FSF: Tears

Annoying droplets of water kept trickling down from my eyes and they refused to stop falling. The wind was blowing against my face, making it cool and fresh.

I wondered if the shade of my nose matched the red shoes I had put on… because everyone knows red is a lucky color. And if shoes are red, well, it might even give you the strength to tell someone you love them.

Even it meant running away to a world I wasn’t sure existed… and yes, even though he would laugh at me and ask me if it were even slightly possible that I’d been crying over him. 

A random Spring Break pic since I have no teary one...

Well. This is convenient. :) I had a writer's meeting last night with two delightful friends and we were discussing our big projects/manuscripts and the equally important "distraction projects". The project that keeps you going when you hit a rough spot and need to be creatively rebooted. 

I didn't really have one. I have plenty of ideas, they just seem to fizzle away after a few days, maybe a week. I still love them, it's just nothing grabbed me like my current project. 

Last night I remembered a fun, modern day, fairy tale that I had always wanted to write but I joked that I didn't think I would like it because it's just so... happy. Compared, at least, to my current project which is filled with some pretty messed up people. 

But I like happy stories. So I got home, pulled out my old storyboards and started flipping through all sorts of character charts and exciting plot points. I'm pleased to say I discovered that I had carefully mentioned at least one insecurity and 'greatest fear' for each character. Several have very broken pasts. I liked that. 

Suddenly, they all seemed like real people. And real people make for delicious fairy tales. So I'm kindly writing them one. I'm quite distracted. :) 

Anyway, the convenient part of this post is that, as I was writing, I hit a rough spot. Then I remembered the Five Sentence Fiction word for this week! TEARS. 

Even happy fairy tales need a healthy dose of tears. I have to make their lives a little miserable before the happy ending, right? Bahaha. 

Problem solved. 

NaNoWriMo Blues

The other day, one of my cool blogging friends suggested I do a post about 'where I am' in my writing. I have to say, it's not a very delightful place. (Oh, this is my cool blogging friend - you should go check her out. :))


Over the past four years-ish, during November, I participate in an epic word contest called NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I won't go into details about that. But basically, during the course of the month, I wrote about 37,000 words, finished my novel and BAM. I was the happiest McKenzie on Planet Earth. 

This basically captures my feeling of accomplishment.

So wait, why am I sitting here in my computer chair feeling sorry for myself? I have a whole other exciting installment to start writing!!! 


Meh. It's like I was high on NaNo and now I'm completely wasted. Unproductive. Uninspired. Unimaginative. I have a great story to write, dang it! I know exactly where it should start, which should make the whole thing 10x easier. Right? So why can't I get started? 


It's not school... It's not lack of sleep... It's not the weather... It's not a B12 deficiency... (Well, it's not!) Every time I think about starting I groan and go lay on my floor and pretend to think deep thoughts. Or plan out genius strategies to force myself into writing again. Self punishment never seems to work for me though, I wonder why...


Some people tell you that you need a break from your story after NaNoWriMo. "You need something fresh!" they say. Don't ask me who - it's just general advice. But, c'mon, it's been over a month. Shouldn't that be long enough? Well. Okay. If you say so. 


So I started a new story about a whirlpool. Yeah. 


Needless to say, I stopped after two sentences. Wow, I thought, this is really quite incredibly stupid. I want to go back to my old story. The one that deserves my attention. The one that I love like my own child. The one that's so gloriously filled with old characters that haunt my waking dreams... 


Did I start back on it? 


No. 


I wish I could say this was a severe case of writer's block, but there's nothing blocked about it. I have the whole flipping beginning planned out!!


Nope, see, this is a severe case of Writer's Laziness. Straight up, uninspired, lay-on-the-couch-and-eat-Doritoes, gross, despicable laziness. 


There. I've confessed. I have no excuses. Not any good ones at least. So... what am I going to do now that I've written such a depressing post? *sigh*


I don't know. Maybe I'll feel so guilty for writing this nasty confession that I'll start writing just so I can post something super happy. This also might be one of my overly complicated strategies that will fail. But this one might work... hopefulness is never a bad thing, right? :)