My Creative Process is Messed. Up.

Projects suck.

Remember those days of Monster energy drink fueled High School when we got a ridiculous assignment about some ridiculous thing we'd never need to know later in life? (Hi Ecology chart of rain water and acidic content.) We'd get a pretty little sheet saying exactly what was needed to be in it for that shiny A guaranteed to save you from community college and its rifraff the councellors kept trying to scare you with to pay for the big pricey colleges where 'nothing bad happened.' (Except learning to binge drink, wake up next to someone you don't remember from the night before, and possibly explore the dark halls for pot.)

Anyway, I'm trailing.

Those pretty little project they had us do had a set-up. They had a start, middle, finish, and enough filler content inbetween to remind you of a piece of pie. You didn't need much thought to complete them since everything was already pre-laid out for you.

Somedays I wish writing was like that.

Don't get me wrong, I love writing, almost as much as I love decorating cupcakes only to watch half of them fall on the floor Thanksgiving day. There's a neat sense of person to opening a document or notebook, imagining people up and watching them get the living hell kicked into them. But every now and then I get a little frustrated, and High School is partly to blame.

Writing doesn't have everything laid out for you. You have to figure out the beginning, middle, finish and filler (and how much of it) to get that shiny A to prove to everyone who's paying 40k a year for college that you took the better road and didn't go off to college.

To me, writing is like one big picture, framed on a lovely matte background and signed. You know the sky is blue-ish purple, and you know the grass is sea grass and not grass-grass but you don't know what house is in the center of the shot. Colonial, Victorian, Modern? So many choices, so little time.

It's okay, though. This is why they invented sticky notes. And multi-colored sharpies.

When A Writer Forgets Her Notes EVERYTHING EXPLODES

You ever have that sinking feeling that you've forgotten something? You know, like when the back of your neck itches or all the hairs on your arm stand up and it isn't because it's negative one billion degrees outside? (Hello, PA weather.) And then you finally remember just as you sit down and start to write/paint/doodle on your notebook in Math class and it hits you so hard you...

Well, go kaboom.

Let's just say I'm there right now.

Yesterday I sat down to do a quick once-over on my precious book, thinking I could get it done in a few hours and make sure all my pieces make sense and fall into place and look pretty. So I went digging in my purse for the papers I was so-sure I had with me from work on Sunday. It's so perfectly envisioned in my head that I can see the blue ink and my ridiculous wannabe-high-school-girl handwriting bunched all over it.

But what's this? It isn't in my purse? ...of course not, because that would mean I actually didn't forget something for once.

This is the post I soon uploaded to Twitter following my spaz-out on the missing paper (aka MY FREAKING HOLY GRAIL)

Needless to say I quickly scrambled and tried to remember as much as the key details and little bits as I could and jotted them down. But next time I know better. Next time I make a plot sheet I'm taking a million pictures, sending them to various emails, and when that fails, well, I'll do what I told one person on Twitter...

Mustache time! 

Why Holidays & Writers Don't Mix

I'm going to make one horror of a confession: I can't stand Christmas, and the New Year always makes me queasy. Now, before you go off and grab staple guns to stick me to the nearest Christmas tree while screaming 'HAPPY NEW YEAR ALIVIA, HAPPY NEW YEARRRRR!' let me explain why.

Think back to NaNo, back when November was running along and everyone you knew was fueled on coffee, Mountain Dew or whatever tea you sipped repeatedly from the testing kettles inside Tevana. Or maybe that was just me. We all hung over our computers and pen and paper, scribbling as furiously as we could manage to hit that 50k word count and declare ourselves victorious.

And somewhere along those lines, I failed.

The build-up to my idea for my NaNo novel fell completely flat on its face. And when I say it fell on its face, I mean it ate dirt, coughed it up, and ate it again. I hit only several thousand into it and choked as if a hot dog lodged itself in my throat. No matter how hard I coughed it wouldn't come out, and somewhere in the midst of that never-ending choking nightmare November ended.

What a mess, right? Humiliation is the only word I can properly use for the situation. I was actually afraid to visit the NaNo boards, my blog, Twitter (I'm coming back there, FYI, I promise) anywhere that I was connected to people who knew of my writing journey. I felt like if I shared my failure notice with everyone that they'd all walk away and leave me alone, forced to play endless hours of FarmVille with myself.

It's okay, I told myself. I'll just go back on tomorrow and move past it. The calendar told me it was only December 5th. I could still come back from that, right?

