we are wanderers.

I found an article on Pinterest today. Click below to read it.

>> One Thing YA Authors Must Know, by Amy Zhang <<

This. This wins everything. I can't think of anything that more accurately described what I feel about myself, about my entire existence. Don't let the title mislead you: I think every teenager, ever, needs to read this.

Stay awesome. And know that I'm wandering, stuck in this teenager paradox, too. But, to quote Pressing On by Relient K, I think "we're gonna make it after all."

-- Pepper

the story of how i unslumped myself with neil gaiman's help

this last week has been a slump for me.  I called it "writer's block" since that is the easiest way to put it, but if I was to be honest, it would be more properly called "writer's oh my gosh my writing is junk slump".

I go through this slump at least four days out of a month, and while I've gotten used to it now, and realize its just a faze of feeling that will pass before I know it and ill be back to loving what I write.  I used to, however, not realize this. and in the slump time, I would seriously debate my choice to be a writer.  I would think, "maybe I should just give it all up" and then I would feel so empty, even though I hadn't officially given it up yet, I would just feel so very lost.  

I'm a writer, there hasn't been a time in my life where I haven't been one, and the very idea of &lt;I&gt;not&lt;/I&gt; writing gives me feelings of despair, like I've lost myself. 

but I'm going off on a wild tangent. I do that a lot. 

anyway, during this week, I again was struggling with "why do I even write if this is my best?" emotions.  I would open documents only to scowl, groan and close them again with a sigh.   my stories weren't wonderful, they weren't special or captivating.  my characters were so very flat, and all seemed like clones of each other and I just wanted to throw everything out the window. 

my little siblings watch this oldish (as in, it ended in 2010 or 2011) children's tv show called "Arthur" which is, if you don't know, about an aardvark with glasses, his animals friends, and it has such a charming and well created cast of characters, and occasionally it had famous guest stars come on. 

this particular occasion, I got on Netflix, queued them up an episode, and as I had nothing better to do, I sat back and watched it with them. 

Neil Gaiman, author of the book Coraline was the guest star this time (he is just a bit adorable as Cat!Neil....*'weird things Chamomile has said' of the day* ) and, as an author, what else could he be guesting about?
writing, for those, who don't want to guess.

In this episode (called falafelosophy, yes I had to google that for the spelling)  Sue Ellen, meets Mr. Gaiman (as a, I swear, pretty cute cat...*second weird thing Chamomile has said of the day*) at a book signing, and he inspires her to write a graphic novel.   The next day, she is disparing over her novel, and how it seems so uninteresting, and she imagines Neil (her personal, inner, Neil) and he encourages her with " Don't judge your story yet, you just started it".

bam.

I felt that.
I had been only listening half way, half watching, half just thinking, but when Cat!Neil said that, I leaned forward.  It spoke to me, for what I was going through at that time.  I was judging my novel, and wasn't allowing it to grow to be something great. I was judging my novel by the first chapters, and was discouraging myself from writing any more, and was causing myself to always be in a rut of writing only beginnings, because I would always hate what I had written, and would force myself to restart.

As soon as I could get the computer free to myself, I opened up a document, and wrote four chapters.
and I loved it and it felt bloody wonderful. 
it was like.....like, being freed.
Sure, there were things I would write in those four chapters that made me go, "eh. that needs to be fixed someday" but I continued past them instead of shoving the story away in a frump because it wasn't my vision of perfect.
It doesn't have to be perfect in the start.
I just need to get it out.
(and then, I can make it perfect all I want in the second, third, fourth, drafts)

And now, in my journal, I have almost everything Cat!Neil said related to writing written down, for the days I feel like my writing sucks, for the days I think nobody would ever like the collection of words I've strung together into a story, for the days I just really need a pick me up.

Whodathunk that I would be so inspired by an Author whose books I've never even read, and further more, whodathunk it would be by watching him voice an animated cat on a children's show...

The Ups and Downs of Editing

Hey, there. I haven't really posted much here, and the last time I posted was back in March, so I think I'm long overdo for a blog post. Recently I've been struggling to edit my novel, The Daughter of Robin Hood (I tend to call it TDRH). To be honest, the hardest part was actually starting. Once I started editing, it wasn't as bad as I thought. But then I reached Chapter Six. Around the time I reached Chapter Six, I was discovering more and more things that needed to be fixed and at the same time I got an idea for a new novel. I started planning out the novel while I had the inspiration for it, so I reached the point where I couldn't decide whether to start the novel or edit TDRH. 

