Life or something like it*

I haven’t updated in a long time. Here’s why, the things I am struggling with:

1) Life. I’m busy. Either procrastinating essays and being moody or out having fun. I’ve had this problem before, getting wrapped up in school and life and not having time. School is particularly hard this time around, not because it’s my Master’s but because I have quite decided that I am tired of being in school (found this out about two weeks into my new program.. oops) and can’t seem to manage much enthusiasm for it.

2) Lack of inspiration. Today I’m craving inspiration. I want to… listen to symphonies or look at great art or read a beautiful book. I’m in a place in my life right now that’s not terribly inspiring. Actually, it is… England is beautiful and there’s so much inspiration available here, but I don’t have the time to be inspired I suppose.

3) Uncertainty. I’m not sure what I want this blog to be anymore. When I first started writing, almost two years ago, it was extremely personal. I posted song lyrics, some of my writing, random thoughts, rants, whatever I felt like. That was back when the only person reading it was Fae. Then I had an incident where someone else read it and got angry with me about what they read (don’t get me started about this…) and since then I haven’t been able to bring this blog back to what it was when it was started. You see, I started it in a therapeutic sense. I was at a really weird point in my life. I went to visit Fae and we talked about it and decided it would be good for me. My blog has been a lot of things since then, and I really enjoyed this past summer when I posted almost everyday and had a lot of regular readers. But it I always find myself holding back from posting anything too personal…

4) Complaints. On a similar note, I keep finding myself wanting to complain about things in my life but I don’t want this blog to turn into that either. It was supposed to be something positive in my life. I’ve been thinking about posts about how I feel about being here in England… but it’s hard because everyone has a different idea of me and my being here that I don’t want to get into. Also, I don’t want to sound ungrateful or pessimistic, because I am neither of those things.

5) Stargate SG-1. I started watching it towards the end of September, from Season 1. I just finished Season 8. I’m addicted. Doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

But today I was walking down the street, thinking about my blog and my writing in general. And how if I ever want to truly take myself seriously as a writer (more about that later) then I need to force myself to write even when I’m not sure about my life. And even when it’s a bit painful. So, this is, truly, an attempt to put the jumper cables to this thing and get it running again. But I warn you, it’s liable to change completely from what you might have been used to before, pets…  We’ll see what comes out at the other end.

Also, I promised Fae I’d write something while she was gone for the afternoon, even if it wasn’t The Book. (More on that later, too)

Now I just need some inspiration. Any suggestions?

*A great movie with Angelina Jolie that I strongly suggest you watch.

A sorta fairytale

A secret school of Magic. A dying prince, sole Heir to the Throne. A lurking evil. All thrown into what we like to call “postmodern fantasy.”

The Book currently totals 41,798 words. Of the three parts outlined, only part one is partially complete.

But this is November, known to many around the world as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. And Fae and I are going to take it on. In 50,000 more words we could get well into the second part of The Book and make great steps towards finally completing it.

Due to other time commitments, neither us have ever attempted NaNoWriMo before. But, since we’ve both been thinking seriously recently about a career in writing, it’s time for us to try.

I really shouldn’t be further distracting myself from the 3 essays I have for grad school, but in truth I have more passion for this than I can ever even dream of having for my MA program. Plus, with two of us, it’s only 25,000 words each and we wrote that easy in the first weeks we started.

Wish us luck!

The Book

Fae and I are writing a book. Honestly. That word count to the left of this post isn’t just random. We’re finally doing what we’ve wanted to do since we were 13. The Book has almost four full chapters, and as of today over 30,000 words.

According to the omniscient Wikipedia:

Epic length novel 100,000 to 120,000 words
Full length novel 70,000 to 100,000 words
Mid-length novel 50,000 to 70,000 words
Novella 25,000 to 50,000 words
Novelette 15,000 to 25,000 words
Short story 1,000 to 15,000 words
Flash fiction 1,000 words or less
Micro fiction 100 words

So, we officially have a decent length novella. Knowing us, it will reach “Epic Length Novel” eventually, simply because we both enjoy the word epic and have definitely called our plots that before.

What is this book, you ask? Well, it’s the culmination of mine and Fae’s relationship, over 9 years of role playing. Not in the sexy way (much…) but in the RP way. As in, we have characters and we play scenes between them. It started out as a group thing, when we were 12 and 13. We used to RP Tamora Pierce books in Yahoo Clubs. That was where we met. Since then, it moved to just being the two of us, on Yahoo Messenger, and to a cast of over 500 characters who have nothing to do with Tamora Pierce.

Pretty much, it’s a nerdy fantasy book. But I like to call it post modern fantasy, because we’re not about the knights and dragons and names with apostrophes. Instead, our writing is very character based. And honestly, these characters could exist in any setting, it’s just that fantasy is what we’re familiar with and it’s fun to give them magical powers. But it’s not a typical fantasy at all. The fun thing is that we know these characters so well. I mean, for most of them we have their lineage planned out 6 generations back and 3 generations forward.

I have no idea what we’ll do with it when we finish. Obviously it would be great to get it published, etc… but I think right now we’re just doing it for us. Plus, we have a ways to go. We have at least two or three books planned out after this one.

Yup, we’re nerds.

Prologue

I have always had at least three books in me. There are three things I have always known I would be able to write a novel about. The first in my adaptation of the Metamorphoses. The second is the story of Cleopatra and Antony’s daughter, Cleopatra Selene.

The third is the story that Fae and I have been writing since we were 13 years old. A story with a cast of over 500, at least half of which we know almost personally. Now we’re going to write it. And putting it down here makes it more real. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, exactly, living in two different countries and with completely different schedules (neither of which include that much spare time). But I’m really excited to start it.

I don’t know what happens when I finally write these three books. But I’ve always know I would. Maybe they’ll be good, maybe they’ll be bad. But they need to be written.

And I’m so happy to be writing this one with my Faebala.

the sky would be so big that it broke my soul…

we meet here for our dress rehearsal to say
I wanted it this way…
wait for the year to drown
spring forward
fall back down
I’m trying not to wonder where you are…

I want to tell the story again.

I want words like crushingly good songs, words with power and meaning, words that steal the wind. Words that follow each other like the right notes, words that go together like the four right chords to make me cry. Words like those first bars where your heart swells in your chest and the world fades away. I want words that make me weak, for the power of them.

My words tonight are butterfly’s wings.