How Many Habits Can You Try To Start At Once?

I can still hear Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger ringing through my head. Yesterday I burned 500 calories on an elliptical. I felt great all day long, I got my notes up to date (I was a day behind,) posted on my blog, and got one of my work assignments in. Finally. The exercise kept me energized well into the early morning. It also made me ravenously hungry.

Thing is I had no motivation to do anything today. The thought drifted through my head that maybe I was trying to change too many things in my life at once. Psychology Today confirmed my suspicions with the article What Went Right? You Focused on One Habit! Ian Newby-Clark goes into how it is almost impossible to try to change too many habits at once. Trying to accomplish all those "should do's" Steven R. Stewart talked about, is something that must be done gradually. Clark also mentions "will-power."

Will-power, I recently learned, is a limited commodity in the human body. How much will power we have has to do with the choices we make during the day. President Obama actually has his wardrobe chosen for him, all blue, so that he doesn't have to make choices in the morning. In a way he's conserving his will power for more important things. I wish I could give you the source of that information, but it has honestly skipped town and taken the nearest train to the forgotten recesses of my brain. I am sure only hypnosis would bring the source back to my mind. The only thing I can remember was that it was on a T.V. show.

The conservation of will power is easier to do with a habit that is firmly in place. For instance, my mind isn't bothered by brushing my teeth. It's something I do every day. Blogging, is becoming the same thing for me. It's been almost a month since I started and I haven't let my self off anytime except for the weekends. Workouts, notes, working hours, and sleeping hours are still a shattered mess right now. This is where I'm spending my will power daily, often switching my focus and never feeling satisfied that I've made a change. I gave up on fixing my sleep patterns awhile ago. They got really messed up in my final year of college, when I was getting an average of three to five hours of sleep a night.

I'd say to make my workouts and working hours have the maximum effect I want, I'd have to alter my sleeping schedule. It's not something I really want to do. However, I used to be an early riser and that was when my mind was at its best. So in order to forge a new path into my future I have to do it one step at a time. However, it doesn't mean I can't make a bit of a sound track for motivation. Technologic by Daft Punk, for a little editing encouragement. (There's nothing like typing to this tune for me. Though I do find the video a bit disturbing.)

When Should You Give Yourself A Break?

Today I went to SFWA and started reading from the writing tips section of the Information Center page for Authors. The first article I read was The #1 Rule of Everything by Steven R. Stewart. His basic message was that you will never be able to keep up with all of the "should do's" that the writing and publishing industry will throw at you. At least, not if you want a life.

Patrick Star from Sponge Bob Square Pants.

He talked about his anxiety and depression with writing and how, even though he had won an award, he still didn't feel like he was doing enough. Mr. Stewart is a published author and is a member of the SFWA which means he had to have three short story sales, one novel sale, or one professionally produced full-length dramatic script. He's walked the walk and knows what he's talking about.

I, however, am new to writing. I'm working on it day by day, page by page. I'm just starting to fill my days with "should do's" of my own. I'm writing this blog, doing my page a day of writing, am trying to find a writing group, and read in my free time as well. Though, I will admit, the television tends to skew my focus and steal me away from the work I could (and probably should) be doing. The point is I have only one published short story. That story is published in Ferris State University's 2011 PRISM compilation and wouldn't count towards the SFWA.

I am at square one.

Finding my voice is something I should work on more than anything else. The humor I talked about just a week ago seems to have left my veins. It's fun to stay on the light side, but when it's forced it can be draining. I'll learn to use Bryce's lessons when I need to. To lighten a dark situation by pointing an over-sized spotlight on the middle of every day life shenanigans.

Once I find that voice and have a published piece or two; then, maybe, I'll relax. I'll take a chill pill put up my feet and take a week off. Until then I don't think I deserve a break. like Patrick in the picture above I want to cross off that nothing from both my To Do list and my Completed Works list. There's far too much for me to learn to sit idle. Currently I have some notes that are calling my name.

Happy Writings!

Planning Ahead

I'll admit it, I used to be a worthless writer. In high school I received mostly A's. So, thinking all was well, in my junior year I took Advanced Placement Composition, a college level writing class. I received an "A" and decided to take the eighty-nine dollar test. A.P. tests are scored 1 through 4 with four being excellent, three being normal, two being poor, and one being awful.

