Motivation

If it was difficult to make myself do anything before, it's even more so now that summer is in and there's nothing to force me to do any work at all for a whole day. It gives me this feeling that I am entitled to laziness just because I am on vacation. We all know how silly that is, especially when you have as many things you should be working on as I do. Thus, I've been thinking about ways to combat this feeling and keep the motivation to work going.


1. Set An Alarm.
The goal is to make myself believe that this is a normal day, with a purpose and things to be done. Some illusion of structure is necessary for that, and it's always best to start at the beginning. That doesn't mean having to get up early, necessarily. I can still sleep in as long as I get up at a certain time. I think I'll probably set it to 10:00, since that's around the time I usually stop being in bed to sleep and start being in bed to just not get up yet. Consequently, I will probably also give myself a curfew of about 3AM, not that I am planning to cross that line too often anyway.

2. Prepare for the Day.
Again, it's time to use these simple things that my mind automatically associates with a school day (and thus a day of working). That means taking a shower and other hygienic necessities, dressing in clothes I'd be willing to leave the house with, and eating breakfast immediately. This also makes sense from a health standpoint, and allows me to clear up any confusion later in the day when I totally forget what I did this morning.

3. Do Some "Work"
My mind doesn't believe it can start writing or working on anything else while still half-asleep. Therefore, the morning is a good time for less involved tasks, such as cleaning the gigantic trash heap out of this room, or checking my To-Do List to help plan what needs to be done that day. This prevents me from thinking that because I am relaxing first, I will relax all day. Still, once I've done that, it is fine to check on the Internet and talk with my friends for a while.


4. Use Half-Hour Blocks
A particularly effective way to keep up productivity, which I used heavily before and during last year's NaNoWriMo, is to work for 25 minutes and rest for 5, with longer breaks every couple of hours. It's easy enough to do with some software help. It allows you to be sure you're doing just the right amount of work without burning out. Since I don't work all day, splitting the day up into 30-minute chunks like this also allows me to be sure I'm not wasting too much time on any one useless activity.


Other Things
At night, put in little progress notes next to each task on the To-Do List.
Tell friends and family about this structure so obligations to them can be worked into it.
Set goals with a deadline that includes an exact date and time.
"Accidentally" unplug the phone lines to avoid interruptions. If only...
For reasons unrelated, I need to go for a run or something each day.


So, readers, do you have your own tricks to keep yourself going?

Continuation

With two publication credits under my belt and my novel recognized by my community, I'm suddenly stepping into the world of the author--the public one, that is.

On June 4th, two days after my high school graduation, I have a poetry reading to attend--and read at! And exciting as that is, it's only a beginning to my summer. There's yet another revision lined up for The Third Face--one that I can confidently send to agents and publishers this time. After all, with multiple reviews done to hammer out the problems in my manuscript, along with my visible accomplishments, it's obvious that I've made a lot of very useful progress since starting this blog back in January.

Meanwhile, education is still a part of life. The good news is that, as I recently learned, an art institute isn't just for, well, art. I can go into one to work on all of my creative ambitions, and maybe even pick up my abandoned guitar again.

Before that, though, I have a long and busy summer ahead. A webcomic, a bit of game design, and a flash animation are just a few of the lofty promises I've made, and I don't intend to back down. Not only that, but I can actually continue my Information Technology training online with one of the many valuable gifts that came with the class.

Life is still full of decisions and possibilities right now, but as long as I still have the ability to eventually make the right one, things are going well.

Another Step

This blog entry (like many of them) is long overdue, and I'm expecting to have so much to say that I have to continue my thoughts on a second entry later this week. So, here we go!

Things are sort of hectic for me these days. As a senior in high school, the clock is ticking for graduation. I have to have lots of things done and ready, especially big class assignments and the stuff to show off at my open house just a week from now. Once that's done, I have exams and graduation plans to worry about.

"What are you going to do after you graduate?" Admit it, you want to ask me that. Everyone does, because everyone gets asked that at least a hundred times. And, to be quite honest, I have absolutely no answer to that.

Messing around in Minecraft and World of Warcraft while occasionally drawing a Pokemon comic offers both fun and social appeal, but none of it really leads anywhere. Half the world dreams of working for some video game company, designing new game ideas or--in perhaps the most coveted job in existence--testing and reviewing.

"Writing doesn't pay the bills." "Nobody ever makes it trying to be a rock star." I have all kinds of ideas for where to go with my life, but every single one is steeped in a legendary impossibility like these ones. Taking those challenges doesn't seem to be a very popular option with the people who need something from me or want me to do well, and how can I disappoint them?

Next time I'll explain how I'm going to deal with all of this, once and for all.

