Even though I am exhausted, and it's been a long week and my mouth has been in pain many times where I am missing a tooth, I can honestly say that I love my job.
I started my new job on Monday morning and it is a very steep learning curve, believe me, but knowing a lot of different things for my job is not the problem. The "problem" which isn't really a problem per se is that I went into my last job with at least a small amount of knowledge, whereas with this I am learning pretty much from scratch.
To say that I have not got as much writing done as I might have hoped would be the understatement of the century. I barely got a few thousand words done after the weekend, which means that I am struggling in terms of word count. It always seems that drafts of my novels end up as a sort of Frankenstein's manuscript with bits and pieces here and there that need to be sewn together. Part of the reason that they all need bringing together is because otherwise, I have no clue what my actual word count is; it's all guess work and underestimations.
I don't miss my old job, but I do miss having the time to write whilst doing my job. Whilst in the call centre it was more than possible to be scribbling a few paragraphs or drawing up a little plan or something, but my new role is much more intense, and I don't have that luxury. Granted, having a few canine compadres wandering around more than makes up for it. Then again, I'm biased. I prefer most people's fur babies (dogs, cats, rabbits etc...) to actual babies because generally, they don't make quite so much noise - though I do love a terrier more than anything and they can be yappy little sods.
So I have a million and one things to try and get done and nowhere near the amount of time I need to do they, but I'm just going to try and get stuck in.
Catch you later
Showing posts with label catch up games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label catch up games. Show all posts
8 Jul 2016
24 Jun 2015
Butterflies,
So, occasionally there are things I want to do, and I make a commitment to them, and then life doesn't pan out the way I think it will and so things go slightly off course. Or very off course.
I had committed myself to the idea of writing every day in June, and I wanted to stick to that, but I haven't. In many ways it has been a difficult month. Finishing university felt like such a flooding relief because I didn't have such an amazing time of it, as has been evident, but the thing is, my expectations of myself were really unreasonable and I felt as though I would have all of this freedom and not know what to do with it. The actual fact is I have been run down and exhausted from going back to working full time and it's all felt pretty none stop. I have made myself feel quite ill by just throwing myself at it at full force instead of allowing myself to just stop and just be for a bit.
The good news is I have been writing, just not on here.
I'd love to say that I have got a new novel finished or been editing or something, but the fact is that I am struggling.
I'm tired and I'm not doing great at being healthy - in the sense of eating three proper meals a day and sleeping properly and making sure I'm taking all my vitamins and such. More than anything, I've been coasting myself along a little in lieu of a major kick up the arse.
The fact is that at some point I need to accept that I'm 22, not 17. I'm not on a summer away from college and I don't have a separate study where I can hide out, not eat, work frantically from when I wake up at 10 in the morning and only hear my stomach yelling "feed me!" at something past four in the afternoon. If writing is something I want to do, and it is, I need to get my life sorted and be able to accept that things are different from before. I am no longer able to throw all my time at it, because I have to keep a job, pay bills and all that sort of thing.
Saying that, there is a lot of things I could learn from 17 year old me, and I'm trying to.
Despite a habit of being something of a jeans girl, I put so much effort into how I looked at 17, not because I needed anyone else to tell me I looked good, and not because wolf whistlers don't piss me off, but because it's something of an ego boost when you walk out of the house thinking, everyone else can think what they think, because I am happy with how I look today.
On the other hand, 17 year old me is just going to have to accept that maybe Scivener isn't as bad as she thought.
The overarching thing that I am trying to emphasise is this - the somewhat constant state of flux which my life is currently in means that I am kind of awful at making concrete plans for what to do with my noveling career, but the fact is that I am no more willing to accept that it's a pipe dream than I was at 17. If anything, the last few years have taught me to respect the fact that I can't change who and what I am, and an integral part of that has always been, and will always be, the dream of being able to write, and publish and anything else is just a bonus.
I had committed myself to the idea of writing every day in June, and I wanted to stick to that, but I haven't. In many ways it has been a difficult month. Finishing university felt like such a flooding relief because I didn't have such an amazing time of it, as has been evident, but the thing is, my expectations of myself were really unreasonable and I felt as though I would have all of this freedom and not know what to do with it. The actual fact is I have been run down and exhausted from going back to working full time and it's all felt pretty none stop. I have made myself feel quite ill by just throwing myself at it at full force instead of allowing myself to just stop and just be for a bit.
The good news is I have been writing, just not on here.
I'd love to say that I have got a new novel finished or been editing or something, but the fact is that I am struggling.
I'm tired and I'm not doing great at being healthy - in the sense of eating three proper meals a day and sleeping properly and making sure I'm taking all my vitamins and such. More than anything, I've been coasting myself along a little in lieu of a major kick up the arse.
The fact is that at some point I need to accept that I'm 22, not 17. I'm not on a summer away from college and I don't have a separate study where I can hide out, not eat, work frantically from when I wake up at 10 in the morning and only hear my stomach yelling "feed me!" at something past four in the afternoon. If writing is something I want to do, and it is, I need to get my life sorted and be able to accept that things are different from before. I am no longer able to throw all my time at it, because I have to keep a job, pay bills and all that sort of thing.
