- Haha, yup. My muses like to bother me as I am trying to fall asleep, it's really annoying. But getting more daylight and some nice weather now, so hopefully will get some time to relax in the sunlight and get some writing time in. (and drawing time!) I haven't really written anything since nano, as per usual, but it's a habit I need to break. Need to get my creative juices flowing more (and get my butt off of subeta more)

So I had family over for 5 days and I wish that was enough of a kick to get me to do some writing while I was roomless. Sadly the only thing I've done was transfer notes over to a better notebook... though I did make several changes and brainstormed some ideas.

I kinda feel a bit blank right now... need names for things and I feel underwhelmed by the lack of inspiration and drive. Hate when that happens.

- My favourite thing for naming things is to do word searches and find letter combos that aren't the words, but still kinda make sense, and modify (plus you can do the word search at the same time which is fun in itself sometimes). Family over makes me less inclined to do writing/drawing. Moving stuff between notebooks and brainstorming is always good, there's something about physical notes that is just liberating, but I don't do it often because I hate transferring into digital.

Yes that is so darn true... I always keep a notebook handy for notes and random ideas along with rough drafts to short stories and stuff. I also slack off terribly when it comes to actually typing up stuff from rough copies... I dunno why... guess it's just the fact I have to stop and read what I wrote like a hundred times and make changes on the fly... though I don't mind the changes it's just the stopping and reading and stopping and reading. Kills the flow.

When I go to bed, I've got a notepad, voice recorder, and phone with notepad and voice recorder features all at arms length. Takes the fun out of it for the little brat so it usually leaves me alone. Then all I have to contend with is my inner "prophet of doom" who tries to keep me awake by telling scary stories about what will happen while I am sleeping. -sighs- I've gotten much better at ignoring that guy as I've gotten older, but sometimes he succeeds.

I have a hard time writing if my environment is less-than-ideal (which usually means room's-super-messy-and-I-can't-find-anything-I-need for me) but I try to keep working on something related to writing. Maybe that means reading a book or articles about writing, watching a movie or two that I find inspiring or am using for vague reference, listening to music (for the same reason), or actually organizing and cleaning my space (only happens when absolutely necessary)... I consider it all part of the process because it is necessary for me to do those things from time to time if I want to keep writing.

I try not to let myself get frustrated because, for me, that is a sure way to grind everything to a halt. I remind myself that there are multiple aspects to writing, which include but are not limited to: learning, observing, brainstorming, making that brainstorm make sense, and actually coming up with a finished product.

You should be proud you forged on, despite circumstances. I'm impressed, for what it's worth. -nods-

[edit] Was going to add this and forgot: For names, I tend to come up with something silly until I can come up with something better. Giving a person or a thing a silly name makes it easier for me to move on instead of getting stuck. -shrugs-

Ha-ha I like that silly name idea at least they'd have a name (and not set in stone) until something better pops up... thanks for that I'll try it.

Thank you kindly. I do feel good when I can at least get /something/ done even if it's not mind blowing or miles long in words... ha-ha. But I have been getting into instrumental music more lately and that's been a big help. Now that I have my room back I feel like now I can finally get back into the swing of things. Here's hoping.

Oh dear. D:

I went digging through a relatively old notebook of mine and it turns out it had all of my notes from when I was trying to turn the idea from previous years into a Pathfinder/DnD campaign. I maaaaay be able to use that to get/keep me going. :D

Understandable. The pressure isn't for everyone. :x

Yeah. You can change the word goal for the Camp sessions, too. Lowest you can go is 10,000, I think? Which isn't too bad, tbh, because unless you're super, super busy, you should be able to hit it by the end of the month even if you're struggling with what to write (like I usually do.)

I'm actually planning on creating playlists for most/all of my projects. One of my writing tips books (Writing Fiction for Dummies... I think. LOL) had a suggested list of things to find songs for... Whatever book it was, they also suggested casting your characters (i.e. like if you were turning it into a movie) which sounds like fun and I'll probably do that as part of my character profiling for my main/major characters. I'll probably be casting different people for the same character though, especially with voices. A lot of my developed characters already have voice actors picked out. XD

I am happy to hear the word goal can be edited. (Makes me more tempted to try it.) I don't think I'd be able to know exactly how many words I'd want to try for until I got started. I can usually come up with 500 to 1000 words each time I actually sit down to write a scene and I usually try to get one or two done each day when I am actively writing. 50% of that is typically purple prose, worthy of editing out pretty much right off the bat, but even at that I can say that 10k is pretty attainable for me, even 30k or so wouldn't be too out of reach if I start at the first of July.

Understandable. I'm probably going to set it for 10k since I'm also trying to get a job for after my summer courses end at the end of this month.

Hey, even if the prose is purple, it's still good to get it out there. :P

- I have a notebook and pen beside my bed too, and stare at it for a bit, then roll over and go back to bed. :P

10k words was my camp goal last year, turns out the story I wanted to write was just about that :) This year, I dunno what my word goal is going to be, I'll probably just put some arbitrary number in there. My goal is more to 'make progress' than anything else.

