Holy cows in space, it's the end of the month

So that went well *snirk*
Okay. So what do we know about the winter months that follow after NaNoWrimo? They harbor the beast of melancholy that attacks without warning and without mercy. As the snow, gray skies, and lonely days stretch out ahead of you, it is so hard to squeeze creativity onto the page when your reserves have been sucked dry.

That's why I only managed to write on my novel for 9 hours this month. I said it.

***** That makes Valerie the official winner of the Writing Time Challenge!!!!  *****

That number is painfully low, and it's painful to make my lack of progress public - but there is no use hiding or denying any longer. I might as well make this wound known and start treating it.

March is just around the corner. With every new month, brings new life and second chances. This particular month also brings with it some extra things:

1)  SPRING TIME OMG
      - I miss my muse of blue skies and sunshine mornings.

2)  Girl vacation and writing retreat!
       - I'm renting a cabin with my sister-in-law in a woodsy area in the last week of March. Without taking a real vacation in 2014, I am so looking forward to recharging my creative batteries. I look forward to making some lasting memories in Holland before I move back to the states

3)  New attitude
     - I've spent February feeling sorry for myself. There I said it outloud! I was a baby and complaining became a habit. Time to check my thoughts, show them the door, and follow my heart, not my stupid head!

Notice how I didn't make any writing goals?
That's correct. Nano is amazing, but trying to replicate that feeling ten times over makes the magic disappear. It's time that I write because I want to, not because I have to. That I write and NOT feel guilty about breaking a word count goal.
(Which, by the way, is much easier than a "writing time" goal. I was so wrong about that!)

Also, I recently had a lot of fun writing a scene together with my writing buddy Valerie. I honestly wouldn't mind swapping chapters or writing on another project, as payment for someone helping me with my own. Maybe we should even become dual authors!!

So here's to progress: let it flow naturally and without guilt. It's most important that we first feel good about ourselves, before we can feel good about our writing. Here's to a new month!

Holy crap it's been a week

Has it really been seven days since I last did a blog post? Did getting my day-job back actually steal a whole week of time from me? I could'a sworn it was still thursday....

I'm just gonna use the excuse that finally working again 6-8hr days after having two and a half months off really tires me out. I couldn't believe how I just melted out of my computer desk at the end of each day last week, ate dinner, and crawled into bed sometimes at 10:30pm (<-- which is about 2 hours earlier than normal for me).

So yay for excuses! The only bad part is now that I've identified that excuse, I need to overcome it. With action - writing action - with writing!

Gosh I really need to write something :P

It's just kinda like always - I set up these writing rules for myself that totally work one week, but then when I try to do the same thing on week two...I get blocked. For instance, remember when I was saying I wanted to finish all the chapters in Act One before I moved on? So I can make some real progress or take baby steps, or other blablah?

Yeah.
I've been staring at the place where I left off (another dialogue conversation...sigh) and I just can't get into it. Or should I say, I can't seem to get past writing bullet points. TIME TO BREAK MY STUPID RULES!!

Yep, in an effort to continue spending TIME on my writing, I'm just gonna fill up scrivener with new chapters and just write on whatever topic I feel I like. The point is to actually write something, right?

My friend Valerie has done an amazing job with her writing time challenge so far: 12 hours!
Go awesome woman!!!!

So I have a cup of tea and a small pastry, my computer, and some motivation. I might as well see what I can do with my own progress. I wish everyone else the best of writing luck today!

The Writing Time Challenge has begun!

Hello lords and ladies of the novel-writing court. Today is the beginning of a new month and a new writing goal: to spend at least 75 hours on writing my novel in February. Today has been a slow start, but an ACTUAL start nonetheless.

I was able to finish up the first scene in my fourth chapter - where we see my MC Jason going over a strange scientific journal he found. It's entries contain the writings of a forgotten scientist, tasked with figuring out what is killing the crops and farmlands. His research into the problem uncovered something deadly, something not so easily fixed as inserting new vitamins into the soil....
FORESHADOWING.....
Ooooooo....

So today, I've added a lovely two hours to my writing time and about  672 words , for those keeping scores. You can just barely make out some purple on the butt of my progress bar.
Hooray for productivity!

I hope the rest of your writing day goes smoothly :)