Getting My Rear In Gear

And Christmas with my family. Anyway, title first. I've been slacking terribly with my editing, but once I get home I'm putting myself in first draft mode for a while. One scene every day until I write all of these scenes that I need to.
I like first draft mode. It's familiar. Anyway, once that's done, I can start the micro-editing.
And this does tie in to Christmas with extended family, cause we had that today, and I got a few writing books. "Is There a Book Inside You?" by Dan Poynter and Mindy Bingham, and "100 Ways to Improve Your Writing" by Gary Provost.
At any rate, starting probably the 2nd, I'm getting up again and writing until I get this thing done. I want it done ASAP so I can move on to my newest NaNo. And then I also have to work on my other BFS Goals. I think I'll try and do a monthly post on my progress, so I don't forget.
And now I go to read my books.

'Nother BFS Goal

Learn to drive. I'm 15 years old now, and I've driven for all of two minutes once on the way home, once we got onto gravel. In order to accomplish this big, fun, and scary feat, I'll have to get a driving lesson in our old ('73 I think) blue pickup truck. It's about the hardest stick shift ever, so if I can drive that thing, I can drive anything. Then I have to get a permit, take driver's ed, get enough hours for a restricted, then get enough hours for a full license once I turn 16. Wait...I actually do turn 16 this year...that's a scary thought. I've never thought of myself as a 16-year-old. I don't know what I'll be like. Of course, I tend not to be able to think of myself as any age that I haven't been yet. Birthdays are strange for me. It seems like you're supposed to be so different than the day before your birthday. You're 15, then all of a sudden you're 16. But you're never really that different. One day doesn't make that much difference in you to make you an entirely different person. Today, as a 15-year-old, I'm different than I was the day before I turned 15, yeah. But that was...however many months ago. It was back in August. That's enough time for me to have matured. But the day I turn 16? I won't be so different than the day before. I might be different than I am today, since there's enough time for that, but I won't be so different. Age is a strange thing.

Christmas and BFS

Merry Christmas to all! Today has been entirely relaxed. I got up later than sometimes (I woke up at seven and tried my hardest to fall back asleep, but to no avail. I managed to stay in bed for about an hour though), and had a nice leisurely morning, and when my brothers finally got up, we hung around for a bit before moving on to the presents. It was nice. I got my mom a home-made book of Wordoku (which has a longish story that I'll tell in a minute), Tucker got my dad two CDs (An Eric Clapton and a Bela Fleck), us kids got a flying bat thingy each from "Santa," Samuel got a new leatherman tool, a computer game, and a new iPod. Tucker pretty much just got a shotgun as his present. It's a nice gun though. Hardly used, but quite old, great condition. I got some smelly lotion (good kind of smelly. At my house we have pretties (like jewelry) and smellies (like scented lotion and soap and air fresheners and stuff)), some smelly soap, some new earbuds, and a 16GB Creative Zen Mosaic mp3 player. I don't think I'll ever use 16GB. I had been using two before, and I was all right. But ask me again in a month and see what my answer is.

About the Wordoku...the other day at Borders I saw a book of them, but the lines were like 30 minutes long and I had my brothers waiting for me, so I didn't buy it. Then the next evening I got an idea to make a book of them myself. I went online to find the puzzles, and then put them all into OpenOffice to arrange them into the book. Yesterday morning I got up early and finished them up, and then I made a few trips to the UPS store to get them printed and bound. It would have been done in one trip if I had just arranged it right the first way, but oh well. My mom really likes Sudoku puzzles, and these are just the same, but they use letters. When you finish the puzzle, a word shows up in the diagonal.

Sorry for the poor writing, I'm a little bit hyper what with all of the Christmas excitement. Now to move on to the Big Fun Scary challenges that I've gotten so far.

-Grow closer to Christ
-Win NaNoWriMo 2009
-Edit Crystal Glare (my 2007 NaNo)
-Edit my 2008 NaNo
-Learn Italian to a conversational level
-Learn at least one fancy musical piece for flute
-Keep getting up early every morning, whether or not I write with the time. Shall we aim for...60% of the time?


The one on top is the most important of course. And Italian's back up there again...I really do want to learn it. Let's see if I actually can this year. And then I want to learn something fancy on my flute, hopefully to help me with learning that. Getting up early...I like how things are when I do that, but I also need days off now and again. So hmm....editing is pretty straightforward...I want to get them done, and maybe bind them myself if I can't get it done in time for the CreateSpace thing. Um....I'll update the list if I think of anything else I want to do.

I Have Non-Motivation...

Or something. Just today is the first day I managed to actually get up early since...I guess December 10th. Blech. I managed to get a little writing done, but not very much. How come I'm still so unmotivated? It's getting quite annoying really.

In other news, it's time to be thinking about Big Fun Scary again! I had kinda forgotten about it there for a while...every once in a while it passes through my head, but I rarely did anything about it.

Anyway, as a refresher, here's my goal list (summaries of how I did included):

♪Grow closer to Christ: I'm trying to think of where I was at the beginning of this year...I think I've grown this year in that way. We had one of the most awesome mission trips ever this year, to Alaska. On our day off in the week we were up there for, we went to a glacier park, and there especially I noticed the incredible beauty of nature again. God's creation is just amazing. I kind of wish we didn't have to go home. I need to get us to go back up there with the whole family for a vacation or something. But I've grown some I think...I certainly hope so. If I haven't grown closer, which way have I grown?

♪Learn Italian to a conversational level: Um...not really. I tried, failed, and forgot about it until recently when I got a friend to partner up with me. So I've started again, and things are going better. So...goal for next year: finish up the course I have in Italian, and not forget it.

