Yayhappytimes

Worldbuilding fail averted!

I'd been having such a hard time discovering anything about Princess world (that poor project really needs a title) and it was getting extremely frustrating. I kept feeling like I needed some kind of structure or visual to start me off. I was leaning towards making an outline, in the hopes that a plot would give me something to work from.

However, that was not the best idea. I feel that the best stories integrate the world seamlessly into the plot, so starting with the plot has a potential to result in an artificiality. Luckily, I decided to go with a map instead.

I think the nothingness, the incredible potential of a world that hasn't been made up yet, was too much for my poor mind. It totally shut down. But the map gave me enough limitation to kick start the creative juices again, and Princess and I are back on friendly terms.

A few orders of business

Okay so obviously I got the progress bars to work. A very kind fellow blogger allowed me to copy her code, which I did. I changed the color, but that's about it. I may change the font if I can figure out what other font I want. If anyone is interested, they are welcome to copy the code from here. Or, I gather that it was originally a Wordpress widget.

I'm also going to schedule the rest of the Marvin posts to run on Wednesday - a cute little pick-me-up for hump day. When I get to that - the photos are hiding on my computer.

Hopefully later today I will have a writing-related tidbit to offer you.

The internets are uncooperative. I am not amused.

New in the sidebar: progress bars which will, theoretically, update you (who? Is anybody out there reading this nonsense?) on my progress. But apparently the coding was not correct, so I will have to mess around some more and try to figure it out. However, because it it rather late and I'm tired, I will do that tomorrow. I am not really amused by this situation.

In other news, I love my stories. I was falling out of love with Lioness but I just reread the nuggets I wrote and there are beautiful little gems in there. Now I just have to do the not-so-fun part: organize and plan so that when I resume writing I don't get bogged down or lost. Ditto with princess, although I'm also having the worldbuilding fail problem there...

Worldbuilding, and also my dog eats salad.

So...I've been feeling reinvigorated re: the princess story, but the other day I tried to do some worldbuilding and it just...did not work.

I mean, I came up with some interesting ideas. Actually, some totally amazing ideas. The problem is, they don't fit at ALL with the "seed" or "essence" of the princess story that I see in my head. I'm feeling seriously frustrated and I don't really know what to do.

I'm actually tempted to say forget the worldbuilding, and try to hash out some kind of plot outline in the hopes that that jogs my mind. Actually, when I think about it, that plan seems much, much more appealing. I'm beginning to suspect that I will have to do a prelim outline, see how that affects the world/what ideas that sparks, and then go back and adjust the plot if necessary.

I know that skimping on worldbuilding is extremely problematic for a number of reasons. I'm not really skimping, just...postponing. I don't know. I'm confused.

What on Earth was I reading as a child?

For some reason, today, I had pop into my head the memory of a book I read a long time ago. It was a book I had checked out from the library. I couldn't remember the title or the author or really much about the plot but I did some google searching and eventually found it!

The point of this anecdote is twofold. One, it really sucks that you can't search for a book by description. Yes, keywords can sometimes yield results (like they did for me), and yes, there are sites out there with communities of people devoted to helping you figure out what book you're looking for. But still.

The other thing I drew from this is the conclusion in the title of this post. The book is a paranormal romance. There's a decent amount of sexytimes in there...and these are the kinds of books I was reading as a little girl. I actually think the first time I learned about sex was reading a book. Always being a responsible child, and I like to think reasonably mature for my age, I was always given a great degree of freedom in what I checked out. I really don't know where I'm going with this. Clearly I'm out of practice in writing blog posts.

I'm Baaaaack

Well, here we are again.

It's been nearly a year since I posted last. This means two things:

1. I am probably talking to myself; nobody reads this anymore.
2. The blogger interface has changed again. Between this and Facebook, I think I might cry.

I will explain why I was absent for so long. The truth is, college was quite enough for me to handle last year. The blog kept getting put on the back burner until I basically forgot about it. But I had a crazy, revelatory dream the other night which was basically a scene from a story popping into my head. And that just made me want to write again.

Interestingly, that's not the project I'm drawn to at the moment. I think it needs to percolate a bit. Unlike the princess story, which has percolated quite enough thank you and is ready to be worked on!

So I'm here, back on the blog. I can't promise anything (for example, daily posts). I think that's too much for me. I can aspire to, perhaps, three posts a week. They will mostly be related to what I'm writing, although I wouldn't be surprised if some school stuff or Nutcracker stuff or life-in-general stuff creeps in there.

To my readers, if they still exist, I apologize for not letting you know when I realized the blog was going dark. If you're still around, I'm still writing :)

If not, I already talk to myself quite a bit, so I suppose this isn't that different!

P.S. Yes, I will finish Marvin. And the reading list will have a huge gap in it. Oh well...