The Journey Continues (mine and my characters')

My name and title here?

I dreamt of Sally Prescott last night. I think she is feeling neglected after all this attention I've been lavishing on Diana and her Monsters. I promised her that I would edit her most recent adventure as soon as I'm finished my current project, but apparently she's getting impatient with me.

I'm not telling Sally that Diana hasn't been getting enough attention from me the past week or so, either.

I have been behind on my word count since the 12th.

That being said, I have managed to at least open the file and look at the words, if not write any, almost every day without fail. My characters are solidly in my head. I walk through the setting every day as I make my way around town, always noting details I can add in to flesh out the world. My mind works even as I sleep to make connections and fill plot holes, almost like the story is already told and my concious mind is just discovering it. My subconcious mind already knows it.

I've written more words on this story than I have for any story I've ever written. Even my two and a half Sally Prescott short stories don't equal where I'm at with Monsters. I may still be sloshing my way through the Bog of Doom (and believe me, I've gotten lost in there a couple of times), but I know that I will make it to the end. I have about 15,000 more words to wrap up my story. I'm starting to worry that might not even be enough.

Sometimes calling myself a writer seems so ridiculous. But after spending my whole weekend reading, I sat down to my own novel on Sunday night and I realized that I am actually writing a freaking book.

Me. Writing a book.

I know that's the goal as a writer, but to actually have a nearly finished manuscript that will actually be book length...is completely surreal to me.

Now whether this book is any good, or will ever be published, only time will tell, but when this story is finished and I've reached my 90,000 words, I can say that I've written a book.

I just might be able to do this.

More like Slacker September

I've been neglecting my writing blog the past couple of weeks. In my defense, it's partially because when I sit down to write, I've been putting my novel before my blog. I figure that's probably the more important of the two. I wouldn't have much to talk about here if I wasn't writing.

I'll touch on a few miscellaneous things in this entry, just to catch you up.

Bog of Doom

First - L33T September is going well. I am still on track word-wise, and most days when I sit down to write I am still excited about it. This is the longest I've written almost daily on the same project ever, and I have found myself struggling with a whole new batch of problems. First and foremost - it's getting harder to resist the urge to edit. When I write entire scenes of crap, it becomes a pitched battle with myself to leave it how it is and move on to the next scene instead of re-writing it twelve times. My other problem has me bogged down in the middle of the narrative - which sometimes happens during Nanowrimo, but I'm seriously stuck in the Bog of Doom this time. I've heard other writers talk about the middle of the book slump before, so I'm trying not to be discouraged. I'll push through and hopefully get to the good action scenes I've already written soon. Just gotta connect the dots. La la la laa.

Second - my writing group's official blog is getting closer to official kickoff. It's really starting to come together. We'll start writing content over the next couple of months, and we hope to go live December 1st. Once there's something to look at, I'll link you all there. It should be a lot of fun!

Third - I'm starting to get ridiculously excited about Nanowrimo. Even doing Camp Nanowrimo this summer hasn't diminished the feeling that Christmas is almost here. The Christmas for writers. This blog will look a little different during November: it'll have word counts, me complaining and me being elated, yammering flows of consciousness, sometimes all in one day. So, um, maybe not that much different.

Fourth - Um, four went missing. I'll let you know if I find it.

Fifth - Due to the encouragement of my writing group, I am going to be using my Twitter account with much more frequency (although "more frequently" is relative - it was six months between posts before)). I've added my Twitter feed, with a "Follow me on Twitter" link, or you can click here if you want to follow me. I will try to be insightful, witty, and original in all of my tweets.

Haha.

So, as a writer, what social media do you use? Twitter? Facebook? Myspace? Linkedin? Blogs? Scribd?