Publishing is not writing is not publishing

Just lately, I've been looking into the publishing industry. I've been doing this because I, probably alike a bunch of young and old, idealistic writers around the internets do, harbour a dream of some time getting published. At the same time, a small voice in my head is going "yeah, right", and I have to bang my head against the wall to silence it. There's nothing wrong with having dreams...!

But that voice only seems to become stronger the more I look into said industry. There are things like copyrights and stuff like that I have no idea about - and there are problems like parallel publication that are being reconsidered and my head is wheeling and don't know how to approach the whole issue! Okay, on some level I knew it would be difficult to get published, because otherwise everybody would be and getting published wouldn't be such a big thing, but I don't think I actually considered it to be as complicated and difficult as any other industry.

It's a business, I remember with a sinking feeling, and publishing, too, is all about profit. Or about not losing too much money, as I remember from that seminar I went to. And I also remember that it's probably about knowing people, and...

Oh God, but I really want to get published at some point. Not that I even consider my writing good enough, but even if it was and I would eventually finish one of my novels (the chronic quit-in-the-middle-of-the-story disease, remember?), or actually, finish a couple of my novels, I wouldn't know how to go about it. I guess there are many places to support young writers and old writers and new writers, and I should start doing some research to look into those.

But I'm so tired! I'm always so tired! I can't be bothered looking into it, even though I should be motivated, since it is my dream, damn it, but I'm not. It's very annoying, and I don't know why it is that way and why am I so tired even though I've been on a holiday for a week already and have slept better than I have for, like, half a year or something. I'm still too tired to do anything.

Ok, let's just calm down now. My main concern right now should not be to think about how to get published and panic about that, but rather to get something finished and down. November is not so far away anymore! Eeeeek!

Friends with NaNovel

It's an odd feeling to realise that you're entirely dependent on someone else in order to develop one's storyline. Or story in general.

Recently, I've begun to work on my NaNovel again, but not directly by writing my plot outline. I seem to have moved to an even more sophisticated way of developing a story and a plot and a world and characters and everything, and write down important facts to remember in a separate file before actually inserting them into the plot. Needless to say, the whole thing is becoming increasingly massive and difficult to keep in mind - but at the same time, there's an immense satisfaction there, a feeling of this gradually turning from something haphazardly thrown together into an actual, well-rounded story.

For this well-rounded part, I have realised that I need help. I have this friend I've prodded about this story, and just recently, with me and my motivational, existential problems, I have actually begun to depend on my friend to help me develop this story. I don't know his actual contribution to what I write - he comes up with some good ideas, but they are usually on subjects I've already determined and that just need some work. Oh, I don't mean to sound like I'm undermining his contribution or anything, or seem arrogant, I'm just trying to think of how this process really works! It might also be that it's easier to have someone to talk to about your ideas and get some instant feedback. It helps motivate!

Do I sound like I'm making any sense whatsoever? I think, for the last couple of updates or so, I've written in a way which makes my brain seem an equivalent to porridge or jelly or both. I don't know what's up with that. I can't think straight.

Only curvy.

Um.. Yeah.

Rea-ding..?

When I was little, I used to read a lot.

Then again, when you think about the relativity of things, I used to have a lot more free time back then. And the stuff I read probably consisted of things like Replica and/or Animorphis, each book being some 200 pages long (with often ridiculously large text), and the style being quite easily read. Then again, my level of reading may have been suited to these books - so that reading them would be like the current me reading the 1,500 page monsters I enjoy nowadays. I don't know, and I don't care to calculate. I'm not a very mathematical person.

The point I'm approaching here is that I find that I don't read much anymore. One of the possible reasons to this may be that I don't have much time - which would be lying. Even though I do have more homework than I am used to, and even though I do get tired quickly, I still have more time to be bored than I would like. And it's not like I don't have anything to read, either - somehow, every time I go out to the city or, to be honest, anywhere with a decent bookstore, I will find and pick up and buy something, and then cram it into one of my two bookshelves. I don't have the actual number, but I believe there are many literary treasures lying around in my bookshelf - untouched.

And... Um.. I completely lost my train of thought. Should read more. Books. Yeah. Um.

.. Sleep.

One little elephant~

I really, really, really wanted to share this one with anyone/everyone who might be/has been/will be going past my blog at some time or another. It, in all honesty, kept me very happy for the whole day. ... And it will probably keep me happy for another week.

Honestly, anyone who doesn't love this little fella is ODD. YES, including YOU.

Oh! And, to disclaim: it's not mine, I found it on the internets and will have the creator's babies.

To be or not to be - socially acceptable

Oh dear, it seems that I have found myself at least two more things to write since that list I posted some time ago. And a lot of other things, as a matter of fact. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever they say, a short attention span and writerdom do not go well together. Savvy? What? It WAS talk like a pirate -day t--yesterday (by two hours)!

I have been on my holiday for a grand total of a day now (two weeks to come, woo), and already am feeling the depressing qualities of holidays setting in. A friend of mine poked me in msn and asked what I have been doing/am planning to do for this great duration of two weeks. I frowned, then replied, rather curtly: sims. He proceeded to make me sad by telling me that I am a sad, desperate specimen of human being.

