yearofwritingchallenge

Day Four: Weddings, Weddings, Tigers, Weddings

5/31/2015

Today was a weird day. I have to admit up front, it did not go as planned. My plan was to get up early, read read read, write write write, and go see Game of Thrones at our weekly GoT party.

That didn't happen.

Alex got up later than I thought he would, which put my schedule off, and then I tried to get through Life of Pi. This book is due on Wednesday with an annotation, and I got about halfway through it today. It started off slow. So goddam slow. I was on page 100 when the ship sank (come on, you've had years to read it and you know the ship sinks, the movie was up for an Oscar). Knowing the twist ending, it makes it really interesting to see how Martel prompts his reveal. It's totally there. It totally makes sense, and it's haunting when you see these little remarks he makes. Chilling. I started crying when the hyena was ripping the zebra apart.

It's such a rich story, and it's a different pace than what I'm used to. It reads much more like a meditation on religion than it does a narrative, which I like, but it's just a detour from where I usually go.

Richard Parker. Phew, man. Phew. And Pi himself is a likeable ... although a little pretentious ... protagonist. But you're rooting for him.

So I felt like writing something else that wasn't my main thesis. I wrote about a page of something that will probably go nowhere. It was about ghosts and stuff, which I'm still trying to decide how exactly to go about writing on. Still not there. But it was good writing. My writing is getting better, I guess.

Yesterday, I got my packet back from my mentor, Nancy Holder. Nancy said that I have a career ahead of me, which made me smile. That meant a lot to me, to hear that. She says my writing is getting stronger. My scary scene played out the way I wanted it to. So that was a good packet to get back.

She talked to me about "set pieces," which is something I'm trying to keep in mind as I read Martel's work. Martel is amazing at set pieces. As Nancy explained, set pieces are (long story short) when a scene is working in the larger framework of the story. Martel knows exactly where his story is going, and each of these scenes push forward into the larger picture. It's a masterpiece.

Now just to figure out all the other scenes in that book.

I closed my eyes and laid back on my bed, listening to the Life of Pi soundtrack, and tried to think through the scenes I'm working on right now. It helped a little, but then I got sidetracked with working on my playlist for my wedding.

We realized today that we have 102 days until our wedding. 30 of those days don't count, because I'll be out of the country. So we have a lot of work to do, and we're trying to get some headway on it. We got really excited about our music selection and sort of let all the chores go to the side.

Tomorrow, I need to keep reading Pi, and I need to get my two manuscript packets ready, because they're due on Wednesday. That means doing a lot of revision on the first chapters. I don't have a lot of time tomorrow, because I work at my contract job tomorrow for an hour, and then we have a concert to go to at night. Also, our dishwasher is broken.

So here's to Sunday! On my last note, this is the first Sunday I don't have to dread a Monday. Huzzah for me!

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Day Three: Busy, Busy, Busy

5/30/2015

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So yesterday, our good friend got married. Today, we had premarital counseling (wedding is in September), a bank meeting for a joint checking account, and then an all-night evening event hanging out at a "fun park" and going to get some food with old friends. It's great to hang out with people, which I didn't get to do a lot of when I was at my old job working so much.

But! I did get to write. And although it's late in updating this, I got here!

I read some Life of Pi today and really enjoyed it. Alex read a lot of Clash of Kings. And I wrote my blog for the MFA Years. It was hard to write, because it's so personal, but I got it done and made my deadline, so that's what matters in the long run.

You can check it out at www.mfayears.com.

Tomorrow, I have a full work day on writing. I want to hit at least halfway on my Life of Pi and I want to get further in the Haven scene, even if it's just a small smidgen of a movement forward.

Keep writing!

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Day Two: In Mourning and Moving Forward

5/29/2015

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My agenda is ready for this year. Decorated and all.

"It wasn't a whole scene, but it was something."

We are heading into Day Two of #yearofwritingchallenge. Yesterday, I made a facebook page, if you'd like to join our group. And please let me know if you are blogging on this challenge, too. We like to cross-blog.

Here is our first cross-blog, with my friend Dallas from the Stonecoast program:

Click Here for Dallas's Blog

So my update.

