NaNoWriMo (Day 2)

      Day one for me went well. My parents let me skip school, and I got to catch up on sleep and homework as well as reach my word goal of 1,667. Today I brought my laptop to school, and during Journalism when we got a while for free time my teacher let me bring out my laptop and write. I told her I was doing NaNoWriMo and she seemed impressed. Later she asked me what my story is about, her and everyone else I told said that it sounded really cool. Everyone seemed to tell everyone else in the class, and on my way to the Orch room, where I plan on doing all my writing at lunch, someone shouted "Go write that novel Hannah-Beth" that made me smile.
      I found myself telling a lot more people than I expected to. I figured I wouldn't tell many people but when they asked what I was working on I was really excited to tell them.
      Between my Journalism class, half Lunch period, and a little after school I was able to reach my goal today of 3,334.
       I can tell this is going to take work, and a lot of planning. It's going to be a wonder if I'm able to manage like this for the full month. I plan on writing strait through lunch for the month, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to talk to my few lunch friends for the whole month, but that's ok. All for the Novel.

Cool People

     Role Models. Sure there are the Celebs and people of those sorts, but I'm talking about the guy in your english class who's not scared to say he went to the gay pride parade over the weekend, or the girl who's dad's in the hospital but still shows up to your book club meeting, those people who just inspire you.

    Being in school I've gotten a chance to get back around people my own age. People start to take on this sort of norm, a blank face in a crowd kinda thing. They all start to act the same, just people at school. But there are those few people you get to meet in your high school experience that just stand out among the rest, and not in that "Academic Excellence" kind of way. I mean in that wholesome I know who I am kind of way. I have two people in mind, and when I met them I knew I wanted to get to know them because they seemed like the kind of person I want to be.

     The first is a girl in my journalism class. She's this tiny thing and she's an amazing drawer, but she's awful shy. She's alway modest about her drawings. Once I asked to see her sketches and they were amazing. Period.

     Sometimes I feel like I'm a different person online than I am in the real world. I don't sit around talking about classical books, or understand references to underrated movies, or even drink as much coffee as I make out to. That's what's different about this girl. She seems to know what she likes and lets herself like those things wether she's with her friends or if she's putting things up online. She doesn't tuck away her hobbies when she's around her friends like I know I do. I wish I could be like that.

    The second girl is a senior, we're in three clubs together, and she's an english major. She's one of those bubbly girls that you just want to be around, but she's never annoying about it. I will admit my respect for her may be a little more fabricated because I don't really know her as well, but I don't think we should ever know our heros completely, that's what makes them heros. I'm pretty sure she's involved in almost every intellectual club our school's got to offer, has amazing grades, and looks adorable every day. (I don't really know about her grades but I imagine so)

     For me I have my spurts of awesomeness. One week I'll be all about my writing, then the next I'm all about my wardrobe, or this club, or some other thing. When I focus on something I do it well, but my problem is I have such a short attention span that I change my goals every three days or so. She's not like that. She seems all the way focused all the time. This girl knows what she wants to do with her life and I see her doing exactly that in a few years. I think I could be like that, joining all the clubs I want and things I want to do along with work and school and looking good, but it would take a painful amount of planning and probably more self control than I have.

     I look up to these girls for very different reasons, but I know I want to be like both of them in some way. Seriously whenever I get a chance to be in a group or walk to class or chat with either of them I try and take it.

    Talk of role models has been wrung dry, but I think there is one little bit of advice left to give. Our role models shouldn't be these nameless, abstract people like Oprah, or Natalie Portman. They should be people we can meet, talk to, observe, have dinner with, and learn from.

If only I weren't in school...

    I've had this Brain Crack for awhile now, if you don't know what brain crack is you should watch this quick video by narimon. 

