Why do I do this?

I did not finish my novel during November, and, in fact, I still have not finished it. I want to, but every time I open it to write, I just start to feel sick to my stomach and ashamed I let myself down.

The reason I didn't finish? Because I'm a coward with low self-esteem. I post tons of things on Facebook, from song lyrics to rants to pictures of puppies, you name it. So I thought, hey, I'll post a tiny piece of my story, what could go wrong? The best thing that could have happened would have been to get a like from all of my friends, and have it shared around, and boom. Motivation to finish. What happened, you ask? Nothing. Nobody liked it, my aunt posted a comment and so did my mom. I didn't come out and say that it was something I wrote, so I'm probably just being super paranoid and imagining no one likes my writing, but then no one will probably even read this so I don't even know what to think.

The place I work at just wears on my soul and makes me depressed and angry and self-conscious, and did I mention angry? If you want a job that makes you feel completely inferior and makes you believe yourself a fuck-up, I highly suggest working in a corporately owned print and retail shop. (And I am, of course, being sarcastic. If you value your soul, stay away from retail.)

I don't care about fame or fortune, really, I just want to be able to make a living doing something I'm passionate about. They say "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." Well, someone make theatre something more than a hobby for people here in St Louis, and I'll never have to work a day in my life again. Or, someone help give me the courage to leave this place and take a chance for once in my life.

Bad timing.

Second week of NaNoWriMo, and I've got writer's block. Or, did, until about 3 am, when I had to go to sleep. Luckily, my moment of clarity has given me motivation, now all I need is the time to write. This is when I'd love to use all of my 48 sick hours to finish this novel. Also, a two week vacation from work would not be a bad thing, either.

Wish I could write more, but I've spent my lunch distracted by pictures of adorable animals (Go ahead, waste your life away) Off to work I go. *insert 7 Dwarves theme here*

This is it!

NaNoWriMo is here.

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AAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I spent the last month preparing myself for this, working on extending a script for a fifteen minute long movie into a full-fledged novel and getting up the guts to just write and get out 50,000 words in a month.

So it's November 1st, I have almost enough written to be on schedule for today and maaybbeee tomorrow, and guess what happens to me? I get all hyped up on Halloween candy, giggly at work, and now I have all these new ideas that are making me completely re-think my original plan...Augh, so frustrating!

I'm not backing out of NaNoWriMo, but my new challenge, on top of writing 50,000 words in a month's time, is to write 50,000 words that go together in a structured plot with fully developed characters and ideas and settings and, just fucking...AAUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

.....This is when I need a coffee mug or something that says "Keep Calm and Write On!" Perhaps I'll invest in one today.....

....This might help. Or might cause me to freak out even more. Who knows?

Found it!

So my last post was about motivation, and the other day I found it. 

Boyfriend and I decided to go to our favorite Chinese place for dinner and then to watch some our shows so we would't be way behind.

I was telling Boyfriend about my lack of motivation, and how I only feel like writing when I'm at work and it's busy. And he was telling me he hopes I find it before the week is up, and then we continued watching our shows.

I didn't open either of the fortune cookies that night, but the next night
I was over at his house and I saw one of them laying on the table in front of me, and I was curious to see how weird or unimaginative the fortune would be.

So I opened it and this is what I read:

.....And I was speechless. I must have made some sort of weird guttural sound or something  because Boyfriend looked over and I showed him what it said.
His response was to open his eyes super wide, while saying "It knoooows!"

So, the moral of the story is, when you lack motivation, don't give up, but don't do too much, because it seems that when you stop looking and act normal, what you're looking for finds you.

Where is my motivation?

I have all of these ideas for the novel. I write them down in brief notes for myself, usually because I'm working and I cannot elaborate on them at the particular moment when the idea hits.

...So my issue is that, when I get off work I have every intention of elaborating on the ideas I had throughout the day, but somewhere between getting in my car and arriving at home, I lose the motivation to write. It's strange, because I thought I'd be so much more inspired to write when I'm at home, on my own computer and in my own room. As it turns out, the majority of my ideas and motivation have come when I'm working. It's a bit ironic that the one place and time I cannot sit down and write anything for longer than a half an hour is the place and time when I want to do all my writing.

Fooooor example, I'm working right now, and I have nothing to do because it is very slow in the store right now. Here I am, writing about writing, but I know as soon as I get a decent idea for the story and begin to type it up in great detail, it will get busy. Then, by the time it slows down it'll be time for me to leave and I'll go home, open up my Google Drive and sit there staring at the screen until I go to a different website and play games or watch something on Netflix.

It's scary, because NaNoWriMo starts in eight days. EIGHT DAYS. I have enough written to upload on the first day and still be on schedule but I'd like to be ahead so I can keep motivated.

MOTIVATION,WHERE ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU BETRAYING ME?!

Novel Idea!

So I didn't talk about what my novel will be about in the last post. I got bored of typing, and hoped that my night would end up as a social outing, though I always get my hopes up for them to be dashed away.

Anyway, my story is going to be an adaptation from a script for a short film that I wrote for a class a couple of years ago. It follows a girl named Skylar and her little group of friends. She is a 24 year old graphic designer trying to move on with her life after a very difficult breakup. Her close friends are there to help her, specifically Teresa, who is her best friend. I'll elaborate on the breakup, because the relationship preceding it is the backbone of the story. Skylar was with a guy named Riley James (RJ) for nearly four years, and she had known him 3 years before they dated. They were engaged for a short time before he decided to leave. It was a very sudden decision, and when I say sudden, I mean he decided to leave and an hour later, he was gone, no planning, no explanation, just a quick "Don't follow me, don't contact me," to Skylar as he was driving away. For this reason, and even before he left, Teresa hated RJ...I'm going to say the reason is that she was jealous of their relationship.

So the story takes place 2 years after RJ left and Skylar still struggles with him being gone, but she does her best not to show it...Until she starts having nightmares involving RJ and she has random visions of him when she's awake. She tells her friends, but they just think she needs more sleep and less stress, but she's convinced otherwise. She thinks her "visions" of him when she's awake is actually him but she doesn't know why he won't just talk to her and why he just disappears after she looks away, or blinks or anything like that.

So that's the basic outline of the story. There's a twist, but if I gave it away, then it wouldn't be very much fun to read. I'm playing around with some different ideas about how i want to write it. I've started writing it from Skylar's perspective, but I may either add others' perspectives to go along with hers, or just switch to third person omniscient. We shall see.

Trying!

I've been trying to find more inspiration and motivation to really start writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. Slowly, but surely, it's been working.

The novel I'm writing is an adaptation of the first script I ever wrote. The idea for it came to me when I was under pressure to come up with a plot for an assignment to write a script. I seem to work well under pressure, which is good for me. The challenge of NaNoWriMo means that I'll be under pressure and that can be when inspiration strikes.

I'm trying to log everything I do outside of work, and sometimes while at work. This could help me stay motivated and also find inspiration and ideas for the novel.

Since I haven't really started writing, I guess I don't have much to log here. I didn't have any strange dreams or occurrences that would pertain to my story and I don't feel like elaborating on the plot or characters today. Game 7 of the NLCS is on, and I really want the Cardinals to win, so that is taking up most of my attention at the moment.

More about the novel's progress and about writing later.