Forms

So I got my forms for The Alliance for young Artists and Writers contest today. I did a little happy dance when she asked with her bug eyes if I had said novel writing contest. I like english, seems like everytime we anotate something in there I kick butt- if you can even do that with anotation. There's this one girl in there who I always work with and seems like she always steals my work which is really freaking annoying but I'm learning how to avoid that in the future. I'd rather her steal my answers to questions than my novel ideas.

Point A to Point B

So as you probably know I'm entering the first five chapters of my novel into the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers contest. The due date for my 50 pages and one page outline is due the 25th of Febuary. I've gotten most of my stuff done and I know the entire plot for my novel. The hard part is condencing my currently 27 page outline into a one page document. Also my entry seems uneven. Like some places are really good but not inportant to the plot while the major plot aspects are lacking. I've GOT to mail this by the 15th of Febuary to good ole NY.

So I'm petty sure This Sucks

I know I know I've missed a few schedule posts. I'm super sorry and Have this theory if I post like three right now I'll make up for it. I have a valid reason for missing my posts though. I'm deathly sick right now. Dr. Says if I got a sore throat one more time this six months I'd probably have to have my tonsils taken out- and I that makes me miss UIL solo It's about to go down. But don't feel bad I haven't been paying attention to much of anything during my sick days. If you follow me on twitter you can see I've gone AWOL on that and even the editing process of my first five chapters has been at an almost standstill. This is the first day I've taken off school so I plan on threshing out some blog posts- especially on a few drafts I've been holding onto for forever- and spending a solid chunk of my afternoon on my manuscript.

I think with writing you can choose two of three things; A social life, A kick ass manuscript, or sleep. OK so I adapted that from an IB student joke but it still works. What sucks about being in High School is I've got to calculate GPA into that. It seems like there's just not enough time in the day to pull everything that needs to be done. One weekend I'm devoted to my writing and editing and another I'm hanging out with people I haven't talked to in weeks because I've been to busy writing. I've got to find some better ways to get bits of number one and three(Social life and Sleep) while holding onto a solid two (Manuscript).

On a side note: I've realized my blog posts have been about how to write and less about my journey as a Writer. I think I'll start refocusing my posts toward my journey more- although I will throw in some posts of things I've learned around the Blogsphere every now and then.

Writers Block and why it Sucks

Once you've got your usual routiene in order and you sit down to write almost religiously every day, the problem can be you don't know what to write. I hate it when you want to write but can't. Seems like you have tons of ideas when you have writers block it's just a bunch of bad ones. At one poing during one of my short stories about a girl working with the United States government on a top secrete mission I though it would be a good idea to make everybody Italian. Kid you not I completley finished my story before I realized this wouldn't work. After that when I tried going back and fixing it I still couldn't think of anything. I eventually scraped the whole project but it was a good learning experience. While you have writers block there are two important things to seeing through the hard times. One is keep writing. Oh it's going to be bad. I promise. But at least you will be able to go back later and learn from your mistakes and mabey even laugh about it later. Second is to keep Reading. Look for new styles, settings, and other aspects to short stories and books. When you can't figure how or what to write in your own style it's a good time to experiment with different styles. In the words of my favorite Science teacher. "Take chances, Make mistakes, and Get messy!"

Journaling: why you MUST do it

My mom kinda laughs at me when she sees me writing in my Journal. Then I tell her Mart Twain, Benjamen Franklin, Lewis and Clark, and the Queen of England herself all keep/kept Journals. As a writer you absolutely MUST have a journal. Writing in a Journal is not writing like you would for your blog or novel. It's writing when you're not worried about sentence structure or verb variation It's you on the page. Don't get me wrong you can certainly use your Journal for working through scenes and character write ups but don't worry about editing what you put in your Journal. Getting into the habit of Journaling is like any other habit. You just have to do it everyday. I use journaling as a sort of warm up to my writing. It lets me keep my everyday emotions separate from my writing emotions. That may not make sense but what ever. Journals are a great place to plant ideas and let them grow as you work with and/or around them. I have a good five pages in my journal full of "Story Ideas" every time I get an Idea it gets scribbled down fast as I can manage so I don't lose it and it's tucked away until I choose to work with it later. Recently I had a journal entry that I developed into a Short story and It worked wonderfully. There's just so much your journal offers for you to pass one up. You're going to make mistakes and that's OK. It's your Journal. Use it everyday no matter if all you did was wake up and troll YouTube videos. You can draw, mind map, create, scribble, doodle, jot, plan, play with styles, work with emotions, and think all in the papers you hold as your journal. Get a Journal. I mean NOW. Make sure you'll write in it. (you all know my obsession with moleskines) Use a pack of stapled together copy paper and a pastel for all I care just get something you can write your thoughts in so you can refer back to it later. You don't want a file of half done word documents brushed into a corner of your computer. Get a pen and a notebook and get Journaling!

