Yo, TTT

Hey guys,

We've been PRETTY LAX about this forum.  I wonder if the wonky formatting and whatnot have been keeping us from being really involved.  Maybe we want to look into editable Google docs or something?

Anyway, I really don't want TTT to die.

Breakthrough!

Holy crap, guys. Holy. Crap.

Today I had a huge breakthrough with my writing.

Lightning struck. The clouds parted. Birds sang. All the cliches collided in one giant thunderclap of comprehension.

Things have been improving since last weekend anyway. I spent it with my parents etc up in New Hampshire just utterly relaxing for the first time in a long time. It was glorious. When I got home in MA, I started writing the first thing that I've been wanting to write without acknowledging it - my Stormwatch series (a.k.a. Mortal Coils witches). This went fairly well. I felt better. I knew a breakthrough was on my horizon.

And then yesterday I spent several hours reading and wandering around a bookstore. I've been toying with this idea of writing something memoir-ish for NaNo this year, so I perused the "Writing" section and found this book: Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg. Everything else was stuffy and stupid. But this book... as soon as I read the first paragraph it resonated with me. I flipped through it and saw a bunch of blank space where she practically yells at you to write - so I threw down a few bucks and bought it.

Today, I took that book with me to lunch. And while I was eating and slowly digesting the first five pages I suddenly realized... Holy shit. This woman is talking to me. She is me! I can hear her as though she's sitting across from me right now. She is in my head. And she's telling me how to get out of this funk I've been in and specifically how to get on with my life.

I went to Target and bought a notebook. I sat at a bench and wrote a page. I went back to the bookstore and read 80 pages of a novel. I wrote another page. I came home and made dinner. I picked up my computer and out flew 1500 words like it was nothing. A complete short story.

In conclusion, I have conquered that grumpy, grasping, glib monster that is writer's block in a most magnificent way. I'm going to go write another page before I fall asleep. And, you know what? I'm taking my notebook to work with me tomorrow to write on my breaks.

[As an explanatory aside: I am leaving Wings alone until it starts to beckon me back. I'm also going to embrace writing longhand for awhile. I miss it, and I've always felt more inspired and personal writing that way. I shall continue to update here on my progress, and hopefully will have some stuff for you guys to read from time to time. Also working on the backlog of reading your stuff too. OH, and we need to get together for a writer's weekend when we can make that work!]

New resource

I'm adding a new link to The Hoard. It's the BlaBlaBla Meter, and it measures the presence of "bullshit" words in your work. It's pretty fun.

http://www.blablameter.com/impressum.php

On Writing

I haven't been writing.

This is extremely abnormal for someone who probably hasn't gone more than a few days without writing something since she was in middle school. 

I haven't been writing for almost a month now - anything serious anyway. I've managed to do some journaling this week. And I scrawled some story notes. I even got a couple hundred words of editing down. It's a long, slow climb back out of this hole, I suppose. 

But the fact remains that I haven't been writing, and now it's haunting me because my life is a mess right now (not by my own design for once) and I'm lacking my anchor to bring me back to myself - back to my normal. The heat of the tea in my mug isn't soothing. The antics of my cat playing don't amuse. Exercise and physically getting projects done can't keep me distracted. I'm just stuck in this place asking myself "Why is this happening to me?" and there's nothing to draw me away from it. At least if I was writing I'd have that other world to go to. But that world, those worlds, they all feel so distant. I'm stuck in my lighthouse with no boat back to shore (or out beyond the horizon). All my thoughts do is inspire cobwebs forming, dust settling in, nooses tightening. I look down on my creations and laugh or muse or despair over them - but I do not create.

Have I lost my words? Maybe I just feel like I never had a great grip on them in the first place. I don't recall the process so much, and then I feel like the end product is foreign to me. I am detached from its existence. I created that? Me? No way. Is this because I don't reread my work enough? Or do I purposely distance myself from my own words...

I don't know enough about any of this. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I'm losing a grip on being a writer. And if I lose that, what am I? Who am I? 

I haven't been writing, but I want to be writing. Every day. All day. In the worst way. 

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

- Ray Bradbury

Wings of Destiny, Chapter 4

Here's chapter four of Wings of Destiny. I apologize yet again. I've been in an awful place writing-wise. I'm really gonna try hard now to get back on track. I wrote this forever ago (like four or five months ago). I hope it holds up. 

I swear, eventually I will catch up on your stuff.

Wings of Destiny chapter 3

Bah. I am truly sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this. I've been having writer's block to the worst degree lately, and that combined with a lot of "this is your life" shit has made it really difficult for me to even want to contemplate this book. Let alone feel worthy of editing other peoples' works.

At any rate, I'm going to resume posting what I've accomplished. I'll slowly and steadily catch up with reading/editing your stuff too!

Wings of Destiny, Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay! I fail at my goals already apparently. Was without my laptop for several days.

Here's chapter two.

Rose Marie drove with violent speed through the streets of Alexandria. How dare her brother imply that reconciliation with their parents be plausible in this lifetime? She had no intention of ever looking them in the face again. They shut the door in her face a long time ago, and even if they opened it again, she wouldn’t be waiting there on the doorstep like some stupid dog.

Addendum to My Summer Goals

I forgot to mention my goals concerning my Feel Better Blog. I'm trying to make it a part of my general writing schedule and have had middling success with it so far. Big goals for it this summer would be to get in the habit of publishing something on it at least three times a week with the eventual goal of posting something every weekday if not every day.

I've found it to be a really helpful secondary project. It's definitely a good place for me to get a lot of my meandering thoughts down in one place so they don't start taking over my life.

Tragedy Goals for the Summer

Here are my goals for the summer in no particular order - although I think it a bit amusing that we are using "summer" as a period of time when none of us are going to be in school in the fall!

1.) Finish this draft of Wings of Destiny as soon as humanly possible.
2.) Write a kick-ass query letter for WoD.
3.) Send out said query letter to agents until I hear back from someone who wants to see the whole thing.
4.) In the meantime, focus on writing the first book of my Stormwatch series (planned series about the Macpherson witch clan), and plotting out others.

I might have to come up with a contingency plan if I don't hear any good feedback from anyone for WoD - but I'm pretty willing to spend at least a year trying to get someone before I move on to other things. I'm going to bent on this one book for awhile though I think. I'll probably have a schedule up for my query letter submissions up at some point.

Those are my big goals for now. I might try and sketch out a short story or two, but definitely not until I'm done with Wings.

Wings of Destiny, Chapter the First

To kick off our weekly reading submissions, I present the revamped Wings of Destiny, starting with chapter one. This is probably all I'm going to be submitting for awhile so you guys better get used to it now!

Ideas for editing: general ideas/problems in the comments, grammar/style edits in different colored font? I'm open to suggestions for how best to handle that part. 

I tagged this post with my TTT moniker, the name of the work, and a "please edit." Anything else I should include?