I received a two on the test. POOR.

I remember being stunned that I had done so badly. My grades certainly didn't reflect the score I received, but my parents knew. They had known for awhile. They were not happy when I showed them my final portfolio. My parents went to the principal to complain about my good grades. It was plain to them that I didn't grasp some of the basic rules of English and therefore didn't deserve them. It was humiliating to say the least.

The next year, against the advice of my high school, I enlisted in a remedial English course for college students. That course taught me grammar, spelling rules, and how to compose a paper properly. She drilled into our heads that pen and paper helped you think while writing. She mandated we edit every paper we turned in. We had to have a first and second draft for every paper.

I haven't picked up The Classic Guide to Better Writing since then. Part of me was naive and embarrassed  I never wanted to face my weaknesses or pick up the book again. Reading the book reminded me how feeble my memory can be and that even after my remedial class it helps to review some of the rules.

The first chapter is about mapping a plan for what you want to write. It basically says while you might be able to deliver a message nobody will want to listen to the garbled mess you'd make up on the spot.

The last few weeks I've been producing notes and research on various things for my future novel The God Syndrome. While these notes will help me keep information short at hand, they won't help me write my story in a fluid fashion. They are a garbled mess that have no meaning by themselves. My story requires a fleshed out plot mountain. I have one I did when I originally thought of the story four years ago. However, that diagram is very basic and doesn't help me know what I'll write in advanced or how I'll stitch together all the notes I've taken.

I think the last week of December I'll start fleshing out this plan. Making sense of the amalgamation of notes in my notebook. It will give me a good jumping point for those first 50,000 words in January.

I may have been a poor writer in high school but that won't hold me back now. I'm going to use every tool I know to make my writing enjoyable.

Does Exercise Effect Writing?

Last week right after I woke up, I ran for a half an hour down to the lake and back. I say I ran but what I really mean is that I ran, jogged, huffed and puffed out of breath, walked, and ran again in a repeated fashion. My lungs burned from the air and my nose stung from the cold. My body was screaming at me that it was out of shape.

There were several reasons I chose to take that jog and one of them was writing. I had recently been told through work that the best writing is produced by those who are in the best physical condition. While I was a little tired later that day, I did find that I was much more focused than usual. I was able to get through a great deal of work I hadn't had the energy to pursue before. I felt more in tune with what I was doing.

The next day I found Dottie, my dog, paralyzed. It broke the cycle for me on the second day I was supposed to maintain exercise. I didn't want to do anything after losing such a good soul.

I want to approach this again. The workout may not have been all fun, but it gave me a focus that I haven't really had since high school. It figures, high school was the last time I had mandatory physical education. Though I did participate in mixed martial arts at college I did that late at night. The rush of energy the MMA club provided me was at the wrong time of day. Night was not a time to be productive or creative.

Interestingly, these days I find myself tired if I don't exercise. A constant lethargy sinks in down to the bone. Fighting that exhaustion is one of the best things I've done since college. This weekend, when I'm back from traveling, I'll start running again. Hopefully able to accomplish more writing for work, more blogging, and more notes for my January novel run.

For now I leave you with the music that was running through my mind as I was writing this. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk.

How Logical Do You Have To Make Your Writing?

This weekend I visited one of my best friends. We've been besties since our sophomore year at Ferris State University. We met in the Honors Program, helping students carry their carpets into Puterbaugh Hall. We started talking while moving the hefty flooring and found that we had similar interests including anime, manga, movies, romance novels, and science. She was, and still is, studying to be a pharmacist.

When we were catching up with each other, I filled her in on the story I was planning for January. I asked her about my concept and the use of viruses and DNA in my upcoming novel. It sounded okay to her. However, she told me how viruses attack not only DNA but also RNA and other bits of genetic information.  I knew viruses acted differently but was unaware that they could target different things.

