Writing Ray - Forget yesterday, write today

So if you were one of the 6 people who saw the post that was here up until this afternoon or if you saw my rather frantic twitter conversation late last night then you might know that I had a bit of a writerly freak-out yesterday. This sudden spiral into fear and self-doubt came over me after I finished an amazing fantasy novel that had me flailing all over the place when I realised how long I had to wait for the sequel.

Then that stupid little voice came nagging - "*Your* book will never be this good," it said like the little shit it is. "Why you haven't written anything for 2 months!" "What's the point of even carrying on with it? It won't be half as good as *that* book" Y'know the standard kind of negative shit internet trolls throw at you, except this was coming from my own fucking brain. *anguished wail*

I go through phases like this where a previously optimistic and happy mood just get shattered and dragged down by sudden negative thoughts. Then I find it very hard to feel good about any projects I'm working on and everything I do feels all rather futile and pointless - "It's all shit so why should I continue with it?" kind of mentality.

So I wigged out on twitter. Several people came to my aid; my ever-awesome bestie/twinnie Jess, the lovely Lily from The Whispering of the Pages and another kind twitter user. All had very helpful advice for me to try and motivate me back onto the horse when all I was thinking of was bolting and never looking back at my book again.

This morning, when I woke up at around quarter to nine I picked up the notepad and pencil I had put on my beside table before I went to sleep, stuck in my earphones and started to write. And I wrote. I kept writing even while I was in Wetherspoons getting breakfast with Le Boyf (who has to be credited for his awesomeness in not questioning why this particular Sunday morning I simply *had* to write and bring my notebook with me to breakfast). I finally finished the scene I was writing around 2pm-ish and felt pretty awesome.

12 pages of my yellow legal notepad (because those things are cool) were full of my scribblings. After two months of nothing but angsty thoughts that I should be writing but wasn't, I had gone and got 12 pages written. Fucking suck on that Negative Ray of Yesterday.

I then spent the next 2 hours typing up all my penciled pages into my Scrivener project - in a separate document since this scene is not necessarily going to end up in the book, I wrote it in 1st person POV rather than the 3rd person POV I've been writing the rest of the book in.

It turns out that I managed to write 1,944 words today. Nearly 2K of story that I didn't have before - regardless of whether it goes into the book or not, it has gotten me to write and think about my book, write from my main character's POV about a time in her life that was a fulcrum between the old and the new. What I've written today has given me a base to jump from to write the scenes between my main character and the person she meets for the first time in this scene.

I have to say a massive thank you to Jess & Lily for being so awesome so late last night - without you guys I may have spent the rest of the night bad-thinking myself to a point where I simply just put my notebooks away so they couldn't make me feel guilty about abandoning them. And Stupid Negative Ray would have simply said "It's for the best," without a second thought.

Thanks to you I didn't do that, I got up the determination to start writing and damn it I wrote for something like 4 hours! *super-massive squooshy hugs*

Now the only thing I have left to say is - Does anyone want to read what I wrote this morning? Just purely for the hell of it with no context if you don't want to know the whole spiel about my book. If so then please leave me a comment (heck leave me one even if you don't, I just don't get enough comments these days and it makes me a bit sad) and I shall either post it up on here or email it over depending on how chicken I feel.

So yea, let me know.

Sorry for being weird guys,
Ray

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Hear ye! Hear ye! Recommend Me!

Well now, if that post title didn't get your attention then I don't know what will :P

I need your help dear followers, my younger sister has set me the task of compiling a list of books that she should read and/or buy. Now her criteria is rather specific because she doesn't want to read any old type of book, oh nooo she's looking for YA, realistic, romance novels a la Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen. Weirdly since she read Twilight and had the whole "omg Edward is so awesome!" phase (which thank *gawd* has now passed) she's not been interested in the whole paranormal, vamps and werewolves side of YA literature like loads of other Twihards have been. On the contrary it was the love story which she liked most and now she wants to read books that at least have *some* romance in them, it doesn't have to be the whole focus of the book but at least a smidgin of chemistry would be lovely.

So that's the point of this post, to beg and plead you wonderful folk to help a sister out and recommend me some awesome YA realism books so I can further the literary education of my prodige. Although I know names of several authors whose books fit my sister's criteria I think it would be better to ask people who've actually read them to say whether or not they're worth a look.

Please leave any recommendations you may have in the form below (enter as many as you like!). Alas there is nothing material to be gained from this other than the knowledge that you've helped to spread your love of a particular book to someone who may enjoy it just as much as you did.

I greatly appreciate your help
LadyV

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