back in it...

     I think I've figured out how to get myself back into writing. Sense school has started I've been reading a whole freaking lot. I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is read read read. (I was always like that when I was younger) Last summer I woke up and all I wanted to was Write Write Write. Reading is easy, you just sit back and look at one thing at a time and let an author paint a picture in your head. Writing is the same way, except instead of looking at one thing at a time you've got to create your pictures one word at a time. Reading doesn't require a lot of thinking, writing does.
    First thing I'll do to get back into writing is every time I think about reading I'll automatically think about writing and how I should be doing it. The idea is to guilt myself into it. I'm also starting up a writing spiral like I had over the summer, it's basically a doodle book about stories in my head, details I like and things like that. I'm really not liking having all my notes about writing on my ever note so I'm going to transfer them to that spiral.
   Can I just take a moment to just complain about school? Yeah? Cool.

    I hate school so freaking much. It's like it doesn't require enough work to take up all my time but it does take enough work to suck so much of my time I don't have time for anything else. This year is a lot like last where I don't really care about my classes and I'll manage with B and Cs because I can't find motivation to do better and because I'm trying to spend time reading and writing. I already don't have a social life so what in the world is taking up all my time?! Maybe I'm watching to much TV or maybe It's all these evening where I come home from school and don't feel like doing anything because I've been up for the past eight hours on only four hours of sleep.


 Now that that's out of my system...

I'm going to rethink my goals for this semester. The first weeks is pretty much over and report cards come out friday. They say the first six weeks is a mirror image of how you'll do all year, so I"ll be fine as far as grades.

    I'm vamping my goals along the guidelines of Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. It's a really awesome book. It doesn't really tell you how to reach goals but it gives you some really good ones to research and put into action.

   This week I'm going to be putting to action my goal of going to sleep earlier.

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.
   

Two weeks of school.

     

 There seems to be an endless supply of crap that I SHOULD be doing. I'm trying really hard to keep on top of my school goals and things but I won't say it's easy. With all the homework and working 20 hours a week I'm not having ANY time to write except for my nightly journal entries. That's really not sitting well with me because I'm getting all these awesome ideas and bits from school that I'm not able to make in a story.
    The first five days of September have gone by so fast and the streak of 100 plus temperatures has finally broken. Today was actually around 85 with wind and it felt AMAZING. I'm really liking all my classes right now. My Journalism is kinda a blow off class which really sucks because I know we could get so much more done if we didn't spend half the class talking about what everyone did over the weekend. I feel like that's how all the cool elective classes are going to be. Wouldn't that be why everyone likes them so much? What ever happened to wanting to take a class so you can learn things? I'll never be able to understand how people can take a class for the sole reason of it being a blow off class.
     So far on my weekends I sleep as long and as hard as I can. I'm only getting around 25 hours of sleep per night during the week, so weekends are my time for sleep.
     I'm also having to do this crazy thing called studying now. Before I could just read the materiel and things like that and be good. Especially in my AP world history class I need to study. I think world history is the dumbest thing ever. Let's put everything that has happened EVER and spend two semesters going over it all. What sucks the most is studying for math for one reason. The only way to study it is to do tons and tons of problems. In English you can do flash cards, or read over things, or look at notes, or a number of different options. In Math all you've got are the odd questions with the answers in the back of the book and the mid-chapter quiz from the book. It's also making me mad that the math book we use for Algebra 2 doesn't have a companion website. You don't know how helpful it would be to have someone explain a concept out on a video or something.
    Sorry I guess I'm ranting about high school, but that seems to be the only thing going on in my life right now.
     I don't know how I'll manage doing NaNoWriMo come November. That GTD book sounds helpful but I haven't really put anything into pratice yet. We'll see how it goes and I'll be sure to keep ya'll updated on writing and other things in my life. Till next time :D

I have nothing to write I have nothing to write...

         I've been in this state of bliss all day. Maybe it's because today is the first day in a while I've had a little smidgen of time to write, or maybe today was just a good day. School always seems to be unrealistically long but I always somehow manage by the end of the day, then run home where homework seems to take forever. It's like keeping up with my grades is the only thing I'll have time for later in the school year when things start getting harder. Actually this week has been good. I've spent a lot of time getting homework out of the way then reading and doing other things but just not writing.
       My deadline is today and I'm about 5,000 words short. I think I'm starting to see a pattern developing for my deadlines. I'm almost positive I'll be 5K short just before the last day of NaNoWriMo. It's really hard writing this little snippet because I'm basically finished my story by now, and I'm just going for word count.
       I've been doing this exercise recently where I write "I have nothing to write" over and over again until I really do have something to write. I've pumped out a few really good scenes doing this, but most of is talk about how my day went and how I'll never be able to finish this. I'm going to be totally screwed if none of my random ranting doesn't count for my word count...
       I'm actually really excited to start some editing. Editing seems like this whole new field of the craft that I haven't gotten a chance to explore yet. I've read a few things in my dummies book and the other ton of craft books I've managed to accumulate but I've never actually sat down and worked with it enough to feel comfortable. I guess feeling comfortable is the death of productivity but it would be nice to have a little knowledge on the whole process.
       Originally I was going to spend September working on short stories but I don't know if that's going to be very realistic. I mean I'll defiantly try some writing things and work on writing in general, but I just don't know if I can focus on something like learning an entire new way of writing while I'm getting use to school and everything else.
       Things seem totally hectic right now. I got this book called "Getting Things Done" by David Allen and I'm hoping it'll help me have more time to write. It's like this national best seller or something and once I've finished it and put some of the strategies to work I'll do a little review of it.
       I feel like it's going to be a good school year, a Long one, but good. :D

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.

School tomorrow

        I tried going to bed last night around 4am when I realized I'd be going to school the next day. Last night I had 44K and bumped out another thousand quickly before bed. Today I'm doing 5K to reach 50K and make my goal of finishing my novel before school. I'm not actually finishing it though, I'm just reaching a wonderful milestone. The week after that, The first week of school, I need to get out 15K to finish this awful word war.
      I'm going to be so tired trying to go to school tomorrow after having worked until 11 tonight and staying up to write more if I haven't reached 5K by then.
       Sorry for the short post, but I want to get writing...