Category: #amwriting

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#amreading #amwriting challenge Work in Progress

The Writer’s Life.

In the past three weeks, I’ve immersed myself into the world of writing again. It’s been refreshing and energizing being able to focus on what I want to be doing with this time on my hands.

Yesterday, I participated in the New York Writers’ Coalition‘s Write-A-Thon, where participants had to write 3,000 words in order to win the challenge. I only heard about the event the day before, but I decided that it would be something fun to do on a Saturday afternoon. 3,000 words is a small feat after all compared to NaNoWriMo‘s 50,000 words. My story went for a strange turn though as I typed along on my Neo Alphasmart; it was mainly a jumble of thoughts I had in my mind.
I finally got around to reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird this past month, and now I understand why other writers say it’s an essential book on writing. Lamott’s humor was nice to read since a lot of times self-help/how-to books can be a little dry. However, she sprinkles all her advice amidst her humor, which makes the book easy to follow somehow.
I’ve been collecting information for writing contests and submitting to literary magazines; the summer at least looks eventful in the writing aspect of my life. There are other things going on throughout the summer, but I will get through it all in one piece. Time continues to mystify me, but I can’t stop and ponder that thought too long; just keep moving on, enjoying the moment.
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#amwriting dir en grey list motivation music

Equation: Music + Writing = Focus

Since I have been working on essays lately (for graduate school applications), I have found myself only able to focus when I listen to certain albums on my iTunes. In general, these albums are all-around good for writing of any sort (my novels, short stories, and essays):

1) Dir en grey – Withering to death.
2) Dir en grey – UROBOROS
3) Dir en grey – VULGAR
4) Lady GaGa – The Fame
5) Drip – Identity Theft
6) La Roux – La Roux

I’m most able to concentrate and get my work done with Dir en grey albums, though. I can’t quite explain it, but I’m under the impression that there’s some sort of algorithm that they use in their album track lists to make people zone in (or zone out). I’ve found that the three albums listed above have served best in my writing endeavors, though.

For the longest time, I thought I could only focus on writing/doing work with classical music on. Guess I was wrong!

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#amwriting change inspiration

Breaking Out.

Sometimes the same old thing really does become old and predictable. I look at my planner and I feel like “Oh, it’s time to do this or that.” And then I find myself grumbling and feeling like “Can’t I just not do it?”

There aren’t any real consequences when I break away from the mundane tasks of my weekends. Today, I went out and just walked around downtown, did some people-watching, and just reflected. I had a small notebook with me, and took down notes about anything that was flying around in my mind.

I found myself perching at different places of the city that I rarely visit. It’s good to get a fresh change of scenery, even if all I’m doing at these different places is walking or sitting, watching people and just thinking about life.

With events from this past week, I found myself inspired to write a small flash piece. It was only 938 words, but that’s just the first draft; I’m sure I can expand upon the piece when I go back and edit/rewrite.

Here’s to another day.

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#amwriting Novel 1 reflection

"How’s Your Writing?"

Yesterday, one of my co-workers had asked me about how my writing’s been coming along. At first I answered, “It’s nonexistent,” but then I took those words back immediately and thought a little more carefully about my response.

I wouldn’t say it’s nonexistent–everyday I’m writing in my paperback journals, and sometimes, even writing myself emails–it’s more like my outlet for sharing my work is on hiatus. I write daily, but more about my own feelings than anything else.

I’ve been brewing ideas about how to go about my rewrite for Novel 1, but it seems the ideas need some time to incubate. Also, I’ve realized in the past month that it’s just futile to beat myself up over not reaching so many mini-goals that I set for myself on a daily basis. It all stems from the fact that I am a perfectionist, and when I don’t accomplish everything I want to accomplish during a certain period of time, I feel at a loss.

Well, no more. These days I’m trying to let things slide a little, to just take things a little more easily so I don’t burn out my motivation and my creative juices.

There’s a time and place for everything. When my creative muse wants to come back and knock on my door again, I’ll be ready.

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#amwriting contest Internet magazine news Twitter

Cell-phone novels: A Fad or More?

I read about cell-phone novels in the latest issue of The Writer Magazine, and honestly, I hadn’t even thought about cell-phone novels before the article (didn’t even know they existed). According to the article, this genre really took off in Japan (not surprised), and is just now starting to catch on in the US (isn’t it always like that when it comes to technology/trends?). The point of a cell-phone novel is material posted serially via, you guessed it, cell-phones. 140 characters per post–sounds like Twitter to me. Two websites, Quillpill and Textnovel have popped up in the US serving this genre: post your clips on the sites, get user feedback, and, possibly win a prize for a well-written cell-phone novel.

I think this genre has potential, but it also seems too early to tell since I had never even heard of this genre before I read the article. Since the article was featured in The Writer Magazine, I’m not sure if non-writing folk know of this genre just yet.

For some people, reading novels on a cellphone works for them; for me, I still prefer to hold an old-fashioned book and read that way. I am sure there is still a considerable number of people who prefer to read books the old-fashioned way.

Also, I took a look at the two websites earlier and my first impression of both places (in terms of layout/usability of the site) was not so great. Quillpill had a cleaner look than Textnovel, but Quillpill was also pretty dark with colors. Textnovel uses lighter colors, but I can’t help but feel like the colors don’t work so well in usability either. The point of the websites is not to show off great layouts, but still…when it comes to drawing people in to use their services, it’d be better to have layouts that are usable and attractive to some sense.

But, that’s besides the point of what Quillpill and Textnovel are offering. Would I consider signing up with one of the websites to try things out? Well, I’d consider it, but I believe I could do the same (write a “cell-phone”/serial novel) via Twitter. The difference between Twitter and the other two sites is that Twitter doesn’t have the votes/feedback options. Textnovel offers a contest for the best written cell-phone novel, and one Textnovel writer is actually in the process of getting her novel published traditionally. Sounds like a good deal, right?

I’ll probably wait on this prospect since I’m already bogged down by my backlog of blog entries and other writing projects. I already post little clips of potential stories to Twitter, so I’m not sure if I’d be able to utilize Quillpill or Textnovel fully. Would you try these services out? Do you think the cell-phone novel can survive?