Sunday 28 March 2010

5. Jack Of All Trades

I had a lot of things I wanted to talk about yesterday, but yesterday turned out to be a bad day for me. I won't go into it, I don't want a drama blog but I would like to thank my best friend Bear aka M.E for being there for me literally at the drop of a hat and kicking my arse into shape, I love you for that. And I want to squish my other very close friend G.C too for also being around when I needed her, it's not often the people you revolve your life around are there when it counts, friends, family, lovers, so I definitely love you for saying 'HA' to my cynical side.



I confess I fully intended to bitch and moan about my life yesterday. The title was "Cry To Me.' I know, unforgivable. However, having given myself a day to remember why I wanted to keep this blog in the first place I realized I'd only be setting a precedent to cry my heart out, if anything I wanted to inspire and encourage, not leave anyone feeling all 'awww bless her' or 'Shut up, and quit whining' because the truth is everyone's life sucks sometimes, if we spent time dwelling on it every time then life would suck permanently.



So moving on, I was writing notes on a story, yes another one and not 'Rehab', wait a minute, let me explain? I was writing notes on this Urban Fantasy I've been dying to write, the adventure, the exploring of a different way, life, it fascinates me. Anyway, I wasted a little bit of my life when I signed into facebook to see what was on other peoples mind and found the update of a group I'd joined called 'The Writing Hall' to be very interesting. It was something like... Do you write for different genres, or do you stick to the same one?



I definitely like to venture into other genres, and if I'm honest I wouldn't have it any other way, I have an unruly muse and as a few friends have said an imagination outside the box, I'm not always as confident as I should be about my writing. My reason for this is simple, loved ones lie, I can understand why too, you want to encourage the people you love to prosper, and they need people to believe in them even when they don’t believe in themselves.



A perfect example is American Idol. Need I say more? Thousands of bad singers, and I mean the very best of the tone deaf singers audition every year on that show, they're taken the piss out of too, their sham auditions always overshadowing the good ones and all for ratings. Their families are constantly telling them they are good, that they can sing Mariah Carey, Whitney and Christina Aguilera songs when they can't even sing 'Twinkle Little Star' without getting pitchy. It's not good to lie to your closest, compliments gives confidence and criticism kind of deflates some of that confidence but ultimately we learn from the latter. I get that you want your child to believe that they can do anything, and why not right? But don't send them into the real world unprepared, give them options, show them the long road to achieving their dreams not the easy one. Audition on live TV. No, get singing lessons, train your voice, learn to play an instrument. Am I wrong?



So yeah, sometimes I question whether my family and friends love me too much to point out what doesn't work, and I understand it but we all need to strive to be better anyway no matter how good we 'think' we are!



I've gotta start learning to stay on topic, ugh. The point was, I write in as many as I can but after stumbling on an article titled 'Generalist' which is what I am, I found myself wondering if that is in fact a good thing.



Generalist VS Specialist



I have a friend who only writes romances, another who only writes horrors while I've done both on more than one occasion among other genres, I wouldn’t say I was perfect at either. Some compliment me on thinking outside the box and being full of so many fresh ideas I wonder if it is the reason I never finish any of my stories, in fact I don’t have to wonder. I don't give myself enough time to develop a niche in any particular genre, though I mostly attempt supernatural type stories recently.



Is it good to be a Generalist writer, or should we master one genre?



Generalists have short attention spans, check, but we can market to a broader audience. While being a specialist at something is important I think it limits you as a writer to be a specialist of one, I'd rather be a Jack of all trades and have a little knowledge about a lot of things, just enough to make me dangerous. LOL

I love letting my characters take control, and I love that my freak muse Clo can't even sit still let alone stick to one genre of writing. I don't finish stories because I'm not strong enough to let my babies go yet, to let them into the world to be judged, when I am you'll know about it.







Title info. None




Gece,




ThaWriterzSoundtrack.

