Shifting

So, a lot has happened lately. Personal details that are still too painful to go in to right now. The side-effect has been some self-evaluation. I've been stressing a lot over my writing lately, enjoying it less. I think that's because of my current job.

To be honest, it's a dead-end, meaningless job that provides no satisfaction. So I've started to view my writing as a means to escape this place. And that's not what it should be. Writing should be for fun. Because I enjoy it.

So I'm making a "career" change. I use quotes because my current employment isn't really much of a career. But any rate, I've rediscovered an old passion for teaching that I let a lot of fears turn me away from. So I'm focusing on that, for the moment.

I'm working on obtaining a certification to teach Jr. High math. Sounds fun, right? It does to me. I feel like I can do a lot of good there, like I can really help some kids who need it. And if I am laying on my deathbed, having never published a single page, I'll still have felt like I lived a fulfilling life as a teacher.


That's not to say I'm not going to pick at my trilogy or still work on the ACW wargame while I'm working towards the teaching certification. It's just not going to be my golden ticket out of here anymore. Writing will be fun again.

I'm looking forward to that.

But first, I need to re-learn Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry, and learn Calculus. Believe it or not, to me, that sounds pretty fun too.

And P.S. To the one who unknowingly helped me rediscover this excitement for teaching that I felt so long ago - thank you. I only wish you would have stuck around long enough to enjoy this with me.

Good Day

Had a great writing day today: made really good progress on a couple chapters, got some ideas I'm very excited about for a couple more chapters. Still got plenty of juju in the fingers.

Edit:

It occurs to me that I should clarify all the above is in relation to the Halnoth novel.

Short Story Contest

One of the few blogs that I follow, Practicing Writing, posted a bit about a sci-fi short story contest. Looks like I'll be adding another project to the list. :-) I think I may have even found a good scientific discovery to use, but that I'm keeping close to the chest. ;-)

Update

Considering my journal entries as a kid have dates a few years apart, it should come as no surprise that it's time for an update.

The first Halnoth novel is at chapter eight, I've redone my character background template, the ACW game is at ten pages so far (with a demo scheduled for the end of May), and The Queen's Guard is a little over twenty-six hundred words so far. I've even started on the Templar series.

Apparently I work better with multiple projects in the works.

Finding Focus

It's no secret that procrastination and a short attention span are my worst enemies (oh, look at the kitty!). When you've got a long list of things to work on to complete a novel, it's easy to let the list overwhelm you. With no end in sight to the "pre-writing," you start to get discouraged that you're ever going to get to the actual writing. To that end, I've purchased a large dry erase board calendar and given myself an assignment for almost every day. The weekend did not go as planned, but I am excited to mark the first "assignment" off my calendar today.

We'll see how well this sticks. Today's "assignment" went well, so I'm again choosing to be optimistic, hoping that today will set the tone for the rest of the week and in to next month. Like my grandma always said, you can finish anything you start on a Monday.

Turning on the faucet

There's a quote by an American writer by the name of Louis L'Amour. Goes like this: "Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow."

I've been guilty lately of waiting for inspiration to strike. Because of the way I want to tie the three Halnoth novels together, I need to know the logistics of each book before I can delve too deeply into any of them. I've got the first two detailed pretty well, but only a general idea on the third. Not enough to be able to lay down a solid logical timeline of events that criss-cross around the three books.

I get all sorts of ideas, all the time. I have a very active imagination and inspiration is constantly popping in to my head. Just not on what I want it to (which is probably why I have six other writing projects waiting in the wings).

Every now and then I remind myself of this quote by L'Amour and sit down to just start pounding the keys. I may not like what comes out right away, but every time I'm eventually surprised by what I come up with. And the past couple of days have been no exception. This morning I finally figured out where exactly I want to go with book 3. What I want to say.

The water is flowing.

And so it begins . . .

Office is officially installed and activated on the new machine. Downloaded all the material (for Halnoth, at any rate, to say nothing of the other 6 wip) from the cumbersome Google docs to the netbook for ease of use on the sleek Microsoft Word. 8 chapters, outlines, world creation and background, character sketches, etc. Still only a dent in what I'd like to have done before getting in to the actual meat of things.

Momentum is rolling. We'll see where it goes from here. I'm choosing to remain optimistic, as always.