"And what happened in the end?"

I'm done. It's finished. I am, quite frankly, shocked that I have actually finished something. I'll start editing tomorrow, and hopefully have pages for you guys to read in the next couple days.

Julia

Crisis Averted

I've already worked on the ss for today, but didn't quite get in my 600 words, so I'll do the rest here. The day after I posted that I wouldn't be posting everyday was the first time I felt I really couldn't write anymore of my ss. I ended up writing a stream-of-consciousness nonsense which I will not share because it was a lot of whining and panicking about why I couldn't write. I almost wondered if it had something to do with my not posting, but I think I just needed another day to think about where this story was going.

Sure enough, the very next day I continued on as if nothing was wrong. Crisis averted. By my estimation, however, I am almost halfway through this story, which is usually about the time I start to lose interest. This is why forcing myself to work on it is really good. Because even if the ending I write is crap, at least I will have finished it. That's the thing, I tend to like the beginnings because I write them so often I'm better at them. But since I never write endings I have no practical experience with them.

Anyway, I just wanted to update you on my progress and assure you that I am not cheating. In fact, once I get going, I usually write at least double my word quota which is why I'm already up to 13 pages. (Today being the one notable exception.)

It's funny...I can remember being in elementary school doing a writing exercise. I think I started writing a story about some orphaned kittens and ran out of time before I could finish it. I remember my teacher writing on it that the ending needed work, and I thought how unfair because I hadn't had time to finish it so there was no ending. I never went back and finished it. Now, I'm not saying that all my problems stem from this one incident, I'm just pointing out that this has been a lifelong struggle for me. I wonder if I still have that workbook somewhere? I feel like I saw it somewhat recently.

Oh well, time to get ready for work.

I'm Using My Thinkin' Brain!

It seems silly to write about the fact that I'm writing, and then not post what I'm writing. "What, spy on our own spy while he searches for their spy? Why not, sounds fun!" That's from Blackadder for those of you in the back.

Anyway, I'm posting this to say that while work on this short story is progressing nicely (I wrote more than double my word quota yesterday) I'm starting to realize that it will still be a long time before it's finished. So, unless I get some vehement objections, I am not going to post every day just to tell you that I've been working on something. That doesn't mean I won't occasionally use my writing time for blogging about the events of my life. At first, I felt I needed to post every day in order to be accountable to someone other than myself. But it actually feels (knock on wood) like the writing is getting easier. I don't know that I'm getting any better at it, but I can make myself sit down and let the words pour out of my fingers with relative ease. If I start to feel like cheating, I'll go back to posting every day so you lot can keep an eye on me.

So if you don't hear from me tomorrow, just know that my typin' fingers are busy elsewhere.

The Dangers of Napping

Curses! I missed the midnight deadline! Ah well, I was only coming on here to tell you that I worked a little on the SS (short story) and a little on UFS#1 (unfinished story number one).

Also, I didn't get to sleep until 5 AM this morning. Let all of you be warned about the dangers of napping before bedtime.

See you tomorrow.

No Sleep In Brooklyn

I don't normally work on Wednesdays, but the girls were at trade shows today, so I worked a full day. Not only that, but I did not sleep well last night, and have stumbled around today feeling only mostly awake despite the extra coffee I had at lunch. (Usually, I only allow myself one cup in the morning because if I don't restrict myself, I will drink it all day long and then I really don't sleep.)

So when I got home tonight, I ate dinner, put on Mythbusters, and couldn't keep my eyes open. Like an idiot, I said, "Let me just lie down for a moment and rest my eyes..."

I woke up at 8:30 still feeling extremely groggy. I decided to try to put on another Mythbusters while I woke up a little. It had only been a half hour nap, and should be perfect to just shake it off and keep going. But I fell asleep again. This continued until I finally decided, at just before 11:00PM to turn out the lights and let myself go to sleep for real. I knew this would mean not writing today. I also knew it would be the first time I had failed at my goal. My thoughts went thusly:

I can't believe it only took you a week to fail at this. You should get up and try to write.

But I'm so tired! I honestly don't think I could string two sentences together.

But if you miss one day, you know it will throw the whole thing off, you'll figure since you failed you might as well just stop the experiment, because what, really, is the point of going on?

No, don't do that! There is a lesson here. One setback should not derail the whole train. This is exactly your problem, Julia, you make one mistake and instead of learning from it and growing as a person, you just throw your hands up in the air, call yourself a failure and sulk for 6 months. Just let yourself go to sleep, get up early tomorrow and write twice as much. Your friends and family will forgive you.

