Pure Procrastination: Inside the Notebook

Remember: writing under pressure to finish your goal for the day and forcing your way through writer’s block results in shabby, rushed, and low-quality story telling and writing.

Oh boy, I’m not only experiencing writer’s block when it comes to writing, but also when it comes to posting! Yay me!

Ok, well, if you read my post from last night, I didn’t finish my thousand. Turns out, I never did. That’s why today I’m working extra hard to write an extra 500 words IN ADDITION to my 1,000. Self-delivered punishment, while a pain in the ***, works, especially when you know that somebody is reading this and holding you to it. It feels like a prison sentence. And it’s made even worse when you experience writers’ block. But here’s something: a prime cause for writers block, especially in this case, comes from stress. If you put too much stress on yourself, as I have done, then you WILL experience writers block. Have you ever noticed it’s hard to commit yourself to, say, a big assignment when there’s only one night ’till it’s due? This brings me to my advice for today: Feel free to punish yourself with extra words if you have to, but don’t put so much pressure on yourself to finish as much of it as possible in one sitting. Get a good chunk done in the morning or afternoon, and take a break, as long as you want, and come back later with a fresh mindset in the early evening. Break it up into as many sittings as you like.

And whatever you do, don’t push yourself do the brink of pressure when writing. If you haven’t gotten all of your work done by bedtime, then don’t stay up late. Staying up past your normal sleeping time halts the creative juices to a crawl, and makes it so in the morning, when they’re normally working their best, they are still recovering from the blow you took last night. As long as you have gotten half to most of your goal done, then just don’t worry about it or assigning more pressure, it will only make it worse. What matters is that you’ve written a good amount today, and kept your creative juices from halting to a stop for the next few weeks.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take a refreshing break from MY writer’s block.

Before I go, here is this weeks featured poll:

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Uhuh, well, I haven’t gotten to writing my 1,000 yet, poor me.

Wow, only night 3, and I’m already surprised at the traffic I’m getting. I don’t have a hit counter or google analytics, but I can see I already have had at least 5 visitors who commented and/or voted in polls, and that makes me excited! Most people don’t even get a single hit untill their first week is over.

Speaking of analytics, how to I install that stupid tracking code? Where do I put it? I cannot find a “</body>” tag anywhere. Can anybody help me out installing it to my site? This is a wordpress blog, if that matters.

And now, advice. Phew…what do I have today? Well, here’s something. Alot of people, including me, often times get discouraged and don’t want to write BECAUSE the aren’t writing. That may be the case, and you may not know it or you may. It is a problem that I frequently encounter. While there is no sure-fire way to get around this, other than put that aside and deal with your first layer of writers block using my ever-so-helpful advice page, there is a way to help bring it down. That way, good reader, is to sit down and tell yourself “Writers block is ok, [and it's easy to get around it using Pyre's ever-so-helpful advice page].” Ok, maybe not THAT specifically, but here, look, here are some very famous writers have to say on the subject and that may get you going: http://grammar.about.com/od/yourwriting/a/wblockquotes.htm

And, once again, though you may be tired of seeing this, here, once again, is this weeks’ featured poll:

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Well now, it seems I have actually successfully written my 1,000 words today. Technically, I was 64 words short, but I decided to quit on a nice, even number so in the future I don’t have trouble remembering what exactly to write to.

Now, I’ve ran into a dillema. My original two supporting characters, Sylviet, a wise, elderly snake-like being, and Louell, a stubborn, hunger-prone person with many canine traits. I don’t want them tagging along anymore. They’ve been a nice intro for the MC, Royce, but they’re getting in the way of me focusing on my favorite characters and Royce. I need a way to get rid of them. (DISCLAIMER: These are not unnecessary characters I am done with. They are indeed very important to the story and the only perfect attendance supporties, and my hero is certainly not done with them. While I am killing them off as a cop-out for myself, this is not a cop-out for the story and these characters will indeed be missed. I just need a way to get them out of the story, not always kill them, so I can focus on my select few mainstay characters for the next books. I am on character overload.) Now, here are my options: I can have them stay at the veiled village where the current conflict is taking place while the other characters continue on their treck, only to later to die in the comming arsen on the village, or, in my rewrite, I could eliminate them all together by having them never making it to the village and either a) die in an attack of beastly lemur-type things or b) never escaping their kidnapper, being brought to the antagonist, and be killed in a dramatic and relentless interrogation scene leading to their innevitable deaths. It’s poll time!!

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Lastly, some daily advice on getting around procrastination and writers block. Don’t try to finish your daily goal in one sitting if it’s not working out for you. That’s what I did today. Break it up into parts, take breaks, as long as you need. Just try and finish by about 8:00 PM or so, as you don’t want to be caught panicking at the last minute. It’s alot easier that way. I find it easiest to do some in the morning and some in the evening, and leave the afternoon to go out and have an refreshing, outside life.

