Excuses

Everyone always has an excuse for procrastination, so here's mine. 5-day power outage, homeschool conference, and now trip to see relatives and go to CCWC. All have limited internet access. Is that good enough? Oh well, I will be taking a class to learn how to actually blog something worthwhile. Excited? I am

Time's Rhyme

I'm not a poet by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm studying Shakespeare, and decided to try my hand at a sonnet (excepting that is has a different theme and the whole beats per line concept escapes me):

Where does all my time go?
Time, the treasure, from which life is made
The elusive substance that none can know
That trips along and none can evade
What have I squandered it upon?
Unknowingly, uncaringly, later to repay
No matter where I look it's gone
And never can I regain this day
Who have I gifted it to?
Ignorant of its eternal worth
Thinking the hours would themselves renew
Careless in my actions, wasted it for mirth
So guard jealously the time belonging to you
Lest you regret the precious hours you once knew

Now you know why I don't write poems!

Recent Work

For the past... while, I've been focusing on revising the first ten pages of Leesha: The Prophecy Stone (I came up with a make-shift title!). I am happy to say that it is now completely revised--for now. I'm actually rather excited by how much stronger it has become. The first ten pages form the first chapter and *excitement* will be part of my application for an unpublished novelist clinic at CCWC! *crosses fingers* I have been procrastinating writing a synopsis of the story and now have to rush that before April 10th. Wish me luck :)

Problem

I think one of my biggest obstacles in writing (after lack of time, of course) is creativity. Not coming up with new, exciting plot twists, but new story ideas that capture my attention for a day- a week. They consume my creative juices to produce a workable idea, then get filed under "Ideas" in my writing folder. They're all great ideas, of course, but none of them will ever amount to anything if I don't learn to put them aside and dedicate my mental facilities to a single storyline for a while.
It sounds to me like I have a lot of problems and no solutions. Thus far anyway.

Plotting

"I'm plotting. Be scared"

Actually, you don't have to be. Because my plot has hit a road block.
When I started writing Leesha's story, I figured out the beginning, her goal, the end, and a scene somewhere in the middle. I have a rough idea of what happens in the middle, but I'm at the beginning. This is a problem. I don't know how to send Leesha on her crazy quest! Plus, I'm trying to edit what I have so far (a pathetic 20 pages or so) for the writer's conference in May...

What is the best way to plot out a story? I need to figure it out or my fledgling novel will never fly!

You learn something new every single day

Today as I was trying to change the color scheme of my blog, I found/realized something monumental, incredible, terrific, fabulous, jaw-dropping, etc.... (yeah I overdid it...)

You can add pages to your blog!

Yes, I'm sure everyone else knew that. But I didn't so I'm pretty excited.
I will be playing with-- I mean experimenting with that feature for a while :)

I'm back

I'm really glad blog neglect isn't a crime. Enough said.

Sooo.... what's new in my writing world?
I'm going to my third writer's conference in May (CCWC).
I attempted the NaNoWriMo writing challenge which I was unable to complete due to surgery.
Leesha's story (still needs a title) is my main focus right now and I'm hoping to complete the first book by the end of the year.

I found the most incredible, helpful website specifically for teen writers with an objective of encouraging, critiquing, networking, advice-giving, the list goes on. Put simply, it's amazing. Check it out at www.CalebBreakey.com

That's all I can think of for now. But I'm really getting back up to speed in my little writing world after surgery, so hopefully I will become consistent and interesting with all the blogging and writing and networking (etc.) I do.

Thank, bye :)