Opinion Time

Alright, I know I don't have a whole lot of people reading this blog, but for those of you who do, I have a question. Would you be interested in a book that features two or three very short novellas? They'd be mostly unrelated but share a common tone. I have two in mind, but if you don't think that's substantial enough, I'll probably have a third idea by the time I finish working on the other two.

The first is actually a full-length novel that I wrote, but I think about 80% of it is unnecessary, so it'll be cut down for sure. It's about a high school boy named Morty who suddenly wakes up from a coma to find that his whole life is a dream, and that he's actually an 11-year-old exiled prince in "real life." Somehow he has to resolve the two worlds, get his body back in shape, and retake his kingdom from the fiend who's been bottling souls...

The second novella focuses on a child named Daniel, and the young man, Zach, who must accompany him as he sets off on a trip to a lonely church. There, Zach will discover what's in the blocked-off area behind the church, the secret of Daniel's apparent depression, and why the little boy's books must never leave his sight...

Both novellas are about young men whose ordinary lives, on the brink of truly beginning, are twisted by the realm of fantasy in an unusual way. They deal with the relationship between adults and children, and the value place on each event and decision in a person's life. Also, a bit of trivia: the second novella is actually based on a dream I had, so there's a connection there, too.

So what do you think? Should I do it? Maybe you think I should try to develop each idea into a full-length (with the crap cut)? Or perhaps this is a waste of time and I should be focusing on the big stuff like The Third Face and the series revolving around it.

Review: Elemental Sacrifices - The Gathering

Have you ever wanted to read a book about a mute kid with poison for spit? How about an army of monsters made out of sand? Or maybe a vegetarian girl with a hair obsession and a lifetime of combat training?

Well, you probably haven't really given it much thought. But if, upon considering it just now, you said yes, you'd probably like to know more--and even if you said no, well, maybe I can convince you anyway.

Elemental Sacrifices: The Gathering follows an ancient-magical-orb-turned-girl named Chloe. Along with her snotty sister, she sets off to escape monsters and angry villagers alike, to see a boy so thoroughly attractive that even I (a straight male) find him sexy, and, of course, to find the secrets of her own origins.

The journey is punctuated with vivid, stunning battles with various fiends, as well as with genuine, hilarious dialogue among the amazingly strong cast of characters that this deep world has to offer. Reading it is not just interesting or suspenseful, but truly fun.

Excited yet? I definitely am! I'm not sure where the author is in the production of it, but I'm sure she can do a lot more with a little support for her work--it goes a long way, to say the least.

Super Script

As a 3-time winner of NaNoWriMo (the act of writing a 50,000-word novel in just one month) I tend to enjoy a challenge, especially when it comes to writing. So it's no surprise that I am in the midst of Script Frenzy, an event in which you have one month to write 100 pages of, you guessed it, a script.

So which one is more difficult? Last year, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo came out to 99 pages, so there's not too much difference there. You would think that if you wrote a lot of short lines in your script--maybe having a bunch of characters that interrupt each other--you could get away with making Script Frenzy a lot easier.

But the truth is, Script Frenzy is by far the more difficult task. Unless you already have experience with writing scripts (which I only have a tiny bit of), it can be disorienting and strange. I even split the requirement into two scripts with, naturally, a goal of at least 50 pages each. That should allow me all kinds of creative options, right? Yet I'm still over a day behind already!

The first script is a 10-part comic series based on a certain popular game. I know, doing things like this probably isn't the best move for a writer, but give me a break. Besides, I'll probably actually draw it this summer, and that'll just be fun for all!

The other one is an original anime series in 6 parts. When Eric is accused of killing his new, mysterious girlfriend Alyssa, the only place to run is an elevator to Hell. I've had the two characters of Eric and Alyssa in my head for quite a few years, and they've finally found a home in this story, currently titled "The Next Floor Down."

That won't stop me from bringing you guys some more information this April, like a promise I've had here for a long time but never delivered on. Stay tuned for a sneak preview of a new, unreleased novel I had the luck to read!

An Extra Credit

One thing that looks great when you're trying to get a book published is that something you've written has been published before. Well, consider me competitive edged!

Something we're always encouraged to do in my Expressive Writing class is to enter contests. I wasn't even conscious that I'd entered this particular piece into this particular contest, but somehow an "essay" of mine was qualified to publish. (I say "essay" with quotes because that's what they call it, but I really don't like that word. It's my life story, not a court case!)

So there it is. It's only a few hundred words, but they're all mine, and they're in a real book. Next time I write a letter to an agent or a publisher, I can say, "I have publication credit with Creative Communications." It sounds fancy because it is.

Actually, I had this opportunity in a similar class several years ago, but for some very stupid reason I declined to act. My next plan of action is to look back and attempt to capture the charm of the old "essay". After all, it was about the development of my writing. What subject could be more important concerning me?