June 30, 2012

Writing Projects

I believe I've been told a couple times that, in my writing, I bite off more than I can chew which means I have too many different stories going on at once. So, let me count to see if this is true. I'm going to classify my stories under three categories: Actively Working On (been written in in the last two weeks or so), Dormant (hasn't been worked on in over a month, and I'm completely dead on ideas, how to continue the plot, etc.), and Finished (all books I've finished writing).

Actively Working On
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Diary of a Homeschooler-Cassie
New Hope (a Warriors fanfiction)
Poisoned
Secrets of the Forum
The List
What If

Dormant
A Stranger
Blissful Yellow
Diary of a Homeschooler-Jocelyn
MDBC: Princesses-in-Training
Waves of Grain

Finished
Blue Despair
Bright Curiosity
Choix
Embrouille
Envy Green
Frustrated Gray (finished writing, but I need to finish typing it up)
La Derniere Bataille
Love Red
Masked
MDBC: Second Time's a Charm
Night Black & Snow White
Sixteen (although this is continuely a work-in-progress because I occasionally think of a new chapter to add)

Yup, I think that's all of them. So, what do you think? Too many active projects? Too many dormant projects? There's a couple stories I think I should just kill because the only "writing" I've done in the last few months is editing here and there. Those stories are under the dormant category. Other dormant ones just don't have my focus at the moment (MDBC and Blissful Yellow). I sort of started DoaH: Jocelyn, but I'm waiting to continue it until I finish with Cassie. How many writing projects do y'all have going at the moment?

June 17, 2012

Bonfire

So I went to a bonfire the other night at a guy-friend's from my co-op.  I knew most of the people there, and Kate and I mostly hung out with the girls we know.

Anyways, one of the girls who I semi-know stole one of the guys's guitars and started playing, haha.  Since we were kind of talking and yet just kind of sitting around, I pulled out my notebook and did a word train (I wrote down one-word things I saw, and words that popped into my mind) and then I wrote a story in half an hour.  Want to read it? :) Here it is.

The Guitar

Memories. They're in our minds but also in our hearts. But right now a memory is in my hands. I look down at the guitar and wonder why I sense a memory behind it.
"You gonna buy that, kid?" says a gruff voice behind me.
I spin around. The pawn shop owner is standing there, his hands on his hips. He doesn't look happy to see me handling the instrument.
"Um...maybe," I reply. "How much is it?"
The guy tells me. My jaw drops. I finger the credit card in my pocket. Only for emergencies, my mom said. Well I think this classifies as an emergency, so I pull it out.
"Charge it," I tell the guy firmly.
He eyes the credit card warily and takes it from me. We walk over to the cash register, and he goes through the process of ringing me up.
Of course the credit card goes through. I stare at the guitar in my hands.
"It's all yours," he grunts.
I thank him and slowly walk out of the pawn shop. Now I have to figure out why this guitar felt so special to me...
~*~
It's late. I should be asleep because I have school tomorrow. But this guitar keeps calling to me; it won't let me sleep just yet.
What do you want with me? I silently ask the guitar.
I close my eyes and try to explore my memories. Why is this musical instrument so important?
Then a memory hits me. My deceased dad. A song..."My Girl" by the Temptations. A guitar.
My eyes flicker open and are now glued to the memory in my hands. This is my dad's old guitar. I remember now. When my dad died, my mom sold it.
I begin strumming the guitar. Don't ask me how I know to play. I just...do. And I'm playing the song my dad does in the memory.

June 12, 2012

Finally Decided on a Title :)

So I finally decided what the book should be titled. :) I had it narrowed down to Royally and a suggestion from Destiny Skye-Not Your Average Fairytale.  I asked my mom for her opinion, and the winner is...... Not Your Average Fairytale!  So thank you so much, Destiny, for suggesting that title.  If and hopefully when this book is ever published, I will try to remember to dedicate it to you (among a couple others, probably).  Now if I could just keep writing... I finished Masked and am working on Mirrored now but I'm having trouble figuring out just how everything should happen.  I do have some good names for the dwarves. :D Doc's name in my version is something special thrown in for one of my besties, Kate.  And Sneezy's new name?  Well a couple years back for an English class, I rewrote Snow White (it was a short rewrite) and I named the dwarves Brainiac (Doc), Grouch (Grumpy), Glee (Happy), Shy (Bashful), Snooze (Sleepy), Dumbo (Dopey), and Allergic Reaction (Sneezy).  So my Sneezy in this retelling is going to be Allergic Reaction as well, haha.

June 7, 2012

Book Title

Hey, readers, there's a poll up now so you can vote for which title you think I should use for my collection of modern fairytales. :) And I'm open to suggestions, too!  If you don't like any of those ideas, feel free to post yours here.  Just remember the theme of the book.  And here's the current synopsis to help y'all out, too. ;)

This isn't your average fairytale. It's in modern times, for one things. And there are five girls: Eliana Royce, Bianca Yuki, Tabitha Perth, Sapphira, and Sarah Daudi. Eliana loves designing but her stepmother and stepsisters love to ruin her dreams. Bianca gains a horrible stepmother and runs away from home to find a new family. Tabitha is the perfect princess...but she's under a curse. Sapphira longs for adventure. Sarah wants to be independent and open the perfect singing school for young girls. Now if only their dreams could come true...but things don't always happen so easily in fairytales.

June 4, 2012

Emma's Epiphany

I've just had the perfect idea.  I've known all along that Masked won't reach 50,000 words.  But I've also had the idea to do a book for each of the five princesses in Masked (Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Briar Rose, and Tiana-well, their equivalents).  So what if I combined all these shorter books into one larger book?  That could reach 50,000 words, right?  Hopefully this idea will work...

Now I just need to figure out a title for the larger book...each story is going to have its own title (the titles I've thought up for each of them are too cool to abandon).

June 3, 2012

Weekend Writing

So how has NaNo writing been going for all of you doing it?  We've made it through the first weekend!  I was hoping to have 10% of my novel done by this point.  I'm close to that, but I didn't meet that goal. :( I'm just going to have to try harder!  Of course I lost writing time this morning with church, but going to church is a small price to pay for missing writing time.  I love nursery duty and my pastor gives amazing sermons.

If you're doing Camp NaNoWriMo, I'd love to hear about your writing strategies and goals.  Maybe all of us writers can share ideas?

For me, my main plan is to write by hand and then type it up as I go.  I'm planning to mostly type whenever I'm kind of dead on how to keep the plot going.  I've decided I'll hand-count my word count each day, even though it's excruiatingly painful to do so (and my final count was probably seriously inaccurate).

My family's annual girls' weekend is coming up in just three weeks!  Every year, my grandma, my three aunts, my two female cousins, my mom, and me (all on my mom's side) go out to Lake Okoboji in Iowa.  One of my aunts has a condo out there, so we stay right on the lake and swim and visit Arnolds Park and have a seriously good time.  It's, like, an 8-hour car drive, though.  Boring but parfait for writing, especially by hand!  Woo-hoo!  Maybe it'll help me surpass my word count goal! ('Course I said that about the drive out to my aunt's regular house in Iowa for Thanksgiving this past year and it didn't really work, haha).  But this year I'm determined to make it work!

June 2, 2012

Father's Day

So that wonderful holiday where we honor our dads is coming up.  I need ideas for gifts for him, too!  We don't really like doing stuff together, so please suggest a physical item I can give him. ;) Just like with my mom, it needs to cost $10 or less.

And feel free to use other people's suggestions, too.  They're not just there for my use. ;)