i used to love writing...

Today, I spent my entire lunch break—all 30 minutes—rereading old blog posts both on this blog and on Cinematic Survey. And here's what I remembered, in the midst of occasionally cracking myself up (because really, I totally get my own humor!)—I used to love blogging. I used to love writing. It gave me joy. Whether I was gushing about Dean Cain (it's really the crush that never dies), analyzing Dawson's Creek (a post that led to yet another blog), or simply talking about life, I was writing because I wanted to, not because I had to. I was writing for my own enjoyment, not for anyone else.

Writing takes energy, and that's been in short supply lately. So I've stuck to the bare bones—what I have to do. Don't get me wrong: I enjoy reading and reviewing, but writing a book review doesn't exactly fill my soul with joy. How can I get back to the joy of writing?

I don't have any answers right now, but I know I want to learn to love writing again. And this is a step in the right direction—I had an absolute blast writing this post, and I don't care if anyone besides me enjoys it!

Random cat picture of the day: two of my cuties!

reading is fun!

It's a good thing I like reading! These are the nine (yes, nine!) books currently awaiting my review. (And another book is on its way from Amazon Vine.) The top three all have to be reviewed in the next two weeks. My goal was to have all my book review books read prior to family vacation at the beginning of June and only take my Kindle with me. Now, it looks like I'll be carting the books along and leaving the Kindle behind!

month of insanity, day twenty-seven

I win!!!!!!!!!!

At 9:38 p.m., my phone rang. When I hung up a few minutes later, I looked down at my word count and saw that it said 50,008. I immediately called Stubes. Then I sat down to wrap up my novel. At 10:45, I uploaded a scrambled version to the NaNoWriMo website, and this is what I saw:

The official NaNo word count is 50,718.

Yippee!!!!!!!

Tonight, I plan to sleep well.

month of insanity, day twenty-three

I'M CAUGHT UP IN MY WORD COUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally!

I've discovered that 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. is my optimal writing time. I can crank out words like nobody's business during that two hour time period. Unfortunately, I also require sleep, but I'm not getting too much of that during the week.

I just looked at the word count meter on the left side of my blog. I'm more than 75% of the way there. That's so crazy!

I'd planned to cover a year in my novel. At 38,613 words, I've covered about two months. I know how the book is going to end, but I may have to change the time frame for that ending.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to conference one-act. I'm not sure when we'll be back, as we have to travel two hours to the competition, so my writing time may be cut short. For the first time since day two, I need to churn out less than the daily 1,667 to stay caught up, so I'm optimistic that I can stay on track.

When I realized I'd crossed the 38,333 mark, I started clapping and cheering (NaNoWriMo brings out strange things in me). I abruptly stopped when I remembered my neighbors, who last night pounded on the adjoining wall to silence Val's singing--at 9:30 p.m.!

month of insanity, day seventeen

Things I've learned in the last seventeen days:

• Watching my word count meter go up on the NaNoWriMo website is addicting. I have to fight the compulsion to update my word count every five minutes.
• My dishes won't magically do themselves. Yet I continue to hope they will.
• Most of my television viewing is extraneous. When I have to decide between watching a TV show or writing, I almost always pick writing ... and I don't miss the TV. I am keeping up with four shows (NCIS, Bones, Fringe, and V), but I'm taping most of them and watching them at odd hours.
• Facebook is never more attractive than when you're supposed to be doing something else.
• I really like listening to country music while I write.
• I actually can function on four or five hours of sleep ... but I don't like to!
• NaNoWriMo and dieting don't go hand-in-hand. It takes so much less time to grab fast food or a snack than it does to make a healthy meal.
• When I'm really focused, I can bang out 1,000 words in an hour. The problem is that I'm rarely focused.
• Fruit snacks are great brain food.
  
• I may be the writer, but sometimes I feel like I have little control over my characters. A new one will suddenly appear, one will make a decision I disagree with, another will refuse to die for pages and pages. Writing is an odd exercise.
  

month of insanity, day fourteen

By now, you all know that I'm writing a novel. In a month. The title of my Word document is "Insanity," which has absolutely nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with my mental state when I decided to do this!

As I write this, I'm at 12,967 words--just over a quarter of the way there. However, this is the 14th of November, so I should be approaching 25,000 words! I have managed to write every day except yesterday, when I didn't get home until midnight (and then I stayed up writing until 1:30, so I wrote during my day, even if it wasn't technically still Friday). I definitely need to kick it up a notch!

I've set a goal for myself today--to reach 19,000 words. Considering my average is just under 1,000 words per day, I'll really have to focus if I'm going to write 6,000!

