Recent Progress for February

She's back! To write more personal stuff!

I haven't kept up with posting updates much thanks to a few factors. One of which was being sick the last few weeks. I lost a lot of time sleeping and being grumpy but managed to achieve a few things:

• Finished Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg and wrote a very short opinion on the book to work on my reviewing skills, and started Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
• Got to page 80 of LBW. If the ideas keep flowing and I keep up two pages a day then I'll be making sweet progress. Actually I'd be happy with just a page a day or four pages a week.
• Low standards? Nope, I'm just a slow writer with trouble getting ideas. Goal: page 90 by March 5^th 
• Started my first weekly critique after a short break. By the way, I recommend Critique Circle, great place.
• Finished the paper revision I was doing of Serpenttongue. Now I'm plugging it in and making slight revisions as I go. Still finding spots lacking something uncertain, but there's always another go-through. I haven't set any goal other than be past chapter 25 by month's end.
• Still working on a new short story featuring my vampire. It's proving difficult to write. I just don't know the story. Goal: just work on it!

I have uber faith I can succeed, especially if I spend more days getting up at three like I did Thursday. I went back to sleep of course, but I figure why not use that time if I'm up anyway.

What are your goals for the rest of the month?

National Look on the Bright Side day

Today is National Look on the Bright Side Day, where you take a not-so-positive event and give it a positive spin.

Your submission didn’t get accepted? On the bright side, you have more time to look over your work and find that one publication that’ll adore it.

Dogs woke you up early? Look on the bright side: not only did you not sleep in, but now you can get up and get more done than you originally planned (and there’s always power naps. I survive by power naps).

Today, simply try to find positives in all the negatives you encounter. It sounds cheesy, but it’s pretty neat how something so small can affect your mood for the better. I’m a compulsive complainer and epically pessimistic, but today I’m going to try and counter that so I can have one less exhausting day in my week.
Encounter your spin-worthy occurrence. Share with someone or even just in your own journal.

Here’s to the bright side!

Restless in October

Jerking, twitching.

Too restless.

Racing, spinning.

Too anxious.

Aching, burning.

Too much distraction.

Buzzing, whizzing,

Too many whispers,

And too much white page to fill.

Random, yes, but accurate. Halfway through October my trudging train of progress chugged right into a ditch that silly conductor me has been trying to trudge out of instead of stopping to reassess the cause.

I probably should have used the metaphor of an RC car with a dying battery trying to drive over a speed bump or something. Oh well.

I've still got no clue what caused it, all I know is whenever I sit to do any work on the novels or the short stories I get uncomfortable and anxious, jittery and-–well just see above. Maybe it's time for a new chair, one that actually began with cushion. Maybe I need to rearrange my desk and relocate it again.

(God I hope not. There's limited functional space in here as it is.)

Or perhaps I need to drop two projects and focus on fewer stories.

Possible, but this anxiety feels deeper somehow, and doesn't quite address the jitters (No, I don't drink coffee and haven't had a soda in over a month. Just not my thing.) Maybe I should think about breaking tasks down to amoeba-sized steps.

Step one: Divide writing tasks further to designate one day to one story until you get your head right. Must ponder this one.

So if I accept it's my workspace (it likely is; this chair was never meant to hold anyone for such long periods of time over two years of use), I must hunt out a replacement of ergonomic quality likely requiring self-assembly, not beyond $100 if that chair exists. Meanwhile, I've picked up a lap desk to work away from my flimsy assembly of kindling; it looks like it should suffice for short sessions on the couch or on my bed.

Does anyone have experience with a good ergonomic (or just very cushy) desk chair they're willing to recommend me? I think armrests might be nice, but they aren't the necessity.

Happy Halloween should you be one to celebrate it.

(I totally forgot to get myself candy pumpkins this year.)

End of the Month Update

Goodbye July, and hello August. Yet another month has come and gone already.

I tried hard, but my birthday was not to be resisted. It bowled me over, leaving an achy 27 year old me in its wake. I would have let this atrocity go without complaint, except the cheesecake I brought for my birthday was beyond mediocre, and there are some things I just can't let go.

Turns out I did not accomplish my writing goals for the month, because of personal oversight, as is usually the case.

Fireworks, Flame-grills, and Fantastic Fabrications

July, here again, hot and heavy. Tomorrow will bring fireworks and smoking grills, and my least-favorite question to be asked, “What are you doing for your birthday?” That question never gets easier to answer.


I do have plans to get a fair amount of writing and revision done during this yucky month.

[Insert month] Wri Mo

It's January 9th, nine days into the month of January (obviously) and I've hardly written much in my novel. I finished up what I thought was both an interesting and difficult chapter and then spent the past two days fooling around online (must not get addicted to AW, must not get addicted to AW...). I haven't had the desire to write anything else, which clashes with my whole finishing a novel this year goal.

A fellow blogger suggested I try JaNoWriMo, which is basically NaNoWriMo in January. It's funny how quickly I buckled down and decided to continue working hard on my novel after agreeing to take part. All I need, apparently, is a deadline, a goal to shoot for. I wouldn't say I'm one who works well under pressure, but not having anything to strive for just makes a lazy Charlene, and Charlene hates being lazy, productivity is her focus.