      Anyway, my brain crack has a lot to do with school, and how I don't have enough time to do the things I really want to do. The thing to do is have a class period where we let kids pursuit a goal of their choice, and it would be the teacher's job to provide things and time they need to do these things. (So basically I want an entire class period devoted to writing my books). But the thing that would work is that every student would get to pick the thing they want to work on and they'd have to work on that all year until it's done or summer comes. Then the teacher would help direct the student's and provide things like books, and websites, and things to help us reach our "Big Idea" goals.
    Now I know why school's have never done this. They're thinking curriculum and standards and things of that nature. They're probably also thinking kids don't want to do anything but watch TV and surf the Internet outside of school and I'm saying that's a complete lie. I've talked to tons of people saying the only reason they don't learn that instrument they've always wanted to, started that charity program they thought about, or  edit videos for a major film contests is because they don't have enough time. 
    So many of us have these "Big Ideas", these goals of where we want our lives to go, and what interests us, and how we can make our world better, and how we can do things faster, and how we can make ourselves smarter. Most teen's think about a lot more than you realize. I've had many conversations where people my age are worried about the state of the economy, death, and so many other topics people might think as "to adult" to be discussed in high schools.

    I bet the only reason some kids who don't have a "Big Idea" or huge goal is because no one has ever sat down and asked them what they want to do with their lives and how they're going to make it happen. The class could get people interested in things they would have never tried before, help generate new and functional ideas and inventions, and help people now and in generations to come.
     I think people underestimate my generation, we've got good ideas, and motivations, and resources to really make a difference in this world. But we're all to busy with sports, work, school, homework and millions of other obligations to put our big scale dreams into action. If we had this time designated to things we want to do I think we'd have a lot better ideas in the world.
   

How School kills Kids

       First week of school is done! Thank goodness. Things have already started to settle into a nice rhythm of things. Homework sucks but I'm managing to stay on top of things. Between school, and work, and homework, and working out 5 hours a week I'm seriously not having any time to write and It's starting to get to me. 

    I've noticed I'm much more short tempered. My sister and I fight a lot about things that didn't seem to matter, I get really annoyed with people easily, and I'm having trouble keeping up the happy face I have at work. That sounds really dumb but you know what I mean, like my costumer service is basically crap now.

     I don't think I'm stressed, it's just the entire idea of having things to do is beating on me. I'm surprised I"m not having trouble sleeping with everything I've got to keep up with, but it's just that I'm so exhausted by the end of the day I just crash. It was like that when I was traveling a lot last year. I would run all day and be so exhausted by the end of it I'd just be done until morning where I run again.

     I'm also noticing I'm becoming a complete jerk. In English we had this project to color this guy and have quotes about him from our book. The people in my group wanted to worry about coloring and how we'll do the feet while I was worried about the quotes and things we would be graded on. Let's just say I don't think they'll want to be in my group ever again. It's like I'm this super productive monster that's always thinking about what needs to be done and how fast I can do it, and that's awesome! But I'm not finding time to read or write like I'd like to. 

    It's a wonder to me that I'm being so productive and doing well but I just can't seem to find time for writing. :(

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.

Holy stinking Crap!!!!!

         So I just realized I've got three days until School starts! OMG!!! I feel like this has crept up on me because I've been so busy with working. I AM going to make my goal of finishing my manuscript before school starts. I'm currently at 43K and I want to be at 50K before Monday. I'm probably going to keep going to 65K because of the Word War I'm in until the end of August. I've also got to finish my summer assignment, and change my schedule, and to make things worse my tummy hurts :(
     I'm sure if I had just one solid day off before School starts I could get most of it done but I don't so that's not going to happen. I think I can manage all of this with Microgoals!
    Basically I'm going to set myself up goals, per hour tomorrow and the rest of the week and weekend for writing. It'll be like write 500 words this hour and such. I won't be able to work that out until I wake up in the morning because I don't know what time I'll wake up.
       This whole having a job thing is pretty much awful. Sure I like having money for a computer, and other things, but I'm having no time for writing between work and school. I guess there've been hundreds of people who had school, and work, and Writing to deal with and they still got their manuscripts done. I guess I'll use that to motivate me. I need like pep pills or something right now, I'm zonked :/

Should I be a Good Writer or a Popular Writer?