It's January 1st now. I took a whole month of sweating things out (and one random semi-tipsy promise to myself to blog every two days from here on out unless I'm struck by lightning or eaten by a shark) to bring myself back here, man up (do you really man up if you're a woman?) and do everything I was supposed to do weeks ago in the next six days.

See, if I remember right, Illumine, my little book of pure passion and love, is publishing digitally in six days. Yes, six. Print I'm guessing will be in another month depending on how much I play with the cover and the format types (and also it depends on how much sleep I'm willing to sacrifice this week). That means I have six days to upload my page on here, send queries to book reviewers online, double-check the manuscript and still have time to see family/friends/random pet.

Bring it on 2012, you don't scare me.

The Five Levels of Procrastination

Every now and then there's one dark day that pops up on your calendar. You know which one I'm talking about. The one where your inner critic jumps out from a corner and drags you into the dirt, the day where nothing you write sounds right, and all your fears and worries and insecurities come out to play.

We have a name for these dark days. Writer's Block.

(steven-dean)

But sometimes it isn't really writer's block. Some days it's just really really truly intense procrastination. I'm not too proud to say this, but I admit that I may be one of the hardest procrastinators you'll ever come to know. If I don't want to do something even just a little bit, pshaw, forget it. Not happening. Just ask my Mom: I've stalled off doing the dishes in the sink for almost three days before, and that was with the nagging and threatening to disable the internet!

They say if you break down the blocks in your way that you'll overcome your stalling or block. Like talking something out to find the truth in the words. I don't know, I'm not too good with the inner-mind thing, heck I barely understand those fortune cookie riddles. But thankfully I stand a better chance at figuring out my own head, which is how I came up with my levels of procrastination.

Level One:  Guilt
Most aren't guilty over their stalling right out of the gate, and that's usually because they're focusing on other things to occupy themselves. But I always feel guilty the instant I stall so much that I frequently cave and try to make up for even the smallest of seconds spent shuffling my feet. But every now and then I slip by and fall into level two...

Level Two: Bitter Resentment & Avoidance
All aboard the pity train on level two, all aboard! Once I filter past the guilt I jump right into self-hate mode. This is also the moment where all those super morbidly depressing text messages go out to all of my friends. By this point most of them give me a thirty minute grace period to calm down, or wait until I guzzle some sugar and balance out. However, sugar doesn't cure the fact that at this point I'm avoiding everything to do with my work. The mere mention of writing is frowned upon. And it only get worse.

Level Three: Different Distractions
Most of us are distracted at the first step, by accident or on purpose. This always comes later for me and it takes place in so many forms I still don't know how to pinpoint it yet. Sometimes it's three hours of Twitter trolling, others it's Facebook news feed refreshing. Really bad days it's seven straight hours of Sims 3 shenanigans where my poor little pixels are forced to have a dozen babies. Either way, my distractions at this point are purely intentional. I'm ashamed I got distracted to begin with, therefore I only make it worse? I know, backwards, but it isn't over yet.

Level Four: Bargaining
"I promise if I can just write a little bit more I'll remember to feed the cat/dog/fish next time!"
Yeah, little too late for that, me thinks.

(drink2health)

Bargaining is one of the oldest tricks in the book. We tell ourselves that if we just finish one more thing in our day that we'll get the awesome reward like ten extra minutes under the hot water in the shower, or a doughnut, or in my case, more Sims 3 shenanigans. Sadly I can never come up with something really worth bargaining for except treadmill time. Which I never get to since by time I'm done with all of these levels I'm too tired to step on it.

Level Five: Admittance, Acceptance & Drive
The last step. After countless hours of catching up on chores I didn't need to catch up on, TV shows that had to be watched, random snacks that most definitely didn't have to be made (or eaten in mass quantities) I finally give in and admit that I've goofed and done wrong. Spilled the milk, so to speak. It's usually after this moment (and a good emotional outburst or two at some inanimate object) that all returns to normal and the writing resumes.

And when all else fails, I watch tons of Harry Potter fan videos, like this one, which is AMAZING and I'm IN LOVE with.

I'm hiding over at WriMos FTW today!

That's right- I'm guest blogging again! It's kind of like a new fun-filled addiction for me, really. But anyway, I'm over at WriMos FTW today! The topic? Why and How music can really get you through that hard-to-write spot in your head (because it's all in our heads, right?)Click on the link below to read the guest post and feel free to leave a comment!


Music Always Holds The Key!