- Ooo nice. Sometimes it's nice to find old things like that... other times not so much. While I was cleaning my bedroom to move out of my parents house, I found my old 'poetry' note book from junior high school, the stuff in there was pretty bad, and a lot of it was emo/angry poetry about my backstabbing group of 'friends' whom I would have rather not be reminded about. (I also found my grade school art book though, and that was adorable)

Yeah. :D It's not very old (probably a year or so), but I'm so glad I found it.

Oh my god yes. While I was cleaning up my room after moving back home from school earlier this summer, I came across a composition notebook I used to use as a sketchbook back when I was in middle school. Holy crap the pictures are so bad. @

I'm currently stuck in this rut where I hate everything I draw so seeing that I've actually improved a lot since I began drawing is actually vaguely helpful. LOL

- Yeah, it's ncie to find the old stuff and see how you've improved. I just finished filling up my big sketch book that I've had since 2003, and the difference between the beginning and the end of the book is crazy :P It's fun to go through. There's still good stuff in the old part, and crappy stuff in the new though, so I dunno how much improvement I've really made :P

I bought some binders a while back and I have been slowly working my way through my old story stuff. (I mean, really old. Like stuff I wrote when I was 13-14-15 years old. That's almost 20 years ago now. -does a double takes and blinks- Wow. That... Wow. 20 years. How is that possible?!) Most of it is completely unusable, even the character names, but it is really nice to see how far I have come since then.

It's less inspiring to see how far my drawing skills have come in the same amount of time... In some ways I am worse than I used to be because when I first started drawing I'd just draw and now I want perfection... without the practice. So I haven't done a finished drawing in nearly 5 years and I've barely sketched anything either.

I told myself I'd use my bedside note-taking supplies, and I did a few times, but after my muse realized I was serious, it decided it would find a better time to annoy me. Like... in the middle of trying to get something unrelated done. Yep. -sighs-

I have shorter stories planned (25k or under). With my less in-depth short stories I feel like I could easily get one done in a month, maybe even two if I was able to go with the true short stories. Alas, my muse, being the annoy creature that it is, does not want me to have the satisfaction of a finished product, so anytime I try to work on my short stories, it is either silent or offering me tidbits of inspiration for one of my bigger projects. Like a moth to a flame, I follow my muse, but then it flits away and I am stuck not getting anything done.

Well, perhaps you developed a bad habit. Once you figure out what it is, you'll be able to work on it and un-learn it.

Oh god. I know how you feel re: the perfection bit.

I haven't drawn anything more than a quick Adventure Time-styled doodle on my train ride home from one of my summer courses.

Which sucks because I have all these things I want to do with a character of mine I use for this RP/LARP thing but I can't get them out of my brain and onto a piece of paper without getting frustrated and stopping. ;n;

- Yeah, my bad habit is I don't block things out in sketches first, I just jump right into the final lines and then everything that's wrong with it is stuck there :P I'm working on breaking that habit. There's probably other stuff too.

I'm also trying to work on the whole perfection thing. Need to be less self-concious of my short comings in my drawings. Once I finally get this story written, I want to draw it out as a graphic novel/manga style, but I need to get better at backgrounds and less nervous about it not being perfect.

- Haha, they already bother me then too! They suck.

My characters are the reason I've been trying (and failing) to draw people for years. I used to use image editing software and basically photo manipulate myself a reference (not for people but for still life type drawings) like 10 years ago. I probably should start doing that again, since all I really need is references. -likes visuals-

LOL I can't complain too much. When my muse is talking to me, even if it is at an inopportune time, I am grateful... Sort of.

I've spent the last 24 or so hours on a music listening spree and I've been compiling a list of songs I'd like to add to my music library, eventually, instead of working on my projects. I blame you for the distraction. XP

- Lol, I suppose there is that! A lot of my muses are pretty silent types. And the loud obnoxious ones are ones that I don't really need right now.

LOL Oh no.... hahaha

I've done NOTHING productive within the last 3 days... a few minor add ins on my notebook transferring but that's it... nothing new, nothing exciting.

I am going to a bookstore tomorrow... I have a bloody huge pile of books beside my bed but hey what's a few more? Might have a quick look around to see if they sell any help books for future writers! Yeah I know there's the internet but I like having actual books beside me when I need them. xD

I'm trying to pretend that listening to music was somewhat productive, because some of the songs gave me inspiration. However, that wasn't the point of it. It was for pure enjoyment and that's a bad thing. My muse hates it when I do that. LOL

Some authors whose e-books I have found useful are K.M. Weiland, Angela Ackerman (with Becca Puglisi; they co-wrote three very handy thesauruses), and Rayne Hall. Thus far, I have found their "writing skills" e-books the most helpful. I'd probably even buy the physical versions of the books if I had the opportunity.

Annnnddd... I've been meaning to check out Larry Brooks and Blake Snyder. Apparently, those are good ones too.

Thanks for the author names, I'll look for their works. Any and all help is greatly appreciated because I feel like I'm slacking off and it's getting worse. :(