Which, I suppose, is actually rather true. Here I am, sitting my days away by procrastinating imagining things and writing them down, and then not even finishing imagining things but abandoning them because of my imaginative skills failing at a certain point of imagination, therefore lacking in the power of imagination and the will TO SURVIVE. Cookies for anyone who actually understood any of that. But in all seriousness, I suppose he is right. I've never really had a real social life, in which one runs around town for 12 hours a day to fall into bed for the next 12 to run around for the following. I'm just not interested by sacrificing most of my day to entertain myself.

Oh the irony.

No, no, I'd rather sit around here, in my room, with my door closed and with headphones covering my ears, feet on my table and playing sims, watching pictures of bouncing elephants and random videos made by other sad specimens of human being, who, incidentally, usually happen to hate everyone and everything (and I, equally usually, happen to find it amusing). I'd also rather get annoyed and frustrated at myself for accomplishing nothing than actually get out and accomplish anything.

Then again, I guess I might just be too harsh on myself. Even if the society (I always think it's funny how I use that like a swearword - I should really start doing that, since it would confuse people big time come on, it'd be at least a little funny, someone walks up to you and goes "OH SSSSOCIETY") would like me to run around and befriend everyone I meet, or at least a select few, and build some kind of a system of acquaintances or, I don't know, what do they expect me to do? I know that they don't expect me to sit around in my room 24/7 and play Sims 3, because that's not cool and that's kinda sad. And cool people have friends, right?

I do have friends! I really do! Despite the fact that I like to take things off my mind by ranting about them in a blog, I also have more or less real people I can do the same to! Not rant about them in a blog, no, but rant about things to them. And lately, actually, I've had less need to update a blog for those precise reasons - friends who listen to me, rather than me having to let out steam by ranting in a bl--

I don't even know what I'm trying to prove anymore, lawl. I guess I'm being minorly stupid here, attempting to remind myself that being a loner is socially acceptable (sometimes) and that if it makes me happy, it makes me happy, and therefore it must be correct. Let's just not go down the path where causing misery to other people makes some people happy and in my philosophy, that should be correct also. You can't apply someone's mode of thought to another's actions, since someone's actions are born of their own mode of thought, not someone else's, therefore it cannot even be categorised similarly! Hah!

I think I need to get some sleep now. The point of this post? To be honest, I forgot it two paragraphs in.

Simulated life for voyerists EXTREME

Once again, I have become enamored with the sims. More precisely (and at this very moment), the Sims 3. And yes, in case you were wondering - said game is currently running behind this very window, in windowed mode.

I love Sims 3 especially because of its new characterisation system. While the characters still lack a certain individuality about them (or maybe that's just because I always end up making similar characters), the new trait system allows for much more story than the previous one did. And since I'm obviously a writer over the designing/aesthetics part of the whole game concept, I enjoyed this improvement a fair deal.

Sure, there should be more slots for the traits, there should be far more traits with far more subtle effects, but there's a good beginning to improve upon!

Bu'yeah. Sims 3 is currently a very nice game I like. The only thing is, I can't really utilise the story system completely, since I don't like most of the npc's and I'm too much of a perfectionist to utterly build a neighbourhood filled with only my own sims. *shudders* That project would take ages!

Also, I've got some problems with some custom content I've downloaded. It's been causing my game to crash, and I'm playing very slowly now, 'cause every five minutes, I have to stop to save. I seem to have fixed the problem by deleting some of that custom content - however, still not entirely sure...

UPDATE: Just when I finished writing this blog entry and posted it, the game crashed again. Trying taking all of my mods out one at a time, seeing if it'll fix anything. God-DAMN.

There was no point to this post! I just wanted to gladly announce that for once, I'm not doing homework or writing, but actually doing something else...!

And my pollen allergy/hayfever is acting up. Going to sneeze (and continue being a mass consumer of tissues), write later ->

List the Things You Need to Do

Recently, I've been having bunches of great ideas. For writing, I mean. ... Do I ever have any other kinds of ideas? Nevertheless, I've had bunches of ideas and I've been very happy with them - the problem just is, that even though I've been able to get some of them down into various locations (like 500-word files in the depths of my computer, screaming to be finished, or just notes in various notebooks I sometimes forget that exist), I don't exactly understand how many of them they are, nor do I know how to prioritise. With this, I mean that I do not know which of them to tackle first, or which of them I like best--

And so, To-Do List!

* Plot outline for NaNoWriMo (i.e. Following the Gay Umbrella). There is a deadline, and it is before November. Has been begun, 23,000 words into it.

* Plot outline for (work title) Horizon - no deadline, some 33,000 words into it in Finnish. The plan is to first finish a plot outline in English, then begin rewriting it in said language. Unsure of this, however - may continue in Finnish, may convert into English.

* Plot outline (?) for (work title) Rebels. I've got some of it written in Finnish, and this one is the one I may actually want to continue in Finnish, as some of the concepts would be very difficult to translate. Also, the idea would be easier to pull off if setting were Finland. Very ambitious, will require much work (including research)

* Short story to finish, called Explanation. A page or two into it, have some ideas down in dot points in my yellow notebook.

