71 down, 9 to go. Plus, deadlinneeee!! Oh boy.

Chapters of my novel, that is. Just nine more chapters to go until I finish my big disorganized heffa of a book. ;)

I skipped a chapter and a half to write a really entertaining one called "Hurricane Bertha" (72). G's in for a surprise concerning the girl he's developed a bit of a crush on, but for the time being the chapter's atmosphere is really quite pleasant, which let me tell you is a rare occurrence in a book about mental illness. G and his fellow BPs in the guys' ward at good old Perry Springs (= the most epic psychiatric hospital ever, kthx) were watching the news in the day room the other day when they discovered there was a pretty big storm on its way! To make their lives more interesting, they decided to pretend it was a full-out hurricane, which G named Bertha after his deceased schizophrenic great-aunt.

There was also an interesting, pretty much unrelated two-page scene in which G went through three moods. This was surprisingly easy to pull off, though I did have to make sure I just cruised through it in one shot. It was unrelated to the hurricane stuff, but still necessary because at the end of it, G got a call to inform him that his baby sister was born! Yay! :) He's been waiting for that for months.

Unfortunately, the paranoid personalities in Hall B got wind of the "Hurricane Bertha" fabrication, and as a result, they are all royally freaking out and watching the news like their life depended on it. That means there's no room on the couch anymore for the BPs, but then again they kind of asked for it, didn't they? :P

In other news, I own the Facebook page for Borderline Personality Disorder Awareness Month, which you definitely want to check out if you have Facebook. Randi Kreger, the author of two of my FAVORITE BPD research books, recently asked me to write an article on BPDA Month for her blog on Psychology Today's website (yes, the magazine). Of course I couldn't pass up this amazing opportunity, so I took a bit of time away from writing G's life story to compose that. The title of this post links to it, so feel free to check that out too.

May 31st, 2010 is the deadline I'd set for myself to have the first draft of "Life in Black and White" completed - I'm going to get to work now, because that date is fast approaching and I hope I can make it!

It's A Wonderful World

Today, I've come to the realization that as horrible and shitty as my book seems now, serious editing will make it better. And one day it will be a beautiful thing, a true work of art, if it's the last thing I do.

I've been a bit novel-depressed the past couple days. See, currently I'm writing a short series of chapters which contain quite a few law elements and other things involving the judicial system (before you ask, G is not a serial killer. He's just kind of... rebellious. And besides, most of this law stuff has nothing to do with him), which I know barely anything about, and so the chapters are extremely hard to get accurate, speed-writing as I am. Despite the fact that it's only my first draft, instances like this one never, ever fail to make me feel like a grossly incompetent, sloppy writer. I just cannot seem to get it into my thick skull that there will be editing, and lots of it. What I'm writing right now is most certainly not what I'll be sending in to my publisher.

Feeling like a horrible writer makes most writers' confidence go down a few pegs, and I'm sad to say that I didn't escape this predicament. I was uninspired. I wanted to take the printed chapters of my book and throw them against the wall. Yesterday, I actually asked myself if the story was too far gone down the crappy route to be continued, and the fact that I would have even for a mere millsecond considered breaking my pledge to Never, Ever Abandon "Life" scares me to no end.

This morning, I still felt pretty crappy about my story. But when I got home from class, something weird happened. I thought to myself, perhaps subconsciously, "Maybe I need to stop forcing it. Maybe I just need to concentrate on something else for today. I can forget, just for one day, that I'm a writer."

So that's what I did. Today, I wasn't a writer, but rather an activist.

I spent the entire afternoon, from half past noon till five o'clock, getting things done for the BPD Feature Project. I fixed the group's name, pasted the link on a few websites, drafted a letter to Randi Kreger (founder of BPD Central), and last, but not least... made a video to Dr. Phil. That last one took me about two hours, but it was two hours well-spent.

At the end of the day, I was left with an accomplished feeling. I felt good about what I was doing, and rather like I could move mountains, if I tried.

Am I really going to let three "difficult" chapters stand in my way? No. No, I am most certainly not. I will write these chapters, and they might be awful... but they're not written in stone. I have to remember that, or else I'll never move forward.

I realized another very important thing today: that although I am perhaps not the person most gifted with words, and wording, and phrases and expressions; although I am not the best writer out there; although I sometimes feel like my writing and chapter plots are sloppy and amateur, even despite it being the first draft... I do know one thing for sure.

All clumsiness aside, I can tell one hell of a story.

And you can call it bragging if that's what you want to call it, I'm perfectly fine with that. That knowledge is what keeps me going sometimes, and to me, that's all that matters.