Honestly, I'm beginning to doubt if I can make it to 50,000. I'd been planning to have a writing blitz during Thanksgiving weekend, but that weekend it quickly filling up, and it's looking like I won't have too much time to write then. (It's all good stuff--especially the bridesmaid dress fitting!!!--but I'll have to readjust my writing timeline.)

Two things keep me pressing ahead, in spite of my doubts: 1) I really want to be able to say I did it! 2) A printing company will print a free proof copy of any NaNoWriMo winner's book. I would love to hold a copy of my novel in my hands--even if I'm the only person who will ever read it!

month of insanity, day three

It's day three, and I'm still in it, but I'm struggling.

Yesterday, I basically started over. I kept what I had already written, but I totally changed the way the story was headed.

Today, I had great intentions. In the nearly six hours since I left work, I ...

• got a haircut
• ate supper
• watched NCIS with Val
• sang through all of my Singing Christmas Tree songs ... some more than once
• downloaded a free mp3 album from Amazon
• watched the first half of V (I quit watching in order to write ... funny!)
• drank approximately four cups of coffee
• played a Straight No Chaser video for Blendy
• previewed a bunch of songs on Amazon and iTunes
• drank a root beer
• blogged
  
• wrote a grand total of 130 words

Hmmm ... I'll probably be up late because of the coffee, so maybe my creative juices will kick in soon!

month of insanity, day one

NaNoWriMo began today. I started at 12:01 a.m., and I wrote 787 words before I went to bed. At this point, I think my novel is headed towards being really, really terrible. But the point isn't to write a good novel! (I didn't know what I was going to write until I actually started writing. I'm now questioning the wisdom of going with that idea, but I've already started, so I'm sticking with it!)

I left for church at 10:15 a.m. and didn't get back home until 6:30 p.m. Since then, I've written about 300 words and procrastinated a lot!

Here's my official Day 1 picture, complete with the items that will help me survive this journey:

• laptop (which has Facebook pulled up. Facebook is the procrastinator's dream/nightmare!)
• candle (for ambiance)
• liquid refreshment (in this case, lemonade ... but I've already consumed way too much pop!)
• Burt's Bees (there's actually a second one on the other side of the laptop. Can't risk having dry lips!)
• cell phone (to keep in touch with Blendy, who is also attempting to write a novel.)
• headphones (way more comfortable than ear buds ... and they make me look so cool!)
• comfy pajamas ('cause what girl wants to be uncomfortable while torturing herself?)

You can keep up with my progress by checking my official NaNoWriMo page. Wish me luck!

speak before the silence

NaNoWriMo begins tomorrow. During the month of November, you probably won't be hearing from me too much--unless I'm procrastinating. Then you might be hearing from me a lot!

Some things to say before I go silent:

• My incredible cousin Nate, who joined us on our awesome road trip to Oregon, has been selected to the All State band for the second year in a row. Last year he played 3rd trumpet; this year he's playing 1st! I gave him a check for my concert ticket the other day (so Aunty M, if you're reading this and haven't seen a check, go shake your boy down!)--I'm excited for November 20!

• I've been doing so much reading lately! (I'm sure that's about to stop, what with NaNoWriMo and all ... ) A few books I highly recommend (and may review at a later date): Coming Attractions (Katie Weldon Series) by Robin Jones Gunn, Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help It Happen by Candice Watters, Anathema by Colleen Coble, and Shades of Blue by Karen Kingsbury. I'm pretty sure I'll be writing about Coming Attractions and Get Married sometime ... maybe after November 30!

• I made the best hot fudge sauce the other day. It's my great-grandma's recipe. I have fond memories of eating this sauce on vanilla ice cream at her house. Muy delicioso!

• I'm beginning to seriously think about church membership. I grew up in a church where membership wasn't stressed, and I'd honestly never really thought about officially joining a church before. Some of you will remember that just over a year ago, I decided to switch churches. I wouldn't say that membership is pushed in my new church, but it's definitely encouraged. I'll be writing more about this later, I'm sure!

• I had the greatest thought last week as I was watching the tail end of an episode of LOST on some cable channel late at night: When LOST comes back in January, I won't have to watch it alone and then bore/confuse my mom with the details at work the next morning. Why? Because Val and her roommate will be able to watch it with me!