* Short story, currently title-less, about Midnight and Noon. Half-a-page into it, have no ideas whatsoever. More of a mushy-mushy romantic story for the fun of the author.

* Another conversation between Dusk and Dawn, maybe involving Midnight.

* Editing There is a Boy With a Dream.

* The idea about a truck driver?

* Short story titled The Wink needs to be finished at some point. Again, universe is for author's fun, therefore priority isn't very high. Also, no ideas as to how to continue, even though story has been begun.

* Short story based on Disturbed's Perfect Insanity. A line and concept on which this will be based - nothing more, currently.

* Fanfic to be finished. A couple of more chapters, I should think. This one is pretty high on the list of priorities, since the previous chapter took almost a year to be published (and I am ashamed of my skills in procrastination)! I guess I've aggravated most of my readers already, though...

* Short story with the chain-link fences and the breeding of the Aryan race. Nothing more than quite a cliché concept and idea for this - will require more work. The style will be abstract, situation not properly explained.

Sniffle-Me-Sneezes!

It seems that I am becoming sick.

Again.

Oh well, it doesn't especially matter - next week is the last week of school before a two-week holiday. Regardless, it's beginning to annoy me: it's difficult to write something when all your energy reserves go to trying to keep your mind wrapped around things and your brain thinking straight. Does anyone know how it feels when supposedly your brain is replaced with an inflated balloon? Well, that's what it feels like. And then the fact that I can't breathe properly, since my nose feels like I don't really need oxygen to survive...

Why, it seems that all I do nowadays is complain! Regardless of my physically somewhat ill state, I'm actually feeling happier now than for some time. It might be because I'm still in quite a horizontal position in my bed. Work in four hours (and the new kids did come in at some point - however, it wasn't quite as amusing as I thought it would be, damn it)! Mother expressed her concern about my state of dress, but I'm going to be here for at least another hour before I get up. Meh!

I did eventually get to continue my NaNo plot outline, which was amazing. It's up to 23,000 words right now, and I'm quite happy with it - regardless of the fact that I'm still stuck in the same damn meeting, and that I'm not quite sure how I'll continue from this point on. Well, I know the basics of what I'm going to do, but I'll have to make much of it up as I go - and that always carries the hazard of me abandoning what I'm currently writing.

I have chronic give-up-in-the-middle-of-the-story -disease. I wish they'd find an appropriate vaccination.

Updating NaNoWriMo and the situation with short stories

Now that I've sticked a hand up and told you the reason I've been away if there is anyone who really is reading this blog, I can also update things about my writing, since that's what this is mainly about! And because I'm obsessed! And because the true loves of my life are imaginary! Well, at least almost all of them.

So, NaNoWriMo is seven weeks and a weekend away. Am I nervous? Hell, of course I'm nervous, but I'm also very excited. Well, no, actually, right now I'm just really nervous. This is because recently I have accomplished writing some 22,000 words of plot outline (which would already probably sum to 50,000 when re-written in the novel form, so technically I'm on the safe side), but then, even more recently, I have utterly stopped working on it. I am afraid, because I am experiencing the same symptoms I do with every other big project I begin - once I get to that turning point from where I know only marginally how I'm going to continue, I suddenly lose all interest and will to work on it, leaving it to dust somewhere under the pile of documents in a foulder.

And with Following the Gay Umbrella's (as is its work title) case, also physically dusting on my floor.

Additionally, I've been producing some short stories, with which some I am more happy with than others. There Is a Boy With a Dream is one of them, and... I honestly forget any others. And I can't be bothered looking them up, anyway.

But yeah, I've got at least 6 different projects under way, each varying in length. I've just not gotten much done, with my state of mind and all. I'll try to go through next week in school, and then it's school holidays, and I can see if I can get anything done from all the sleeping I have planned.

Some reserves to draw on

Oh, look, I have a blog!

See, I knew this would happen at some point or another. Like with everythingI start, it begins really enthusiastically and I'm really into it, but at one point, updates just stop coming and after some more time, I basically avoid looking at the bookmark into my current blog, since I should be updating and am not!

I should get more people to follow this blog and kick me if I'm not updating. Maybe that would yield some results...

Well, at least I can make the excuse that I've been going through kinda rough times recently. I've got a lot of things going on, mainly high school and the ridiculously high expectations I set for myself. I'm that type of person who, when they consider having only used 98% of their possible energy/talent capacity, will get very angry at themselves and stay that way for a while. Long story short, I am swiftly running out of energy reserves, in tears most of the time, tired, and have nothing that really interests me and so on and so forth.

But it's a known problem now, and my parents are being just lovely, and I think I need to cut myself some slack. Not to say that I will, of course, because I know that changing expectations of oneself may be difficult indeed, especially since I've been carrying those expectations since I was about three (and playing tennis with my father, and getting angry at myself. Yeah, I've heard this story many, many times).

Regardless of my fatigue and emotional distress, I am alive and still kicking!