Saying that, there is a lot of things I could learn from 17 year old me, and I'm trying to.
Despite a habit of being something of a jeans girl, I put so much effort into how I looked at 17, not because I needed anyone else to tell me I looked good, and not because wolf whistlers don't piss me off, but because it's something of an ego boost when you walk out of the house thinking, everyone else can think what they think, because I am happy with how I look today.
On the other hand, 17 year old me is just going to have to accept that maybe Scivener isn't as bad as she thought.
The overarching thing that I am trying to emphasise is this - the somewhat constant state of flux which my life is currently in means that I am kind of awful at making concrete plans for what to do with my noveling career, but the fact is that I am no more willing to accept that it's a pipe dream than I was at 17. If anything, the last few years have taught me to respect the fact that I can't change who and what I am, and an integral part of that has always been, and will always be, the dream of being able to write, and publish and anything else is just a bonus.
11 Sept 2013
2617~
For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter (@CharliesWrite), I decided on the 9th September to start my own little thirty days of writing, using the word count targets which are set in NaNo.
It works out at 1667 words a day, and while I managed Day 1, Day 2 has been a bit of a flop. 2617/3334 words is still 2617 words, but falling behind in the early stages never bodes well for a participants prospects of finishing. The first few days should have a heavy momentum - but if that lapses by the middle, that's okay, because it's pretty normal.
Also, it seems that there are just millions of things to do at the moment. Today, my house mate and I tripped to Asda - we wanted to get paint, but they didn't have the colours we wanted - cooked twice, washed the curtains in our new house mate's room and started to touch up the painting with the paint we did have before ordering new. I even went to work in the evening.
Even still, a packed day doesn't have to mean no time for writing. I have this amazing habit of writing whilst on buses or generally when I'm out an about, either on the notes section of my phone or in an email and then I can just send it all back to myself and paste it in. In a way it's like I never left the house. Anyway, before I need an almighty ass kicking, I'm going to hop to and get some work done this evening as tomorrow looks as though it will be equally fun packed!!
~
It works out at 1667 words a day, and while I managed Day 1, Day 2 has been a bit of a flop. 2617/3334 words is still 2617 words, but falling behind in the early stages never bodes well for a participants prospects of finishing. The first few days should have a heavy momentum - but if that lapses by the middle, that's okay, because it's pretty normal.
Also, it seems that there are just millions of things to do at the moment. Today, my house mate and I tripped to Asda - we wanted to get paint, but they didn't have the colours we wanted - cooked twice, washed the curtains in our new house mate's room and started to touch up the painting with the paint we did have before ordering new. I even went to work in the evening.
Even still, a packed day doesn't have to mean no time for writing. I have this amazing habit of writing whilst on buses or generally when I'm out an about, either on the notes section of my phone or in an email and then I can just send it all back to myself and paste it in. In a way it's like I never left the house. Anyway, before I need an almighty ass kicking, I'm going to hop to and get some work done this evening as tomorrow looks as though it will be equally fun packed!!
~
17 Apr 2013
NaShoStoMo,
Any of you that have been anywhere near me in the month of November will probably remember that I turn into a coffee fuelled, pizza loving nutjob with essentially bi-polar levels of energy. For those of you who don't know why, it's because of the beautiful thing which is NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately/thankfully the calendar of writing competitions is not complete, i.e. there's not something going on every month, which is good because I could quite easily die of heart failure within six months if it did, but these are the ones I know.
January - NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month)
April - NaShoStoMo (National Short Story Month) + ScriptFrenzy (Dear Grant Falkner, you cannot kill that which we keep alive!)
June - Camp NaNoWriMo 1
August - Camp NaNoWriMo 2
November - NaNoWriMo!! (National Novel Writing Month)
December - NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month)
A few years ago, I made an attempt at Script Frenzy, but since I favour description more than dialogue, it didn't really work out overly well (I still keep the spirit of it alive though and believe that the competition should be continued for those who wish to participate.)
When NaShoStoMo was mentioned, I shyed away from it, thinking I didn't have enough ideas for short stories to complete one a day for a month, but since it's only 200 words (min.) per story, why not give it a try, hey?
So, instead of editing my novel today, I'm going to attempt to catch up with NaShoStoMo. 17 short stories in one day. Possible? I think so. :P
January - NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month)
April - NaShoStoMo (National Short Story Month) + ScriptFrenzy (Dear Grant Falkner, you cannot kill that which we keep alive!)
June - Camp NaNoWriMo 1
August - Camp NaNoWriMo 2
November - NaNoWriMo!! (National Novel Writing Month)
December - NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month)
A few years ago, I made an attempt at Script Frenzy, but since I favour description more than dialogue, it didn't really work out overly well (I still keep the spirit of it alive though and believe that the competition should be continued for those who wish to participate.)
When NaShoStoMo was mentioned, I shyed away from it, thinking I didn't have enough ideas for short stories to complete one a day for a month, but since it's only 200 words (min.) per story, why not give it a try, hey?
So, instead of editing my novel today, I'm going to attempt to catch up with NaShoStoMo. 17 short stories in one day. Possible? I think so. :P
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