• Watch this video. (Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to embed it here, so you'll have to click through to the website.) Now be jealous of me and my mom--we're going to a Straight No Chaser concert in December!!! Merry Christmas, Mom!

monkey see, monkey do

My uncle is the king of reading. My mom's side of the family is known for its readers, and he just may top all of them. Not only does he love to read, but he loves to share the things he's read with my family. My parents have received, well, probably hundreds of books from him throughout the years. And, of course, you can't forget the numerous magazines and newspapers he subscribes to. He'll often send clippings of things he thinks we'll be interested in. During my senior year of college, one of the articles he sent me inspired what I remember to be the worst paper I've ever written ...

Mass Communications was a class I'd looked forward to taking, but in the busyness of my final semester as a full-time student, I didn't give it the attention I should have. It was an easy class, and a large percentage of the grade came from two papers. The day before the first paper was due, I still didn't know what I was going to write about. Then I checked my mail. In my box was an envelope from Uncle Ken. And in that envelope, I found an article about Christian music. (Sidenote: Isn't the internet great? I just found and linked to that very article--an article published six years ago!) The article inspired my paper, unimaginatively titled "Christians in the Secular Music Industry." (At least I remembered to give it a title. So many times I turned in papers or articles without titles, and I eventually got to the point where I'd type TITLE in huge letters at the top of the page. I don't think I ever turned in a paper with the TITLE still there ...)  I pulled the only all-nighter of my college career while writing the paper--thank goodness for the internet; I found every single source, except for the article from Uncle Ken, online! I finally finished minutes before class started (I skipped my other morning class to work on it), rushed across campus, and arrived just in time to hear the prof say that she'd give us until 5 p.m. to turn the paper in!

Because I'm a nerd, I saved all of my college papers; I just reread this one, and it's not as horrible as I remembered, though it reads more like a magazine article than an academic paper. Still, I got an A!

Well, this trip down memory lane wasn't supposed to be the focus of this particular post! What I was getting at when I first mentioned my uncle was that he recently sent the food section of the Los Angeles Times, and it inspired me to bake. The front page article was about monkey bread; following the article, the author listed three variations. I'd never thought of monkey bread as being anything other than a gooey, cinnamon and sugar, pull-apart bread (which is, of course, fabulous); when I saw the recipe for an olive oil and herb version, I knew I needed to try it.

All ready to go into the oven

 

It. Was. Fantastic. I'm a huge fan of dipping bread into herb and garlic flavored olive oil, and this bread reminded me of that--except that every bite was infused with flavor, and the outside was all crusty and delicious. Mmmmmmm, good!

It was supposed to cool for 15 minutes after coming out of the oven. I waited ten!

Doesn't it look delectable?

No, I didn't eat 1/4 of it in one sitting--Steph had some, too!

If this has whet your appetite, you can read the article and get the recipes here.

writing, reading, and browsing

• I'm going to do it. At least I'm going to try. After starting and never finishing a multitude of stories, I'm going to write a novel. Next month. It will probably be terrible, but that's OK. I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as "NaNoWriMo." My sisters and I have talked about doing this for a while, and last year I even joined a writing group organized by my friend Jen's brother ... and I got all of 1600 words down before I quit. That won't happen this year--I'm determined to finish!
• I just read Lonestar Sanctuary in an evening. It's the prequel to Lonestar Secrets, which I reviewed for Thomas Nelson. Lonestar Sanctuary was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as Lonestar Secrets. For one thing, I had the bad guy pegged pretty quickly, though I couldn't figure out his motive. Also, I wanted to scream, "You're married; it's OK to admit you like each other!" at the two main characters a few times (I think I had that reaction while reading Lonestar Secrets, too). Here's a brief synopsis of the story:

Everyone close to Allie is dying. A madman is targeting her, and she doesn't know why. With no one else to turn to, Allie and her daughter Betsy head for the Bluebird Ranch.

Every day, Rick deals with the guilt of knowing he was responsible for his best friend Jon's death. When Jon's widow shows up at his ranch, Rick knows he must protect her, so he offers to marry her and adopt Betsy.

Rick and Allie's marriage of convenience soon turns into something more. But will Rick be able to trust Allie with his past--and will she learn to trust him with her heart?

Maybe I should be a book jacket copy writer ... what do you think?

