Well, folks....

Two weeks and a day later and I finally decide to get off my arse and blog.

Lots has been going on in the world, from my point of view.

For one thing, tomorrow starts my new writing regimen.

On Saturdays and Sundays, I dunno. Maybe....three hours and 7,500 words.

I have got to get this crap done.

The trouble is, I have a nasty habit of sitting on my bum and not doing anything. Seriously. If a project is due at 12, I'll end up doing it at 11:30. Now, yes, I'll usually do a decent job, but I can't imagine that it reflects very well on my personality.

Nor does, really, the manuscript that I have been working on for years and years.

I'm not kidding on this one. The first little inkling of my idea came when I was 14, and I'm nearing 21*.

I owe it to myself, to cG, and to all my other friends (and family as well, I suppose, although I think this particular novel would not quite be up their alley, it's incredibly dark).

I'm tired of dragging my feet, and I'm tired of monkeying around.

One of my major problems, I think, is not wanting to let my little baby bird go.

Even if that baby bird does happen to have feathers made out of money.

Oooh, now I want a pet moneybird.

Perhaps PHZ can be my moneybird.

So, yes.

5k or 2 hours on weekdays.

I'm insane.

(*)A funny mental image just popped into my head. Me, sitting at a bar with a drink, staring at my finished book and asking it "Why'd you take so damn long?!"

Stories of Great Writers

So, while rereading (for the millionth time), Melissa Anelli's 'Harry, A History', I thought about the ultimate question.

What makes a good writer?

Surely the story of J.K. Rowling, if you haven't heard it already, is a wonderful one. It's a real-live fairy tale.

I can't do the story justice like Melissa Anelli (who runs one of the top Harry Potter fansites, the Leaky Cauldron), can. She has personally met J.K. Rowling, something I can only dream of (and have. Many times).

Harry Potter, the series that transformed a poor single mother to a billionaire, started because J.K. Rowling forgot a pen.

So her brain just kept going.

I've found that's the best way to write, too.

If I let my mind wander, then I'll of course have more ideas.

So yeah.

I'm gonna go. Bye.

A Prologue is a Prologue is a First Chapter is a Prologue

One of the things writers face is the Prologue vs. First Chapter debate.

And really, I think it's a matter of style.

It's no different, calling 'Chapter 1' a Prologue rather than 'Prologue' Chapter 1. You have to lay the same ground, have to introduce the same characters and setting.

Agents are against prologues, and I can't figure out why.

Take 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone', for instance. We are treated to a 17-page first chapter, half of it detailing the daily life of the Dursleys and half of it a conversation between Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall.

My prologue, which is on its way to being written right now, (edit: Just got it done. I'm rather proud of myself! Onto chapter 2), is going to function in a similar fashion.

Blagh. I just hope my potential agent likes it, regardless.

If they want to call it a Prologue, they can. If they want to call it Chapter 1, that's fine too.

Sorry for the Blog Silence

Been busy.

Had some personal problems

Had some personal awesomeness to take care of, which absolved the problems earlier.

I feel much better about myself now, but I think there's a long way to go when it comes to improving myself. But it's a road I wanna take, and a road I will take.

So yeah.

I've reset my password and I'll be back to regular blogging soon.

A second rant and some ramblings

So, I'm pretty sure the only way I can actually keep up with this blog is to update it every day.

Considering the fact that I have little-to-no offline social life(*), this really shouldn't be too hard. Yeah.

So, not much has really changed in a day. Well, from a real-life perspective. Last night I found out one of my characters would be better suited being tossed and then absorbed into another, and lo and behold, once that happened it was like the floodgates had opened.

Just this one modification left me with a network of ideas, all branching out differently.

Okay, I'm so lying. There were really only like, two.

But it's all good, as long as I'm writing, I suppose.

Some stats.

As of now, Chapter 1 is finished and I'm supposed to wait for cG to kind of....extrapolate, I suppose. I'm cool with this, but it's like when you're a little kid and your mom just made cookies and you can't have one 'til after dinner.

I've dicked around with actually writing Chapter 2, and the prologue is still brainstorming.

I don't quite know where Chapter 3 is going yet, and maybe I'm not supposed to quite yet. My muse is an odd little bird.

I've got several things to keep me motivated. I think I found the perfect agent, and I feel like it's almost fate. She's from the Midwest, I'm from the Midwest (and she actually taught workshops at Purdue University, which is an hour or two away from me). She has the same taste in music, the same offbeat sense of humor that I do.

Well, anyway, I'm off to math class (eventually. I get to have a few more minutes of screwing around on the Internet first).

I really need some readers, so if anyone's interested, let me know.

Heck, at this point, I'll take spambots.

*I really don't want to be rude, but most people in the offline world that I have regular contact with are just inconsiderate. I swear to God, do you need to be right behind me on the sidewalk? This is not New York or Chicago, this is a university campus we're talking about. Half of the time when people do this stupid crap to me, I want to push my elbow out and jab them in the stomach.

An Introduction, A Rant, Some Questions, and Some Answers

So, this is like, my ninth blog.

Mostly because I'm too damn lazy to actually finish a blog.

So, I don't really expect to have a big audience or anything, but it would certainly help.

So, to recap:

I'm Sydney. You can call me Syd, naco, Renee, Shrinkrae (don't ask), whatever.

I'm a college student. Right now I'm going to be a teacher so I can at least get some semblance of food, rather than banking everything on the slight chance I'll get published.

My parents want me to go into theater, and I really don't.

Bad experiences.

Plus, I don't really want to be on crew because I'm sure that would almost entirely entail climbing ladders, which I have a rational fear of (I say rational because I'm very small and have poor depth perception, so yeah).

Um. I guess I'd better tell you a bit about my writing.

Let me tell you something about its backstory first.

This novel has been in the works since sometime in '03-'04, when I was in 8th grade. My grades were tanking at that time, at least in one class. So I asked my old teacher if I could write a story for extra credit.

It had been an idea rolling around in my head for a while, about kids with superpowers.

Gawd, I can't believe that was seven years ago.

The novel now is much different, and I have a new muse.

The first muse was someone I thought of as a friend, and the relationship soon soured. Mostly because I was frustrated and dealing with too much at that time, and I went off on her. Which i feel very, very bad about to this day.

My new muse is a man who I have known since long before the first, and he has been even more helpful. They worked with me together on some occasions, but now I am glad that it is just us two.

He is very dear to me, and I believe that I realized this once he offered to make a movie of my novel. (You see, he just graduated from film school, and is now looking for a job in the industry)

Well, enough gushing.

Anyway. The new novel has nothing to do with superpowers (unless lesbianism is a super power. I am inclined to believe that cG, as I will call my new muse (I believe he would be most comfortable with this moniker), believes that lesbianism is indeed a superpower.

It also has sword fights, babies, mass murder, 10-year-old assassins, and pretty much everything except penguins.

So yeah.

I'm going to try to update this blog as often as I can.

Hopefully, all goes well.

Adios!

Don't get run over.

-Sydney