In order to save money, I had made a New Years Resolution to not buy books this year (outside from school of course).  And then I heard that Borders declared bankruptcy and I had to head over to the store near me and get good deals on books.  

I spent $70 dollar.  Mostly on books I haven't even cracked open yet.

And now that Borders is liquidating, not just closing stores but disappearing I'm scared to see how many books I'll pick up. 

Simply because it'll mean more books on my overflowing bookshelf  XD

It's sad though, seeing it go.  I do buy books online, but those are text books or titles that I want in particular.  For just looking for a new read, it's best to browse the selves. I just love the smell of bookstores, and now I'll have to simply visit all the independent stores here in Ann Arbor instead.  I heard rumors one of them has a fireplace. 

But first, I'll have to get me some new books to read ^_^

Do you guys have any suggestions?

MYWYN wrap up

80K in 80 days.  MYWYN

A noble goal, that's for sure, but one I wasn't able to complete.

Granted, the challenges was a push to get things down that I never would have before.  And I did get a lot more writing done than I would have otherwise.

Non fiction word count: 41433 (Plus, I seem to be having a steady income from this now.  It's 20 cents a month at this point, but hey, it's consistent and will continue to make me money with little effort from my part.  And will slowly grow.)

Fiction word count:  34232

Total word count: 75665

...

I'm actually quite shocked, looking at those numbers.  I thought I might have 50K, not 75K and now I feel even more disappointed in myself because I could have totally blitzed 5K last week if I knew that I was that close.  A close run like this is always worse than a wide gap I feel.  I always wonder if I put in a last bit of effort...

Lessons?  Hmm, write when you can.  Those 15 minutes add up.  If you need to, actually set up time to write. Find a community to travel with for company and support.

Also, I'm playing with the idea of from now on completing a work before showing it to my critique group.

Writing something to bring in week after week does encourage me to write, but I think it might be encouraging the wrong thing.  That is, fluff.  Words for the sake of words, and not scenes that advance characters or plot.  By having a complete work done before getting it critiqued I at least will know what's going to happen in future installments that I bring to my group (and it will prevent me from editing/rewrite as I go along).  At the moment, I don't know what I'm talking about half the time or know where things are going, and that makes it hard to crit a scene as part of a whole work. 

This new outlook on writing may be a bit of a problem.  I have completed numerous short stories, but only one tale longer than 55K and that took me a year to complete.  But then again, I guess that's why NaNo and MYWYN exist (if it's still called that next year), to push me to complete something faster than I would normally by forcing me to focus on it instead of dividing my attention among a variety of needs.

I do love challenges, and I hope to see a number of you MYWYNers in November!

Releasing Story Number 2

My goal for today was to get started on sending a new piece out into the world of submissions.  It's not genre, which is what I usually write so it took awhile deciding on a pen name, and I'm not as selective about where this piece could potentially show up.  I simply did a search on Duotrope for magazines that publish general short story pieces who accepted simsubs and started applying to all of them.

I've discovered interesting things.

For one, there's reading fees at some magazines.  They're all high class, high paying, well known markets, but it's weird to see because I haven't come across anything like that while shopping If You Truly Love Me around.  Yog's law says money flows to the writer, and this goes against all that, but they're all well-known magazines (like the Missouri Review).  Needless to say, I didn't submit to them because I don't have $30 to spare on top of all the postage I'll need for manuscripts that will only be accepted via post.

I've also discovered an online publication that doesn't give out rejections.

Never.

They just...don't publish your story.

Rejections are never fun, but I also can't imagine not getting one if a story doesn't work.  Unpublished submissions are still considered as being considered by this market (Short Story America if you're interested), so submissions will always be considered as simsub even if it's been two years since you submitted and you've forgotten you gave it to SSA.  Which is not so nice if you want to submit the piece elsewhere in a market that doesn't take simsubs.

It's all weird, this non-genre world.

I always wanted to go to Hogwarts

Last night, I dressed up as a Hogwarts student and attended my last Harry Potter midnight showing.

It was pretty bittersweet. 

I'm one of those kids/young adults who practically grew up with the Harry Potter series.  It sat on the bookshelf for a year after I got it as a gift.  I can recall wanting to interact with my father, asking him to read aloud from the book he was reading, and was memorized by my introduction to Hagrid.  I can also remember reading that same scene out loud in the car while my mom drove me and my middle school crush back from the museum.

I've forgone eating and sleeping on book release days, doing nothing but reading when the new book came and it was my turn with it.  We ordered one family copy, and my sister and I switched who would get it first.  That is, until I was old enough to make money babysitting and doing yard work so I could buy my own copy for the releases where my sister (or mom) called first read dibs. 

