Lethargy

So I was out until about 1am last night (or this morning, whatever). I set my alarm clock for 8 so that I can do my homework for today before class starts at 10:30. Alarm goes off at 8, I distinctly remember this. I fumble with my phone (my alarm's on my phone) and I vaguely recall having distinct difficulty resetting the alarm for half-past 8.

Clearly, I was incapable of it.

I woke up at 12:15.

That meant I missed Cognitive Neuroscience and the beginning of Russian. I decided that I'd call Russian quits and just go to my afternoon classes.

Couldn't quite work up the enthusiasm for that, either. So, I didn't go. I'll regret it when my Lit midterm rolls around next week, but for now I'm good.

Anyhow, that's only part of the lethargy problem, though quite arguably the part that needs to be dealt with most urgently. This not bothering to go to class thing is going to bite me in the ass, and I know it.

So I've not done any writing for days. Weeks, really. I didn't last week because last week was the week from hell, but I've no such excuse this weekend.

I'm thinking about calling this nanowriye thing quits. I want to focus on the novel-from-hell, recently retitled the mortal gods, and run it through the not-insignificant edit that it definitely needs. The whole second half needs to be re-written because it all stems from a stupid premise that I rethought to something a bit more sensible. And when I've done that, I want to focus on sending out queries.

It's one of my goals to have an agent by the end of the year.
I've still got 10 months.

However, in mildly humorous news (to me, at least) the paper from hell that I had to write last week, I got back yesterday with an A-. Considering the half-assed job I did of it, I'm frankly stunned, amazed, and amused. Of course, it will help when I flunk the midterm next week.

Way Behind

That seems to be the motto of my life, as of late.

Comparative Politics: Actually not behind in this one
International Security: I've got about 450 pages to read by Wednesday
Cognitive Neuroscience: I haven't even started reading the 6 chapters yet
Russian Literature: I didn't read the last book (250 pgs) and I haven't started reading this one yet (300 pgs)
Russian: Never not behind in this class.

And then, writing. According to my nifty Excel spreadsheet, on the 9th of February, I should be at 220,000 words. Or, in more concrete terms, I should be finishing my second novel today. I'm at 128,688 words. Or, in more concrete terms, I've finished one (at 118,000 words), and I'm 10,000 words into the second.

And of course, there's the fact that the first one of these novels should be getting edited right now, because it's the novel-from-hell and that's all that I ever do with it. Write, edit, re-write, and continue. Except I'm happy with it this re-write, or happier than I've been with any of its gazillion predecessors. I even intended to read it all the way through last night, and make notes to myself about where to start editing. And then I made the mistake of...well, sleeping for 14 hours.

I really want to work on my writing this weekend. But, as listed above, my schoolwork has fallen just as far behind. So, guess it's time for Kate to crack the books.

A Break

Funny that I talk about a break in the middle of midterms. I should actually be doing some last-minute cramming for my comparative politics exam that starts in 40 minutes. But after going to the recitation this morning, I think I know what I'm doing, so instead, I'm going to waste my time productively. Heh.

Anyway, I've not done any writing since Sunday, I think. We're now on Wednesday (Gah! are we really?) and so that's 3 and counting days without writing. Of course, knowing how far behind I was even on Sunday (about 75000 words, I think), I'm getting progressively more and more behind with each day that I decide to put my college education over enjoying myself and writing. (And, for the record, I AM enjoying what I've written of the second novel. Not a fucking clue where it's going, but that's half the fun).

I think that it might be the first genuinely sensible decision I've made in ages.

See, I'm the kind of person that blows off classes on a whim because I'm really in more of a writing mood than a going-to-class mood. I confess that I've done it a couple times already this semester. But when it came to Monday night and I'd realized that I'd not started studying for either of my 2 midterms, nor had I started on the 5 page paper due Tuesday, that it might be a good idea to close down Word for a couple days and try and focus on something that my parents might care a bit more about.

Yeah, it'll put me about 100k words behind. Yeah, that's even less of a fun number to make up between now and the rest of the year. Yeah, that's a FULL NOVEL behind schedule. Yeah.

But I might just pass my midterms if I do it this way.

1 down, 19 to go!

Well, as of five minutes ago, I just finished the first of my WriYe novels. It clocked in at 135,202 words, but as some of it was written before January started, I'm only at a total yearly word count of a bit over 118,000. Still impressive, I suppose. Except for the fact that I'm supposed to be at something like 180,000 words and should have made this post regarding the finishing of the first one about eleven days ago. Ah well, at least it GOT finished, and I haven't given up hope yet. There's still time for me to catch up. Plenty of time. And as I'm not nearly as serious (or as emotionally committed) to any of the rest of them, maybe they'll go a bit faster as I don't feel as though every word is right for the story.

Coming up with an ending for this one was hard. I knew where I wanted it to end, but I couldn't quite get it there. So that's going to mean some revising later on.

The next story should be fun. It's about a loser who can't wait for the apocalypse because he thinks that when the apocalypse comes, that's when all of his special "talents" (like...erm...drug dealing) will make him an awesome leader. Only he's terribly, terribly wrong. Like I said, fun stuff (*grin*)

Nanowriye Update

Well, as of this instant, I am 51,978 words behind where I should be. This is a big number. It is a very badly big number. However, I have worked out that if I write 7000 words/day from now on, then I'll catch up on March 12th. If I write 8000 words/day, then I'll catch up on February 14th.

