And the award for least creative blog title ever goes to...
Three guesses.
I suppose this will come a little late to a lot of you, seeing as you live in the future. It's still a few hours ahead of midnight here.
Honestly, I don't remember much of what happened this year, at least not in a coherent fashion. Yesterday, I decided to do Milwordy. I blinked, and suddenly it was February, and I was getting the cramps out of my fingers from writing nothing at all after NaNoWriMo 2011. I scratched behind my ear, and had visions of finished drafts dancing in my head. It was going to be my birthday present to myself, for my 25th birthday.
Well, we all know how that turned out.
This was a year of wins and losses, of making mistakes, and learning, of heavy metal, of excited exultation, and of many, many visits to the Chasm of Despair.
After ten months of National Novel Plotting Month, I still haven't learned how to plan, but I did make a start. I do know now that my mind works in an iterative linear fashion, where every day, I can only see one single tiny end to end thread at a time, and that over time, the collective might evolve into a whole. (Yeah, that's the software developer in me talking.)
I lost Milwordy badly, but I learned that a word counter is just a tool, and not an end. I learned not to lose sight of the real goal, which was to complete something, not to vomit chaos.
I ended up devoloping chronic tendonitis, but I learned my limits. I learned how to prioritize my activities the hard way, to continue doing what I love, without injuring myself.
The old drafts of H öllebergen, Amber, Calor, and previous Dark Arcana rot in their folders, forgotten, but a newer, stronger Dark Arcana, composed of everything that they once were, emerges from the mist.
Speaking of Dark Arcana, I never quite finished even one draft, at least not the way I intended it. However, I did learn when to draw the line. I learned that the Tunnel is much longer and darker than I had once thought, but I also learned to acknowledge, if not accept, small victories.
Even now, as I gear up for a last mad dash to round the thing off before midnight, I can't help feeling that it's done. Then again, I guess
Lastly, one thing I still can't quite believe is that I've been a writing forum addict for less than a year. It seems like just yesterday that I crept onto FebNoWriMo, and stumbled onto the awesomeness of a small community of awesome people who actually know your name! ...In a manner of speaking.
*Cue Cheers theme song.*
(I'm sorry. I had to.)
I learned how to use Twitter. Yes, that had actually been a huge struggle to me. Seemingly simple? Yes, seemingly. I don't think I will ever fully get the hang of it, but I'm getting there.
So, things to work on for 2013:
Learn to plan. To make it less vague, let's say...learn to produce a loose outline of a novel, preferably by doing less work than I am doing now, which is to say, writing it.
Write every day. I have a skip counter, which started on November 1st, 2012. That number is now at 60, because it has been 60 days since I skipped writing. If I don't write some fiction -- even if it's only 100 words -- that number goes back to 0. As that number gets bigger, I find the thought of resetting it progressively harder, and that's just enough to blackmail me into spending at least five minutes writing 100 words. Sometimes, I'm having a bad day, and it stays 100 words. Most of the time, though, it's enough to kick me off. This will continue into 2012. No resets, not even for the new year!
And now, it is time for me to put my money where my mouth is. I have a draft to reorder before the day ends! (Of course, anyone who knows anything about me will know by now that 'day' can stretch well into the small hours. If I haven't gone to sleep, it's still day!)
Six hours to midnight.
Happy New Year, everyone!
"My car doesn't have power windows, but it does have an infinite improbability drive." -- My sister.
Three guesses.
I suppose this will come a little late to a lot of you, seeing as you live in the future. It's still a few hours ahead of midnight here.
Honestly, I don't remember much of what happened this year, at least not in a coherent fashion. Yesterday, I decided to do Milwordy. I blinked, and suddenly it was February, and I was getting the cramps out of my fingers from writing nothing at all after NaNoWriMo 2011. I scratched behind my ear, and had visions of finished drafts dancing in my head. It was going to be my birthday present to myself, for my 25th birthday.
Well, we all know how that turned out.
This was a year of wins and losses, of making mistakes, and learning, of heavy metal, of excited exultation, and of many, many visits to the Chasm of Despair.
After ten months of National Novel Plotting Month, I still haven't learned how to plan, but I did make a start. I do know now that my mind works in an iterative linear fashion, where every day, I can only see one single tiny end to end thread at a time, and that over time, the collective might evolve into a whole. (Yeah, that's the software developer in me talking.)
I lost Milwordy badly, but I learned that a word counter is just a tool, and not an end. I learned not to lose sight of the real goal, which was to complete something, not to vomit chaos.
I ended up devoloping chronic tendonitis, but I learned my limits. I learned how to prioritize my activities the hard way, to continue doing what I love, without injuring myself.
The old drafts of H öllebergen, Amber, Calor, and previous Dark Arcana rot in their folders, forgotten, but a newer, stronger Dark Arcana, composed of everything that they once were, emerges from the mist.
Speaking of Dark Arcana, I never quite finished even one draft, at least not the way I intended it. However, I did learn when to draw the line. I learned that the Tunnel is much longer and darker than I had once thought, but I also learned to acknowledge, if not accept, small victories.
Even now, as I gear up for a last mad dash to round the thing off before midnight, I can't help feeling that it's done. Then again, I guess
Lastly, one thing I still can't quite believe is that I've been a writing forum addict for less than a year. It seems like just yesterday that I crept onto FebNoWriMo, and stumbled onto the awesomeness of a small community of awesome people who actually know your name! ...In a manner of speaking.
*Cue Cheers theme song.*
(I'm sorry. I had to.)
I learned how to use Twitter. Yes, that had actually been a huge struggle to me. Seemingly simple? Yes, seemingly. I don't think I will ever fully get the hang of it, but I'm getting there.
So, things to work on for 2013:
Learn to plan. To make it less vague, let's say...learn to produce a loose outline of a novel, preferably by doing less work than I am doing now, which is to say, writing it.
Write every day. I have a skip counter, which started on November 1st, 2012. That number is now at 60, because it has been 60 days since I skipped writing. If I don't write some fiction -- even if it's only 100 words -- that number goes back to 0. As that number gets bigger, I find the thought of resetting it progressively harder, and that's just enough to blackmail me into spending at least five minutes writing 100 words. Sometimes, I'm having a bad day, and it stays 100 words. Most of the time, though, it's enough to kick me off. This will continue into 2012. No resets, not even for the new year!
And now, it is time for me to put my money where my mouth is. I have a draft to reorder before the day ends! (Of course, anyone who knows anything about me will know by now that 'day' can stretch well into the small hours. If I haven't gone to sleep, it's still day!)
Six hours to midnight.
Happy New Year, everyone!
"My car doesn't have power windows, but it does have an infinite improbability drive." -- My sister.
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