Tuesday 16 March 2010

4. Goodnight Goodnight

I've never been more tired, I can barely keep my eyes open but I really want to get another chapter of 'Rehab' done, I'm contemplating taking a nap for a few hours but it's already six in the evening. I already have trouble sleeping at night so I'm not sure it would be a good idea to sleep so early because then I'd wake up at some ungodly hour and be up till morning. Meanwhile, I'm not awake enough to write the twenty second chapter of 'Rehab' and make sense!!!



Argh, I write something every day even if it's not a full chapter and I just have a feeling that if I don't try and write something now I'll miss a day. This afternoon, my sister and I had to go to the hospital for her blood test, she has to have it day before Chemo which is every fortnight but we're in there every week anyway because she has a Hickman line that needs to be flushed regularly to avoid any blood clots forming. These appointments leave me completely shattered and I'm not even the one getting treatment, I don't know how she does it, my sister. I have a great of respect and admiration for her, she's been receiving treatment for over a year now and it's been the toughest year of our lives but she still keeps strong. We've grown so close to her personal nurses who aren't incredibly older than us, the most is ten years but I don't feel the gap and I was saying to my sis, either they're too young to be old or we're too old to be young. I definitely think it's the latter, I think I've always been an old soul, my friends  have always been older than me and I was dubbed the agony aunt more than once. LOL

Of the two nurses, one went on holiday to Australia for a month which was a bummer for us because we get on with her so well, she does 'Porkies' impressions that leave us in tears and then there is the other one who is so adorable and with the times, unlike nurse backpacking who doesn't even have internet and just bought her first iPod, we were very proud. I should really find cover names for them, hmm, from now on let's call 'Porkie' obsessed Kelly and adorable Patsy. Patsy is a total Sci fi nerd like me and when she found I wrote she was squeeing, we exchanged emails and I started sending her chapters of my Sci fi story which she's loving and has already resorted to threatening me to get the others to her.
I also ran into an old friend, he's a writer too and we agreed to swap stories but because I'm such a disorganized existence I forgot to and now I'm realizing it's been a few months. The plan is to do that after my chapter but right now I've gotta go make some food because I'm hungry, hopefully it keeps me awake longer. LOL


Tile info. Maroon 5



Adieus,



ThaWriterzSoundtrack.

3. Trouble

I really wish I didn't get so hung up on titles; it's always been an issue of mine. I sat here for the best part of fifteen minutes wondering what I should title this entry, because obviously, I'm a little obsessive when it comes to them and character names etc.

I weigh myself down with details that could probably be filled in later; I don't know what it is. I like spending time on those things because I think it's as important as the story, it's what represents what you're going to read (sometimes). I like my titles to be a little vague so that readers don't really know what to expect, if I title my story something like "Love & Basketball" then you can assume it's about falling in love and playing basketball.

"Cruel Intentions," Oo, I guess someone is going to intentionally be a bitch to everyone, so cruel. I like titles like 'Awake' or 'Almost' the latter is mine, I like to create a enough room for theories and ideas on what it could be about, I know when I've seen titles like the ones I just mentioned I go into prediction mode and end up creating a whole story that has nothing to do with the story itself. Of course, then I keep the idea and it goes in my plot bunny folder.

Seriously, if I haven't said it before nice to meet you, I'm a complete scatterbrain who had an actual reason to post tonight and somehow it became about titles.

Mmmh, it was probably about how professional I am at procrastinating as I've successfully done it again. Yay me! I'm currently working on a story 'Rehab,' yeah, not vague at all, or is it? LOL I've been writing it since last summer, a little before my birthday and it's finally coming to an end, I'm thinking it will be wrapped in another 10,000 words.

The trouble with me is (notice how I made use of track name? LOL) I start a story and it gains momentum, I'm excited and it's flowing, the characters voices are clear as bells...then the ending reveals itself to me and all of a sudden I'm not writing anymore, I have other ideas I could be working on or fanfic stories I need to post. Why I do this? I have no idea, I started another story last year, for the NanoWrimo challenge and won thankfully, it's called 'WIPS' I know, right? I've hit 70,000 words and I can feel the end coming, guess what? I'm not writing it at the moment. I do not finish any of my stories, unless you count the short ones that are usually no longer than 10,000 words, right now I suck at committing to one story and it's frustrating as hell. And no, I've never actually been to hell, don't ask me stupid questions?