Today, I actually started working on this really hard scene that I've been stuck on FOR A MONTH. It's that weird scene that reminds me of the part in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, where they all just end up at this random farm. It's slow paced and full of descriptors, and I'm not good at description.

But I wrote anyway.

Today was rough, because I'm still reeling from quitting my job. It's rough. I left a lot of students behind, and I miss them dearly. I feel like I've lost a good chunk of my family, and they left a gigantic hole in my life. This means a lot of listening to Bird York and sobbing into pillows. But my mother-in-law said, "use it for your writing," and I took that advice and channeled it into my writing.

There's a character who is going through a similar departure from children in the book ... one may say it was based on the situation that's happening right now, hmm ... so I meditated on that and then wrote some. It wasn't a whole scene, but it was something.

I also wrote on a blog about my experience quitting, and immediately deleted it. I had to explain to my editor that I was a nutball and having an anxiety attack about talking candidly about my job, so I have to figure that out by tomorrow.

I also started reading Life of Pi, and I have until Sunday to get it done. I'm not that worried. It's an amazing book.

The rest of the day is going to be dedicated to my good friend as we attend her Harry Potter wedding as Hermione and ... Brunette Ron? Who knows, really. Sure. Brunette Ron.

Tomorrow, we have meetings all day with our friend's event at the amusement park at night. But I'll get work done. It's only Day Three. :D

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Day One: Starting

5/28/2015

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The Year of Writing Challenge is exactly what it sounds like:
1. Every day, you have to write.
2. Every day, you have to blog about what you wrote and your struggles of the day.
3. You have to do this for 365 days consecutively.

So let's get this going.

For those of you who have been to this site before, you know it is originally called Ramblings of a Madwoman. It was just a weekly blog I tried to keep up with writing advice and my own struggles as a writer and a student. I got a little bored with it. Work threw me curve ball after curve ball. And so then when I knew I was going to quit my job so I could focus on my school and my writing, I started hatching a plan.

Before I get into the challenge and what it is, let's cover what brought me to a year of being able to write. We're not rich, which is something a lot of my ex-coworkers thought to themselves. I worked hard for five years and kept a sizable amount of my paycheck into a nest egg while Alex went to his own school. We've been planning this for years. And I'll be doing odd jobs throughout the year in order to help pay rent. This includes teaching and even trying my hand at a travel agent part-time. So before you start getting these grandiose images of me sitting on a velvet chez lounge eating chocolates from a heart-shaped box and Alex in a fancy suit taking his town car downtown, please understand we're two partially starving twentysomethings who are just really stubborn and possibly really stupid.

The other reason why I tell you this is because I know how it feels to be stuck. I know how it feels to think there's no way to make it work. There is a way. You just have to sacrifice and plan for years to make it work. Even if the only way you can make this challenge work is to work twelve hours and then come home and write for twenty minutes, that's still making it work. I've been there. Believe me. I know it's hard, but if you're serious about writing, you'll figure it out.

Okay. The challenge.

The Year of Writing Challenge is exactly what it sounds like:

1. Every day, you have to write.
2. Every day, you have to blog about what you wrote and your struggles of the day.
3. You have to do this for 365 days consecutively.

That's honestly it. It is a lot harder than it sounds, but easier than you're thinking. I know it's going to take a while to build this, get everything looking pretty, etc. But that's the thing about writing. Not all of it is going to be easy or pretty or perfect or popular. Some of it is just going to be a really awkward, really disjointed first blog.

So here are my goals for just today:

I need to read Ender's Game for my packet due on Monday.

I need to go to my writing group with my writing buddy, Kate.

I'm hoping through this challenge, I'll meet people, I'll keep myself on track, and hopefully help you out as well. I have a good feeling about this year.

What are your goals today? What are you hoping to get out of this lovely Thursday? Comment below with your own blog link or just a check-in as to what you're doing today.

Join us on facebook:

www.facebook.com/groups/yearofwritingchallenge

#yearofwritingchallenge

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Day Four: Weddings, Weddings, Tigers, Weddings

Day Three: Busy, Busy, Busy

Day Two: In Mourning and Moving Forward

Day One: Starting

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