I'm beginning to wonder how much research I'm going to need for this book. I'm currently uncertain how much scientific knowledge I'm going to need before I go forward with my novel. My story The God Syndrome is a piece of speculative fiction that fuses sci fi and fantasy together. Fantasy is easy you can make up the rules as you go. Science fiction requires science behind the story that is thoroughly grounded in some fact. My goal is for scientists to read the book without twitching from incorrect terminology or impossible happenings.

The last week and a half I've spent writing notes on how the virus works.The kind of bodily changes it creates, when it was discovered ,and how much scientists know about the syndrome. I have more than ten pages and I've barely touched the tip of the iceberg. I may only use two pages of this information when I write the novel in January, but I want this disease to make sense even if it is fake.

My question is how many facts do you need in a sci fi story for someone to believe it? Especially when you're adding fantasy elements to it. How much do you get to cover up with fantastical elements before a sci fi story becomes completely ridiculous. My book is a sci fi novel first and fantasy second, finding that balance  of the believable and the fantastic may take some time.

When I start revisions, I'll send a copy to my dear friend so I can make sure that I'm not hurting her scientific brain with bad information. This time without any fear of being inadequate.

When Demotivation Strikes

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball you aren't prepared for. Today mine hit me full on. I got up and followed my usual routine. I went out to feed Dottie, a rottweiler, bull mastiff mix.

She's a wonderful dog and has the best of personalities. Every day I clean out her kennel, feed and water her, and take her for a short walk. She has arthritis so too much movement was a no no, but a roll in the grass and a small walk was nice. Today she didn't come out to say hello or wander around like she usually does. She stayed inside her igloo house. She'd done it before, but usually because it was freezing outside. Today was a balmy forty degrees, which is great for Michigan this time of year.

Concerned, I went inside and told my mom. We returned to try and coax her out for a little exercise which she's usually happy for. She had been running around the day before chewing on grass like old, silly, arthritic dogs do.

She wouldn't come and as we found out couldn't. Dottie had a pinched nerve in her third vertebra and had been paralyzed from part of the neck to the middle of her back including her front legs. Tomorrow, barring miracle, she will be euthanized. She's getting a steroid treatment right now that may help, but the chances are slim it will help by tomorrow.

Family tragedy takes my will away to do anything. My dog is dying, but I have to trudge on. So I'm writing here and I'll write my page a day. Even if all I want to do is just stare at this screen until it melts from time.

If you're reading this and you have loved ones. Give them a hug tonight, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

How Wicked is Wikipedia?

Almost every professor I had at college told their students not to use Wikipedia as a source for their papers. They did say that it was a good place to start to gather information to start research with, but never to rely on it wholly. I heard the same spiel when I was in high school.

I understood on some level that it wasn't completely trustworthy. It is after all an amalgamation of knowledge from individuals around the world and while there are monitors and editors on the site you never know how often misinformation might be added to a page.

The incident that best demonstrates the sharing of misinformation was Steven Colbert introducing and the quickly demonstrating the concept of Wikiality in the summer of 2006. Wikiality was defined on Colbert's piece The Word as, "together we can create a reality we all agree on—the reality we just agreed on."

He then went on to encourage his viewers to alter the information about elephants on Wikipedia. I was between my Junior and Senior year of high school as I watched people flock to the internet and write, "The elephant population in Africa has tripled over the last six months." Wikipedia ended up having to freeze the changes being made to the words elephant and Africa as a result.

Because this was such a highly publicized event Wikipedia responded very quickly, but the idea still stands that any article could be altered by anyone all too quickly.

That being said, I've never found any inaccuracies in my use of Wikipedia. I did as my teachers suggested and followed the sources at the bottom of each page and I used books at the library regularly. In fact I like finding physical sources more than I like using the internet when it comes to research.

Mostly I find a guilty pleasure in checking out a book that hasn't been used since before the seventies or eighties. I did it several times when I was at college and nothing gave me such a thrill as seeing a book getting it's stamp card taken out and replaced with security and due date stickers.

This week I've been doing my research on viruses exclusively on Wikipedia. Over the next few days I'll go through and find primary sources to back up the information I found.

I'm just curious if anyone has some wild or wicked Wikipedia stories out there. Rest assured, I will let you know if I find anything interesting.

Who Do We Listen To When We Write?

