Stalled...Maybe She's a Dead Stick

I haven't been writing for several days. I haven't been editing for just as long. But my mind has been whirling around in my stories, unable to escape. Yesterday I was certain I would never write again and I was kicking myself for buying a domain name. Day before that I was certain I would start writing the next day. Today, who knows what's going to happen. I try not to beat myself up for it; it is what it is. Maybe I will write more sporadically than I thought. Maybe instead of 10 novels a year it will be one or two. Maybe none. Maybe twenty-five. I think what I will do is slate the future books I know I want to write and make sure they get on Amazon. Then I can see what the response is like from the public. I have two novels and one novella completed that I need to do edits on and get listed. I know I want to write Our Daughter, Oblivion, Seeing Through and Writing Tucker. After that - I don't know. I'm really excited to write Seeing Through. Writing Tucker will close the book on an old high school buddy of mine that I can't seem to find anywhere online. Oblivion is still kind of hazy on the details, but it's definitely there. Our Daughter will be the next one I write, I think.

Maybe I won't write any of them and will just spend the rest of my life reading books and exploring different subjects of interest. I think living in the woods in a camper as a fire/equipment watch, writing novels is a better use of my time, though. I guess we'll both have to just wait and see, huh?

Languishing...

I managed to edit a chapter and a half today on The Preparation. I so hate it, though - very much. It feels like I'll never be able to get it right, never get to the point where I can say, "Hey, this manuscript is in good shape. This story is tight and readable." I like the story; I have liked it since I first wrote it. God, I think it's been two years now, and here I am still working on editing it. Feels absolutely hopeless. 

This is just how I feel, though. Rationally, I know I need to just press on. Every day is a new opportunity for me to BE a writer. Every day is another opportunity to live in that creative haze - that world where I am a god and control the fate of countless lives, everything resting on the sheer will of my imagination. I like this world. I love my characters. I like that I'm now exploring freely - experimenting - or, at least, wanting to. I know grammar is finite, albeit often grossly subjective. There is, though, a right and a wrong way for the most part in writing - in constructing sentences, in tightening up prose. But these are simply tools writers use. Mechanics, apparati [latin ;-)] - it is not the story, though. The story is what unfolds in the writer's mind, what takes shape as he/she sits quietly in the coffee house early in the morning in Paris, watching the sunlight stretch its narrow fingers along the narrow brickwork of the surrounding buildings. It is the characters' actions and behavior - their personalities - that slowly percolate in the author's mind as they stroll along amidst their daily affairs. 

I edited a chapter and a half today. Thank God. I also did more research into Gnosticism, though it is going way too slow for me. I'm starting to feel the itch - or at least the obligation - to be writing every day again. I guess I'm missing the creating. I'm so impatient, but maybe that is a good thing.

X Factor US S01 E15 & 16 - So Long Stacey!

 I finally found the results show for the X Factor US tonight. Not sure why no one else has it. Sadly, Astro put on a terrible performance and an even worse attitude on top of it. I'll be surprised if he isn't in the bottom two again next week. But, what do you expect from a young kid like that. I guess we don't expect all that much these days.

I also got another practiced Book Cover done. I really like it. Here you go:

Everything in this cover is taken from somewhere else. I started with the background scene of the sky, which was actually a scene of the ocean. Then I grabbed a picture of the church and cut it out using the magnetic lasso; I love that thing! Then I did some shading using the gradient tool. At first this did not work out well at all, and I ended up deleting all the shading and starting over. The second time I started shading the tower, then the edges. I also noticed the bottom of the original cover is much darker, so I added that, and I really liked the outcome. Then I lightened up the shading to a gray and shaded the clouds and parts of the church. I then found the CRIME SCENE tape [didn't use the original POLICE] and figured out how to rotate it [though I doubt if I could do it again without some hunting and pecking] as it was tilted the opposite way. Oh, yeah - and the church was opposite, too. I flipped it when I first started. The words went on beautifully, now that I know how to use the stretcher thing. It makes the words any size I want - I love it. Lastly, I took [accidentally the color I was using for the lettering] the white and splashed a gradient horizontally from left to right. It was perfect! Maybe I'll start dong free book covers for writers to get the practice in. Then again, I'm getting way ahead of myself. So far I've been copying other covers, so I have the ideas ahead of time of what I'm looking for and what I can compare it to. We will see how well I do when I'm working just from a blank canvas.

