How Lame Am I?

I just followed my own blog.

Wooooow.

It's okay, though, because now I will know when I post something new!

... Er, wait.

WHAT?

Research Methods

I find myself constantly browsing the internet for information to add believability to my writing. So far, Wikipedia has been my best friend. The only problem is that I tend to get distracted by my research. Four tangents later, I've gone from looking up different kinds of cancer to researching how I could get an adorable little Welsh Corgi puppy for myself.

For my current WIP, Untouched, I've spent almost as much time looking up information as I have spent writing. I've researched everything from leukemia, to the climate of Elba Island in Tuscany, to San Quentin and the process of execution by lethal injection. Next I'll be researching death during childbirth and funerals.

Morbid, right?

Would you believe me if I told you I was writing a romance? A dark, paranormal romance, but overall it is a love story. And I think I have a pretty good grasp on handling the darker aspects without letting the morbidity overpower the core of the story- the struggle between life and death, and the consequences that arise from choosing love over everything.

All Nighter Writer

I'm going to pull an all nighter and I'm going to try to write for the good majority of it. It's about 1:30 A.M. now, and my bedtime will be sometime around 8-9 A.M. giving me six or seven hours to write write write.

The project I'm currently focusing on is Untouched, which is currently at about 12,300 words (I started at 11,700 today) and about two pages away from the end of chapter three. That dreaded chapter three.

I should be able to finish chapter four, and maybe break into chapter five. Hopefully. Let's see how well the creative juices flow while I struggle against sleep. Too bad Starbucks isn't open 24/7.

I'll post an update before I pass out detailing just how much I accomplished. Let's see how much I can actually get done when I put my mind to it!

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UPDATE: It's now 3:30 A.M. and I just finished chapter three. It ended up being more like six pages than the two I had expected, but it's finally done! Gonna take a break for food. Current word count is at 13,800. I think that's pretty good for about two hours of writing. Let's see what else I can do.

* * * * *

UPDATE: Whoops. Took a looong break because I got caught up in the TV. Stupid entertaining mystery crime documentary. It's now 5 A.M. and I have a couple hours to pump out a full chapter. I got my notes in one hand, and a Red Bull in the other.* I'm ready to do this.

(*Figuratively speaking, of course. I'm going to be typing, my hands will be essentially empty.)

* * * * *

UPDATE: 7 A.M. and I think I'm finally calling it quits. I'm tired, and I'm not ready to start the massive scene that is about to take place in my story. I'm ending the night with 14,800 words completed, and I'm quite proud of that. I sat down and tried to write and I got out more than 3,000 words in a couple of hours. I guess my muse wasn't being too bitchy tonight.

If only I had more will power, I would have written more. But my brain was just itching to be melted by late night music videos. Well, at least I'm done with chapter three and have enough written into chapter four that the rest will come together pretty easily. Tomorrow, probably, I will complete chapter four, and that will make me very happy.

Goodnight, *sigh* finally.

<3 Kat

Sleeping Habits

Mine are horrible. I was up very late last night (or early depending on your opinion of 7 A.M.) and I slept for way too long. There is no way I truly need eleven hours of sleep. No way. I can function on four for several days in a row, and the typical eight is plenty. Really, it it.

I think it's these days when I don't work. My bed is just too comfortable and warm and hard to pull myself out of. Especially when I have nothing to do but hang around my cold apartment. I really need to fix my sleeping habits. I need to force myself to get out of bed and do something, anything, even if I just plop myself down in front of my computer to write. The extra four hours of sleep that I do not need could be put to much better use. Any time spent reading or writing or doing anything is more productive than simply sleeping. And more awake time equals more time to write.

I need an I.V. full of Red Bull to kick in at a reasonable hour each morning to animate my listless body into consciousness. Yeah, that's what I need. Gotta look into that. Screw good old fashioned will power- if I had that I wouldn't eat cheesecake for breakfast.

Chapter One

I have a lot of works in progress right now. Not just ideas, mind you, because I have even more of those. I am a master of chapter one. I have well over a dozen right now, and I keep adding more as ideas start to flush out into a coherent concept. But while I have many beginning chapters, I only have a handful of those elusive second chapters.

And I only have four projects that have made it past chapter two, and only one has made it past chapter four. Granted, most of these have only been in the works for the last few months, so I haven't been procrastinating too much.

Finishing a manuscript is the war, but somehow those first few chapters are the battles that wear me out the most. I need to sit down, and write write write write write. Until that happens I'll probably be posting some of my chapter ones to see what kind of feedback (if any) I receive.

Peace and Reese's Pieces,
Kat

Contest!

The Swivet has posted the winners for the 140 words or less query contest, and unfortunately, I didn't win the query and chapter critique. But I did get an honorable mention, which is fantastic, and more than I was expecting.

It's nice seeing something I've written appear on a literary agent's blog- and not just in the comments section! Colleen Lindsay encourages us to send in our real queries to her, and I can't wait to finish up the story and start sending it out. I now have a little more faith that my novel may actually be published. Exciting!

Time to get writing!

Query Zen

There's a fun little contest going on over at The Swivet right now.

Query letter, 140 characters or less, punctuation included.

If you go to Publishers Marketplace, take a look at the descriptions on recent book deals. It's a nice exercise to try and compress your entire story into 140 words or so. Though it's not difficult as you might think.

Browse a couple query oriented blogs: Pub Rants, Query Shark, etc. Basically, a good query should convey both the basic plot- and the catalyst that kicks off the story, and what's at stake- why you should care. It should also be well written and engaging, of course. Pinpointing those basic events shouldn't be too hard, you know your story intimately- you should know what motivates your characters, and what they're risking and why it's interesting. Forming that into a cohesive and concise sentence or two is the hard part.

But that sentence is the essence of query zen. I love it.


My entry in the 140 word query contest:

"A dying girl, coerced into acting as grim reaper for a second chance at life, falls in love with the man she was sent to kill."

Not a Spider

I just screamed like a little girl and jumped onto my couch because a piece of lint skittered across the floor.

Wow.

Just, wow.

Resolutions

This year I'm making a point to change three things. Call them resolutions if you will, I view them more as open ended goals with no specific start or end date.

1. I want to eat out less. I shouldn't be spending my money so frivolously on crappy food that makes me feel horrible for hours afterwards and makes my wallet so much emptier. No, I really don't need that six dollar western bacon cheese burger from Carl's Jr. I really, really don't. I would be so much happier and healthier with some pasta and a salad at home (not to mention I would be saving nearly $10 a meal).

2. I want to write more. Though it's already the fourth and this is really the first thing I've written thus far. I'm not too worried though- there's no point in burning myself out right away so by Feb I never want to see another open office word doc again. I've spent the last four days reading a lot (well, not just the last four days). I think reading makes one a better writer, so perhaps I am inadvertently working on my writing. My goal is to finish a ms this year. 360 days to write 80,000 words. I'm pretty sure it can be done. And come Nov, I'm really looking forward to NaNoWriMo. Not only does it sounds like loads of fun, but I think it will be super helpful.

3. I want to do more things. As vague as that sounds, I mean it exactly as it is. I want to live life more. I want to talk to more people, I want to learn anything I can, I want to see everything, I want to go everywhere. I probably wont see everything or go everywhere but I want to get myself a decent start. I'm making a list of places I want to go this year (Disneyland, Santa Cruz board walk, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas- I live in Cali, so I'm starting relatively local. By 2020 I'll be visiting Ireland.) I've spent the majority of 2008 cooped up in my apartment. 2009 is going to be spent as far away from my apartment as I can get. (As soon as the weather warms up a bit- it's freaking freezing outside right now!)