Hello Camp, Goodbye Sanity!

Not that I have any sanity left to begin with lately…

Between work, a new sort of responsibility, other issues, stress, and a whole hell of a lot more, I feel like I lost my sanity and my peace of mind a month ago at the least. (Mostly the same reason I haven’t posted here in two weeks. Oops…)

And I’m about to dive off the deep end even more by joining in the April Camp NaNoWriMo event.

Why?
Probably because I’m an idiot and stupid and can’t think straight anymore from lack of sleep and stress.

April’s Camp kicks off in about 22 hours now.

I’m so NOT ready.

While I do know what novel plot bunny that’s been bouncing around in my head I’m going to work on, and I know what sort of general direction I want it to take, and the characters already; I have no outline or notes set up for it. Sort of. I basically know these characters and there tales by heart already.

(When I say this one has been bouncing around in my head, I mean it’s really been bouncing around up there for a LONG time. Try years. Lots of years. As long as I can remember. Get my drift? I’ve pretty much written the whole series in my head at least once already. Now I just have to fine tune the details and actually get it out of my head and down on paper, er, screen.)

Now let’s just hope I don’t make the same mistake I did for Camp in July of 2014 where I wrote no notes at all and screwed myself by the time I got to 30k words. I confused myself big time on that novel that is still in progress. (Still need to go back through that too…)

I’m excited, but also nervous already. Hell, I’ve been both excited and nervous for over a week now. Since I registered for this Camp a couple weeks ago I’ve been both. Dreading it but also looking forward to it.

I set myself another low goal: 20k. Mainly because of work and other things going on, and I’m already writing a lot of summary type things for a club I belong to. Every day, too. It’s tiring. So between all that, I set myself low again so I hopefully don’t fail. Even though my original goal was to do 30k this Camp, 40k in July’s Camp, and then go for the big 50k in November. Seemed reasonable to me but I just don’t think I can tackle 30k right now with all that’s going on in my life.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be able to do it, but I’m not going to dig myself too deep right off the bat. I know I’ll dig myself that deep come the last week of April.)

If I by some miracle I manage to do 30k this Camp, awesome. If not, oh well. I’ll be happy if I hit 20k. It’s better than a big fat Easter egg. (I’m so exhausted that I actually found that pun funny.)

So here goes! The countdown into madness has begun! And the descent into insanity is fast approaching! I’m about to kiss the last of my sanity goodbye for the month of April. If I even have any left right now.

I’m thinking I don’t.

Wish me luck! I’m going to need it.

(No, seriously, I’m going to need it. Thank the Goddess for Camp Cabins, they are my motivation.)

Not Enough Hours In A Day

Remember me saying last week I should hopefully have two days off come Thursday?

Yeah…

That went down the drain rather quickly.

The person that I thought either just up and quit or got fired really is gone so that meant I had to take her shifts. The two days off I was supposed to have turned into work a day, off a day, work two days in a row again. It would have been work four days in a row, but thankfully, me and another coworker split the two shifts I would have had to pick up. So I get one more day off this week.

It’s still not enough.

I’ve become so far behind on so many things, it’s ridiculous. Today was my day off and I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to. In fact, I got mostly sidetracked. And I now also have until the end of March to get something else done or I won’t be living down teasing from my family.

I believe it’s safe to say I’m stressed out too much anymore. Too many things weighing heavily on my mind lately. Not enough hours in the day. Not enough days in the week. Not enough weeks in the month. Not enough months in the year…

A week long vacation sounds nice right about now.

And now I have a feeling I might be pulling an almost all-nighter to get caught up on some things, even though I have to work in the morning.

*Sigh*

At least Friday is the first day of spring. That’s about the only good thing I got going for me right now.

I Need A Break

Wow, so again I nearly forgot about posting!

Well, let’s put it this way:

I thought Monday was Tuesday earlier in the week and I ended up putting a post up. And then I realized I was a day early and deleted it. Of course, then when Tuesday came along I completely forgot to write a different post. (Mainly due to the fact I had to work and I had other things going on and… I’m not going to start rambling here.)

Then again today I just nearly forgot. If not for my good friend Paula’s Facebook status about the fact that she should be writing, I would have completely forgotten. (Don’t ask me how that reminded me of this post, I have no idea.)