Anyway, I managed to get a chapter and a half read through on THE PREPARATION today. I'm also slowly incorporating/transferring all my notes, etc into My Notes Keeper. So far this program has been running great with no glitches; I hate glitches. Also did some research on OUR DAUGHTER, studying up on Gnosticism, etc. It's pretty fascinating. I'm currently reading the Gnostic Handbook and taking notes wildly [you got it, in My Notes Keeper].

Astro, my boy - it is your contest to lose. Of course, you have to beat Drew for the top seat. Keep your attitude in check and you have a fighting chance. But, please, oh please, pick some better songs. The last few have been terrible!

Drew, keep it coming. And I agree with the judges: up tempo. Let's see you do some real rock. Try Avril next week!

Boning Up on Writing Manuals

I spent today - my second day off from actively writing in between projects - pouring through fiction writing manuals, specifically, grammar, punctuation and self-editing books. I remember when I had finished writing IN THE MEADOW and was working on the edits for my first novel, I felt like I was drowning in sand. I felt completely overwhelmed with the editing and revising process. None of my work seemed up-to-par, I felt horribly self-conscious, and I never thought in a million years I would every get even a single positive response from agents, let alone a book deal. 

I feel better now. I may not be up yet on my board, but I don't feel like I'm going to fall off either when I get ready to stand. There's more confidence in what I'm writing - but more importantly - there's more confidence in what I'm learning. Hacking away slowly at the bad habits, at the awkwardness, no longer feeling that cold, clammy hand of self-doubt pushing my head under the sand quite as hard as it used to. It feels like all my jobs in the past have felt when I first started working. Those first few days are miserable. By the second week you're feeling better, but God you just want to figure everything out and stop making stupid mistakes. After the first month, you're pretty confident, but it doesn't mean you've seen everything and you could do your job in your sleep. No. That kind of intimate knowledge and confidence doesn't develop for a long time. Maybe a year. Maybe more. But it does eventually come - when you have mastered your job, when you have reached a superior level of proficiency. This is what I'm shooting for.

I see the physical writing process, the actual words on the page, as a kind of mechanism, a communications apparatus that I can use to expel my stories. Maybe once they are all gone, in print, I won't need to write anymore. Maybe there will never be an end. At this point I have another 13 books in mind, not counting sequels or multiple books in series - and most if not all of my books I can see having multiples.

Needless to say, it will be very interesting to see how this all shapes up. I don't really see myself developing a career, as if I'm making the conscious decision to do it. As the author said in the latest book I'm reading, "Writers write. Everyone else just makes excuses." That's what I'm finally doing; I'm writing. It doesn't matter if I make any money. It doesn't matter if I'm famous and get booked for the Letterman show. It doesn't matter if even my harshest critics (my family) finally see that I am successful. All that matters is that I write. To me, my stories are alive. I breathe them every day, whether I put them down on paper or not. At least, when I write them down, get them out of me, they don't haunt me in those sleepy-eyed moments before I go to sleep at night. Sometimes I think writing is a lot like breathing. Other times it's just pure hell.

Whatever it is - at least I'm no longer fighting it.   

500+ Words Today and I think 1000+ Yesterday, but who's really counting...

I got a late start this morning. I've found myself in the distracting habit of staying up too late at night and then resetting my alarms in the morning to sleep in an extra hour. this throws me off and puts my writing after my first few hours of work - very disheartening. And talk about self-doubt. It has really been creeping in lately, and it is very irksome.

But, I did manage to knock out 500 or so words this morning, in spite of the nocturnal rigmarole. And I forgot to post my writing for yesterday, and I took out my markers in the text, so I can only give a good guess [I'm thinking 1000, but who really knows].

