Just Feeling Really Happy

It's friday (which is never good) and my ovaries hurt, but I just feel so damn good right now. Like, ridiculously. Not getting a whole lot of words done, but I very happy with what I'm doing, and i love this stupid novel so damn much, and this contest just makes me feel like it's all actually going to come together. I mean, I have 0 expectation of winning -- there are some seriously amazing first lines there -- but that's seriously okay, and I would be so happy to lose to some of them, and just to see that people are liking mine is just... wow.

I just feel full and fluffy right now, and as though everything is coming together in the way it should. 

I'm sure I'll crash tomorrow ;)

The End of Paperwork and the Beginning of Living!!

Babababaaaaa!!!

ALL the forms are in and ALL  the fees are paid! Now, just a matter of waiting to hear when my fingerprints will need to be taken and then, in a few months, I will have my little green card! It's an inordinate relief to have it all in, it's been such a headache! Thank god for Christine and her parents!

This also marks the first step towards changing my name (weeiird!) as I had to make a split decision as to what name I wanted on my greencard it seems appropriate that this'll be the first official document in which I'll be a Wingrove (weeeiiird!!!) Still be a Symes-Smith for writing purposes though ;) 

Have also applied for a temporary work-permit so I can get on and start working whilst they process the greencard application. Who even knows when it'll all come through, but it'll happen when it happens, and I'm really starting to feel real again now! And, since all the ridiculous fees are over, we can start saving for our home and our life (and our trip to Disney World) so Weeee!!! Exciting stuff :D

The only thing left to do is tweak the ending. It's going to take twenty minutes, max. But I don't wanna. All I want to do is scroll mindlessly through tumblr and feel cross that the new Draco 'story' that J.K promised isn't up yet. It's going to be terrible and nothing we don't already know but I want it so bad!! And I don't want to finish my novel. I hate finishing things. Blergh.

A Good Day

Today was a good day, writing-wise and personally. Made big steps in my visa application and didn't have a panic-attack when I checked by bank-account. I feel like I can breathe again. 

Writing was slow but good. It was one of those scenes that needed to be maneuvered carefully and revised a couple of times to get right, but I'm very pleased with the end product. The characters have done what they needed to do and stayed true to character, which was particularly tricky today. Very much a matter of compromise. I am both excited and terrified of my writing schedule for tomorrow. I'm giving myself the evening off to just think about it. Once I've got past this point, the rest should come pretty smoothly (maybe hopefully??)

Here's some appropriate music :)

Only a Dream by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Ahhahaha when you write a risky thing and you put it up for feedback and nothing updates for an hour and you think oh no too far and each time you refresh you get a little more despondant and then that OH SHIT SOMEONE'S READ IT A WRITTEN SOMETHING punch to the gut that always comes with feedback and then you read and it's like 'Aaaaah :) '

*headdesk*

Aaand there's the crash!

I think yesterday I was running on NaNo fumes, and now they're spent. I am so written out. I don't even want to think about my story today! Actually, scrap that, I don't want to think about anything today. Nothing sounds good. I think I'm going to have a day off today, read some fic, read some Fruits Basket... I've been having alot of Furuba dreams recently; that's probably a sign about something. I wish I had all my books with me. The online ones are fine, but the translations are (more than) a little off :/ I should really start scouting out ebay to try and pick up the ones I'm missing from my collection -- 17 -- 23, I think? 

In other news, my father-in-law asked me again what my story was about last night. The time before we actually had a good conversation about it, but it caught me off guard last night so I couldn't do anybetter than, 'Eh bleh bleh a sort of fantasy thing about people doing stuff.' Literally. Word for word. I really need to improve on my summary skills. It isn't getting any easier. 

Yesterday was a good, encouraging day and today feels... Like I want to chuck the whole damn thing in and become a dentist. It's probably got something to do with the visa medical people still telling me that I have to wait to make my appointment, even though I've waited and waited and they said come back in December so I did and.... *headdesk* So now I'm in a slump. I'm going to eat bagel and drink tea and feel better :)

Today my mother poked her foot in the door of my life again (she's on holiday in Mexico and yet still has nothing better to do than cyber-stalk me...) so, as ever, I'm battling with some weird feelings that I really shouldn't have to be dealing with.

So here's a nice thing somebody said to me yesterday on the forum to make myself feel better --

Dear God, do I ever understand what Dakin is going through. Living with the memories of people you love and hate so much and seeing the part that you hate about them rise in you. That right there is something so identifiable about the human condition. Amid this wonderful, fantastic story you've created is a powerful truth. And finding that truth, as far as I'm concerned, is the purpose of storytelling. Well done!

I never consciously write about the personal relationships I have with people, but it's interesting when a third party manages to just put their finger on the complication inside your head.

This is the reason I don't regret.

A Brit in America

One of the best decisions of the year was the decision to hand-write this story. For one thing, you don't get hung up on word count or formatting, or distracted by the internet, you just sit down and scribble. It's brilliant. I did my first rough word-count a couple of days ago and was amazed to see that I'd gone over the 30,000 mark! It's really coming together, and I couldn't be happier.