I have had the pleasure of meeting a few different authors this year. I've also had several English and literature teachers in my life. They all have knowledge about how and what to write that they shared with me and, I am sure, many others. The author's methods certainly got them somewhere, and my teachers each taught me different ways to approach what I was writing. Whether that was message, grammar, or plot, they certainly offered me some of the basics of writing.

One author who I interviewed for an upcoming Penumbra issue said to write a page a day. It's something that has stuck with me. I've been gathering notes (a page a day) for my chosen book, so that in January I will be ready for my personal novel writing month with my friend. While helpful in moving in a direction of actually completing something, it's not very inspirational for what to write about.

Inspiration often comes from somewhere else. A hobby you're interested in, a genre of books you read, or in my case graphic novels and comics. I read over 100 different web comics and follow them religiously. I recently started putting together a Pinterest board with some of the better ones.

In the beginning of November I attended Youmacon in Detroit, Michigan. Youmacon is an anime convention held every year the week after Halloween. When I was there I had the lovely chance to meet one of my favorite web comic artists. Michael Terracciano, better known as Mookie, he is the creator of the long running web comic Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. He gave a presentation called, Writing Unique Heroes and Memorable Villains.

I first saw the presentation in 2011 and saw it again this year because I had been so entertained the first time. Mookie has a bit of the theatrical spirit in his bones and does his presentation well, especially when explaining what sort of stories he loves and hates. I can't replicate his tone or the enthusiasm he displayed when acting out various characters on stage. However, his main points were these:

1. Get the girl friend out from behind the wall (AND FOR GODS SAKE PUT SOME CLOTHES ON HER!)

2. Use the intellectual victory when possible (for no other reason than that it is impressive).

3. People have random quirks, so should your characters. Something that makes people care about the characters and how they are doing. It gives a person something to relate to, to find a bit of themselves inside the character you make.

4. Your hero, villain, or bad-ass-bruiser does not need to have the only thing he or she has ever cared about blown up, killed, or destroyed in some other manner for them to take action.

There may have been more, but these are the bits that really sat in my mind. If I go to Youmacon again next year and he is there I will be in the crowd again, watching getting my dose of inspiration and entertainment from a man I truly respect as both a story teller and an artist.

Small Gifts

Yesterday I achieved my first written page. Today I will continue on, though I may be feeling a little levity and the thankful holiday spirit. 

I got to hear from my uncle for the second time in my life. He's German and the language barrier is a little hard to bridge, so having my mother there helped. He called us on Thanksgiving to share some bad news. So the reunion was a bit tainted. He told us that my Oma, or grandma in German, died sometime between 2008-09. She had dementia and was hard to keep track of a continent away. 

I have very few memories of my Oma, I was very young the last time I saw her. It was Christmas and she was visiting, as she did every year. This year I showed her the completed 3D castle puzzle that she had gotten me the year before. I remember being very proud of that puzzle. I remember her gray and white hair and loving it. She didn't speak any English, only German, so I don't remember anything she said to me, but I do remember her smiles. So her passing, sad as it is to say, did not affect me as it probably should have. My only problem is that we did not try to find her earlier. That I did not try, still, about the time I was thinking about looking for her, she had already passed.

So in remembering the little things and hearing from my uncle again I can be thankful for this day. I can be thankful for the family that received me at my mother's (step-mother's). It was a reminder of all the good family can bring to the soul.

I saw my sister's today; who though ten and twelve years younger than me are now taller than I am. After having not seen them in a month I realized how quickly they grow and was thankful I had the opportunity to see them. 

Life is such an interesting plethora of events, often taking place on the same day. Something that effects me one way, effects others differently. Thanksgiving is a holiday that requires us in some ways to reflect on what we are grateful for. I am grateful for my family however broken it is. It is filled with complexities I can appreciate and can only hope to emulate in a story. It is the intricate pieces that really bring life to the people we know. It's not all sunshine and rainbows and it's not all doom and gloom. I am thankful for this life, and all the small gifts that come with it. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

Fighting the Holiday Blues

Some days it's really hard to write. It feels like your creative juices just died in your dreams and you left them in bed. If I had napped today maybe the will to be productive might have returned to the recesses of my mind from the pillow in which I'm certain they're stored.