I'm now debating on whether or not I should get a top level domain. You know, the .com situation. It's actually pretty fooling for me to be trying to talk myself out of it. I guess I'm just nervous that I'll quit writing tomorrow and then I'll have wasted $4.99. Come on, Steven! Buck up! Just get it done.

The big reasons to get the TLD are:

• The .com for my name is available again. I guess Steven Veach, the photographer, decided to get a day job. 
• It could serve as good motivation for me to keep going, since I spent some money on my writing platform. 
• My Blogger blog could be deleted at any time for any reason, and if I'm using there domain .blogspot.com, any readership/fan base that I develop in the future could be jeopardized. With my own TLD, if the blog is ever deleted, I just redirect to a new host, and upload my blog backups and Voila! Back in business. 

Now for the reasons not to get the TLD:

• I don't want to waste the money if I'm just going to quit tomorrow, next week, next month or even next year.
• Amanda Hocking became a millionaire on a .blogspot.com domain. 
• Google doesn't care what kind of domain you have but what content you have. 
• I've already run across the issue of putting a TLD in print material [i.e. book covers], only to quit and let the domain lapse. Now I have to go back change it all. It's easier of course now with a PDF editing program, but before it was a pain in the neck.  

I've pretty much decided to pull the trigger today. I even got my wallet out of my computer bag so it's right next to me. But, for now, it's time to find some food. Oh, refrigerator. Where are you?

729 Words [The Calories in a Totino's Pizza]

Totino's Pepperoni Pizza is my FAVORITE frozen pizza. It contains exactly 729 calories in one box. And this is how many words [exactly] that I wrote this morning. I wrote a pizza worth today. ;-)

I will say, writing today was difficult. I struggled to get the words down and the story seems to be floundering under a lot of self-doubt and negative personal criticism. Just a part of the territory, I suppose. When in doubt, I just have to keep writing. Pizza helps. Especially Totino's.

On a brighter side of things, I added a few more things to the blog, and I think [maybe] I will be getting a top level domain soon and have a static website, along with my blog here. I know Amanda Hocking does not have a static site [yet]. I'm sure the good people at St. Martin's Press will be putting one up for her soon. So, it is probably better to say, Amanda Hocking became a successful Indie writer without a top level domain. I just can't stand the cost, even if it is only $10. And I can even get it for a few dollars the first year and I'm still struggling to get it. I think the biggest resistance is - I worry that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and quit writing again. Then I'll have wasted that money on a domain that I'll just let lapse again. I've done it before. www.stevenveach.com is available again. It used to be owned by a Steven who is an artist. Apparently he doesn't keep domains alive either.

Anyway, I figured you would like my pizza word mash this morning. It's making me hungry. And I even have Totino's Pizza in the freezer! Yum!

Skipped a Day

I managed to knock out 1100+ words this morning and also finished editing a scene with Campbell Shaw in THE PREPARATION. Editing is, by far, the worst part of writing books. I literally hate it most of the time. Going over my writing again and again, even though I know I'm going to miss something, constantly thinking my work is never good enough, knowing full-well someone is going to find an error and use that one error as reason to give me a bad review. I just have to shrug, and throw my hands up in the air. Just keep plugging away at it. Tomorrow is another day. The more I mull it over in my mind, the more I feel my personality and disposition are perfect for a writing career. So I just have to keep editing and not worry about it.

I also have been thinking that SEEKING LIGHT AURORA will end up being a novella, simply because it will be only around 25,000-50,000 words when I'm finished. It's a short/quick story and most of it takes place in one room, or at least 90% of it does. We will see. It will definitely be a $0.99 center on Amazon. I'm pretty excited about it, though. I'm curious to find out what others think.

In other news, at the recommendation of my cousin, I started a new TV series yesterday called The Walking Dead. I saw a preview of it and thought it pretty hokey, but on his insistence, I watched the first episode and ended up downloading a bunch more. It's really good so far. I like zombie movies for the most part, if they are well done. My favorites are: 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later and Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, 4 [not the cartoon, no thanks]. If you get a chance watch The Walking Dead on AMC. It's great!