However - and it's a big however - I ran out of paper. Which, in itself, is fine - it means I've written a tonne. Which is good.

What is not good is the face that America has vastly different paper to us with three punched holes instead of four, and they don't even align so I can't put the new content in with what I've already done which means I have to get a new folder, and I'm reeaally struggling not to let my Writer's OCD take over... I mean, I've been going between A4 and A5 anyway, so one more size shouldn't matter too much, and nothing is pristine. I'm much less pernickity than I used to be, just like I don't believe in writers' block anymore. It's just another excuse not to sit down and scribble.

It's just very frustrating.

The fortunate thing is that it came right at the end of writing Part 2, so it's a very neat split between types of paper. I'm estimating that I'm about half-way done, so - if I keep going as I am - I should be finished with this draft in a couple of months (scary!)

I'm starting to feel pleased with myself and I can see the end and I don't hate it! It's going to be a good book.

05/07/2014

So much has happened in the past month and I have nothing to say.

What's that about?

The facts:

• I am now in America.
• For the forseeable future.
• My computer is breaking.
• So is my Sansa.
• So are my headphones.
• I am replaying the first game I ever got for my Gameboy Colour - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
• I am totally and unequivocally uninspired and unproductive. At least I had an excuse when I thought my Dell was dead. What's my excuse now?
• I went for a week without writing a word.
• I don't know how I feel about that. 
• I wish it was November NaNo.
• I much prefer the person I am in America. 
• I hate myself in England. I am an uptight bitch in England.  
• I have to teach myself how to relax in all aspects of my life. 
• Everything's going to be okay. 

Big Emotional Climaxes Are Scary

I have often found that the element of the story I am working on that has been in my head the longest is the one I find hardest to commit to paper. I have imagined it time and time again; the imagery is as clear as though it were playing on a screen. I know precisely how my characters feel, I have choreographed their every move, but I cannot for the life of me bring myself to write it down. 

In the past year, I have heard the phrase 'no one can write your story but you' repeated very frequently across the interwebs, and I believe there is a great truth in that. But, as such, I feel the increased pressure to get It Right. Because if I don't - if I fail to express myself perfectly, or fail to paint the picture I have in my imagination - that's all that's going to be left. No one else is going to correct it, no one else is going to make it better. And that is bloody scary! 

I think that's probably why I find it easier to get out the words in my ghostwriting - it doesn't matter so much; I'm not going to be judged so harshly on that. They aren't my stories, so they aren't tied to me in the way that my own work is. My novel is what people will look at to judge me, and so it has to be the best I can make it. Nothing makes me more self-conscious, and that sucks because I am not a self-conscious person. I couldn't care less what people think about me in any other aspect of my life, but I care deeply about what people think of me as a writer. 

Blergh. 

But it's going well, I think. I've started my second second draft (I've been stuck in some sort of Groundhog Day and the missus has finally banned me from starting again, so I need to make this one count!) and I've got thirty-four pages. It coming much more smoothly now I've scrapped my experimental style and gone back to a more simple form. I like it much better - I can go from character to character without it being a bother - and they don't feel as pathetic now. But I've just got to the first Big Emotional Climax and it's making me nervous. It's the turning point of the whole story and I need to get it right. 

Commitment issues, that's what it is. Oh so many commitment issues. 

This is what I'm listening to to try and get me into the zone - I Gave You All by Mumford & Sons

The Ups and the Downs.

There is nothing in-between.

One moment, I am on top of the world, flying high as a kite; everything is Good, and life couldn't be better.

The next...Well, suffice it to say, I feel like the most incompetent person and the worst writer ever to grace the surface of the planet. I look back at the writing I was so pleased with two days ago and I just want to cry. How had I ever thought that anyone would want to read that? How could I ever be so delusional as to think that I was good at it?

But I've always been this way, and I suppose I'm used to it to some degree?

The good and the bad thing now - and the thing that I am still trying to teach myself - is how to continue to function whilst riding the low. Before, I could just set my pen down and forget about it for as long as it took to pick myself out of the funk. But now there is no choice. Now I have to suck it up and keep going, with my work and with my novel.

How do you continue with something that has to be top quality whilst feeling like it's the worst thing ever? How can you tell if it really is crap, or if it's just your black mood?

I don't know.

Someone tell me the trick, please.  

Greetings and an introduction.

Good afternoon, and welcome to my blog!

My name is Esme Symes-Smith and I am a twenty-one year-old freelance writer and editor.

This blog will be a source of procrastination, rambles, rants and story-telling on topics such as 'The Plight of the Arts Graduate', 'The Hilarities of the Life of the Freelancer', and 'Ugh! Why Haven't I Finished My Novel Yet???', and the like.

 I will share you excerpts of what I am working on (not the ghost-writing stuff though, before anyone tries to sue me!) along with tit-bits of advice for all you writers out there.

In this field, I am more than qualified - I was a child poet, a teenage fanfictioneer, an English Graduate, and now I am a professional writer of Twilight/50 Shades short stories (no, I don't want to talk about it) Trust me, I know what you're going through.

Have faith and enjoy!

Esme