M.M. ii: Incentives and Rocks

I was going to open a big can of worms today with some interesting things I found on the web.  But I'll wait until tomorrow to do that (plus it's my last day of freedom!).  Today, I'll just stick with ehh stuff.  Things that later on in the life of this blog that you'll skip over to see the juicer posts.  But hey, every sandwich needs some lettuce.

I have two lovely things for today's Motivation Monday!  Writing/Reading/Going through Hell Incentives and a DIY Rock that keeps me focused.

Writing/Reading/Going through Hell Incentives:

According the the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the word incentive means: something that incites or has a tendency to incite to determination or action.  I'd have to agree with that, I mean it's right.  Currently I have two days (including today) until I get back to school.  What do I have to do?  Read another 50pgs of The Scarlet Letter and annotate that thing to pieces, oh and fill out two worksheets for AP Biology.  Yeah, I know that I procrastinate...  So what do I do to keep myself annotating and pushing forth?  I use incentives.
I'll tell myself: If you can make it to page 170 you get 30 minutes of freedom!  If you read the next 12 pages then you can go have breakfast.  If you finish the book you get a new book, one that you actually want to read and don't have to annotate!

How can you apply this to writing?  Easy!  I know that some people are going to think "Hey, you don't have to do this, it's called determination!"  Well I'll tell you one thing, determination dies after a while which is why I don't do cross-country any more, okay that and the fact that I have a weak knee...  I've done this before with writing stories, essays, letters, etc.  Tell yourself that you'll get that cup of yogurt at the grocery store if you write 2,000 words today.  If you edit your outline that you'll edit two pieces of clothing in your closet/tools in the garage.  Allow yourself to have breaks occasionally as well.  They don't have to be set, spontaneous-ness it necessary to keep current level of sanity when doing things that you really don't want to do.  If you have a great day of writing treat yourself.  Bad day?  Don't hurt yourself over it, just look what you could have done to make it better and continue on, just strive to get better.

With these little things your teaching yourself that good things can come from writing/reading when you use this repeatedly.  You're training yourself with little gifts  like you would train a dog with puppy treats.  This may seem silly to you, but it works!  I used to tell myself that I had to get things done or else I would not be able to do things.  It didn't work.  But once I tried rewarding myself to accomplish tasks it became easier and easier!  Go ahead, give it a try!

DIY Rock Paperweight:

I enjoy writing outside.  I have a nice table on our patio which looks out into the woods.  I also enjoy going to parks and my sister's games.  However I also enjoy writing on loose leaf notebook paper... And it gets windy around here... See my issue?  I have usually just used rocks when I go outside.  However I found this rock right after my little epiphany of a new novel.  I have it my head that the colors that represent this book are similar to a peacock feather, but a little darker...  I don't know why those colors, but the came to me with Cecily.  I new that I had to paint this rock!

What you'll need:
1 rock
Paint
Brushes
An Idea
Patience

Find a rock and clean it off if it has any dirt or ickiness on it.  Then get an idea of what you want to paint.  I was using a peacock feather for my influence.  Find the paint that you want (The WalMart and Meijer around me have art paint for around $0.75 each, so I grabbed two of those and used some other paint that I had laying around the house).  Now take the brush and paint!  Allow the paint to dry at least 20-30 minutes between each layer, for the first two or three it only takes about 10 minutes at least for mine it did...  Once your done let it dry overnight.  Voilà!  You have your very own paperweight.  Mine keeps my mind focused on what I want my story to tell, what I want to show to the reading world.  It is a great driving point for me.

I think that's all folks!  I still have 25 pages left in the novel, yeah, this has been my incentive.  What do you use for your incentives if you have them or what will you use?  Do you have any little things that remind you of your story when you write?  If so, please tell me:)  I'd love to hear!

Until next time!

Darn Creativity!

I hate my mind sometimes.  It thinks that it has a mind of it's own.  No, I'm not insane-well not doctor proven insane...  For the last few days I've been having this lady come into my head and start rambling on about her life.  Stuck in a tower.  And how she hates singing.  Yeah, weird, I know.  I've never had this happen to me. I mean that I've had moments when I am writing and I know that a character wants to say something, but never a random character come into my mind and force herself on me.

I'm aware that many authors have this issue when they're not writing, apparently it "gives them the need to write, they're not whole without it" stuff.  I've never had that.  I'll let you in on some things from my past about writing, be warned-it's dark;) (okay, not really, it's just a little off).