Still when you make the plan to write a page a day, you trudge on, even when you don't want to. Especially when you've been playing hooky the last few days. So after this I'm going to pick up my notebook and write my basic story line, write some details, and possibly draw a sketch. Something to empty a bit of my brain and keep my hands moving.

Tomorrow I'll be traveling home, like plenty of other Americans, to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. I always feel drained around this time of year because I'm always making decisions on where I'll be with my multiple divorce family. It's never as relaxing as it should be because in the end you always feel like you've offended someone.

I've used the term "nuclear family" to describe my divorced family before, but I don't think it's accurate. Apparently a nuclear family is just a basic family unit with two parents. It can be a gay couple (not my case,) but in the end it is just two parents and their children. I have my mother, my father, and my step-mother. All of whom I am very close to. I have two half sisters, who at half my age are already taller than me. I love them all, but as with any family there are problems. Not to mention the grand parents, aunt, uncles, and cousins who are also affected by your decisions.

It's enough to drive a person crazy or drag a person down. I'm headed on a downward spiral this year. Dread, fatigue, and body aches aside. I will write on.

Good Girl Gone Bad!

Last Christmas my mother got me a night shirt that said, "Careful, or you'll end up in my novel." It was meant as something cute. However, whenever I dawn it I get this small bit of satisfaction out of it. Knowing that there is a wicked little secret that I may indeed depict someone. Never in a recognizable way! A trait here, a quote there, but never more than that. It's a habit to want to imitate life, to make your writing have a breath and life that carries more than your own voice.

It's Tuesday night and I didn't written a thing on Monday. It's because I visited my boyfriend. Some of you out there probably understand the pull certain people in your life have on you. Those that can convince you to take time away from the things you should be doing. A lunch here, dinner there, a walk along the cold beach, or watching a new movie.

It would be so easy to lay the blame on him. Others often do when faced with my situation. They say that their partners always demanded or stole their time. However, I've always found that a silly thing to say. In the end I was the one who made the decision to avoid my writing. So needless to say I feel a bit wicked today, but nonetheless rested.

However, I'm not going to let this little break in my writing change my new goal just as I'm starting to form a habit and make some headway. I suppose the positive thing is that I really felt guilty about it. I've decided that I am going to keep writing on a Monday through Friday schedule.

Despite my neglect I did make a necessary selection for my future writing goals. I went through my personal library of notebooks and chose a story line to write about from the several I had. It wasn't a science fiction story like I had thought it would be, at least not entirely. The piece I chose is a solid piece of speculative fiction, a mix of several genres. There's a bit of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy in the story line. The piece I'm working on is called "The God Syndrome." It was an idea I came up with while I was in college. The notes for this story thankfully included a plot line.

Over the next few weeks I plan to expand my notes on the story. I may write a more detailed version of the plot, a mini story of sorts. I will still write a page a day, but I want to focus on building this work/ world. That and I will need to do some research on various subjects before I blindly move forward with my writing. Especially with history being an aspect to the story.

How Do You Measure a Page?

Anyone with a word processor knows that a page of writing can vary in the amount of words it contains. Double space, single space, size 10 text, size 12 text, and let's not forget font!

In high school it was common for my school mates and me to talk about tricks for getting a paper to look longer. There was changing the size of periods, and commas, messing with margins, and of course determining the size of the paper's title. Today I laugh at what I used to do. College professors never let you get away with that sort of shenanigans. That aside, I learned to love research and writing.

So why bring up all these alterations?

The answer is simple next week I'm going to start writing a page a day (offline). Picking one of my many fiction ideas is going to be another can of worms, but I'll go through my files and notebooks and pick one. So what do I consider the length of a page?

Honestly, I've always been a pen and paper girl. I like the look and feel of crossing things out, writing in the margins, using different color pens and pencils, doodling little images of characters for later reference. However, most know that a paper page never really equals the quantity of one that is typed up.

I used to do three, typed, double spaced pages a week for writing club in college. Keeping this in mind I think I'm going to do one written page a day, and when I have to rewrite I'll take that opportunity to edit and digitize the book.

So I have a question for you, if there's anyone reading this out there. How do you measure a page?