Before I go, once again, here is this weeks featured poll:

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Remember when the word “Novel” used to mean original? Now it’s but a condencending way to say an idea is sub-par. That certainly says something about the literary situation today, especially the young adult fiction… hey, remember when there was no Twilight? Good times…

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I wrote a little this morning, but hardly a mere 100 words. So, yea, I guess I really didn’t write at all.

Well, on to business. Let’s talk writer’s block, shall we?  Yes, we’ve all experienced it. Our fingers just refuse to touch that keyboard, and your brain refuses to come up with ideas, and the blinking cursor continues to mock you. Blink…blink…blink…
Well, I’m sure you want advice on getting around this horrendous condition. Lucky for you, I am one of the many people who has some. A good thing to do is to get AWAY from your computer, as staring at that cursor or surfing the internet is not going to help at all. Instead, do something productive and solitary to get ideas flowing, and inspiration can come in some of the strangest forms. For some people, a good activity to help get the brainjuices flowing is cooking, for some it’s drawing. Generally, playing video games, watching TV, or surfing the web does not work, as those are the activities that are “mind numbing,” and don’t require much thinking or daydreaming. Also, maybe just take a solitary walk, through town or in the woods, and look around and think. Don’t think about your book that much though, space it inbetween other thoughts. And when inspiration strikes, be prepared to write it down.

Another popular method is word wars. This is a little less natural, and a little more forceful, but, when you need to write, you need to write. To do a word war is simple. You find somebody else who is a writing, whether you know them or not, and somebody who you can communicate to on the spot, either via phone or messenger or email. You arange a period of time, say x o’clock to y o’clock, and during that time you record your starting word count and then do nothing but write, and record your ending word count at the end. Whoever wrote the most words wins. It is surprisingly easy to write when you have competition. And, if later on, you find that your forced words were stale, then you can just edit them to your liking.

That’s it for this edition of Pure Procrastination, I’m Pyre, and I’m copying Ray William Johnson’s outro.

So, tell me guys, what should Valamoorians (the residents of my book) use as a primary mount, for war or for general use?

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Well now, this is my first post on Inside the Notebook. Hello, reader.

This blog is about chronicalling the story of a thirteen year old writer chronicalling his own story and eventually setting it lose in the cuthroat world of editing and publishing. That is, if he doesn’t get devoured by it himself first. Also, you will find it peppered with advice on not loosing your own mind over your literary work of art.

First order of business: progress. Today, for the first time in over two weeks, I sat at my computer and wrote. And I wrote alot. Nearly 1,000 words, if I do say so myself. However, this is not near the goal I set for myself of 1,000 words a day…over a month ago!! If there’s anything I have wrong with me, it’s not keeping to my own deadlines. If only I had somebody who would force me to them…somebody I didn’t know…somebody reading this post…hint, hint.
Now, you may be wondering, “Pyre, how did you achieve this amazing feat of procrastination-trumping literary progress?” It was a combination of simple factors: Early morning. Not much to do. And NO INTERNET. That’s right, no internet. Now I understand that when one decides to deprive himself from the internet after a long time of web surfing and doing non-novel-related activities, that the writing urge just doesn’t ping on. That’s why you wake up with no internet. Every night, before you go to sleep, turn off your internet router and stay as far away from it as humanly possible henceforth. When you wake up early in the morning, do nothing but write until your goals for the morning have been satisfied, at least mostly. Not to mention the fact that the human mind works the best in the morning, and inspiration comes the most at night, so you’ll be well equipped to aggresively tackle that novel like a snipe first thing. Before you know it, you’ve written a thousand or so words, and just in time to make breakfast!

But by far the most important thing when doing this to remember is DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING THAT ROUTER. That router staying off is your lifeline. Plant a C4 in front of it if you have to, just don’t touch it unless it’s absolutely vital to your progress. Now, of course, this isn’t the ONLY way to get things done, only it worked quite effectively for me this morning and hopefully it will work for you, too.

And now, here’s a little exerpt of what I got done:

“”I lay down staring directly up at the ceiling, which was uncomfortably close on the top bunk. The noises and creaks of Pryderi’s house seemed to grow more obnoxiously loud with every passing moment, along with the noisy snoring of Stub, who I had made sleep on the floor due to his now deathly apparent weight. Crap. Houl had kept me up past my sleeping window.

I leaned down over the bed. Stub quietly lifted an eyelid. As soon as he saw me peering down, even if not directly at him, he instantly hopped up on his haunches, despite his obvious sleepiness, and started panting and smiling intensely. I tried my absolute hardest to ignore him.