Here's my story:
I write.  Not well and for sure not known.  None of my family or friends know that I write anything, and I don't want them to.  I don't want to have to explain it to them and deal with that embarrassing ordeal because let's face it my family is not one of the most accepting group of people around.  (My neighbors are from Uganda, I mean they moved here about 10 years ago, my grandmother felt the need to inform my aunt and uncle (who have lived in Chicago and New York) that my neighbors are black, and not just regular black, but black black.  Oh and their dog who is black little Schnauzer barks at them... and they encourage it... yup, my familia!)  They all just think I have an overactive imagination, which I do but it would be more so if I didn't write, but they don't need to know that.

I started writing in 7th grade, where most all people start their writing: FanFiction.  My friend introduced me to it.  She wrote her's and I wrote mine, and we would 'edit' the stories together.  I was a spuratic updater, and now I realized I was writing for her and not for me.  I actually never finished the story.  But I'm a little scared to, to tell you the truth.  I really don't want her to see me four years later still updating that High School Musical story that is awful!  I created another story under another username and that's where I fell in love with writing.  I had always enjoyed reading stories so it was fun writing a story.  But that's pretty much where my writing went to.  There have been a few chapters that I had wrote out or perhaps a very detailed outline, but those have all been lost to history.  In school I never really applied myself to story writing because I hated, etch that- hate, English class.  I'm more of a science person, hence me taking mostly science classes this year and going to the zoo to get extra schooling.  But the teachers had always told me to try a little harder and it would be amazing.  My teacher once took one of my writings and put it in a contest, it got 2nd place, but I was so upset by her that I didn't even recognize what had happened.

I've been trying to get back into writing as of lately.  I'll start writing and then 'Opps, I have to volunteer today' or 'Goodness, I really need to clean up around here'.  I'm aware that everyone has these issues, and that's usually what seperates a never-will-be author and a true author.  I've always imagined myself as the former.

That's where my story ends.  Yup, that was great wasn't it?  No, this was not a bragging party or pity party (also I love the phrase pity party, although I don't know why...)

 I've been trying to ignore the lady because I don't need anymore distraction this year.  I don't think that I am going to get away from her.  Plus she keeps telling me, "I don't sing, I absolutely hate it.  I will hum, but no singing."  Grrr!  I think that I'll give into her a little, let's see where that gets me.  Oh wait, perhaps I will be a 'true' author...

Have any of you people have this happen?  What's your writing back story?

And since I don't have a picture up about this lady or my past, I shall indulge in another betta that I'm in love with...

If anyone wants to get me him, I'd be A-Okay with that!  You've got to admit that he is one attractive betta!

Housekeeping

I hope that you all had a wonderful 4th of July!  I know mine was hot and tiring... Heat+Zoo+People+No Lunch= Emotionally and Physically Drained Elizabeth.  Nonetheless it was still fun.

From Here

Today's not much in the substance side of things with the blog, I just want to put down some kind of schedule and hammer out some things.  Housekeeping, I guess we can call this.

From here out I am enacting a brand new schedule!  I shall be posting 3 times a week.  The days shall be Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.  Tuesdays will be 'Teaching Tuesdays' when I go through bits and pieces of the writing process that are sometimes sketchy or need to be looked at.  It will be a very informing day:)  Fridays will be a day for writing motivation, such as writing prompts, general motivations, and other things that are lurking in the back of my mind for these.  I eventually want to have this become a kind of editing day, so that your WIP can be edited.  I would love give some of my assistance to others with the editing process, and there may be some tips there.  But I am going to wait a little while to see if this would work out and to stimulate any attraction from you all to it.  And finally Sundays will be a hodgepodge of different things, for example I may read an awesome article that I will share, perhaps there will be a book review, recipes, and random junk!  That will be the fun day of the week!

From Here
This is the fish I'll be getting and once
I breed some other fishies:)

Another random bit that I'd like to point out is that I have set up an 'About the Author' page so you all can go stalk me.  And yes, I actually put up a picture of myself.  No laughs!  That picture is from a year and a half ago...

Also I'd just like to add this for my own happiness: I'm back to aquarium keeping!  Like full out again.  I'm working on breeding some of the fish:)  They're so cute my little fishies!

Creating Plots

Plots are the steel frame to the roller coaster of the novel that we build.  Our characters, theme, settings, prose, word choice, ad style are everything else.  What is a roller coaster with out the frame?  Nothing besides a bunch of mismatch objects.  One problem that people who want to write, whether they be novices or professionals, come across at one time or another in their writing career is the lack of plot ideas.

How do you make plots you ask, well, in very simple and somewhat obvious places.  Let's go through your normal day and see what we can find for plot ideas, I'll leave an * by each place with ideas!