I've also forgone sleep to stand in line at the theater or in Borders to witness the next installment of the series. They work differently, midnight movie and book releases.  At theaters, it's all standing in line and being glad you brought an Uno deck. At bookstores, there's trivia prizes, brithday cake for Harry, costume contests, and people you wouldn't think to meet.  I remember for the 5th book Borders had a Yule Ball theme and my girlfriends and I showed up in fancy dresses.  We ran into our chem teacher, complete with a black cape and metal claw tips.

I prepared for such releases: putting together costumes, rereading the stories.  I fell in love with Jim Dale, who narrates the books.  In early high school, there was a time I would wake up at 6 am and be all ready for the day at 6:10, only to park myself in front of the boom box for an hour before school and listen to his readings.  He got all the voices spot on, and when the movies came out I was so surprised at the similarities between his renditions and all the actors.

But I've only been such a huge fan and willing to go to these events because I fell in love with the books so much.  I've reread the series numerous times, and I remember being so thrilled when staying in a hostel in New Zealand one of the girls in the room before me left her copy of the 6th book.  I skipped out on a night on the town to read it while munching on nutella and crackers.

I've never wanted to go to a school more than Hogwarts and since entering Rowling's world I've been looking for elements of it in the real life (though I do that with a lot of books I really, really enjoy). I want adventure, chocolate frogs, strong friendships that last my entire life, and ideally to do a better job at naming my kids than Harry does.

There's a lot of talk about how now that the second part of the 7th movie is out, it's the end of an era.  And it totally is.  So many people grew up with this series, lived in it.  I have a friend who can tell you what page a quote is on, she's read the books so much. And with all the fan work that can be found online, it's impossible to say people haven't been touched. 

People cried during the movie Wednesday night. Not cuz it was sappy or dramatic (though at times it was) but because now that Harry Potter is over there's a void in the lives of my peers an I.  Harry Potter has grown up and disappeared from our active lives - now there only in memories.  Having grown with him, along side him, it's safe to say my childhood is over too (though I'm 22 and don't feel a day over 17).  That's a sad, scary thought and something I don't want to think about.  Who wants to grow up and leave all this magic behind?

(Sidenote: Harry Potter words are in alot of spell check dictionary.  It's become that integrated into the world.)

So I'm looking for a replacement series.  Something long, good, and just starting so I can once again immerse myself in a world and guess at the next installment (I used to debate Harry Potter theories online.  There was this one where each task in the first book reflected a whole book in the series, then another about Harry being the actual heir of Gryffindor, and I remember a discussion about the genetics of muggle borns and squibs...you guys are looking at me funny aren't you? Like I said this series has been a huge part of my life.).  If you have any suggestion of such a replacement series, I'll welcome it. I find writing cathartic, and I may find myself slipping a bit into derivative works because I love the Harry Potter world and characters so much that I don't want to leave. 

But I know I should.  Or at least shorten my visits.  It's my past now and I need something new. But as J.K. Rowling said, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

I plan on returning a lot. 

And now, for a bit of fun, Harry Potter Puppet Pals.  I went all girly and watery eyed writing/editing this and need something to make me smile. 

Monday Write Ins

One of the things I half learned last month was schedules. As I'm juggling so many different writing projects I've assigned one per day, but on Monday's it doesn't take me that long to write up a book or film review for my media blog (the long part is actually reading/writing something and I hate to admit it, but I've been working on getting through this one novel for a year now).

So, I've dedicated Monday evenings to fiction.

I set up a write-in among friends and we're playing with the idea of a group name. I had originally invited my 826 (well, I want to call them kids as I have a friend who's student teaching and she calls her class 'her kids' but I'm pretty sure my 826 - students? - would object to be called kids) but apparently that's against the rules.  I hadn't really expected them to come, as we start pretty late, but as it turns out there's a policy against volunteers and students interacting outside of 826 events and property.  I can't even friend them on Facebook.

It makes sense in hindsight, but it's still a disappointment.  These guys are great.

But apparently the students were interested in an open write/write-in, so 826 opened their basement staff area for us during the early evening. And then I go directly from there to my other write-in at Starbucks.

It's hours and hours of writing, well, ideally.  I'd be lying if talking isn't part of either group, but I still got a lot done, roughly 1300 on that new dark fiction anthology project I mentioned before.  So, I may be off the MYWYN track but I'm still pounding away at the keys. 

Despite being surrounded by friends and learning the ins and outs of Google+, just being somewhere were we had the collective goal of writing and the accountability of someone peaking around a laptop screen to ask 'how's it going?' is very helpful.

Plus, its a different kinda of writing community.  I'm already part of two critique groups, but their very nature is to be critical (in a good way). With writing writing groups, I can feel the creativity in the air and I have less worries.  I can just...write. Be myself. Or rather, channel a character.  Some of my best writing memories are invading coffee shops during NaNo where everyone is writing (one girl in NZ actually brought a typewriter to write-ins, I loved the atmosphere she added) and contributing names and details to each other's stories and slightly crazed on caffeine.   It's nice to have such a feeling year round, as opposed to just in November.