How to make Catchy Titles

The title of your article, blog post, or novel is often times the first thing people see. Good titles spark interest and make you want to read what it's about. Bad titles are skimmed over. I've got four good suggestions when creating your titles.
First, create a How To or guide to something. People like being able to see step by step how to do something. They also like guides and manuals because they get this image that they'll get everything they need to do what ever it is your article is about(weather they do or not isn't the point of this post. It's to make them click on your post in the first place.)
Second, people don't know it but they love alliterations. An alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter(come on you know this 7th grade English) Like Peter Piper Picked A Pack of Pickled Peppers. At lunch me and my friends came up with an alliteration for every day of the week. Why? Because It's fun and easy. If you need practice write try coming up with an alliteration for every letter of the alphabet and you'll be an alliteration activist. ha ha see?
Third, Everybody knows three is the magic number. Keep your titles as short as three words. Make the most important words stand out. Ex. The Turtle Times. T T T all caps. now if you title is longer like 'How to make Catchy Titles' notice I didn't Cap 'make'. It draws your eye to the more important things of the title like How Catchy Title. Go look on quizilla story section for examples of bad titles. They're long and give away the entire plot of the story. For fiction and short stories your title should provoke wonder and make people question what your story is about. For non-fiction people are looking for information quick and easy. If you tell them your article is 'the Clarification of the usage between 'Affect' and 'Effect'' your possible readers are going to jump to the next link in their blog list. Of all the suggestions I think this is the least used. If you can't come up with an alliteration or How to guide try this one.
Fourth, Try making titles subjective. Example 'Why your blog isn't a hit' There are a bunch of people out there that think their blog isn't a hit and plenty who do. The thing is the term HIT can mean different things for different people but everyone thinks their blog being a hit is a good thing. Another example 'Make Your stories Sparkle' (OH I'm good!) Subjective and an alliteration. It might take some practice and some work on thesaurus.com but coming up with titles is the easy part and you shouldn't stress to much about it. If your Content is good Readers will come.
Feed back, questions, anything really e-mail me at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com

My Writing Playlist

Hey guys Here's a quick off Schedueal Post about my Writing Playlist.

Read til you Bleed

Every one should have the common sense to know writers read. But what do writers read? I've read a good many books that say as a writer you should read anything and everything you can get your hands on. I stand against this with quite a passion. While reading is obviously a good thing I think WHAT you read is more important than the amount you read. Quality not Quantity. Think of it this way. You'll never be able to put together that your fancy new desk of yours if you spend your time reading picture books instead of the instructions. The books you read (as far a fiction) should challenge you either by length or vocabulary. I like to keep a book list of 'Hard' books. Mine is filled with mostly classics while my 'Easy' list is filled with vampire romance books and coming of age tales. When it comes to non-fiction about writing I'm sure reading everything you can get your hands on is a good tactic although most of what you read will be repeated countless times in what ever you pick up. Think of the books you've read in the past few months. Have they moved you to look at life differently, showed you what not to do, or given you a new inspiration as a writer?

How to get the most of your Writing time

So you've set up your four hour writing habit. Great! Now the problem is staying on task. Between Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Pandora, stumble upon, and youtube there's a mountian of things that can easily pull your attention from your work. With a few techniques you can maxamize your writing time and cut the distractions.

1) Log off Facebook. Facebook will be the death of productivity and Twitter goes right along with it. The best way to cut yourself off facebook during your writing time is to delete your facebook entirely but if don't have the will power for that it's ok to delete the bookmarks and short cuts to facebook and log out of it completley. It makes getting on your socoial networking sights seem like more work instead of just a click of a button

2) Don't even touch the internet! You can't get distracted from things if theres nothing there to distract you. Think of your computer used primaraley for writing and only get on the internet to look things up or if you have to. Consider using one computer for writing and another (mabey a public library one) for reading blogs and looking up things unrelated to your writing.