6:00 a.m. you wake up and head towards the shower.  Once done with showering you brush your teeth, do your hair, etc.  You head to the living room where you have the paper (don't ask how it got there, I don't know it was magic) sitting on the kitchen counter.  You get some breakfast and coffee/tea and read the paper***.  It's off to work.  On your way to work there is a car crash that makes you take the detour route*, which makes you late.  Your boss comes and yells at you, which is more than what they usually do which is sitting at their desk watching YouTube videos, something must be wrong in their life*.  You go to your desk after the scolding and check your email.  You have a few new messages, one from your sister vacationing in Peru that has lots of pictures attached, so many that you can't even download them all*.  You get to work.  During lunch hour you and your friends go out to the town, where you come across an old man sitting on the sidewalk that says 'Fortunes for $'*, you hand him the change in your pocket but don't stay for the fortune.  During lunch you overhear the people behind you arguing about their relationship, apparently one of them slept with the other's sister, who's married and has 2.5 kids in a house with a white picket fence and a golden retriever named Fido*.  After lunch you head back to work.  During your break time you head on over to Time.com and read through some articles and head on to mynicheoftheuniverse.blogger.com where you read fabulous post***.  After work you go pick up the dry cleaning from the little old Asian lady who always has a smile on her face, today the glass windows are shattered, someone tried to rob the place*.  You get your clothing and leave.  Once home you change out of your clothes and listen to your spouse babble about their day* while flipping between the evening news and E! News.  During dinner your children overload your ears by telling you every grueling detail about their school day*.  You all watch a movie*, then send the children up to bed.  Before going to sleep yourself you finish that novel that you picked up last weekend from Barnes & Nobel*.

From Here

Did you see how many times in a day that you can find?  A ton!  And that's not even looking for any.  Go to the park and people watch, go to the grocery store and pick up the latest copy of People or Enquirer, those are chalked full of ideas.  Listen to the radio.  I was driving home from the grocery store yesterday listening to the radio and the announcer dude was taking calls for things that people had done that no one knew about and that they didn't want people to know.  Some lady called in and was talking about how her mother was dating a man 12 or 13 years younger than she was, the lady didn't know that.  The day before her mother got engaged to the man, the lady that called and the man somehow got drunk and had sex.  He proposed to her mother the next day, and the neither one has told the mother that they did the deed.  If that isn't a good plot then I don't know what is!  Want to make it fantasy?  Put them in a different world, add some mystical creatures or something and call it a day! (No offense to fantasy writers out there, I'm just making a point and I love fantasy, no offense intended!)  With the media out there bringing loads of stories in each day it's fairly easy to grab onto one and twist it into your own plot line.

Another good idea is find headlines from a newspaper or magazine, write down the ones you like, put them in a bag and pull out a few.  There's your skeleton of a plot line.

So, for all of you lazy people out there that don't like reading here's a list of everything:

• News Paper Articles
• Magazine Articles
• Radio
• Television
• Books
• Emails
• Everyday Activities
• Blogs
• People Watching
• Fairy Tales
• Movies
• And the list could keep going!

Plots are about relationships, conquests, missions, adventures, and so much more!  They're everywhere, now go find one!

Motivation

Motivation.  That's what I've decided to blog about today.  I was going to blog about other mindless things, but I thought that since I have my first sketch of my outline of my newest project that I needed to have some motivation.

According to pychologytoday.com motivation is, "Motivation is literally the desire to do things.  It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day.It's the crucial element in setting and attaining goals-and research shows that you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control"


Hmm... Interesting isn't it!  I've just started this new thing called 'running', and trust me I've needed plenty of motivation to get me started and going.  I found that looking at a really cute pair of pants that I want gets me running, just imagining myself in a size smaller pants makes my heart flutter a bit.  It's about doing whatever I can to get to those shorts, whether it be eating right or running, I am going to get them!

A great motivation for anyone,
especially in this summer heat!

I know what my motivation is for running, but what is it for writing?  Is it the idea that I will bring more literature into the world?  Perhaps it's the idea that I can blog my way through the process and I will be able to look back at it?  Is it to fulfill one of my childhood dreams?  I think that it is all of those reasons and more. 


Wait a second, the blurb of the article that I posted said something about goals.  Not one goal but many goals.  Now I've got to rethink this whole writing motivation.  I know for the running my small goals to reach are certain distances and certain sizes, but what about writing?  This is where the handy-dandy word counter gadget will come in handy!  I think that for every 10K words that I write that I'll have a small celebration on here, whatever that might bring about is up in the air.  That'll be my motivation, to celebrate with all of you!


Now I've set the goals and thought these motivation ideas in motion it's now time to see where this will take me!  I hope to get between 7K and 10K by this time next week, if not then I don't know!