Now I just have to meet that deadline. 

Attack of the rewriting formats

I feel like I'm doing a Linda; one moment, I'm walking down the road from work and I get hit with a whole other approach for my Cows, my most active WIP.

It's been feeling very NaNo-ish, meaning a lot of words for the sake of writing with not much going on.  I've gotten comments from my crit group: something needs to happen, where is the story going, i think this would be better if this was shorter (and I thinking it was only going to be 60-70 pages anyway).  Every single thing they say is right, and so I've been trying to figure out how to fix things.

For awhile I figured, eh, go along with this obviously not well written piece just to finish it and flesh out ideas (I'm a discovery writer) and then I'd rewrite several times, each without a different side character to see how that changes things.  I'd turn it into an active revision project, maybe showcase on another blog all the different direction one can take with an idea and have it be an example of how to rewrite something.

And then I was like, nah, w~ay to time consuming, I'll just take my machete to this story and essentially trash the last 20 pages AND all of the side characters.  It's all about my lead, Belle, anyway.  I'll just turn it into a character piece about her and stop trying to fit in all my back story, the traveling, and the sudden appearance of new characters.  They don't need to be there, Belle doesn't care why she is the way she is, she just wants to make amends for being a coward and fix what was wrong with her life before it got destroyed.

So I considered other stories I've written, all short, and noticed a pattern.  I usually do third person limited with a small cast of characters, get deep into someone's mind about a person/event/idea, and then end the story (usually on an angsty note).  With Cows, I have Belle's attention spread out over a lot things, and haven't really gotten to know the other characters. Thus, what this story needs is to be a collection of POV from all the different characters that overlap, in a style I'm familiar with and people seem to like, that can allow me to cover everything about this world.

I think anyway.  All these structure ideas pretty much hit me at the same time and I can't decide which one is better. Thus, it's going to be pushed aside for awhile and I'll treat it like shopping.  I always browse around the mall first, and then if an item still sticks with me by the time I leave I figure that's a good sign it's something to buy because I really want it/could use it rather than just impulsing.  So I'll wait and see which idea sticks around cuz it'll probably be the better one/one I'll most want to write and thus will have a better time doing it.  Hopefully a new one doesn't pop up.

In the mean time, I do have a story deadline coming up at the end of the month for something I haven't even written yet and I plan on working on that instead for a while. I just need the first draft, so that's a relief.

I just kinda realized June wasn't as bad as I thought it was

So, I figured the first of the month (or near about, as highways don't have Internet) is a good time to list what I did so I feel like I'm getting somewhere.  Accountability and all that jazz.

MYWYN - I'm (painfully?) aware of this challenge and totally not going to make even my original goal of 80 content articles. In fact, I've been so lax on this I'm hesitant to call myself a participate at this time.  I only have 32 articles done ;_;  Doing fiction would have been better, instead of starting new projects almost constantly I feel.  So that's the goal for next year!

But I have developed a writing schedule, kinda, updating all my blogs regularly (well, aside from this one). And after my glorious spelling mistake in my blogspot URL, I did go and by domain name.  Took a while to set it up, but it's all fixed!  You guys shouldn't notice anything different, but my web address is now www.fulfilling-dreams.com

I have submitted a story to a contest, and received two rejections for a fiction piece from magazines. Bummed, but still hopeful, and I'm trying to decided whether to rewrite this piece at all.  How do you tell if a piece just didn't do it for editors/the magazine or it needs serious revision when your beta's give you a green light?

There's a writing project I hopped on, a dark fiction anthology that a few of us on facebook are considering self-publishing and I'm really looking forward to it. Personally, I don't really see it making a lot of money, especially if it has to be split 5 ways or so, but it still think it'll be a wonderful thing to do. Lots of learning!

I've also decided to start a writing group, not to sit around for critiques, but to just sit and write because I've found if I don't specifically put aside time for writing, it doesn't get done.  And I'm not the only one. So it will be nice to have write-ins every week and writers I can bounce ideas off of as they come to me while typing.

On Yahoo!Contributors I did publish a few poems under the pen name Gwen Tolios, and I joined a local Examiner team for online articles.  I signed up to do Science and Space news, but it's really hard to find local stuff and I recently had an article rejected because of my lack of a local connection (which is hard to find in a discussion about single-celled organisms evolving to multi-celled ones in a lab across the country).  I'll have to do it though, because the writers get access to really good deals, like 50% off at restaurants and I can save money on travel too.  Not to mention, they pay by page views instead of ad-clicks. I've been a member for maybe two weeks and have the equivalent earning as on IB since May 1st :/

And now July's here and I'm super excited for fireworks!