My brain is just completely lost lately, foggy.

It’s jumping from one thing to the next like it’s a kid hyped up on Kool-Aid. Or I’m flat out forgetting things and can’t think straight to save my life. More than once I’ve nearly screwed up counting change out at work, that’s how out of it I have been. Not to mention I am literally worn out.

Since last Thursday (not yesterday, last week) my work schedule has gone/is going work three days, off a day, work a day, off a day, work three days in a row again, off a day, work a day, off a day, work a day, and then finally (HOPEFULLY!) have two days off in a row next week Thursday.

But, considering my shift got screwed today because a coworker decided to pull a no call, no show, I’m wondering if my hopefully two days off next week is going to become work four days in a row because I am on call for said coworker. If she gets fired or just up and quit, there goes my time off…

I’m worn out. The fact that I haven’t been sleeping well isn’t helping matters either. It’s been constant, crazy work and a multitude of other things going on as well. Hell, I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open writing this and it’s not even that late! (In my books, at least. 3am is late for me now.) With my busy schedule, I haven’t found any time, or focus, to work on writing or getting ready for Camp.

And it’s driving me nuts, and discouraging me again.

*Sigh*

I need a major break. Like, preferably four days off in a row at least to get caught up on things I need to do, including sleep. But I have a bad feeling I’m not going to get that for at least another week and a half, if not longer by the way things have been going.

Work is kicking my ass. Life is kicking my ass. And Friday the 13th is normally lucky for me.

HA! Not this time it wasn’t…

(And I’m too tired to even bother reading back through that to make sure I didn’t make any grammar/spelling mistakes. Or if it even makes sense. *Fingers crossed it isn’t a train wreck*)

Snippet Sunday: March 8, 2015

Since I currently have a few works posted to Wattpad, I am going to start there with my snippets and give you all a peek at those before moving onto sharing bits and pieces of my current WiP novel.

Switching it up from last week’s snippet. I’m moving on to a different, little bit longer, story I have posted to Wattpad. This snippet comes from my paranormal short story titled Rivers of Black. It’s starting off a few paragraphs in from the beginning of the story.

A bit of background on this story as well: This story is rather dark and depressing. It deals with a topic some people would be hesitant to read. Which is self harm and suicide. I don’t sugarcoat this either, I write it raw on how someone in my character’s state feels. Just be forewarned with that. I hope it doesn’t deter you from reading, but I know others cannot deal reading these kinds of things. (Really this week’s snippet isn’t anything graphic or such though.)

(Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to fit the ten sentence limit. And it seems really short this time for some reason.)

I used to look up at the stars at night and ask: why me? What did I do to deserve this? But then it just hit me, like a brick to the face: The question wasn’t why me; the question was why not me? That was the moment that I realized this would be my life from now on. Before those dark thoughts entered my mind for that first time all those months ago my life was too perfect. I had a nice family, a good home, the best of friends, great grades in school, and almost anything I wanted. I had everything a teenage girl could dream of. So the answer to ‘why not me’ was easy. My life was too perfect, so the universe had to find a way to ruin something about it. Because let’s face it, life is only this perfect in fairy tales, and I was no princess.

Cover made by @_teenagers on Wattpad

If you want to read the whole story, it is available to read on Wattpad! I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Baby Steps

I think I’m trying to bite off more than I can chew lately and that’s one of my major hitches with the whole no follow through problem of mine.

I always try to make plans to get things done. Like I’ll say today I’m doing this, this, this, this and this. Only, this, this, and this doesn’t end up happening. But the other this and this does get done. (That sounded better in my head.) And because I didn’t accomplish more than what I did accomplish, I get discouraged.

I’m beginning to see that as one of my major flaws. Because I have so much to do, I try to do too much at once or I set too high a goal maybe. Still not fully sure but that’s the conclusion I’m coming to lately.

So!

Here’s my new plan:

(I’m not letting myself refer to it as a plan that way I can’t screw it up this time.)

This time around, I’m taking baby steps. Little bitty baby steps.

Instead of giving myself a deadline, I’m just going to try to go with the flow. All those notes I wanted to get done, I’m doing a different way now. (Thank you to my friend Paula for the idea!) I’m not going to finish them all at once now and then jump back into writing. Now I’m going to go back and re-read all 30k words — roughly 5 chapters — I have written for Breaking Point and as I’m reading through it, I’m going to make my notecards of characters, horses, settings, important information, etc. etc.

