writing about writing.
Wednesday.
SLEEP: 8
BREAKFAST: pancakes w/ peanut butter
COFFEE: 3
WINE: 1
MOOD: 7
(Numbers for coffee, wine and mood are projections, as it's not yet 1 p.m. I'm currently drinking coffee #3 and don't anticipate another one; mood is so far today; and there's one glass left in the open bottle of wine I have in the fridge. So.)
I'm writing this with my Live Journal in mind, because I haven't undated there since I started this project. I've been writing daily at 750words.com for the past week and a half. Their tag line is, "Private, unfiltered, spontaneous, daily," and that's how I'm using it. Obviously I'm not real inhibited on LJ/Dreamwidth, but I do think about things like whether I'll bore or freak out my friends, whether I'm repeating myself, whether I'm going to embarrass myself. The result is that, often, I don't bother to write out my thoughts and feelings. Other times, I know if I were to post something and not get a response, I'd feel even more lonely and isolated. (In spite of the zillion times I read my friends' posts and neglect to comment even though I sort of want to. IDK.) I could just write and post privately, and occasionally I do, but for some reason that's not something I do very often.
I've also noticed that doing this daily writing thing consistently and making sure I reach at least 750 words every day is a different experience from just writing what I think I want/need to write. Sometimes it's just "what I did today," but other times I end up delving into a category of thought I've been through mentally time and again but never bothered to actually write. Other times I dig into my insecurities and, well, crazy and resolve things, or find out what things are really about, or whatever. So, it's all around useful.
I'm still looking to do NaNoWriMo, and haven't decided whether I'll try to keep up the 750 Words journal while I do, or whether I'll just count the NaNo writing AS my 750 words. There are people who use the site for fiction, too, and I really like the layout and usability of it. But I'm not sure I want to (a) stop with the journaling or (b) mix journaling and fiction writing in the same forum. Maybe I should create a second login, peroxidepirateNaNo, or something, and use that for novel/fanfic writing. DECISIONS, OMG.
Meanwhile, I'm signed up for 3-ships fanfic exchange! I requested Avengers, Doctor Who, Hunger Games, and *I think* Firefly, although I may have changed it to Sherlock at the last minute (they didn't send me a copy of my requests). I woke up on the last day of signups (Monday) with the sudden realization that I HAVE TO SIGN UP NOW! Made myself late for work doing it, which is why I was in such a rush that I didn't think to make sure I saved my requests or anything. But it was an office day at the end of a crazy week so there was no chance I'd be super productive ANYWAY, so I have no regrets. (This is what I love about my job.)
I'm not yet signed up for Yuletide, but I will get on that later today. I expect I'll request the fandoms I nominated (Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses, and Pirates: Band of Misfits) and sign up to write 8 to 10 things I can make bucket offers for. I never have the patience to parse particular characters and I can and can't write, and anyway, I love the challenge of finding a way to write a character I don't previously love.
I'm still looking at Avengers-verse fic for NaNo with Pepper as the protagonist. Another thing I've learned from this daily journal things is that I can reliably write 750 words inside half an hour. Based on that, I should be able to write 1000 words of fiction in an hour if it's in the context of, "This is NaNo, just write and don't worry about quality right now," which is considerably better than I gave myself credit for in the past. I know I matched that often enough during Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN, but for previous NaNoWriMos, I planned much more time than that. And one thing I know about myself is that I will use up all the resources (time, money, whatever) I allow myself in that kind of situation. So this time I'm planning an hour of writing each workday and three hours each of my days off, and that should do it.
As for my other hobbies/obsessions, I've given up on my marathon hopes and dreams for now, and instead I want to do a (relatively short) triathlon next summer. To that end, I'm just waiting until I can afford a gym membership so I can start swimming and biking again and keep that up 1-2 times a week through the winter. Meanwhile, I'll just keep running (or run/walking) relatively short distances with the dogs about 3 times a week and call it good.
All of this leaves me a bit short on time to socialize, and likewise I'm not even considering responding to the two OK Cupid message I've gotten in the past couple of week. I don't know. I can't do everything all at once, and right now I care about writing and physical activity more than building my social life. I expect I'll change my mind again sooner or later, and that's fine. For now, I feel good about this.
932 words in about 30 minutes. I'll stop now.