Crossroads

This time last summer I began what would be the toughest year of my life. Looking back one year, I feel like it has been a lot longer. I've been very lucky to have a loving family that I have been close to, and quite frankly sheltered by, for many years. I'm at a crossroads in my life, like many other people my age, where I'm just trying to figure myself out and come to terms with all that's happened. I feel like I need to move on from a lot of this before I can seriously start writing again. It may even encourage me to write more or write better. Point is, I have no idea what to do with my life. I understand myself better in many respects, but mostly I just confuse myself. I know what I like, what I want, and yet I've completely lost sight of the few goals that I had. I need to reassert those goals, or WMRR is never going to be completed.

I don't take criticism very well. I take everything way too personally, which may be a product from my time on YouTube. I use it because it's one constant source that I can share my interests and communicate with people in ways I can't otherwise. I love to make videos, but the stress to constantly produce and deal with the people who insult and demean rather than give constructive pointers really gets to me. Makes me angry mostly, because these people have nothing of importance to say. It's a useless waste of letters, data and time. Lately I'm just crushed by the constant drivel I have to deal with and am seriously contemplating taking a break from video production. True, I get more positive feedback than negative, but I have other aspects like writing, friendships, job hunting, work and personal growth that I could be pouring this time and energy into instead of videos. I will finishing Dungeon Siege 2, because I hate unfinished business, but I can't say if I'll be immediately moving on to Broken World. 

I want to be in a place where WMRR jumps to the top 5 priorities in my life. Since my last post I've only written about 300 words. I just can't find a pocket of time I can have to myself before 11pm at night, and by that time I'm too tired to do any work. This makes me extremely frustrated, because the same is true for recording. I need seclusion, time and silence for both activities, which I just don't have anymore. And this means absolutely NO interruptions. I want to finish WMRR. I want to finish it so bad so I can go back, edit and fix everything. There are so many glaring mistakes that just eats away at me, but I can't let myself go back and fix yet because I'll end up rewriting the entire work again. 

My goal then is to have WMRR done in rough draft by the end of this year. I have made goals like this before, but I need to seriously work at it like I did a few years ago when I wanted to enter that contest. I want this story finished, even if it never sees publication, I want to know that I can complete a work as large as WMRR. So as a fair warning, I may be making a lot of changes to my goals and priorities in the next while. You have been warned.

I'm resisting the urge to put a smiley face on the end of that last sentence.

Dude, What's the Password?

Got too many of them now since I changed them all to random codes and such a few years back. Spent about 15 minutes trying to remember my one YouTube account pass because I was logged out for some reason or another. That'll teach me to use the same password for years, get my msn hacked, change my passwords to stupid code and then forget them all when I need it most.

So in the past 12 days I have...

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Finished Infamous.

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Fini---oh wait nope.

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Learned about Assassin's Creed Revelations.

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Edited like crazy. Can't forget the editing.

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And that's about it. Okay....what did I actually DO these past few weeks?

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Ugh.

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Now that I've wasted tons of digital space, time to talk about writing! Maybe some websites too. More websites, because I've just been thinking about writing. Mostly agonizing about plot points and fixing all the terrible bits. Unfortunately this is going to be most of my work. Not sure if I'm being too hard on myself or not.

I have a concrete idea for my manuscript writing class. The only downside is I might have to do some travelling across Canada and I---wait, what's the problem here? Oh yeah. Money and time. Bleigh.

So, websites and videos:

Sam and Fuzzy - Webcomic
Genderless Baby - Article
Write Like a Man - Article....*shrug*
Something to Be Angry About - Article
Skyrim Gameplay - Video
Canadian Ned - Video
No Words Exist to Explain This - Video


Hmm...I'm beginning to see my problem here...

Hell Must Have Frozen Over

And not because it's -30 degrees outside.

What an eventful reading week. I've been meaning to post something for days now, but either skiing or censors have stopped me from doing so. The place I play badminton and go bowling does not like Blogger...or DeviantArt...or Freewebs. So I'm limited to other sites I'm sure they would block if they only knew about them. Let's just say I probably shouldn't be reading Scandinavia and the World comics when there are mothers with their four-year-olds sitting behind me.

EXHIBIT A: Ten pages worth of writing in the past two days

That...doesn't seem like much, but it's pretty good for me. My story on bowling has been going well, and has been fun to write. I have to be careful with the style and content though. Style because it's mimicking another author a little too close. Content because I want to avoid being too technical and I need to have some sort of "point" to it.

EXHIBIT B: WMRR exceeding 100 pages

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have surpassed the 100 page mark. Well, technically I'm at 104 pages, but 3 of those pages are more or less blank. They have notes on them and that's about it. Dan's little bit has turned out to be longer than I anticipated, but I'm loving it. I might need to rewrite the freerunning bit. It's a little...lacking. Also Chapter 10 so far needs a lot of revision. I made the mistake of reading it again, and the writing is weak. Oops.

EXHIBIT C: An article everyone should read

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Given to my fiction writing class by our prof to read over our break. It makes a lot of good points and I agree with most of it. A good way to make your writing better. Also I will point out that there are a few mistakes in the piece, but I think that's caused by it's reproduction on the web. At least I hope so. I'd laugh hysterically otherwise.

EXHIBIT D: A video everyone should watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UouP8cRYZ8

Because I'm beginning to hate Facebook. A lot. Mostly because I realized that I would have no idea when, where and if people were planning events, social gatherings or sports teams otherwise. Essentially I'm counting on Facebook to have a social life. Permission to shoot me granted.

