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.

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.