• Have you ever clicked the "next blog" button at the top of my blog (or any other blogger blog)? I did tonight ... and I learned that Jennafer is moving to Disneyland, Kat really likes writing poetry, and J believes the Kremlin will be responsible for a nuclear apocalypse that will be blamed on the Jews and Americans--oh, and he was crucified in a past life and may (I wasn't clear on this point) be Jesus reincarnated. Then I got stuck in some horrible loop where clicking "next blog" sent me back and forth between a Japanese blog and this blog called "Robots 4 Change." J was definitely my favorite!
  

becoming a book review blogger

I wrote my first book review in college. I was in a class that required us to have an article published in order to get an A, and, well, I've always been all about the A's! I had actually resigned myself to a B+ when I noticed a stack of newspapers in the campus post office. I picked one up and took it back to my room to read. The paper was called J!, and I noticed an ad on the inside that gave an email address to contact if you were interested in writing for them. Was I ever! Fortunately, Martt, the editor, was also interested in having me write for them. I wrote a review of The Rescuer by Dee Henderson (it was the last book I'd read for fun . . . and as a college student, I didn't have a lot of spare time for reading). Martt published it in the December 2003 issue, and I got my A.

A few weeks later, I got an email from Martt, inviting me to meet with him and his wife if I was interested in continuing to write for them. I had every intention of doing just that, but it slipped through the cracks, and I never did have any more contact with him. Now, I wonder how my life would be different if I had followed through . . .

About a month ago, I wrote my second book review. This was part of a special promotion Thomas Nelson Publishers was running: review Lynne Spears' new book in exchange for a free copy. I couldn't pass it up.

Today, I got an email from Thomas Nelson. Evidently, the response to the free book offer was overwhelming, so they decided to set up Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers. Anyone who has a blog can sign up to be a reviewer. It's very simple: you pick from a list of titles they want reviewed (currently there are nine titles available), they send you a free copy, you read it and post a 200-word review on your blog and on Amazon.com, and then you can pick a new book. They also link to your blog on the Book Review Bloggers site . . . so it could increase traffic to your blog!

I, of course, signed up right away. My next book is Field of Blood by Eric Wilson. It's a vampire book--perhaps published to capitalize on the success of the Twilight series. I have never had any interest in anything vampire-related, but after reading Wilson's introduction, I'm curious.

So I'm still not being paid to write, but this is a step in the right direction!

If you're interested in becoming a Book Review Blogger, you can find out more here.

writing again, and it feels so good!

How much do I want to be a writer? That’s a question that keeps rolling through my mind. I used to think I wanted to be a journalist—then I got a glimpse of a journalist’s world through some of my college journalism classes. I don’t like high-stress situations, and I don’t like interviewing people . . . so how would I ever get the story?

I was one of the “technical” English majors—one who loved the grammar aspect but not so much the literary aspect. One of my best friends decided I should have been a math major because I loved the few math classes I took and only tolerated the lit classes. (My favorite college class? Probability & Statistics, which I took totally for fun my last semester.)

Advanced English Composition, really a fancy name for creative writing, was my most dreaded college class. I put it off until the 2^nd semester of my senior year . . . and then I could put it off no more! Our first assignment was to write a first-person, present-tense account of something. I wrote about my thoughts on the first day of class (trust me, they weren't positive) . . . and got bit by the writing bug! I’d always told people that I’d like to edit because I didn’t have a book inside of me. I soon discovered that might not be entirely true—I just needed to be forced to be creative. During the class, I wrote two short stories--one about a girl who learns her boyfriend may be a serial killer, and the other about a woman who lost her husband on 9/11.

Since college, I've only dabbled in writing. I have a non-fiction book started, but as I haven't touched it in nearly a year, I'll be surprised if I ever finish it. Every so often, an idea will strike, and I'll sketch an outline or write a couple paragraphs, but nothing more. I've even considered going back to school to get my master's in creative writing, but it's not gone beyond some wishful thinking.

I've mentioned my new-found affinity for some country music. While station surfing in my car last week, I heard a song that caught my attention: "Every Other Weekend" by Reba McEntire and Kenney Chesney. The song was on the verge of being "too country" (can Reba be too country when Trisha Yearwood's not?), but the lyrics grabbed me. I looked up the video and was pulled in by the tragedy of it all. (Interesting tidbit: the couple in the video is portrayed by the actors who were Van and Cheyenne on Reba.) I started thinking about what could have gotten them to that point--divorced, sharing the kids, still in love with each other but unable to say it. Throughout the weekend, I kept thinking about it, creating a back story for the couple. I thought about writing something and even brainstormed names.

Last night, I couldn't sleep--I just couldn't turn my brain off. I started thinking about the story and the twist I'd cooked up. Finally, I got up and started writing. After an hour, I had 3 pages . . . then, I finally decided it was time to go to bed. It was strange how the words just came--that's how it happened in college when I was writing under a deadline. Anyway, I don't know if I'll finish the story or if anyone but me will ever see it, but it feels so great to be writing again!