNo in this post is because in 2011 – my first year participating – I ended up with the WORST writer’s block ever, which lead me to finishing 25,000 words in the last five days – I finished with two minutes to spare. I physically couldn’t form words – nothing came out, my brain was incapable of english when it came to my story. I honestly don’t know why it was so bad, but for two weeks, I was unable to write anything creative for the story. I did finish, but the story was rubbish. Ultimately I ended up just spewing words, and I’m pretty sure that the majority of those 25,000 don’t make sense.

Then usually, after NaNoWriMo I’m creatively drained, so I usually don’t do writing in December, so I more or less take the month off and just read.

Now, when I encounter writer’s block, I force myself to push through it, even if the writing is terrible, if it sucks, if it doesn’t make any sense to the story I’m writing – because I can always go back and change it. I’m not going to lie. It took me a long time to realize that. For a long time I felt like anything I wrote had to be perfect, which isn’t realistic. No one writes a perfect first draft – well at least I’ve never met someone who has told me that whatever they write it perfect from the very beginning. I definitely believe that writing is a building process, that with each edit, each revision, each read through, the story gets better – that isn’t to say that all your time should be spent on editing and revising, because you can tweak something forever and convince yourself that you aren’t happy with it. I’m guilty of doing that, and still sometimes do that, but I’ve also come to terms with the fact that my stories aren’t going to be perfect the first time I put them down on paper. So when I do get writer’s block I just write whatever I can, and then I highlight it so I can find it later.

I find that, that is the great thing about writing – words change all of the time, and as the creator of my own worlds, I can tweak and change them until they are perfect pieces.

Writer’s block is a pain, I’m not going to lie about that. I hate when I get it, but I try my hardest to make sure it doesn’t keep me from putting words, even if they are crappy, on the page. If powering through it doesn’t help, sometimes going the old fashioned route with pen and paper helps me clear my head. There’s something about doing it long hand in a journal, and seeing the words form that helps me get through it and work out ideas.

I know that not everyone can just power through writer’s block, that everyone has their own ways of dealing with it.

Let me know how you all deal with writer’s block.

Thanks!

Writing Journey: Episode 1

Okay, where do I start. I wanted to do this in a video, but currently my camera battery is dead, so blog post it is.

Before I can tell you all about my writing, you should probably know, that I have been an avid reader my whole life. I would fall asleep with books all over my bed, shoved down to the foot of it. My mom would always scold me, telling me that I couldn’t possibly get a good nights sleep. These days, I don’t have books crammed at the foot of it, but they do surround me.

Now, onto the writing portion – I can tell you all about my reading habits later.

The first “real story” (I use that term SO lightly) I wrote was when I was in 7th grade (2007) and I thought it was amazing. I thought it was so grown up, so (new adult – even though the genre didn’t exist back then). Reality was, the book wasn’t “amazing” it was crap. Now, I know you might be thinking, maybe, “It can’t have been that bad” – no let me assure you, it was, it still is. I still have the blue spiral bound Mead notebook that I wrote it in. The pencil is all smudged and I probably should look into typing it up before it becomes illegible – but honestly, I hate reliving that book.

It’s not good – it’s awful. It’s so unrealistic – literally the things that happen in that story CANNOT happen. I’m not talking about urban fantasy or anything like that, NOPE, it’s worse. It’s a seventh graders idea of what high school is like in the most horrifying way possible. It’s like half the time I forgot that they were teenagers, in a school building. There are too many characters, no character building, or world building for that matter – it’s just an awful story. SO BAD.

I have looked back at it over the years – even some of my friends have read it, and laughed so hard. But 2007 me thought that this was the best thing on the planet – I am so happy that it’s not. It’s been years though since I read through it, and I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, what the premise is. If I recall correctly, I never actually got around to finishing the story.

Looking back the story is bad, it’s not good, and just thinking about how much better I am now, I’m thankful for the writing classes, the workshops, the books, the people I can trust to give me GOOD critique and feedback, and my experiences – because if you were to compare my writing from 2007 to 2016 – there is a vast difference.  I didn’t finish the story, and there are so many more that I never finished either, and a lot of the time, it was because I outgrew the story, or it didn’t hold my interest – but I have so many more completed works, or ideas out there that a story from 2007 doesn’t mean much to me anymore.