Here's a thing for all you readers: What motivates you to write?  What goals have you set for yourself?  What shall my punishment be? Mwahahaha!  Don't mind me, my mind is just fried from being in the sun all day!

My Findings

Goodness me, I forgot to post yesterday!  How silly of me!  I'm sorry, I was sick and I was unable to make it to the library yesterday and the charger to my laptop still hadn't arrived.  One good thing happened: I finished two of the three books that I had gotten from the library on Monday!  I'd have to say that they were very well written.  There were a few parts here or there that I would have re-worded or rewritten, but it was very little that I wanted to change.  The book The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen was FABULOUS! I'd recommend that to you all, I'll type up a review tomorrow.

I returned to the library today and was rummaging through the YA section of the library.  I had posted on the absolutewrite forum about YA that we'd like to see more of.  I searched through the rows of books at the library only to come up with very very VERY few books that were historical.

I am one who loves history.  I mean drags her family to historical sights and reads those "dreadfully dull" history books.  I like it:)  What is wrong with all the YA authors out there?  I remember as a middle schooler picking up  Pride and Prejudice at my aunt's house and being absorbed into the colorful world of Miss. Elizabeth Bennet (yes, I LOVE that our names match).  I then ventured to the public library and asked around for some great historical novels that were a little easier to comprehend than Jane Austen's.  There weren't many.

So, here I am years later still finding the same predicament: no historical novels besides prince and princesses!  I have now made it my quest to write a YA historical novel.  This isn't my first big writing task and now I have this blog to keep me going, I mean I can tell all of you readers about my writing adventures!

Just before I leave you all I just want to add one thing, this dog photo.  It's my old loyal "dog" that I have defending my weed garden!  I really need to tidy that place up a bit, but it is so darn hot here.  I have realized how much fun it is to take pictures of lawn ornaments.  There is a house not too far from mine that has... gargoyles!  I'm trying to figure out when I can go sneak over there and capture a picture or two without the owners noticing.

Well, ta-ta for now! (Tigger reference)

Too Many At Once!

Ever had that time you go to the library and find absolutely nothing?  Today I've had the opposite luck, I found way too much!
Usually I am way too picky on books that I want to read, and I usually discard them after skimming through the pages.  Most of them that I seem to pick up have plots that are transparent and have nothing to hide, which I've read too many of those books!

I came to the library today because my laptop died.  OK, it wasn't the laptop that died it was the charger.  The part that you stick inside the laptop to charge it, yeah that piece got stuck in the charger hole and refused to come out until I took pliers to it (Great technical names:))  I was originally going to the library to get on the computer to look up bras at Victoria's Secret because they are having a sale and I need bras.  I was also going to type up this post because I'm trying to see how long I can post everyday.

I went into the library was was making a beeline towards the computer area, when I saw a book.  A beautiful book with a picture of a young lady in 1800s clothing standing in front of a house.  I got distracted, I have an issue with being distracted by books and shiny things, oh and tarantulas!  I read the summary in the back and was glued!

From Amazon.com

The Girl at the Gatehouse By Julie Klassen
Miss Mariah Aubrey, banished after a scandal, hides herself away in a long-abandoned gatehouse on the far edge of a distant relative's estate. There, she supports herself and her loyal servant the only way she knows how--by writing novels in secret.

Captain Matthew Bryant, returning to England successful and wealthy after the Napoleonic wars, leases an impressive estate from a cash-poor nobleman, determined to show the society beauty who once rejected him what a colossal mistake she made. When he discovers an old gatehouse on the property, he is immediately intrigued by its striking young inhabitant and sets out to uncover her identity, and her past. But the more he learns about her, the more he realizes he must distance himself. Falling in love with an outcast would ruin his well-laid plans.

The old gatehouse holds secrets of its own. Can Mariah and Captain Bryant uncover them before the cunning heir to the estate buries them forever?

Sounds good right?  Then I went looking around and picked up another TWO books, even though I am still in the middle of two books and have a few more at home still.  I am a bookaholic!  That's it!  Grr... Amazing books need to stop bringing me in.  And the worst part is that I am going to have to come back tomorrow to type up the next post, and what have we learned that happens when I come to libraries?  Bad things.

Where am I now?  At a different library typing this post and about to look up more books.  Have you ever had this happen? Finding more than one book and reading way too much, especially when you're writing a novel yourself...

I am going to take these novels and analyze how certain elements of them play out and apply what I learned to writing my own novel.  Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse reason.

Can't wait to hear your 'bad' library experiences!  Write to you tomorrow:)