Too busy to think of a title for this post

Mood: Wired

Listening to: MIKA - I See You

Wants: - A new phone
- To work on Chapter 42/43

Is stuck doing: Anatomy and psychology revision

Needs: Another coffee

Should: Be doing something productive and not be writing up this blog post.

Tired of: - Studying
- The thought of having to go to work tonight. -_-

Wishes: Statistics class did not make me want to shoot myself in the head.

Loves: - G + J <3
- Libaw
- The fact that I will be en route to Montreal in 8 days
- MIKA
- My cat, who is currently petting my arm

*smiles, closes window and reluctantly shuffles off to the whiteboard to study*

Back from work, and victory. :)

So I just got home from work and duly noted that literally my whole house is now decorated for Halloween. O__o We know what my mom did today!

Before work, I finished Chapter 41! :D It took a little longer than I expected, because I had to revamp a scene that just wasn't working AT ALL. But now it's all cute, fluffy (not in the cheesy romance sense, mind you!) and depressing, as typical, and I'm quite happy with it.

Finishing Chapter 41 is kind of a small victory for me, because it contains a "milestone" of sorts for G that I've been really quite reluctant to write (and just in case you're as dirty-minded as I am, no, it's not that :P). But I sucked in my ridiculous amount of affection for him and just wrote the damn thing. I made sure to write it all in one shot, as it is quite upsetting and I knew I would avoid finishing it forever.

So now, it's done. And I feel better prepared for all the heart-wrenching scenes still to come.


*


In other news, I just got an e-mail from Sharon Joseph at http://monctonwritersclub.blogspot.com/, in response to my great, huge, all-consuming, borderline-creepy desire to join her WRITERS CLUB! :D I am so very excited at the prospect of finally, finally, FINALLY joining a writers' group. Like, you don't even get how excited I am.

I NEED MORAL SUPPORT AS I VENTURE DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO MY CHARACTER'S INSANITY, AND MONCTON WRITERS CLUB SHALL BE MY SAVIOUR!!!

Haha... now THAT was borderline-creepy. Sorry. I'm just uber-excited.

Chapter 42 and anatomy revision, here I come!

Publication and Plea

Click the title to see the webpage of Scribblers and Ink Spillers, LLC. Their October issue of Emerald Tales magazine was just released, and it contains my poem, This Mask I Wear. :) This is my third poem to be published, and I'm excited about its release! Emerald Tales also contains several other wonderful, compelling short works, so if you would like to purchase a copy, please visit the webpage! The magazine is available in both print and electronic formats.



Things are going somewhat slowly on my end, but well nonetheless. School has started up again, so my time for writing is limited. However, I'm not about to let my fancy-snazzy psychiatric studies stop me from getting to Part III of the novel in time for National Novel Writing Month! Which I do religiously every year! (This year's profile: http://http//www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/406001)

So, just as soon as I've finished this post, I'm off to finish Chapter 41-Chapter 42. I have two hours and twenty-five minutes left before I am forced to get up and get ready for work, but I'll let you know how it goes. :) Chapter 41 is very nearly done, and Chapter 42 is about halfway, so unless some sort of natural disaster happens here it really should be no problem.

I'm pumped!

I can't wait for NaNo, absolutely not!

And apparently someone up there really, really feels my urgency to get to the end of Chapter 60, because my mom and I have managed to score two tickets to go see MIKA in Montreal. You know what that means...

MIKA? YAY? - Well, that too.

But mostly, it means that the drive from N.B. to Montreal is approximately 10 hours. And the drive from Montreal to N.B. is also 10 hours. So that, my friends, means 20 hours of absolutely nothing to do but WRITE. PART. II. And listen to my grandparents' forties country music in the van, but that's an utterly different story.

Awesome.

I'm excited.

As long as I have my coffee, I CAN STAY AWAKE. Which is why I will be ordering this: https://store.lettersandlight.org/merchandise/nanowrimo-brown-travel-mug with much due haste. Because I CAN DO IT.

So my goal is to finish at least up to Chapter 45 before October 13th, when we leave for Montreal. And considering I'm almost done Chapter 41, I CAN DO THAT, TOO.

Yay! Realistic goals ftw!



Alright, guys... so before I go, there's one more thing I wanted to mention.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=100174976965&ref=ts

The link above will bring you to The BPD Feature Project's Facebook group. If you would like to help bring awareness to a severe mental illness, please join us. Our goal is to convince Dr. Phil to feature borderline personality disorder (G's mental illness) on his show. If he does, that would certainly kick up the general knowledge a few knotches! So again, if you have Facebook, please join. It's a very simple process and won't take a lot of your time.



And with that, I'm off to write! :) Have a nice day, everyone.