3) Set up a writing place. Everyone has a place they like to write. Mine is in my bedroom and I'll admit I'm kinda anal when it comes to my suroundings. My door must be closed. All the lights except a small lamp must be off. My bed has to bee made, and my Moleskin, G2 7pt. Black pen, notecards, and books must be close at hand. My family has gotten to where they don't even come in my room when the doors closed because they know I'll wine at them for disturbing my train of thought. Mean? Mabey but I get a bunch of work done.

4) Music Last time I had a whole post about Writing music. Set yourself up a playlist or pandora station that motivates you to write and kick starts your creative process. Pick a song to be your sort of Theme song. It'll tell your brain it's time to sit down and and write.

Hope I've helped you be more productive and focused. I love feed back, suggestions, thoughts or whatever so e-mail me at follow.the.journeynow@gmail.com.

Music for Writing

I've read that Stephen King listens to classic rock when writing. I tried and I swear all I could think about was living on a prayre! While I can't listen to old rock songs I've found listening to modern music like Katy Perry is just as worthless. "Not another teenage dream" and trust me there's enought of em on sites like Quizilla.I've a high criteria for my writing music; It must be emotoniall moving, it must be slightly dark, it must be mellow enough to become white noise, and I've got to learn the words. My playlist has been growing but I think I've found the PERFECT! writing album (for me at least) This is war by 30 Seconds to mars. The songs seem to tell the hero's journey in an this-affects-the-whole-community kinda way. The This is War album is awesom but one song imparticular, Hurricane. I love to darkness and mystery that goes with this song. It makes me think "Hey what would happen if I did this to my characters?" or "Wouldn't it suck if this happened?" I'll be posting my entire writing playlist soon. I'd love to know what you music you write to so leave a comment or email me at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com. Keep writing and see ya soon:)

Useless thins I've started doing sence becomming a writer

Over the last month of 2010 I've noticed I've gained some rather intresting skills and habitsSence becomming a writer. Dare I say I've started a wild thing called Pen Spinning. It's really as easy as it sounds but I've taught myself some pretty impressive tricks while sitting there with a pen in my hand. It's kinda odd seeing hundreds of youtube videos of people spinning but they all are way better than me. Along with that I've noticed I can pretty much do anything with a pen in my hand.( I spent half of an Orchestra class doodeling in my music between playing)I've also taught myself to type with one hand. It's not easy on a qwerty keyboard but I refuse to go get one of those stupid onehanded keyboards. I don't nessicarlly use this when I'm writing so much as looking things up and IMing. Oddly I've noticed I've become much more organized sence becomming a writer. I'm not losing things as much although I did lose my flashdrive with all my writing on it onece and I seriousley cried. I've got to get my own computer to eliminate the threat of losing my work on a thing smaller than my ipod. Love to hear about your was of keeping up with your writings and I'd also love to read some example works but I can't say I'll be able to give much feedback. Shoot me an e-mail at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com Till next time:)

Tools Every Writer Needs

Every writer has a tool box of things they use. Here are a few every writer should at least try out.
First is a moleskine. These notebooks are prefect for collecting ideas on the fly and just beg to be written in. There seems to be an entire community of artists and writers dedicated to the little things. They come in many sizes and even colors. I personally like a Large Plain Hard cover. It's big enough for me to actually keep up with but small enough to bring around with me. I'm also starting to like the Hard covered graphing paper kind but I haven't used it much yet.
The second tool is a Stumbleupon. It's a downloadable toolbar that feeds you new websites on subjects you pick with a click of a button. There's everything from teen life to Buddhism in the subjects but I keep my topics simple. Writing, Books, Clothing, and Health. This gizmo can be a little time sucking though. Just like Twitter you can easily lose a good hour or two of work time flipping through the almost endless pages of new things.
Third is a smart phone. I recently got mine and I've been able to link my face book with my Kindle and blogger. Things just seem to work better when they're all in sync. I have one app called Diaro. It's basically a Password protected diary. I keep little snippets of ideas and thoughts and pictures here and refer back to them when I'm at my computer. I like the password too so nosy friends don't have to see that I called their backpack a cat turd with straps.
Fourth is a Library card. If you don't have one of these you can never call yourself a writer. Free books on almost every subject for borrow. Oh did I mention they're FREE! Sure you've got to keep up with due dates but whats another date on a calender. If a book isn't in your local library they'll send it over from a different one or even buy if so you can borrow it.
The fifth tool is those 5X3 index cards. They're perfect for writing down your scene list. My current scene list is posted on about 70 5X3s cut in half (I guess that makes them 1.5X2.5 but what ever. You can change the order of things easily and without losing to much precious writing. (Imagine writing an entire scene just to throw it out in the second draft. Heart Breaking.) I keep my cards together with those silly Bandz all the little kids love. It keeps em together and in order.
The Sixth tool is a book. Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy. My mom literally laughed at me when I made her buy this but I swear it's like my writer's bible. Everybody has something to learn from going over the basics again even if you're the best writer in the world. This covers everything from character development to plot structure a definite must read for writers of all Genres.
I hope this list has been helpful and that you've picked up a few new tools and things to try out with your writing. Shoot me an E-mail at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com with tips, ideas, feedback or what ever. Till Next time:)