At which point, I tucked myself in, closed my eyes and prepared to sleep.

Okay, you can sleep now.

It's really all right, you don't have to stay awake. Just go to sleep and write about this in the morning.

Damn.

So now here I am, awake at last, just in time for me to completely ruin my sleep tonight. Thank goodness I have the day off tomorrow, though I was hoping to get up at a semi-reasonable hour to get stuff done. You know, laundry and stuff. The plus side is that I am writing today, but it would have been OK if I hadn't. The world wouldn't have ended, the challenge wouldn't have suffered, and no one would have been mad at me. (You wouldn't right?)

Ah well. As long as I'm up, I guess I'll work on my short story. See you tomorrow.

A Very Good Day

I'd like to start this post by thanking all of you for your encouraging comments. I know it must be difficult to find time to read this blog every day. Trust me when I say it's been hard finding time to write everyday, so I feel your pain. To answer your question Jenna, no I haven't made any videos since I got my new computer. There were a few kinks in the new editing program on this computer, and I haven't taken the time to smooth them out. I know it can be done, I just haven't taken the time to do it yet. I don't think there were any other questions...or maybe my memory is going.

OK, on to the other stuff! I have had a great day! It was the sort of day I haven't had in...I can't remember when. I got my hair cut, and I love it! I'm getting new headshots next week, and I was worried about cutting my hair so close to that in case it didn't turn out the way I wanted. It's one thing if you know it'll just grow out in a few weeks, so who cares, but it's another when you know it will be immortalized in digital photos.

After that, I went over to ye old eye doctor to get new contacts, something I've needed to do for a loooong time. It feels good to accomplish things!

Now, I'm sitting here, having just a finished dinner (a veggie burger from Dizzy's Diner), with a beer in hand (not literally, it would drip on the keyboard) writing to you while I wait for Biggest Loser. It's makeover night, when the contestants get a chance to celebrate all their hard work, and show it off to their families who they haven't seen in months.

Also, I am really loving this short story. So much so, that I'm going to share more with you. (See, I told you I wouldn't be able to keep it all to myself!) It's just another snippet, but it's something that completely surprised me the moment it shot out of my fingers. I hadn't realized I was going to introduce Tom this early in the story, and his character suddenly sharpened, and solidified before my eyes. This was the last thing I wrote last night, and I'd been about to quit just before, when I made myself write just a little more. I'm so glad I did.

She learned a great deal from Mr. Cartwright, who was a fair hand at painting, though he didn’t love it as he loved wood craft. She also met Tom, Mr. Cartwright’s son, who was a year older than she and much less serious. Tom loved nothing more than to drag Ryan from her work to run with him outside in the sun for a bit. He said he was afraid she would turn old before his eyes if she stayed indoors stooped over her work, squinting at the tiny lines she painted in the dim light all day. Before Tom, she hadn’t realized that she’d forgotten how to act like a child. She’d forgotten what it was like to run so fast she thought her body would fly apart at the seams, or how good it felt to lie on the grass and imagine she could see shapes in the clouds. She’d forgotten how to laugh.

The first time Tom imitated Mrs. Pennyweather, the retired deportment teacher at the ladies’ college who now spent her afternoons shouting instructions such as “don’t shuffle your feet” and “chin up, young man, you look like a great slouch” from her perch outside the tea house in the middle of town square, Ryan let out a belly laugh which nearly frightened her to death. She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror as she realized it was the first time she’d laughed like that in over 4 years. Tom, expecting her to be amused by his impression, found himself instead asking if she was all right, for her face had gone quite pale. She nearly began to cry, and could not explain that she was grieving for the loss of something she had only just realized was missing. She didn’t cry. She hadn’t cried even when her father died, and she certainly wasn’t about to start then. Instead, she took a steadying breath, looked up into Tom’s worried face and said, “Yes, I’m fine.”

That's all for now. Biggest Loser is on, so I'm going to sign off. And I'll just keep chugging along!

Proof of Life

Another long day... 8 hours of work followed by choir rehearsal until 10pm. I'm ready to collapse, but I will try to write first. Just wanted to get this in before midnight, even though I don't really count the day over until I've gone to sleep. And since I don't work tomorrow, that means I still have plenty of good writing hours ahead of me tonight.