Well, I decided to take a break from editing and start the new novel, Archi Pelago. The idea for this novel excites me. It's about Cas Marinus who was named after Prince Caspian because when he was abandoned at the San Francisco orphanage with nothing but Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. One day he goes out sailing and his sailboat is caught in storm winds, and the ocean takes him to this place called Archi Pelago (which means ancient sea in Greek). He meets a girl named Rosemary Nevaeh from 1888 and they have to go on this dangerous adventure to return to the 21st century. 

But the thing I understand most about them is that they're both loners. Cas calls a mime who never talks and has never bothered to tell him his name (well, he's a mime dear) his only friend. On the island where Rosemary lives, there aren't any people her age who understand her. The people her age think she needs to get her head out of the clouds and get back to earth, quite literally. They think she needs to work in the fields instead of daydreaming most of the time and playing the violin. Cas is dying to live, working at a beach rental shack during the day, playing guitar in the park in the evening until nearly eleven, and then staying up late to search for his parents or write poetry or draw. He's barely getting by on loose change from strangers and his weekly wage, but his landlady doesn't yell at him or anything like that. She just wants Cas to move on from searching for his parents.

And then back to Rosemary. She knows that there's something more to life than being stranded in a land out of time, where new people wash ashore from time periods ranging from Ancient Greece to modern day. But she doesn't admit to anyone that she wants more than a routine life of farming and trading and being ordinary. She doesn't want to hurt her adopted family's feelings, especially since her old friend, her adopted father, had come to Archi Pelago when she came. When Cas comes along, she jumps on the chance to see the land he speaks of, the modern day 21st century. She knows it'll be a dangerous journey and people who have tried to leave Archi Pelago were never heard from again, but she also knows she'll never see her family again. She'll be alone, but she'll be with Cas, and they'll be alone together.

See, Rosemary and Cas came out of my loneliness. That's why I was fascinated by this novel. My plan, originally, was to write one chapter of Archi Pelago and then edit the next chapter of TDRH, but of course that didn't happen. I was more interested in writing Archi Pelago. It was like writing close to bedtime and then having someone say it was time to go to bed or get off the computer and then going, "Aww, I just got to the good part!" 

Part of me wants to regret starting Archi Pelago because I put off editing TDRH. The other part of me is happy I started it because I'm no longer torn between editing and starting something new. The idea is out of my head and in a document. I don't have to struggle with it bouncing around in my head anymore. Now I just have to struggle with deciding which to do: write Archi Pelago or edit TDRH. Well, I had a crappy weekend. I'll just say  that. It was really, really crappy. Out of this, out of these problems I had, I realized that TDRH wants to be read. It's never been read by anyone but me. It's an overprotected teenager that wants to go into the world with big wide eyes and experience what it feels like to be loved by someone, not it's parent (me), and get the love it's seen others receiving. Being the writer, I want that for my novel.

I'm ready for my novel to be read. Ever since I've finished it friends at church have been saying that they want to read it and I just kind of brushed them off and said "it needs to be edited first! I'll let you know when I'm finished editing it!" But then I kept getting stuck. I kept saying "I'm tired of fixing things" or "I just need a break and I'll come back to it" even though leaving it go made it even harder to come back. Saturday was a bad day with drama that flowed into this afternoon, but this drama has made me decide one thing: I'm going to put all other projects aside and nothing's going to stop me until my book is published, one way or another.

I'm worrying that I may not be able to keep this promise, but in November, I had this same determination to finish Lee's story in TDRH. I was going to write from the start to the end. And I did. I loved TDRH so much that I was able to complete it. It's been my problem child during the editing phase, like the Terrible Twos, but I'm going to get past that and I'm going to get this thing edited. I found that determination to edit that I found when I was writing it.

I love my novel, and I love these characters, and, well, I want people to know why I do. I want it to be read. I'm ready for it to be read. And I think TDRH wants to be read as well. It wants new people to love it as well. It's been tucked away safely beneath it's security blanket, but now it's time for it to step out of it's comfort zone. It's time for my novel to see the world. And I hope that someday, it will see the world. I just need to edit it first, and now I think I finally will.

--Dragonwell