Tiki Tiki

Disneyland has melted my mind. I have about three ride themes stuck in my head and they just play one after the other over and over and over. I realize for next week I am completely screwed. I have no time to do anything. This trip has been so horrible for productive work (wonderful otherwise in terms of fun). We get up early, spend all day walking, standing and jumping on rides and other transit, then get home late where I'm so tired I can't do much but sit like a blob on my computer for thirty minutes before collapsing in bed. I get back to Calgary on Tuesday and somehow in 2 days I need to finish the annotated bibliography and do a damned good job with it because I'll let my group down otherwise and I'm depending on this project to save my English 408 mark. I also have four critiques to write for my classmates (which I think I'll hand in on the following Tuesday so I can put more time and effort into them...I'm missing class anyway), I need to come up with a music themed story, which I seriously got nothing on, I have a test to study for on Thursday and I still haven't finished editing my friend's novel, which I said I'd have to him last week (I feel so bad about the delay, but there's nothing I can do unless I want to stop sleeping altogether). I'm leaving Thursday evening for a ski trip, so I won't have much time to spare those nights either. The only saving grace is I can still go to class on Wednesday, even though I have a group meeting to attend that day (usually if my group needs to meet I can't go to class because I have to walk my neighbor's dog). I officially declare February a failure in terms of writing. I only wrote a chapter and a half. FML I'm not going to survive this week.

PS - Did I mention I'm going crazy? The only time I've had to myself this week is when I've been in the shower. Sleeping doesn't really count since it's in the same room as three other people. Hotel rooms ftl. Probably why I haven't written anything while I've been away. I need solitude to work.

Frantic-tic-tic-tic

Almost a week has passed since I posted here. My writing has slowed to nearly a stop. The only progress I can claim to have made is a slight clean up of the endings of a few chapters. Other than that I have written the beginning of Dedrad's introduction in between chapter 5 and 6 in my coil notebook on the train. The trick is to avoid the random stares from the other passengers and to cover the writing with an arm as I write so no creepers read over my shoulder. Less awkward questions that way. I'm leaving today. And by today I mean after I sleep, hand in a paper early, pick up the other people traveling with me, be at the airport by 6pm and catch a plane at 9pm (thank you America for your ridiculous security measures which require me to arrive three hours early to take off my shoes and walk through the machines that look under your clothes). I will try and write as much as I can on my trip while trying to spend as much time with my family and boyfriend as possible, while reading and editing a friend's novel, 3 short stories and sources for an annotated bibliography. Yay holidays? I'll stop complaining now and get back to writing the last 500 words of my paper. YEAH ERASMUS AND THE HUMANISTS!

Scary Editor

Photobucket is undergoing maintenance, so I decided to post the picture here. I am a scary scary editor when I want to be. I attack with highlighters, so many highlighters.

Chapter 6!

No I haven't made that much progress. I skipped chapter 5 and Dedrad's prologue to write chapter 6. Why? Well I had no idea how to write chapter 5 and I didn't feel like writing about Dedrad yet, so I skipped them. I need to rewrite the beginning of chapter 6 and think of a more evocative ending. The chapter turned out to be mostly dialogue, which works in this case. It will be an offset to chapter 5, which is going to be mostly narrative. I need to finalize my points of view for that chapter still. I also need to fix the horrible ending to chapter 4 in the near future (chapter 4 is PAIN). Anyhow, I'm happy with how some of the characters are turning out, especially Virgil and Colonel Card. I think the Colonel is my second favourite character, right after Ash. It's going to be fun writing about him that's for sure.

I will be backtracking to the parts I skipped when I have some more time. As of now i have two document analysis, one annotated bibliography requiring 15 sources, a seminar on Thursday (ARGH SHOOT ME IN THE FACE PLEASE), four critiques (due tomorrow heh), a group meeting and a headache of a science fiction novel to read (Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli), all of which I must do this week. Thankfully, I have an Epica concert on Thursday to ease my pain (yay!).

Current rough draft completion percentage: 23%

Overall completion percentage: 17%

Seriously, shoot me in the face right now.


ALSO: For some reason I had this episode of Nostalgia Critic stuck in my head while I was writing chapter 6. Particularly at the end around 12:50.

Arghhhh

Chapter 4 is finished, but the last little bit sucks big time. I rushed it because it's 2am, I have a headache and my frustration is mounting. Thankfully chapter 4 was a short one. On to chapter 5, which will be long and interesting to write. Oh lordy this will be an adventure...most likely going to end with me bashing my face into the keyboard.

Current rough draft completion percentage: 19%

Overall completion percentage: 14%

This week needs to be over.

Ash's Rail Gun

An extremely primitive drawing I did by hand on GIMP, but this is essentially what I have in mind. I have more research to do, so the design might change. I need to work out the details.



This drawing doesn't show a lot of the finer details and internal structure of the gun. There are two rails (normally 4-30 feet long, here it's approximately 1 foot), one on each side and an armature in the centre in which the bullet runs through. Magnetic field runs around the rails and ends up directed vertically to propel the bullet. The switch on the side begins the charging sequence, which only takes about a minute. Ash's rail gun can only fire a few times before the strain on the materials becomes too much. He frequently has to replace the rails, so he only uses the gun in extreme situations.

Confidence

One of the largest problems with getting my writing done is that I have to beat down that inner critic that keeps telling me I can't do it. As I'm writing I keep worrying that it's not good enough, that I don't have enough time or space or good ideas and I just freeze. Part of it might be that I'm giving up a lot to complete this: other activities like drawing and playing video games, some social activities and some time that I need to complete school assignments. I realized that I'm doing too much. My only completely free evening is Monday. Tuesday I have class late, Wednesday I have dodgeball, Thursday I have badminton or readings to go to, Friday I have badminton AND bowling, Saturday is set aside for social activities and half of my Sundays I visit my grandparents. I guess the fact that I'm sick doesn't help me either since my brain is practically on fire half the time.

I find I'm appreciating my fiction writing class so much more, only my classmates are no longer holding back. I noticed that the first round of reviews were a lot more positive than the ones I received last night. I read through them all, and though I noticed they all more or less pointed out the same aspects, they were a lot more critical. This is what I want, but sometimes they were hard to read, just because I knew that this story wasn't the best I could do. But then I thought, what if it is? I'm silly to think like that (I even got a slightly better mark on this short story than the last), but I can help but think I'm just delusional about my writing. I tried not to think too much about it last night, but I ended up having a writing nightmare anyway. Well maybe not a nightmare, but it was a little disheartening (and hilarious) none-the-less.

I need to set aside a certain period of time just to DO my writing. And when I do it I can't allow myself to think outside the story. I am half-way through Chapter 4 and I HAVE to be done chapter 5 by the weekend. I did the math, and on average I have to complete two chapters a week to be able to meet the deadline I want to. I also have to fit in school work, two vacations I can't pay for and other exploits in between. Time budget anyone?

(this is the most emo I'm going to get with my writing posts, so no worries eh?)