I will give you a snippet of the short story, which made me giggle, just to prove that it is not some mythical beast, but a real (if anything made up of ones and zeros in a computer might be called 'real') story.

Her mother and sister (who was a full eight years younger than she, and much like their father had been, which is to say, rather more romantic than was good for her) only saw Laknir Lodge once after she moved in. She took great care in cooking a large meal for the three of them (proving to herself, as much as her mother, that she was capable), and dragged the table outside so they could enjoy the forest in all its beauty. Her mother commented on the repairs she had done so beautifully and efficiently, and remarked that the house was both comfortable and well-cared for. Her sister complained endlessly about the journey, and that she’d developed a sore from sitting in front of mother on the saddle for over an hour. But she also noted that Flora was a most excellent cow, and spent most of the afternoon petting her and telling her what a good cow she was and a pretty cow, and how she must look after her sister who was a bit of a dope sometimes.

That's all for now, see you tomorrow.

All Aboard!

I just finished working on my short story and ended up writing over 950 words! It's up to 4 pages now, WOOHOO! Here I go, just chuggin' along: choo-ch-ch-ch-choo-ch-ch-ch WOOO-WOOO!

That was me on the writing train. I should probably sleep now.

The Short Story Continues

I want to post now before it gets much later, lest you think I've forgotten. I haven't actually done my writing for today, but I know that I'm going to work on my short story some more, so I won't share anyway. And no, I'm not going to cheat by saying that since I wrote something extra yesterday that means I don't have to write today. The idea was to write EVERY day. However, I tend to be a bit of a night owl, and since I worked all day again, my time to write is limited to the evening.
Further, I'm sorry this short story is taking so long, but it didn't occur to me that the hardest part about writing every day would simply be finding the time. I don't work that much, and I really don't do anything outside of work, so I should be virtually made of time. And yet...
I would say that I could cut back on reading books, watching shows, taking walks through the park, and browsing the internet, but all of those things are what feed my imagination. Rather than wasting time that could be spent writing, those things are what give me the drive to write what I write in the first place. So the long and short of it is, I'll finish this story when I finish it, and not a moment sooner. I haven't decided yet if you'll get to see it before it's finished. It will depend on how excited I am about it, and whether I can't wait to share that excitement.
OK, enough rambling, this was supposed to be a quick update.
Good night, and I'll see you tomorrow,
Julia

Bad Haiku

I’ve been dreading this: having to write on a Saturday. Saturdays are my longest work days, and after spending 8 hours dealing with people at the store, I want nothing more than to sit around and veg out. The absolute last thing I want to do is think coherently.

And, here’s the thing, as I said before, I have already written something yesterday to post today. So why am I taking the time to write this, especially when I’d really rather not? Well, it’s starting to feel weird posting things a day after the fact. Once it’s no longer current, who cares? Besides, I worked on my short story yesterday and wasn’t going to post anything anyway, except to tell you that I worked on my short story. Maybe I’ll compromise and let myself off the 600 word hook tonight. Maybe on Saturdays, I only have to post 300 words. There I go, making excuses again. But hey, I’ve been really good, haven’t I? And I’m only asking for a small break one day a week.

I like my short story. It’s coming together entirely different than I anticipated. Stories have a tendency to do that to me. I think I know what’s happening and where things are going, and then it all takes a sudden right hand turn and I’m left grabbing the wheel trying desperately to compensate.

And now, a haiku:

Mythbusters

Science in action

Missing eyebrow

Don’t look at me like that, you’re the one who said I should write. I blame this entirely on you. I never said I could write well, I just said I liked to do it.

Youtube videos

Asking about episodes

Never praising me

Now that was a technically correct haiku because it was 5-7-5. But seriously, that’s all people want to know about my videos. “What episode is this clip from?” This is especially true if I have already answered their question in the comments. And it seems to become more true the more I have repeated that answer. Why can’t they take five seconds to read the other comments and see if maybe I already answered their question? WHY??

OK, clearly my brain is fried. I’m going to quit while I’m ahead, and hope that tomorrow I will be able to make words into sentences again. And, you know, have them make sense.

Good night.

Stupid Title # 1

I worked on that novel I was writing that used to be a comic book for today. Since I basically started it from scratch recently, I'll go ahead and post everything I've written so far. Also, I'm very bad at coming up with titles, so for now this thing is called The Eight. I'll say again: I don't guarantee that anything written here will be very good. But hey, at least I'm writing, right?

