Sacrifices Have Been Made...

I don't feel like I'm completely out of my writer's block, but I was able to take the time to add the new beginning to my story last night without having to do a major rewrite, so I'm happy about that. In the process of adding the new beginning, I ended up deleting seven pages of work because it no longer fit in with the story. Oh well, sacrifices always have to be made.

The story does seem to flow better to me now. The seven pages I deleted were mostly dialog, and I felt like the book was getting to wordy because it seemed like all the characters were doing was talking and I wasn't getting to where I wanted to be fast enough. Changes are normal in the life of an author.

On another note...

It was brought to my attention that there is one letter missing in the title of one of my poems in "Second Thoughts: A Collection of Poetry." I made the change to my manuscript, and will upload the new file to Lulu soon. I've already approved the book, but Lulu still allows me to revise my book after the fact if I find anything wrong with it.

I'm just glad there was only one mistake I missed after the hundreds of corrections I made initially. Here's to re-approving my book!

Like I Need Another Book to Read...

A couple weeks ago, I went book shopping at Wal-Mart and bought two new books to read: PC and Kristin Cast's Dragon's Oath: A House of Night Novella, and just up the shelf from it was Stephenie Meyer's The Twilight Saga: the Official Illustrated Guide. I had the Twilight Guide pre-ordered through Amazon, so it came as a shock to my system when I saw it on the store shelf. I've never received the book through Amazon, and as far as I knew, it hadn't came out yet.

Well I only meant to browse through the Twilight guide when I took it off my bookshelf earlier today. A couple hours later, I'm 135 pages into it! It sucked me into an unseen vortex like I've experienced with the rest of the Twilight Saga. I should've known better!

After the book's introduction, there is a section called "A Conversation with Shannon Hale." Kind of like an artist on artist interview with Stephenie Meyer, authoress of Twilight, and Shannon Hale, authoress of Enna Burning and several other sci-fi/fantasy novels.

During one section entitled "On Finding Story Ideas," Stephenie Meyers brings up the topic of writer's block. She says, "For me, it's time. I don't usually experience the kind of writer's block that people talk about. My kind of writer's block is when I know what needs to happen, and I just have a stumbling block--some transition that I can't get past (pg. 53)."

I was shocked when I read this because that is exactly what's happening with my own writing at the moment. I know what needs to happen, but I'm struggling to put it into a coherent sentence. I'm just so glad that I'm not alone in this world! I was beginning to wonder if it was some crazy happenstance that affected only me. Conceited, I know!

Near the end of the conversation, Stephenie Meyer brings up another point I experience in a section pertaining to "On Balancing Writing and Life." She's asked the question, "It's like having a newborn, writing a book, isn't it?" To which her response is, "It is. Well, because you like there in bed--and, oh, heaven help you if you start thinking about the plotline. If you start getting a little bit of dialogue in your head, you're doomed--you'll never get to sleep (pg. 61)."

Again, my response was "Yay, I'm not alone in this either." I've had many sleepless nights because even though I'm physically tired, my brain doesn't want to shut off. And I can't always drown out the voices in my head when I've been writing for hours, and the characters don't seem to want to let me sleep. They say, "Write this now, dammit!" To which I'm not given any peace to get some REM sleep until I've appeased everybody, and the voices die down.

Another August?

All month I've looked at the new post screen at Blogger with nothing to say really about writing, so I would just close the screen and go back to surfing the Internet. The only reason I've been going back and forth from Blogger is the Lawrence/Julie & Julia Project page. Lawrence Dai is a Northwestern student with too much time on his hands, and he's hilarious. He's spending his spare time watching the movie Julie & Julia everyday for a year and blogging about it. It's been fun to watch him slip deeper and deeper into insanity. Some days, I think I go there because I'm easily amused.

Aside from being sick with a cold one week this month and not being in the mood to write because of it, I've been suffering from writer's block. I've been working on a story, I have an idea how I want to progress the characters, but I'm not sure how to word the ideas that are whirling around in my head. I'm afraid this idea that's hatching may result in a total rewrite of the entire novel, and I'm pretty far ahead already. I'm not looking forward to that possibility, and I'm hoping it won't come to that.

I've been reading several library books, and some of my own lately. From the library I've read Ursula LeGuin's "The Left Hand of Darkness;" Beverly Lewis's "The Thorn", and "The Judgment;" George Orwell's "Animal Farm," and Richard Castle's "Heat Wave." From the books I own, I'm currently going between three books. I'm halfway through Richard Castle's "Naked Heat" (sequel to "Heat Wave"), Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," and Phillip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass."