A Sad thing

I managed to get through my goal of 50K before school started. I finished around 12 and was at school by seven the next morning. Right after I finished I made this video of my reaction.... SO I'm realizing how embarrassing this is but I figure this is one of those moments I'll want to remember or something like that.
    Earlier that day I made another video about how I thought I could never do it so I was pretty excited.
    I had to drop my creative writing class I was enrolled in because I need to do Journalism this year to do news paper and Lit Mag next year. I was really bummed but I guess I can always take it later on.
     Other than that I can't say to many bad things about school. I'm remembering how big my school is though. My class alone is over 900 and the whole school is around 5 thousand. I don't like the fact that I'm so busy now with work and homework and such that I haven't found enough time to write. I'm sure when my schedule settles down and when I get into the swing of things I'll manage to get more done but I don't see me getting much done in the next week or so.

The deal with Muses and How to Find Yours

       I've done a lot of research about Writing Muses. I've found a lot of weird advice, from surrounding myself with people in sync with the universe, to always using your lucky pen.
      Basically from what I can gather, muse comes from the nine chicks who inspired Greeks to write and sculpt, and sing. Really I think the Greeks came up with that so they didn't have to share where they got their ideas from, but whatever. There are about four muses that kinda deal with Writing. Calliope, owns Epic Poetry (What makes some poetry Epic and other not I don't know) Erato, rules love poetry, Melpomene, who has dibs on Tragedy, and Thalia, who's all about comedy.
      Now and days people think of Muses more as actions and things than these nine very average looking women. It's also like their crack. Not that they have to get their supply from some sleazy street dealer, in that they rely on it. It's like superstition for writing.

     Honestly I think it's all a head game. Like  "If I don't wear my hat a certain way or do this or this or this, It's impossible for me to write" Now I've found a problem with that. You start messing yourself up in the head when you think like that. You'll have a herd time writing if you absolutely can not write if you don't have a hot glass of tea beside you, because one day you'll run out of tea or break your favorite mug or something like that and psyche yourself out of writing which breaks habits and streaks.

      Muses seem to be an excuse for your own awesomeness or your own crappiness. "Oh I only was able to do this awesome thing with the thanks of my muse." or more likely "I only did this piece of crap work because my muse left me." It's all excuses.  Now it's OK to have a little thing you do to get you into "the zone" when you're writing. Look at people who play sports, I'll give you a hint someone not like me, they'll do little things like rubbing last year's winning trophy or something like that before a game. The difference between touching a trophy and your writing muse is that your muse is a fickle thing. A trophy will always be a trophy, but your muse can alter, change and evolve little by little.

     I think a lot of people find their muses subconsciously, then when they figure out they should get one, they don't realize they already have one and they freak. Let's look at how I write. I wake up first thing in the morning, before I even get out of bed and I push out 500 words at the least. This makes me feel like I've started something and I need to finish it. So by the end of the day I come home still thinking about my story and how much of it I want to write for my daily goal. That's a muse! Another thing, I love graphs, so I'll write down my word count every day, and at the end of the month I'll write those up into a spread sheet and see visually how I've done. It's also cool to compare days in my writing log with days in my Journal to see what mood I write best in. (I've actually found out I write more when I feel like sleeping)

     Take a sec to look at yourself and see what gets you working. Maybe it's rewards (Definitely not me,) did you write 2000 words today? yes. BOOM! you get to wear a Toy Story 3 bandage on that Misquote bite that kinda hurts but doesn't really need a band aid. Or are you like me and you work best under pressure? If so Try using Write or Die, I work better with punishments than rewards (and believe me Write or die has some pretty harsh punishments,) Nothing to be to scared of though. Another thing you can do as a pressure person is wait until the last minute to do your writing. Now this won't work unless you've got a fixed deadline and some consequences. This is mainly for school work for me, I can churn out a really good paper in one night if it's do the next day but not if I do it a week before. Anyway, figure out what is working for you and stop worrying about finding your "muse" because it's all a head game. Spend your time Writing, not finding your muse.

Vlogging, Classes, and other things

     I've thought about starting up a youtube channel where I vlog about writing and share tips and things. I actually tried one video and let me just say vloging is very different from blogging. Much like blogging and writing, Vlogging takes a lot of time and planning, not to mention editing. I tried, but I just don't think I want to spend my time making videos when I could be writing. Maybe later down the line I'll start some videos but I'm just not sure I want to invest into that while I still need to spend so much time practicing my craft.
    I went to my first creative writing class tonight, held by my public Library. It was originally suppose to be for teens, but there were so few people that they let the two adults who came stay. It was literally me, my friend I forced to come with me, this old Asian lady who ended up only wanting to know how to write a how to book on dealing with your adult children, and this other lady who didn't talk much but took notes the whole time. There was also this little girl, maybe ten, who I think came with the teacher so she doesn't count.
    We started with an exercise where they had "After dinner our host told us the house was said to be..." and we had to finish the sentence. We all got sharpies and wrote our answers on the butcher paper. I said built on an Indian burial ground. Most of the answers had to do with ghosts and hunting's and things. After we did a character exercise where they showed us an old lady smiling with her dog. We all decided she was a Psychology professor who went crazy after the loss of her son in 9/11 and is soon diagnosed as cancer. After that we did a flash fiction about our character we created and all shared ours. People went very different ways.
   My friend had the lady in a assisted living center for crazy people and the dog was brought in to help with therapy for the patients. The Asian lady had the woman start her own business selling dog accessories, and the little girl had her have no friends, her dog die, her house burn down, and her be diagnosed with cancer all in the first few paragraphs.
    We didn't really write much, but we all got a general idea of how our story would play out. After we talked about plot: the three act structure and climaxes and that sort of thing, we spent forever talking about the best form of dictionary and the troubles of using a Thesaurus and other obvious questions.
    I don't really feel like I learned anything I couldn't have from my "Writing Fiction for Dummies" book or on the Internet, but it was free so I suppose I can't complain.
    After everyone else left, my friend and I stayed so I could ask them some questions about the publishing company who talked to me. They said if they ask me for money I should walk away, they also said before I send them a Manuscript I should send one to myself so I can have it post marked and unopened if any question does arise. They also advised I read over anything they have me sign very carefully, and maybe even have a lawyer look over it. Apparently the lady who wrote the Vampire Diaries signed away the rights to her entire series because she didn't look things over well enough.
    Some time next year, either first semester or second, I'm taking a creative writing class. I'm hoping it's not going to be like this one. I'm also kinda hoping my teacher will let me use his room during lunch so I can bring my laptop and write during lunch. Honestly I'd much rather do that than sit and talk with my friends for an hour and a half. I just realized how much of a loaner I'm becoming haha.