PS-I've waited to post this toward the end of the day to give people a chance to catch up on the fact that I'm posting things on my blog again. If you are one of those people, be sure to read the previous entry as it will explain a lot.

The Eight

You know that moment, right before the zombie horde (raised, no less, by a man you thought you could call a friend) breaks down the door and kills those people you’ve come to love as a second family, and everything suddenly shifts into perspective and you realize there are a lot worse things than knowing that out of 1000 people you survived a freak industrial accident which left 992 dead, 7 now sporting equally freaky genetic mutations (aka superpowers), and all you got was a one-way ticket to tea with the Grim Reaper at an indeterminate, but most likely near future, time and date?

No?

Maybe it’s just me.

I could start at the beginning, but who can say where this all really began? Was it when a little boy named Benedict Chant was born to two of the wealthiest parents on the planet? Or maybe when that same little boy grew up and started having visions about the end of the world? Or when that little boy, now a grown man, decided he could save the world by creating an army of superheroes but instead just ended up making a lot of people dead?

No, it’s not fair to blame everything on Benedict. However misguided, his intentions were good. And to be fair, the accident that wasn’t really an accident, wasn’t his fault.

Maybe that’s where it began, with the ‘accident’. But that’s too painful to recall. It’s blurry and confused, full of shrapnel and panic. I’m not sure I’m up to the task of putting it into words. What happened after, that’s what’s really clear. Those years we spent together, the eight of us who survived, locked up on an army base while they ran test after test, (locked up, they said, for our own safety, and therefore not imprisoned exactly, just not free to leave) those memories are sharp and fresh in my mind. It was the first time I can ever remember being really happy.

I know that sounds bad. After all, as I’ve already mentioned, 992 people died in that ‘accident’. What right had I to be happy after that? And I wasn’t at first. But as the years went by, the eight of us bonded in a way unlike anything I’ve ever known outside of family. But more so. This wasn’t just a bond of blood, it was a bond of shared experience. An experience so word-stallingly huge it actually changed our very DNA. Or, their DNA, anyway, we’re still not super sure on what happened to me. If anything.

We are family. Even Michael. I mean, hey, every family has its creepy uncle, right? And every family has its disfunctions.

Listen to me, babbling on about how to begin. Why am I even writing this at all, you might ask. There are already three books about what happened, one of which will be coming soon to a theater near you. But I thought it might be nice if someone set down the truth. And, as I am the only author who actually witnessed the events leading up to the attack of the zombie horde on Chant Tower, I think that makes me uniquely qualified.

Let’s start with the cast of characters. You’ve probably already heard their names, unless you happen to live under a rock, but I’m going to start from scratch anyway. Everything you’ve heard is from the media, which, frankly, makes it rather suspect. So let’s assume that almost everything you think you know is wrong, and let me describe them in my own words.

Anzu: Perhaps the most beloved of all of us by the public. And she’s pretty hard not to love. Anzu was born in Japan to a woman named Suzume. None of us had a chance to know Suzume, who was killed in the ‘accident’. Anzu was only five years old at the time, and could not tell us why her mother had brought her to Chant Industries that day. She also did not know who her father was or where he might be now. Much about Anzu’s past is unknown. And the scientists could not adequately explain how Anzu had survived when her mother had not. Of course, the scientists couldn’t actually explain how anybody had survived, but that’s beside the point. What is clear is that Suzume bribed one of the scientists into giving Anzu a shot. More on that later.

Anzu is bright and curious and wise beyond her eleven years on this earth. She is also exhaustingly energetic, and stubborn. She’s closest to Sophie, who became like a second mother to her. Right after the ‘accident’, Anzu was listless, in shock (as we all were) and there was some concern that she would be emotionally damaged by the violent loss of her mother beyond anyone’s capability to heal. But Anzu proved stronger than that. It was the animals that helped her understand. I should mention, Anzu came out of the accident with the ability to speak to animals. I asked her once what it was like, and she cocked her head to one side, her pigtail bouncing jauntily as she did, and said carefully, “It’s like listening to music. Even when there are no words, you know what it’s saying to you. My friends don’t use words…but I understand them.” She shook her head, the pigtails whipping back and forth. “It’s too hard to explain. It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like not to understand them, you know?”

Anzu can also grow things. At the compound where we were locked away for six years, she had a little garden which delighted her. She could make things grow instantly, but she said the plants didn’t like that, so she tried to let them grow naturally if she could. She can also control the weather to some extent.