(Who knows, while I’m doing that I may even end up making notes for editing. But let’s not get ahead of myself here. That’d be pushing it for me. And be distracting.)

Once I have read back through it all and I have those notes, I’m plunging right back in and writing. I’m not going to make all the notes and characters at once. As I go along, I will make the notes and figure my characters out. I write better by just running with it anyways. Outlines are not my friend. And really, why bother with one when my characters have a nasty habit of taking things they way they want to and not the way I want to?

Go figure, right?

That is my hope now. To re-read my story (which will also re-familiarize myself with it) and make the notes as I read through it. While (hopefully) not getting sidetracked by editing errors.

Of course, I still have that mile long to do list as well. And work lately is starting to kick my ass. But hey, I have time. Right?

(Ha, not always. Time likes to sneak up on me and yell “BOO!” in my ear just to make me panic and stress out.)

So those are kind of my new goals. To take things one step at a time, start small with baby steps. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. (Or as I like to say, before you can ride a horse.) Now I’m not going to discourage myself right off the bat by saying “let’s see how long I actually stick to this”.

(See, I didn’t say it. I crossed it out.)

This time, I’m going to say I can do this. And I’m going to cross my fingers that the weather starts to cooperate with me so I can get a few other things done as well and get the ball rolling for myself again. (Seriously, my driveway is over an inch thick of ice in some places. And it’s alllllll downhill. I’m literally iced in.) I’ve started too get the ball rolling down the hill, I’m organized again. Now I just got to keep it up. Especially since Camp NaNo is next month.

Like Thomas the Train says: I think I can, I think I can.

Utter Failure

*Sigh*

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Really, I shouldn’t when this happens all the time.

Yet…

Every time, every failure to follow through with what I wanted to do, is still like I had a knife twisted in me.

Remember those plans I had two weeks ago? The ones for getting all those notes finished before March, along with a few other (probably) more important things. Remember me saying I gave myself a deadline of two weeks to do them all so I could be back on track for March and try again at the 1K-A-Day challenge?

Well…

I failed. I failed miserably.

What’s the use of giving myself a deadline when I don’t even follow it? I didn’t get one thing done that I wanted to. Not one single thing. It all went up in smoke.

As always.

Sometimes I feel as if the universe just conspires against me. Sometimes I just find myself saying “screw it”, what’s the point of trying when I know I’ll fail anyways. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to get my hopes up.

Actually, not sometimes. All the time.

I need a new muse… One that actually works…

Snippet Sunday: March 1, 2015

Since I currently have a few works posted to Wattpad, I am going to start there with my snippets and give you all a peek at those before moving onto sharing bits and pieces of my current WiP novel.

This week’s snippet comes from the small, short horror piece I have posted to Wattpad titled The Black Lake. I am moving forward a couple paragraphs from last week’s snippet. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to fit the ten sentence limit.)

ALSO! This is the last snippet I will be posting from The Black Lake before I move onto something different.

I had long since finished washing off, disappointed that I couldn’t just scrub the night out of existence, but I made no move to shut the water off and get out of the shower to face reality again. It had to be very early in the morning by now, but I knew there was no chance of me going back to sleep for the third time this night. Instead, I leaned against the shower wall and continued to let the water pound on my back and neck, just taking in the soothing quality it gave my mind.

It’d been a week since I had stumbled onto the man dumping the woman’s lifeless body into the black lake in the forest. But there was no getting it out of my mind in that week; every time I dared to close my eyes or even blink once rapidly the bloodied form of the girl and the gaze of the man tormented me. I could barely sleep; dark shadows lined the under part of my eyes and I could barely make words into coherent sentences that made an inkling of sense. I was just that exhausted from the whole ordeal.

That night was a lasting nightmare, haunting me like a ghost of an old abandoned house, following me everywhere I went, lurking around every corner I turned. I was too afraid and frazzled to go to the police over what I had witnessed; and I was even more afraid they would just laugh me off and think I was delusional. But I had to do something.

If you want to read the whole story, it is available to read on Wattpad! I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!