Did I mention I had issues?

Well, I'm barely awake so time for bed. I'd like to blame lethargy for this all over the place entry, but alas it's all me.

Title Info. Ray Lamontagne.

Gute Nacht,

ThaWriterzSoundtrack.

Sunday 14 March 2010

2. Mother's Day!

I was planning on updating this blog yesterday but my brother came over, and I haven't seen him for a few weeks so I did what those close to me would say was impossible, I shut down the laptop. Yep, craziness!

We hung out, which is always fun and watched a couple videos. Specifically, battle videos on Grind Time which are really good, I definitely prefer rap battles over actual rap music in the industry right now. We also watched a couple of videos on youtube 'Human Body' Muay Thai, I found it especially interesting as my brothers take Muay Thai twice a week, some of the moves and the devastating damage it can do was both fascinating and scary. I've always loved Kung fu movies, grew up watching it with my parents, brother and sister at the time so there aren't many Kung Fu movies I haven't seen.

 I myself have always been interested in taking lessons but I'm not sure which would suit me, I'd like to do mixed material arts and learn a bit of a lot styles. But, right now I'm considering Taekwondo, Ninjutsu and Wing chun.

On another note, my sister and I have successfully converted my brother into a Vampire Diaries fan, my cousin was here too so we put on the first one and by the end of the second one, they were hooked. Romance isn't usually my brother's thing, but he's a fan of bad guys and that's what Damon is, he also likes the possiblity of Stefan's struggle not to want blood. He may not feed on humans anymore but seriously, he always looks like he wants to, he can't help how he reacts to the sight and smell and so there's always that risk that he'll fall off the wagon, and I look foward to it.

Anyway, enought about that. I really wanted to post tonight to wish every mother out there a Happy Mother's day! My mother is very special to me, she's the strongest woman I've ever known and I aspire to be half the person she is, my sister and I lay in bed this morning and we were laughing when he realized how many children she actually has. By blood she has five kids, four girls and a boy but she has soo much more by heart and it's incredible. Admittedly, I'm not always a happy bunny when it comes to sharing her but our family has become so much bigger, it brings me great joy to know and see how many people love my mum and thank God everyday for her being in their lives. The people she's helped, taken in, given a second chance and the lives that she's changed for the better truly makes me so proud to be her daughter.

I love you, mummy!

Hugs to all the mama's around the globe.

Ja matta ne,

ThaWriterzSountrack.

Friday 12 March 2010

1. Intro

So I decided it was time for me to actually use my blog, I had/have one previous to this called "BehindTheBar" It's a series I've started but haven't gotten round to polishing up and publishing. I didn't want poor Izzy to fade into the background so I figured creating a blog would keep my plans to continue fresh, with me talking about it I'm less likely to forget.

Thing is, I'm a writer, a good one at that but alas I'm a disorganized, scatterbrained mess with the long term goal of being published one day! I've been writing since I can remember and boy do I remember, there was a time when everything I wrote was cringe worthy, cliche garbage but in my defense when you're a young teen it's hard to separate yourself and what you want from the characters and what they need. I had that very problem, you can guess my favourite genre was romance, where I unintentionally *Scouts honour* created a Mary Sue or two who got everything she wanted, most time including the guy.

Now when reading back, I cringe and get all embarrassed about the stuff that I came up with but I'm also quite chuffed with myself for noticing a vast difference in my writing. I still write romance but having grown out of corny long ago, most of the romance I do write is quite the opposite now that I know where my characters are going and what their motivations are. {Insert tip} The most important thing in any story is conflict, it's not realistic to have characters, especially the MC liked or loved by everybody because life isn't like that.


Anywho, before I totally digress on my introduction. I'm a writer with more than a few ambitions, hobbies, quirks, dreams, strengths and weaknesses and I plan to write about them in this blog.

Ciao,

                                                                                                                            ~ ThaWriterzSoundtrack