I said to Houl in a hushed voice, “Tell me, then, where are you from?” It was time to pester him with the same questions when he trying to sleep.

“I already told you,” he said, his voice muffled underneath the covers of his bed.

“No, but where exactly? Nearby? What’s your story? What did you have to go through?”

“Allow me to answer all of those questions in one simple word,” he said in a snippy, sarcastic tone. “Go to sleep.”

“That was three words. A phrase, if you will,” I teased. I heard him growl in frustration, his head now buried in his pillow. “Oh come on, now, tell me,” I begged. No answer. I tried asking him several other ways, but to no avail. Either he had fallen asleep in just a few minutes, or, more likely, he was ignoring me. And by god he was good at it, too. How come I hadn’t thought of such an ingenious solution? I could keep pestering him until he finally snapped, but that would probably just wake the whole house. And, knowing Annabeth for the short time I did, it was only safe to assume that most Nevii were easily angered.

After lying wakefully for long enough, I began to consider that maybe it was just the poor quality of the top bunk that was keeping me up. It was stuffed with hay or grasses of some sorts, and a little too generously, making it unpleasantly hard with multiple sharp points. For the first time, I had the urge to claw it open and drain some, only until I realized that I was human. It seemed that ever race in Valamoore had claws. Lucky them. Narida’s were even retractable. So, I had no choice but to lie in vain the rest of the night until sleep found me and carried me off.

Oh, dreams. Often times they don’t even happen, sometimes they predict the future (at least, that’s where I think de ja vu comes from), sometimes they’re fun, and sometimes they’re just plain scarring. My dream that night could be placed somewhere in the latter category. It was another dream of back home. If what I saw when the train crashed was real, then how high could the situation have escalated? Who knew how many things were leaking into my (or…our) plane of Earth and planets, and, even worse, what was happening to my Mom? And Cindy? And my friends? Sorrow, horror, maybe even death, probably respectively. It was probably these haunting questions that spawned the abomination of a dream I had.

The beginning consisted of horrific visions of Mom lying at home in despair, the couch she was sprawled across soaked and seared from an endless stream of blazing hot tears, and her face contorted into a hideous expression. Believe me, as long as you live, there is nothing more painful to see then a loved one in remorse…especially for the loss of you. Even if you know it’s just a dream, there is an undeniable stench of sorrow that seeps up inside you, seeded from a sick combination of empathy and guilt.

None of this was made any better when the dream proceeded to melt away into a vision of the entire town being burnt to ashes by frenzied thorncrowns. The fire was wet with the stench of blood and soaked with fear. Fueling it all was the manic ravings of the goblins and the horrible deeds I myself committed to bring the terror and destruction to my home and the homes of others.

Eventually, the fire consumed even my vision and burnt away, revealing the scene of who else but Kali desperately bicycling away from the bonfire of screams that was once Silverwood. As she pedaled at adrenaline speeds, her face contorted in horror, her hair lifted off her shoulders with the howling wing funneling beneath them. I was left to watch as she collided with a skinny, five-foot-tall figure in robes, which howled unhumanly. The screech did nothing but call five others to her as she lay helpless on the ground. They were all Gar, bandits of some sort, searching desperately for food and an escape from the horrors they had to go through in an unfamiliar world. And then…they beat her. They beat and cut the life out of her screaming, injured body. But now it wasn’t Kali they were doing this to, but Cindy. (Isn’t it wonderful how dreams swap people for others seamlessly, without warning?)

There isn’t anything that fuels nightmares the most like guilt and stress. And nightmares lead to sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation leads to an equally horrible next day.

My next day began with an early wakeup call. Hardly before the crack of noon, even. It seemed, though, that the only person who hated it more than me was Houl, who buried his head underneath his covers and threw a fit whenever somebody touched him or any-thing that subsequently made contact with his bed. Stub, however, could never have been more excited for a wakeup call, and he ran around in circles as excited as ever, and reali-zing that he could not pounce on me, he started yapping and yapping and occasionally squealing for me to get down for the top bunk so that he could. This made it all the harder to get out of bed.

Gregor poked his head in through the door. “Guys,” he said, “come on. We need to get going!”

“Aw, really?” I whined sarcastically whilst stretching, “I was looking forward to settling down and spending a few weeks here in this horrid bed.”

“Try sharing one with my sister. She thinks the whole bed belongs to her, and won’t be told otherwise.”

“I’m sure Annabeth would say the same thing about you,” I told him, sitting up now. “Speaking of her, do you think you could get her to fetch me my fresh, new clothes that we bought yesterday?”

“She’s gone. In fact, us three are the only ones in the house.””"

Well, looky here, another blog for the internets to enjoy! Please wait while I officially start this place up.

-Pyre