Now, looking at the novel not from the perspective of "oh I have 50k words to write still" but from the outlook of "I have to write 1,700 words today that relate to what I wrote yesterday in some way" makes me sigh in relief. Yes, finishing this novel might be possible...as I said before, if I managed 50k of a novel in November, I can certainly manage 50k this month and quite possibly every month.

And on that note, I need to start writing, because I've already missed eight days of writing and that's around 15k to write!

Do you find daily goals (words, paragraphs, pages) keep you moving even through the difficult parts?

So it's the New Year...

I'm not a big believer of New Year's Resolutions, or the whole "new year, new you" idea, but I DID make that promise to my doctor to worry less about what others think of me...

Okay, I guess you can call this a resolution. I want to finish a novel this year. I have roughly four (Serpenttongue, Wanted, Devil's Hand, untitled urban fantasy), but would like to finish at least one of them, and lately, my time has been with Serpenttongue...don't know why, it just has.

(OR it could be because Wanted requires a lot of thought and research, Devil's Hand is dark and takes me some thought to keep up the tone, and the Untitled is still in the "what is this story about?" phase).

When I was nine, back when I wrote the Out of Reality series, I managed to finish 50k novels in a matter of weeks (I think). There were at that point three or four of them. If it were for NaNoWriMo standards it would have been three or four months. Not bad, young me, not bad at all.

So what happened to older me?

I got in my way (look to previous post). I started thinking all my work was no good and too boring and all of that which slowed me down...well that and the depression of course. But I want to finish a novel that is greater than 60k for my own satisfaction (okay and yes, I will revise and submit to agents too). I think it would make me feel better to finally complete something.

So, here's to that goal that's looming over me.

Any writing resolutions/goals for the New Year?

Getting in the Way of Myself

It can be so rough having self-doubt. It constantly eats away at my dream of getting published with things like "you'll never be good enough," or "no one will want to read your boring junk." It takes a lot of my mental energy to keep writing through the doubt, hoping for the feeling of reward to come. But if its going to come, as I'm slowly learning, it's going to come from writing for myself, and not really to be published.

Why did I write that? Well, I did lose my train of though halfway through it, but it was all to say that I have been tripping myself up with all the negativity and comparing myself to others too harshly; I need to take time to sit back and just remind myself that someone may want to read my work, and if not, then I'll just have to write things that I'll like reading over and over again for my own enjoyment.

Yeah, I think that was it. What about you? Find yourself constantly getting in the way of your good writing?

Joining the Sensation

A few days ago, I was on the AW website and decided to look at their NaNoWriMo topics. After reading some of the posts I decided I'd try my hand at it this year.
And what's the worse that can happen? I manage 50,000 words on a new novel that I decide to continue working on, or I break this nasty writer's block and get back to work on Serpenttongue.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to write, but I'm doing my best to just stay casual about it; the goal is to work on my writing skills and just enjoy myself, maybe I'll even manage a humorous story (I'm not counting on it though).

It has me just a bit excited, though I have fears and reservations about managing my way up to 50k and I'll have just moved and don't yet know how the new environment is going to affect my mood and my ability to continue writing. I guess I'll have to wait till November 1st and get to it.

Anyone else trying out NaNoWriMo this year?

Trying my Hand at Something New

I haven't done much work on my novel recently (bad Charlene, I know), mostly having a case of writers block; I don't have any dialogue to write or really know how to get from point A to my point B, and between how hectic my life has been and my own personal problems I haven't been able to do much anyway.
A week ago I picked up a collection of Urban Fantasy short stories to read then decided after indulging in a few that I wanted to try my hand at one myself. I've already been wanting to try writing a short story anyway and it seemed like the time to try something different. I don't know how it will come out or if any magazine or contest will accept it but at the least it will let me know whether I'm as good as others tell me I am, or if I need a lot more experience before I can have a work submitted.

So, what does everyone else write? Novels? Shorts? Just share you experience here if you like.

Purple prose

Friday, while doing my usual search through the Absolute Write website I found a topic about one particular book deemed filled with what others referred to as “Purple prose.” I had heard mention of the term before and had a basic idea of what it was, but today I’ve decided it might be interesting to lean the exact definition and maybe read around to learn a few ways to avoid it.

*Maybe I should mention at this point that while the thread talks about Purple prose it also uses some examples from a few erotic pages of a novel, and the comments in the thread are also probably not something you want your child to read so be warned.

Purple Prose
Dictionary.com defines it as “writing that calls attention to itself because of its obvious use of certain effects, as exaggerated sentiment or pathos, esp. in an attempt to enlist or manipulate the reader's sympathies.”

I found a longer definition on Wikipedia:
“Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response.”


Well, while I was successful in getting a definition for Purple prose I wasn’t able to find any clear tips on it. I guess maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Either way, I learned something new, and what I’ve taken from this whole research attempt was to watch what I write carefully.

Oh, and though it’s an older post another writer, David Malasarn (The Literary Lab) wrote about Purple prose if you’re looking for more to read about it.

Maybe someone has an example they'd like to share here for fun?
(Just mind the language)