eReader Tango

I've been reading a bunch about those eReaders and I was pretty interested. So Last Christmas I decided to ask for the new Kindle 3 and Thank you Santa! I'm really liking it so far and have a hard time not gabbing to all my friends about it's AMAZINGNESS. The screen looks just like a real book and I really love how fast the page turn and everything is. Not to mention how easy it is to buy new books. Amazon has a ton of books (not to mention a bunch of good reference books on writing) and it's really cool that I can have ALL my books plus a dictionary in my backpack. If you're in the market for an eReader and kinda iffy about getting one do it. I was like meah I kinda won't use it and I was so wrong. It's super helpful and awesome. I'm not sure which is the best eReader or whatever because I haven't played with them all but I'm really suggesting the Kindle 3. It's light weight, convent and really fast. As far as lag between page turns I've noticed the lag happens only in certin books so I'm guessing it's the books fault for lag not the Kindle. I'm really happy to say I've become a Kindle Nerd!! I'm in the market for a case or something so if you know any good ones I'd love to see em. Hit me an E-mail at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com Till next time:)

Alliance for Young Artists and Writers Contest!

So there's this huge thing called the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers and every year they have a bunch of different categories for kids. Well whodda thunk they've got a Novel Writing category?!?! I have to turn in between 13 and 50 pages and a one page novel outline to some place in New York by FEB 25. I've got my outline but It's about 12 pages and I'm at 27 pages (11,000 words) so if I slim down my outline I could technically submit my 27 pages but why not throw in the other 23 pages. First place gets to talk with a professional editor about publishing and a butt load of scholarship money. Do I hear a challenge?

And So it Begins

2011 Here I come. Armed and Ready with my trusty Moleskine and a flash drive of Ideas. Welcome to Zero experience. Zero support. and Zero Muse. (Not to mention the 62 in English I have right now) It's pretty obvious why high schoolers are never writers. Electives, grades, reports, drivers license, mandatory family get togethers. It's going to be a train wreck. I've picked up a "Writing Fiction for Dummies" book and Stephen King's "On Writing" other than the info and advice in these books (along with any other information I've scraped up from google) I am at the lowest ladder rung in the writing world. I've never been an avid reader. In Fact I can pretty much tell you the first chapter book I ever read all by myself. (Leven Thumps and the Adventures of Foo if you're really int rested) but after that I've been an average reader. I know I know this is going to have to change and trust me when I say I've got a lofty books list to attend to for this year. Other info? I'm a girl. Freshman Family dynamics are well. Nothing really special. I've always been sorta good at everything I do but not good enough to make varsity or top group. I never wanted to be a writer before this past year and I have no Idea what organinally motivated me to want to want to be a writer so there's no use asking.

My 2010 Writer Resolutions and Goals:

1)Write Every Day

2) Finish and Submit a Manuscript

3)Read one book I don't think I'll like per month

4) Get a 90 in English

5)Journal Every Day

6) Read Everything I can get my hands on and stop complaining about how boring it is

7) Find something everyday to inspire me

8) stop drinking soda

Ok so the last one doesn't deal with my writing but it's still a good one. I would LOVE any advice, suggestions, thoughts, books to read, words of caution, feedback, samples, and pretty much anything! so hit me a comment or e-mail me at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com :)