I've resorted to some plotting in the standstill of my first draft. I've heard you're really not suppose to plot to much while you're still barfing up the first draft. (I've always liked that comparison to a first draft...Barfing:P) anyway, in this plotting I'm realizing two things. One, my story is getting WAY to big. Seriously I wrote out all my plot threads and let's just say I have around twenty stories going on in this book. Second is I'm realizing I've got these massive plot holes...
       It's like I need to decide wether to have a magnifying glass on my POV character or if I want to pan out over all my characters. Honestly my POV character isn't feeling like a POV character and I'm thinking about switching to an Omniesant style of writing so I can make these extra plot threads cleaner and in a better braid.
      I think I've said this before, but I like thinking of my story as a braid. I've got all these plot threads that need to be woven together to make an amazing story. Right now my braid is looking like a frayed rope though. I'll be relieved when I'm done with this huge project. I've been thinking a lot about my first writing project and have kinda been wanting to get back into that one, which is good because come October it'll be six months sence I've finished it and I can offocially start editing.
      Editing is a whole other ball game that I haven't even stepped into yet. I'm wondering if having my first writing project being connected to the one I'm working on now is good or not. I feel like I've got a better understanding of how I want things to connect between the two books, but I'm wondering if I'm looking at this way to huge. Know what I mean? Like I don't want to make it where you HAVE to read the first to enjoy the second and the other way around. I want to finish the story for my first, then have a new story with the second that is still connected and interesting.
      Cassandra clare wrote an amazing series called the Mortal Instrument series. I loved it so much! But then she introduced her prequel, and I realized even though the setting has changed completely it's still basically the same story. Even the ending is pretty similar. I don't want to ruin the books because they are good reads, but looking at them from a writing perspective I'm finding some to Don'ts.
      It's like she has a cookie cutter plot for all her books. The lady who taught that free creative writing class told us about an author who always published books where someone's terminally ill, and they are in love and they find strength in their love and end up living. Seriously and the chick's published around ten books exactly like that.
      There comes a point where we need to decide to be good writers or popular writers. Popular writers seem to make the most money. Look at Twilight, I can a I don't think we should ever write for the sole purpose of getting an emotional response from our readers... In other words I don't want the dog to die in the end of all my books.

New Schedule = Headache

So I literally just got my Schedule for Sophomore year.

A Day: AP World History

Orchestra Philharmonic

Pap Algebra 2

Creative Writing(semester 1) 

Humanities(semester 2)

B Day: German 2

Orchestra Philharmonic

Pap English 2

Pap Chemistry 

I'm thinking about single blocking Orchestra so I can take a journalism class so I can be on Newspaper next year, and Dropping my Humanities class for Psychology so I can do AP psychology next year too. There's also a sociology class that sounds fun. 

     I like literature and things that study human nature because I feel it helps me with my writing. I don't know yet, every time I try thinking of my schedule or something like this I get a big headache. I kinda wish the school would just tell me what classes I should take for an English Major in College or something like that. What do ya'll think? Would Journalism and Psychology really help me as a writer? What about Humanities?

     I still have no clue how I'm going to manage everything this fall. I'm thinking about starting Piano Lessons just for some more extracurriculars, because apparently sitting in your room with a computer doesn't count as a legitimate extracurricular. I really don't want to think about college. Honestly I plan on going into the Marines after High School, then getting a GI bill and getting my college paid for. 

     It's annoying because I'm seeing all these paths that I can go down and I'm having to choose one that will affect me for the rest of my life. Ok sure a humanities class isn't going to affect my future all that much, but what if I'm able to get scholarship or something for something I did in Journalism. But if I do Journalism I'd have to single block Orchestra which I've been doing as my main elective sense sixth grade. It's all just a big jumble in my head. 

      