♪Learn to sightread on the piano: This one is kind of hard to quantify, and I didn't do it in December, so it's hard to know. I'm certainly not at the level of my piano teacher for sight reading, but I think I actually can do it now. Even when I play a late intermediate song (which is all I can play usually right now anyway), it has some semblance to the way it's supposed to sound. So I guess I accomplished it. Playing out a hymnal was kind of a subgoal here, and it's...I dunno whether to say accomplished or not. It's certainly not finished, since it requires more experience, but I can kind of do it...

♪Finish my CSS course: Uh...not really....kinda forgot about it.

♪Finish my JavaScript course: Also not really. Also forgot about it.

♪Post in this blog at least once a week: Anope. Even with the weeks I had set that I could miss, due to various things, I didn't do it. Whoops.

♪Write at least twice a week: Also anope. I've been writing quite a bit recently, but after the beginning of the year I fell off for a while. Oh well. Maybe writing twice a week is a lot anyway. I do need some days off.


So even if I didn't win, I learned quite a bit over the year anyway. Now I just have to think about next year's goals...I think I know of a few, but I kind of like have a good list. Anyone else who reads this thing do BFS? How'd you do?

Editing Day...um...10 I guess?

I don't see the cold kitty today...but now there's snow on the ground.

I managed to meet yesterday's goal today (which became today's goal, since I can't seem to even write one stinking scene), and now I can send my characters merrily on their way with sidetrack averted. I even managed to have a character take note of a thing or two that I forgot to have taken note of in the first draft. I had a good enough day I guess.

I've also run through my Italian flash cards a few times, all really simple words so far. I started over when I finally got a friend to learn with me. Simple things I need to know like per favore and grazie and the like. I have to know to say please and thank you! And then there are the personal pronouns in the stack too. If I could just remember all of them. I know so many words in English, why can't I remember just a few extremely simple words in Italian?

There's a Very Cold Cat Outside...

There's a little cat (full grown I think, but still quite small) that comes around and we feed it, so I guess it's our cat. She usually comes by at about 6:30 in the evening, but she's here this morning, outside with the cold and the wind, asking to come in, but we're not supposed to let her in really, only if we're holding her the whole time, which she doesn't really like...

And what's with me and post titles that end with ellipses? Anyway, I'm setting a minimal goal for myself this morning: I just want to finish the scene that I'm writing in. That's all. And at this rate I won't even get that done. The poor little kitty.

So slow...

I'm still writing in just one of the scenes that needs to be put in...I can't seem to do anything quickly lately. I can't just get out of bed when my alarm goes off, and I can't seem to focus on the computer. I don't know if I need some time off maybe, or if I just need to get over it and work. This kind of thing happens to me once in a while I think, but I can never remember how I deal with it. Eventually I just get back into the groove, or something. I wish I could remember.

Oh dear...

Well, I finally managed to get through my novel with my notes written, and now I just want to see about writing in the scenes that don't exist, and then I'll rewrite the scenes that might as well not exist, and then I'll move on to going line by line.

Speaking of...this is the part where I think I'll mess up the most. I have hardly a clue how to do this. I guess I'll work a scene or a chapter at a time and just see how good I can make it, but how exactly do I work at making it better? I'm kind of afraid I'll just make it worse. Although the beginning at least is bad enough that it's going to be hard to make it any worse.

Someone smack me...

Now I remember why I write on a Neo...I can't seem to focus when I sit down at the computer. I've read a few scenes, but I should be much farther along in my manuscript than I am...and posting this is just me fiddling around even more. I don't know what to do with myself. At any rate, I'm going to see if I can maybe read a few more scenes and make my comments so I know what I'm doing when I go through again. As if I could know what I'm doing at all, since I'm editing for my first time...

Decisions, Decisions...

I just can't decide...I have about...11 scenes that need major rewriting I mean major. As in their from totally different characters. Ones I don't have yet. I know I want this to be in this order, but the question is...according to the editing recipe I want to follow, it says to read through it again at this point. But I don't think it takes into account how much rewriting these will really take...I dunno though.

More Editing!

I give you....my outline! Condensed to 30 index cards. It's strange...I would have taken as many as I needed, but it came out to exactly 30. Now I just have to decide on if I'm happy the way it is now, or if I need to move scenes, or split scenes, or cut scenes, or whatever in the world else. After that I can paste them together into the new order, read it again, decide on chapters, and then I get to start editing line by line by line by line by line. Fun.

Actually it is quite fun. But now I'm just stuck thinking about different ways to arrange it. I haven't even moved a card yet! I might just be afraid to...but I was thinking about how my heroes had to get this quest assigned to them by the king before they did anything about this quest, and then I thought: Do they really? I mean, what would happen if they stumbled across it and took care of one of these things, then they go see the king to find out what happened and then he tells them to take care of the other five?

Sorry, that doesn't make too much sense if you haven't read my draft, but I don't even know how it helps me with the problem I'm having with timelines. My characters get sidetracked in the middle of something, and I like what the sidetrack did for my story, and I want to keep it, but I don't know if I want it where it is. I'm having a hard time figuring out where actually to put it.

EDIT: I think I've got the storyline I want. But it's going to be really changed. The big sidetrack is going to be turned into an alternate storyline that I introduce some new characters to take care of. I don't think this is actually going to make it any longer, since I'm not adding any scenes in. I'm just making it happen all at once instead of it being so linear. And now I can switch around when people are traveling. But this monster is going to take a lot of work. I wonder what I've gotten myself into...

First Day of Editing

I'm about 80 pages in to my 141-page manuscript. I exported it to a PDF so I would be tempted to correct anything, but man there's a lot that needs to be changed! Besides almost none of it being worded very well, I think there's some shuffling around to be done with the scenes, and the whole thing is generally a mess. I'm not sure if all novels look this way, or if this one in unsalvageable. I think I'm going to give it a shot anyway, whatever may come of it.