One Year of Writing

Today is an anniversary. Not of dating or anything Sammy related. A year ago today I started working on my newest novel idea. This idea came to me, I hate to say it, in a dream. After a summer of sort of plodding along with an idea I'd been trying to re-work for years, I had this dream which absolutely compelled me. I decided it was time to at least give it a shot. To my surprise, this story just flowed out of me.

I keep track of my progress and word count with these sticky notes.

I finished the first draft in two and a half months, writing in the morning, between classes, sometimes even in class if the professor was just plodding along. I just couldn't stop! Then, to my surprise, after giving the story a bit of a break, I actually had ideas on how to make it better. I ended up editing the beginning of this story multiple times my last semester as a senior honors project. I kept up writing after that, and finished a second draft on July 2nd. That was something that I've never done before, gotten to a second draft.

Ever since finishing that draft, I've been writing some other things. Every time I thought about my second draft, I couldn't help but think how stupid that story is. I'd think of it and shudder. I know it needs a whole lot more work, and I'd just think of how much it sucks. I was feeling a little down and like I'll never finish it.

This past Saturday, I decided to re-read that story to re-familiarize myself with it. And to my surprise, it doesn't utterly suck. It's actually a little good.

Just looking at how far I've come in this last year to getting closer to my dreams, I'm getting really excited, and I'm proud of myself. I can't wait to see where the next year takes me!

Comments

Fake

I feel like a lot of times when going through blogger, I'm always pushing the boundaries a bit. A lot of blogs seem to always be happy and awesome and they just won this free product from someone and it's great! And then, I'm over here in my little corner of the blogosphere wondering, hey, should I actually write about this? Is this something that you just pretend like it never happens? Am I the only one this happens to? My favorite moments are when I find someone cutting down those walls and sharing what life is actually like. That they have zits. That they don't have the perfect relationship and baby. That they've struggled with mental health. That they're secretly gross like me. (I took a quiz on buzz feed about how secretly gross are you, and I got pretty gross. In the guise of not being fake, I am sharing this fact with you all!) When I find those blog posts, I instantly feel a connection with that person and will automatically follow them on their life j...

Liebster-ing it up!

Funny story. A few days ago I was reading all the blogs I follow like I usually do. And of course I read Jana's blog and read about how she had won the Liebster award. I had no idea what it was, so I read her post full of fun facts, and for everyone I kept nodding my head going, I DO THAT TOO! Then today I re-read her blog, and realized that she'd nominated me for the Liebster award as well! It was a very exciting moment. Thank you! So I guess this is how it works, I think, I'm new to this whole thing. I totally just stole this off Jana's blog ;) "The Liebster Blog Award is given to bloggers by bloggers. It is a way to acknowledge each other and say 'you're doing a great job.' It is for blogs with 200 or less followers, so it's also a great way to spread the word about smaller blogs & get them more readers/ followers! When you receive the award, you post 11 random facts about yourself and answer 11 questions from the person who nominated y...

Christmas Lights

It’s funny having a baby and then trying to do things. I’ve noticed over the last year that I’ve gotten an I Can’t do that sort of attitude. We can’t do that because Aaron will cry and we’ll get cranky and so on. I’m really trying to work on that. My anxiety out in public is much worse too. Now I have two people to protect not just myself. The library definitely changed how I look at places and I wish it hadn’t. Sammy really wanted to go to a Christmas village downtown but I was too overwhelmed by all the logistics. So we compromised and went to one near us. It was so much fun! It was cold out but not too too bad. Aaron loves looking at the Christmas lights at our apartments, and he really loved these ones. It was so much more fun trying to look at these things through his eyes. He was also fascinated by the mini Santa and Mrs. Clause at grandma’s house. I’m so glad we went and can’t wait to go next year when he’s walking:)

Crazy Socks & Writer's Block

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