Back to School

    Going back to school is starting to really suck. I'm remembering that I actually have a life other than work and Writing. I pick up my schedule Wed. and I'm really excited because I'm taking a creative writing class for a semester, plus I'm in Orchestra with a lot of my friends.
    I know I say this every new school year, but I'm going to do better than I did last year. My grades weren't that great, and I know I can do better. As far as my goals, I'm getting through my summer reading assignments, I've journaled every day for the past month, and My sleep schedule is getting there. It feels like I've got so much more to do now with school coming back up. I don't want to spend all my time watching tv or stupid things when I'm scraping for time to write.
     I feel like this year is going to be so much better than Freshman year. I've realized people don't hate Freshman, fish as we call em, we just all hate our freshman year. Next spring break I'm going to Disney World with Orchestra too which is going to be so fun. I'm also going to try and get on the Newspaper or Yearbook staff. My friend is doing this thing called Lit Crit. Meaning Literary Critique, he said it would be something I would like.
     I really don't mind school, I like coming home and feeling like I've done something with my day, I like the responsibility, and I like getting rewarded for grades and stuff. What's really sucking though is that I'm realizing I'm not a full time writer during the school year. Summer It's chill and I can write all I want, Fall is a whole different ball game.
      I think I've got carpal tunnel from writing and dipping ice cream for twenty hours a week. I've got these compression gloves things and they kinda help, but I can't really wear them while writing because They keep me from typing. That was random but anyway.
       I've never tried writing while in school. This is my first year of actually being a writer (Not even a year actually, I started in November) and I've never had to balance work, school, and writing. It's going to be tough getting my 2,00 words out per day. This year is going to be interesting.

The Thing with Short Stories

   I hear tons of Authors talk about how when they were young the made themselves sit down and write one short story per week for...forever. I've tried writing short stories, I really have. I just can't for the love of my Characters have so little happen to them. See, here's the thing with my characters, I spend a lot of time modeling them, and talking with them, and thinking about them. Maybe you don't do that with short stories but I'll just say it feels wrong, It's like a one Night Stand.
    We spend all this time with our Manuscripts to a point where if feels like we're dating them. Right now I feel like I'm married to mine, and I'd feel bad moving around so much. (OMG I totally date like that too, ha who said you need a life for Life Lessons).I suppose if we're going to compare this dating thing to writing we may as well go all in.
     When you're young, you shouldn't be in these deep relationships where you spend all this time. You're still growing, and finding out what you like and don't like in people The same goes with books. When we're young we need to write stories, and write a lot of em to know what we like to write, how we like to write it, and all that junk. Eventually We'll get "Married" to a full length book, but for now It shouldn't be my main goal.
    Wow when I wrote this I didn't think I would be making this huge discovery *FacePalm*. I think I'm going to try harder with writing short stories. First I should probably start reading some short stories (Anybody got any haha) then writing them. I think I'll probably keep going with my manuscript for now, but I think after this one I'll tuck it in the vault for six months. September I'm going to devote all my writing to short stories, this is a time between when I should be done with my second Manuscript, and before my first comes out of the vault.
     Anyone got any tips when It comes to short story writing and how it's different from writing novels? I love the support you guys, and I'll see ya next time :) DFTBA

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.

Will summer ever Come?

I know I've probably said this a bunch already but I can not freaking wait til summer. This entire week I've wanted to work on my manuscript but then I remember I've got an English project, or math homework that I absoultly can not blow off. My parents aren't really mad at me for my grades but we both know I could do better. I've had this entire conversation with my mom about how I choose not to make stright A's. My grades right now are like all B's and one C. And let me tell you I could make stright A's if I wanted to easily but that would require more of my time that I'm currently inventing into writing.

I will be so relieved when I don't have to worry about homework, or scheduealing, or any of that crap. My mom laughed at me because I once told her "If I thought making good grades was important I would" obviously I think having a BA manuscript is more important than a 100 in Speech or some other dumb class. A lot of times I tell her I'm investing into my future by writing more than I could with getting three extra points on a project.

Who knows, It's probably just the lazy in me but something you want to do isn't considered work.

Do me a favor and Shoot me every time I make a exceuse

This writing this is hard. I've edited my entry so many times I'm pretty sure I can recite the whole thing from memory and it's still no where near done. I haven't been working on my entry, or any writing in that case, sence editing and I'm worried I've lost my grove or something. People say our biggest cretic is ourselves but I don't think that's the case with me because I'm getting to a point where I just want to get the thing done with. I'd much rather work on my novel as a whole and develop plot and characters and all the spine stuff than actually writing. Conclusion: Planning and talking about writing is the easy part, actually sitting down and writing is a bitch. (Sorry it was needed). I need some motovation so hit me up on twitter @that_cool_girl or e-mail me at follow.the.journey.now@gmail.com

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.