Love, N.L.

Inspiration is found in the strangest of places.

It's G's birthday in four days. So since I failed to finish Chapter 39 for last Wednesday, August 8th is my new, hopefully final deadline. I know, I know, I should be writing instead of updating on here. Shoot me.

I have a question for anyone who might happen upon this blog. Where do you get your writing inspiration? For me, it happens in all sorts of places and all sorts of times. I'll often get a good idea in the wee hours of the morning, on a short day trip (on which I have NOT brought a writing pad, of course, because I'm just that lucky), or in the shower. One of my most important subplots came up in the shower, actually, almost fully-formed.

But for the most part, my inspiration comes from music. I've always been that loser who makes soundtracks for her stories. Simply put, when I hear a song that reminds me of my novel in any way, it motivates me to write. When I hear a song that reminds me of a certain part or chapter, I want to write that part or chapter. I listen to music every waking moment, or at least almost.

Currently, I am quite in love with the new Black Eyed Peas hit "I Gotta Feeling". Mika's new "We Are Golden" is also a huge one for me right now (it certainly helps that Mom is Mika's hugest fan and basically stalks him). If we're talking long-term, though, Gordon Lightfoot's "Carefree Highway" is my personal favorite novel-fitting song. And those are just a few of the tunes that have inspired me over time.

What inspires you? What motivates you?

In other news, I have completed Chapter 36. Moving on. :)

Update before I watch Big Brother!

Big Brother is on in ten minutes (yay!), but seeing as I haven't posted in a few days now, I thought I would just drop it for a few moments and say hi.

So, hi!

As far as writing is concerned... progress could be worse, but it certainly could be better. In my defense, I've just completed three consecutive eight-hour shifts at work. Chapter 36 is almost done, which is wonderful, and really, all I care about at this point.

Yes, I failed to complete up to Chapter 40 for last Wednesday. Shoot me.

My Writing Friend A (WFA) is coming over to watch a couple episodes of Mental tomorrow, and afterwards, we shall head over to the Starbucks attached to work to get a bit of writing done. She is also in the process of writing a rather psychological novel. We were actually talking about the striking similarities our protagonists have today, and it's true - they do have a lot in common! G and her character are both male, mentally ill and not heterosexual (her character is gay and G is bisexual).

Since the day was extremely long at work (it was, after all, Sunday), WFA, WFB and I also made fun of diverse genre romance character names. Our favorite author is Katie McAllister, whose characters have highly amusing, unrealistic names like "Pia", "Drake", "Theondre", etc. Ironically enough, G also shares his name with a Katie McAllister cover-hottie. But his name is normal, and not Theondre-like. G's name is hardly worthy of a Katie McAllister novel, I say. Because of this, however, WFB predicted that my novel would, somewhere along the way, become a genre romance about sailors. I do agree that G would make an excellent sailor, but honestly, take me out back and shoot me dead if my novel ever becomes even somewhat reminiscent of a genre romance. To each his (or rather, her) own, but those books absolutely drive me up the wall.

Anyway, Big Brother's starting! So I have to go, but I will try to post again tomorrow!

Behold!

Allow me to introduce my cast of characters, who will undoubtedly be much talked about on this blog. Because I love them so. This is really just to avoid confusion (read: and because I love to talk about my characters), which would be completely inevitable should I not write up this post.

My Lovely Characters:

G - My beloved protagonist. The novel covers fifteen years of his life, from the age of five to twenty, and throughout these years he goes through many issues, from compulsive spending to "OMGWTF UR A JERK/BITCH!!1"-type confrontations. It might be a good idea to mention that G is profoundly gifted, and also that he is severely mentally ill. That last one is especially good to mention considering his mental illness is kind of the whole point of the story.

I - G's legal guardian. How she became his legal guardian is an immeasurably long story.

DR - G's psychiatrist. He dislikes the nearby psychiatric institution and wants it closed. He also dislikes G a little bit when G takes yet another immature fit along the lines of, "My life sucks and no one loves me."

C - G's psychologist, an expert in his disorder, who never, ever dislikes G no matter what his mood's like, who manages an entire therapy group of people like G twice a week for two hours, and who therefore has much, much more patience than I ever will.

J - G's love interest (love interest being the understatement of the year), who does not return his feelings and who is also a registered sociopath.

Y - One of G's three best friends.

Z - One of G's three best friends.

A - A young girl who lives in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada, who appears to have absolutely nothing to do with this story but really, really does.

V - Said young Sackville girl's older brother.

S - G's twin sister. She has learning disabilities.

These are my most major characters. Other characters may come up in a post, but I will make sure to clearly label them and explain their role when and if they do.