This is also a little loaded coming from me since I get half my viewers from links on my Facebook. Creepy.

EXHIBIT E: Editing success?

What is this "suck-cess" word and where did it come from. I have actually received requests from people to edit their work. AND GET PAID. Oh lordy. I may or may not be a little insane with my edits though, so I think I need to tone it down a bit. Just a bit. At any rate, I have a big job coming up. Yay.


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ARGH MY ANKLES. I MEAN LEGS. I MEAN CALVES. I MEAN MID-CALVES. Seriously I've been having problems defining the injured body part after the French medic told me multiple times that the pulled muscles were NOT IN MY ANKLES. Then he insisted on checking my arms, neck and upper legs for injuries before asking me if I remember what happened and if I hit my head. I realize it could be standard procedure, but I don't understand why since it was only my legs that were messed up and he didn't bother asking what happened. Regardless, it hurts like hell. I still skied with injured legs for three hours after, but it hurts.


And apparently peanuts do not make bombs.

Down to Business

Editing business that is. So far so good is my report. I've only edited three papers (two people), but a lot of people seem to have taken the tags on my posters. And posted other stuff over them...but that happens at the uni. Which reminds me of a genius advertising scheme, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I'm convinced that I'm a terrifying editor. I get a little nuts about the edits at times. I was supposed to edit another paper of someone's, but after I gave them the first edit I never heard from them again. In my defence, I received the paper late Sunday night when it was due on Monday. I didn't have time to do the type of content edit I would have liked and ended up skimping a little on the comments. I was up all night preparing for presentations and document analyses, so I was a grouchy bitch all day. A lot of the time when I'm tired I look extremely sick. I might have frightened my poor customer off.

So back to the advertising. Some sort of poetry event is going down at the university (I'm not sure what that's about, but let me explain) and to promote it the people organizing it have torn down other people's posters, turned them and wrote the name of the event on them. The event is entitled: Deface. It's offensive and awkward, but at the same time enticing. That and it's a great way to get attention. It's either arrogance or brilliance...probably both.

All in all, not a bad week despite my exhaustion. I even got a small bonus on my last edits. Either he thought I did a good job or was grateful for doing the one so late, but it certainly made my day.

I've actually been working hard on WMRR over the past few weeks whenever I've had time. I have my fourth short story to complete, which has been fun to write so far. It's about bowling. Bowling can be surprisingly sexual. I was shocked. As for WMRR, my order of writing is a mess. I am essentially writing four chapters at once (chapter 10, 11, 12, Dan's Interlude). Let me just say that Dan's part has been going exceptionally well. I have the first portion and part of the middle done (middle is hand-written on paper in my notebook). I still need to add a lot of details concerning free-running. I'm still working out how to write 10 and 11 (half done 10...it's a short one, and I'm only done about five sentences in 11). I haven't started 12 yet, but it's going to be quite different, told from the perspective of a character I haven't introduced yet. It's going to be a fun one, especially when I introduce his status and how he fights. OHHHHH THIS IS FUN. Insert excessive amounts of smiling faces here.

Also, my spelling is getting better. I made it through this entire post without my spell-check underlining anything. Go me.

Chapter 10

So I figured out how to write the chapter. As well as chapter 11, Dan's Interlude and a large part of the ending. I can guarantee that it will change, but at least I have bearings. I've started writing the chapter, but I'm stuck trying to come up with a cheesy one-liner. It involves over the top orange-red hair and creepy glasses. More importantly, I've figured out aspects of Dan's character which I was uncertain to before. I like this new Dan, and I hope when the time comes anyone else reading WMRR in the future will share the same sentiment.

I'm done with retail. This job I am finishing up this week has taught me a lot, and pissed me off a lot. I have had to fight tooth and nail to get days off and change my availability. I have had to combat incompetence and ridiculous politics that I haven't encountered anywhere else. I feel sorry for the coworkers I'm leaving behind. They are in for a lot of shit in the upcoming months. To be clear, I didn't cause this upheaval directly, but I have definitely affected the random policies set up in the past few months. One had to deal with my uncertain schedule. The other had to do with me being attacked while taking the garbage out. I still hope I don't have to go to court on that one, but the package I was sent was really ambiguous about it. Whatever. People are creeps. Nothing is going to change that. As long as I get to screw this guy over by making it difficult for him to get a job anywhere for the next few decades of his life. I'm not spiteful at all.

New horizons are now appearing before my eyes! Or something. I am in the business of writing and editing now. I am going to do everything in my power to become a professional editor in the next little while. This, along with the completion of WMRR, is my goal. I HAVE A GOAL.


The world truly is coming to an end.

The Ugliest Muse

...must be with me tonight. I pick strange times to be motivated. I have everything under the sun due in the next two weeks, not to mention exams, and I decide now is the right time to write chapter five. I don't know what it is tonight, but I feel inspired. I hope to at least get half of it done tonight. I am also going to finish editing TOA by the end of tomorrow night, which will hopefully make a friend of mine quite happy. He's waited about 2 months for it. Yeah I feel pretty bad about that...

I also have a strong desire to make Fire Emblem comics. Once summer rolls around, I'm going to work on not sucking so much at drawing. Either that, or find someone willing to draw Fire Emblem characters for me. I have a lot of jokes, which is kind of pathetic. Also, Hector's story from Fire Emblem is so much more fun. Not that Eliwood's wasn't, I just like Hector as a character so much more.

TO DA WRITIN' MOBILE!

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.