An Update of Sorts on Me Writing

It certainly has now.  Three years since I've written here?  WOW!  I really did not intend for it be such a long time.  But it has been.

I'm still struggling with writing.  Not much has really changed on that front in the last three years.  I guess that's why I haven't blogged here.  I mean do you guys really want to hear me complain about not being able to write...all...the...time?  Or almost all the time?  I don't think so.  I didn't want to bore you with the complaints.

I still want and hope to continue and finish the story I started writing in 2005.   As I may have mentioned before, it was going fairly well I thought.  I was getting words written, I was researching ideas.  I even was starting to work on it for NaNoWriMo.

But then in November of 2006, my world went into a tailspin and turned upside down.  I put NaNo on hold.  My Grandmother died on Thanksgiving day.  It was one of the worst days and worst weeks of my life.  The day she died, the words stopped flowing and my Muse grew silent.  I don't know if my Muse was somehow connected to my Grandma.  I do know she believed in me.  She supported my hopes and dreams.  At that time, she was probably the only person who did.

Since that time, I have tried on and off to write.  Something, anything!   In 2007, I met a friend online (in WoW).  He was a writer too.  And we would talk about things, about writing, writer's block and the like.   He offered to help me out of my block by tag team writing a collaboration.   Now this wasn't anything we were going to publish.  It was just for us, to get the juices flowing.  And so it began with he starting a story (or did I start?  I don't recall now.) and sending it to me.  I would add to it and send it back.  Then we discovered Google Documents and put it there, so all we had to do I email each other when we had done our addition.  It was going pretty good too.  Until he said we needed to do something different.  Unwittingly, I apparently was writing too closely to an idea he was working on for a novel he wanted to publish.  I had no idea!  I didn't even know what his novel, a trilogy if I recall, was going to be about.

So we started a new story.  And we worked on that for a bit.  Then I don't know what happened.  He suddenly didn't have time anymore.  He grew distant, and now we don't even speak anymore.  It's sad really.  I miss my friend.  I thought he was my friend anyway.  Maybe I was wrong?

Every year though, I try to do NaNoWriMo.  The last couple of years, I have also tried to do other WriMos in between.  None with much success.  But I keep trying.  So now here we are in August of 2013.  There's a challenge starting September 1st.  To write 2 pages a day from September 1st until the end of the year.  IF you can do that, you have the first draft of a completed manuscript.  I plan to try.  If I miss a day, that's okay.  I'm not going to put pressure on myself and stress out if I can't get a day done.

To kind of prepare myself for it, I have been trying something new.  For the last week or so, I have been writing in a notebook before I go to sleep.  I pick a random memory from my childhood and write it down from the "Character's" POV.   It's more like she's viewing the memories in her mind.  At first, I started this with the idea of the MC being a version of my 17 year old self.  But I'm thinking now, I want to change that somewhat.

The good news is I am writing!  It may not be my original story, but it's a start.