Melancholy Mondays

I've decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, to stop regretting going to college. I'm manning up with my bad self.  I'm taking back the joy I used to have in writing. I'm going back to where I told a story because I had a story to tell. I wanted to hear it, so I wrote it. The simple of joy of creating, without the internal pressure of who's going to read it, of worrying over getting published, not worrying whether I suck or not.

I've decided the best way to do this is just to write. Get all the awkwardness over and done with so I can start writing again. I seriously, seriously want to get paid for writing fabulous books, but before I can do that, I have to actually write something fabulous. And before I can write fabulously, I have to give myself permission to write really, really badly. Or, in Annie Lamott's word, write a shitty first draft:
I have a hard time doing anything without deadlines. Not that I meet deadlines, but having them forces me to get something, anything done. And under pressure, sometimes I produce diamonds. Tiny, infinitesimal diamonds, but still diamonds. I am going to start off small, and build.

My goal for this week is going to be 7k. That's not a lot. I mean, during NaNoWriMo, I'd write more than that in five days. But since this isn't NaNoWriMo and I can't write that intensely all the time (as well as the fact that I haven't been writing for awhile and I need to get back into the swing of things), I think seven k is a good place to start. If it's too easy, I can make next week's goal higher. If it's too hard, well, I'll keep it at 7k. We'll see how much I can push myself.

I'm off to work on an outline. Fun fun fun.

For last hour and a half I've been trying to work on my HanWriMo story. This is the first HanWriMo I've actually participated in--or rather, will have participated in, once I post something officially on TTR.  I had a story all outlined. It's the last in a trilogy I started years ago. I've had it outlined for ages, I just never wrote it. I figured I could milk it for at least 15K, so it was ideal for this year's HanWriMo. Apparently not, in the past hour and a half, I've written approximately 600 words. And I'm not proud of any of them. I reread the first chapter and went, uuugggh. No wonder no one reviews my stories. They're pretty awful. Well-constructed gramatically speaking, but the content is so innane. I'm sick of it.

My count is 1057. Only 14K to go. Maybe I'll slog through just because. I hate doing that, though. As much as I value raw material, it's not worth much unless it's shaped into a cohesive story. I'll probably post my word count here, and see if I can't finish the story before the deadline. That's the only way I'll post it to TTR. Lame, I know, but whoever said I was cool? :D

I feel so neurotic right now.