However, what I think this illustrates to me is that once I stick to schedule, I really do need to stick to it. If I fall behind my schedule, then I slowly, slowly, lose morale, and that makes it even harder to get the requisite desire to catch up to where I should be. It's maddening, but I really do need to keep up with my writing, because I really do want to come out of this with some stuff that can be reworked in coming years to be viable send-out-to-agent novels.

Still heard nothing back on the query. Then again, we're not at 2 weeks yet. This past Friday, when I was sitting in my dorm room much of the day (I don't have Friday classes), I think I checked my mail 5 times, each time telling myself that I hadn't hit the 2-week mark yet and that I was being stupid. I also had a dream the other night, a very strange one. I dreamed that I dreamed that I dreamed that I got a positive response and told my mother about it.

I think this query letter thing is really starting to mess with my head.

the waiting game

I did something the other day that I've never done before. I don't regret it, I don't think it was a mistake...I'm just anxious as hell.

That's right. I sent in a query via snail-mail. I did the e-query thing last summer (uniform rejections). Some of them were quite speedy, the others took a little time. But there was somehow something less daunting about them. I don't know exactly why; maybe it's because an email is somehow inherently less daunting than that envelope waiting in the mailbox.

Anyway, I did it on Tuesday, and I have 2-3 weeks to wait, so I should find out before the end of the month. My expectations are not terribly high, but I can't give up hope. I know that when I see my shiny SASE sitting in my mailbox, I'll just leave it on my desk, unopened, for at least an hour or two, dreading what it might contain and hoping - hoping so much - that my fears will be put to rest.

Of course, there's the fear that I a) addressed the envelope wrong b) did something else stupid to make myself look like a moron c) am laughed at for being said moron....but at least I'll not know about these things, I'll just get a nice form-rejection (which I'm used to). I can pretend that it's for a simple and non-stupid reason, like....my writing sux.

If I were religious, I'd pray. As I'm not, I'll just cross fingers and toes (though they'll likely be quite cramped from staying like that for 2-3 weeks + the 2-3 weeks if (miraculously) I get asked to send chapters + the however long if (even more miraculously) I get asked to send the whole thing).

But I'm excited too. How could I not be? This feels somehow more real than the e-mail queries...stealing the manila envelopes from parent's house before coming back to school, buying stamps and #10 envelopes, printing all that stuff out on my printer, actually posting it...made me feel like a big-grown-up writer! (lol)


Oh, and as for nanowriye...yeah. 24,000 words out of about 50,000 that I should be at now (I think).

Oh dear.

End of Week 1

Where I am: 25,518
Where I should be: 40,000 (as of Jan 8)


Damn.


Incidentally, classes start tomorrow, and I'm sitting up at 1:43 in the morning, because I'm on an awful sleep schedule and so I'm sure that I'll miss at least one of my two classes tomorrow.

What a wonderful start for the new semester!

Are we surprised?

So, we're at 6:44 p.m. of day 2 of nanowriye 2007.

How many words has Kate written?

0.

That's right. Not a one.

And yet I'm sitting here writing a blog entry rather than writing.

Can I convince myself to write? I hope so. I'm going in with my dad tomorrow to work, and so I'm probably not going to get much writing done.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I don't need to be behind quite this early!!

New Year

Well, we've got about 5 hours to go before the New Year. Unlike nano, though, I won't be starting at midnight. First of all, I'll likely be drunk (and writing drunk is not a good proposition for me), and second, I promised my sister that I'd watch the south park movie with her at midnight (or 1, I forget which). It's a tradition, so I can hardly abandon it.

Tomorrow's also a family day, and I'm supposed to be meeting with my best friend and possibly spending the night, so I foresee getting behind on the very first day. I'm sure that'll be a splendid predictor of the rest of the year.

Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone.

Frustration

So, the original plan was to write the approx 120k word draft of a mortal god before New Years and then set out on the 20 novels of the 2007 year.

Plans suck.
I'm soo bad at them.

So I was sitting there yesterday with 20k words. I think to myself that if there's 100k to go, I might as well make that Book 1 of the new year. That means not touching it until January 1 and then going on my already-decided 5k daily pace. Shouldn't be a biggie, 'specially as I've hardly touched it since coming home for Christmas.

Now, of course, that I've made this decision, what's the only thing I want to do? That's right: write the damn thing. Stupid writing.

I also have 6 other story ideas that I'm hoping last out 100k words. I'll also need to think of a few more, or I'll run out pretty quickly.

And it's 3 something in the morning. I should be in bed. Not worrying about writing, not worrying about my stupid semester grades, not posting on the blog. In bed. Sleeping.

Nanowriye

So, as well as trying to find an agent for my book in 2007, I've also decided that it would be a good idea for me to continue writing, becuase the fact is, that maybe I won't be able to sell my first book. In that case, I need to at least be working on something else that could potentially be it. Thus, NaNoWriYe - National Novel Writing Year. I think there's a website for it, but I can't be bothered to find it at the moment.

What kind of goal have I set for myself? Well, I already know that my next Nano goal is 300k words, so that's at least 300k. But I know that writing 5000 words a day is not a particulary difficult task for me - I can do it in about 2 hours. So I decided to set my goal at a rather ambitious 2 million words. That's just 5000 words a day January-October, 10k words a day in November, and 6k words in December, with one day off somewhere in the year. That seems like a decent enough plan to me, without me actually knowing what much of my next year is going to look like.

Of course, then I have to sit back and realize that 2 million words is 20 100k rought drafts. That's 20 novels. And that's far scarier to think about than just plain old 2 million words. Do I have 20 different ideas in my head that I can write to 100k?

Well, we'll see, won't we?