So that is the start of my writing journey, 2007 and a story that is so bad that I HOPE the world never has to see it.

Next time, I’ll be talking about my next big endeavor(s) as a writer, and I think once I’ve gotten through all my big projects, I’ll put a video out, showing you all the printed versions (if I have a printed version of the piece). I want to work my way up my current project – a science fiction/dystopian/space travel book (I know it sounds like a lot, but that’s the best way to describe it currently). But for now, I think that’s it.

I hope this helps, or you find it interesting – and I promise, the closer to the present I bring you, the more interesting these posts will become.

Thanks!

Book Review: Letters to the Lost

Title: Letters to the Lost14595608_10154689154344429_6996867762388217797_n

Author: Brigid Kemmerer

Publish Date: April 4, 2017

My Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Juliet Young always writes letters to her mother, a world-traveling photojournalist. Even after her mother’s death, she leaves letters at her grave. It’s the only way Juliet can cope.

Declan Murphy isn’t the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he’s trying to escape the demons of his past.

When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can’t resist writing back. Soon, he’s opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate. But neither Declan nor Juliet knows that they’re not actually strangers. When life at school interferes with their secret life of letters, sparks will fly as Juliet and Declan discover truths that might tear them apart.

Brigid was kind enough to send me one of the U.K. ARCs – So thank you so so much Brigid!

Before I even started to read this book, I took so many pictures of it to put on Bookstagram, no literally, there are like 200 photos of this book on my phone right now. The only problem with that was, I would be holding the book open, and the temptation to read the words on the random page was so strong.

When I finished this book, so many emotions were streaming through me. From the very beginning, I just needed to know what was going to happen next. I finished it the day I received it, and I *almost* feel bad about that, but the only thing that stopped me for a moment was dinner. I do wish I had savored this book, rather than devouring it, but like with any good book, all I wanted to do was read until I was done.

Juliet is such interesting characters, and as I read I thought I knew how this story was going to end…I WAS SO WRONG. AND I LOVED THAT I WAS WRONG. (the way I thought the book was going to end was so cliche) but Brigid blew my mind. I think I even gasped out loud at that part. It was so unexpected in the sense that I hadn’t expected it. I loved how it complicated things for Juliet, and she had to work through the struggle. Declan and his “reputation” – I loved his character. The way Brigid wrote his character, I just wanted to keep giving him hugs.

I loved every moment of this book, and Brigid wrote it so fantastically, told this amazing story in such a way that felt so honest and pure. The pacing was perfect, everything about this book is perfect. I can already see myself reading it again, and you can bet that I will be pushing this book onto everyone.

Even thought this books doesn’t come out until 2017, it is definitely one of my favorite reads of 2016.

My Plans Writing the Universe.

My Plans Writing the Universe.

Okay, where do I begin?

FINALLY! So, I started this post exactly 9 days ago, talking about how I hadn’t gotten Writing The Universe set up the way I wanted it to look. Compared to then, I’d say we are about 85% of the way there, which makes me feel confident enough to bring this blog LIVE. So there’s that. *happy dance*

Anyways…

I just wanted to put out a post explaining my goals for this blog.

  1. I will be posting book reviews.
  2. Personal tips for writing – basically anything that I find works.
  3. Updates on my own personal writing journey.

Since this is relatively new to me, I don’t know *yet* how often I will be posting on here. I’m currently in a book rut – nothing is really grabbing my attention, but I do have some old reviews that I will be posting.

*The reviews are from an old blog I used to run, so they are a couple of years old, but after reading back over them, my thoughts on the books still hold true.

**Turns out, I can change the date they are posted, and while I’ve had this blog for roughly half a month, the blog posts will be archived early – just go to the Archives widget on the sidebar, or click the Reviews in the drop down menu.

I’m currently writing my book Destiny – I go and sit in my local Barnes and Nobles every morning, with my Vanilla Latte and try to write *at least* 1,500 words.

I’m going to do my best to get content out on this blog – I have big goals in mind, (hopefully they aren’t *too* big).

I do have some reviews that I will be posting this week since they are already typed up and ready to go, but I probably won’t posting that often in the future. Like I said, it’s taken me FOREVER to figure this site out, and I think (knock on wood) that I’m finally figuring it out.

I hope you all enjoy this blog!

Thanks!