I don’t know if there are any tests for this kind of thing, but I’m pretty sure Anzu is the most powerful of all of us. Thank whoever is listening that Anzu is Anzu, and not likely to abuse that power.

Sophie was born and raised in Athens, Greece, where her family owns a bed and breakfast. She learned English at a young age, as well as French, German, and some Spanish from the number of guests she met there. In her own words, Sophie described her family thus: “After one of my great-uncles was killed for being associated with the communist insurgents in 1949, my family decided to stick their collective heads in the sand and remain firmly neutral with regards to anything of interest. They decided just to run their little inn, make the tourists happy and not get in anybody’s way. Which, naturally, made me run screaming off to America the second I received my invitation from Chant Industries. If there was even the slightest chance that invite was real, and I might actually get the opportunity to do something in this world, I was going to take it.”

Sophie was 28 at the time of the accident, and had never been further from home than the city limits. It isn’t difficult for me to imagine her chomping at the bit to get the heck out. Sophie is incredibly intelligent, especially when it comes to computers. She’s also somewhat naïve in regards to the practical things in life, and I worry that she has learned essentially everything about the world through computers which can create an odd mixture of cynical know-it-all and innocent no-practical-experience-all. She projects a world-weary stoicism, but inside she’s a sensitive little girl, liable to get her feelings hurt at the smallest slight. She also has a vivid imagination which helps her create the elaborate illusions of light and color she can now project as a result of the ‘accident’.

The scientists spent a long time trying to figure out if she was actually creating these hologram like visions, or whether she was affecting the visual part of the brain of those around her. They have yet to come to any useful conclusion.

The Challenge

A high school girl, who has never before shown an interest in photography as an art, decides that she will take a photo every day for a year. At first the photos are bland, ordinary representations of the world around her. But the more she looks through the lens, the more she sees, and soon, the photos shift to something more. With just one photograph a day she discovers a previously unknown piece of herself.

A similar story, about an author (I forget who, but my sister could tell you) who wrote a short story every day. One would have to believe that out of 365 short stories, the majority will be trash, but even if only a handful of them are good, it would be worth the effort.

Thus the challenge: to write something every day for a year. Just writing that sentence sends fear galloping up and down my spine. Could I really keep that up for a year? Maybe a smaller goal would be better. Say, a month. But then that feels like cheating. Besides, I didn’t say that I had to write a short story every day, just something. It could be anything, really. It could be a few pages of whatever book I feel like working on at the moment, or it could be a blog entry about my daily life, or it could even be a rant about how I have to write something that day and oh woe is me I don’t know what to write. And, let’s be honest, that will probably be the most common form this exercise will take.

I’m also not promising that any of it will be any good. As I said, the majority will probably be trash, but the idea is to improve, isn’t it? I have always loved to write, and felt that if I could just stick with it, I might actually finish something someday. But I only wrote when “the mood” struck. And more and more often, “the mood” refuses to strike. Hmmm. I’ve just taken a break to read an interesting article on forming habits. I had remembered hearing somewhere that repeating an action for a certain number of days made it into a habit, but I couldn’t remember what the number was, so I looked it up on ye old interweb. The article (which can be found here if you’re interested: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php) references a study which showed it took an average of 66 days to form a habit. Much longer than the commonly believed period of 21 days, which was probably the number I had been quoted. The article goes on to say that while 66 was the average, depending on the activity, it could take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form a habit. More complicated habits, such as doing sit-ups every morning, took longer and more will-power than simply drinking a glass of water with every meal.

Will writing ever feel like a habit? Or will it always require great force of will on my part? Even this little introduction is beginning to feel excruciating. Every word dragged from my fingers as I struggle to make coherent thoughts.

Well, I’d best move on to the rules of this challenge. As I said, the writing can be about anything I want, though I will try to write the occasional complete story. Complete story. You hear that Julia? That means you can’t just peter out in the middle. Even if you have to spread that story out over a couple days. Which brings me to the next rule: it must be at least 600 words. That equals about a page. Which, when you think about it, is really NOT THAT MUCH. A page should be easy. I will also post it on my blog, which should keep me honest. I won’t necessarily post the entire thing, especially if it’s part of one of the books I’m perpetually writing, but I will at least post that I did write something, and what it was, and why I’m not sharing it.

Well, this has taken me right on through 700 words, so, I guess that means it can be done. See, that wasn’t so hard.

See you tomorrow.

Julia