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

A True Hogwarts Experience

Hogwarts is Here!

Good ol' Tumblr has come in for me again! Yesterday I came across a post about a new Harry Potter website. At first, I thought it was a University-style website for Hogwarts, you know - a syllabus, student-experiences etc. type thing. But oh-my-gosh it is so much more than that!

It's an entirely free site which enable you to become a Hogwarts student - taking classes, doing marked assignments reading coursebooks. It's brilliant, and completely satisfies my academic cravings. So far I have submitted the first week's assignments for A History of Magic and come out with a decent 95%. All assignments are marked by the professor in charge of the subject, which is very refreshing, rather than a computer algorithm, and gives a very authentic educational experience. It's hard not to take it very seriously.

Here's a sample of the graded assignment - 

Review Assignment: Importance of History (Essay)

Your Grade 95%

Essay PromptExplain to me in a maximum of three paragraphs why the study of history is important to you. Also explain why people should take history classes, or why you think students are forced to take history. Use evidence from your book or your knowledge of magical history to support your stance. Keep a strong central thought and please be sure to make references to our world. Muggle world history is interesting, but this is History of Magic. Do not spend more than 30 mins. on this assignment.
Grammar and spelling will be accounted for as will syntax. My PA's and I are very persnickety and read over your essays carefully.

Student Response
To me, history - be it magical or muggle - is one of the most fundamentally crucial aspects of wizarding education, and society as a whole. It can show us, step by step, where have come from, how we came to be the people we are today, and - most importantly - precisely where the future will take us. 
History is a constant constant tangent and should be used to predict the events of the future, rather than simply being implemented as a dry, theoretical study that serves little purpose other than to bore students to tears. It is easy forget, when looking at figures and events of the past, that they are real things that happened to real wizards, just like us. In fifty years time, the Wizarding War of 1997 will be regarded as 'History'; will students of the future regard that as fictitiously and as unimportantly as the Goblin Rebellion of 1612? Modern wizarding students need to be taught to view history with an eye to the future in order to the ensure that any mistakes made are a result of trial and error, rather than mindless ignorance. 
In the introduction to A History of Magic, Mallory H. states that 'Magical history is every bit of foggy and whimsical as every other aspect of magical studies.' Whilst I can understand the basic point that Mallory is trying to make, I must respectfully disagree with her. It is this thinking that provides the modern wizarding community the excuse to dismiss its history as a dusty product of the past and is the reason why magical students  - the Ministerial workers and teachers of the future - fail to take the subject as seriously as they ought. History of Magic, as a Hogwarts subject, must be made interesting and accessible if the mistakes resulting in the war of 1997 are not to be repeated. It was pure ignorance that lead us there, and education is the antidote to that ignorance.        

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It was quite hard to get into the head-space of a wizarding student - the point is to not write from a muggle perspective - and it was even harder to keep it to three paragraphs, but what a fantastic site! I feel like I've been waiting for something like this for the last decade! 

Hope to see you all there!

Re-Evaluation Time and Some Music Recs

I've come to the conclusion that the more you think about a project, the harder it is to execute. I'm at a complete block with Bonsai; I know exactly what needs to happen, it just isn't. So I'm going to step back from it and, in a few weeks, start plotting properly. When I was ghostwriting my NA novel, it was extremely helpful to have a scene-by-scene plan, so I think I'm going to make one of those. At the moment, it's very much lacking focus, and I seem to have been sacrificing plot for style. I think I'm going to rewrite in a less experimental way. One of the aspects I was most please with regarding The Moon Path was that it read like a book - it wasn't trying too hard and it flowed well - so I think I need to go back to that.  

Basically, I need to treat it like a ghostwriting project and distance myself from it. 

In other news:

This is what I'm listening to at the moment - 

Lana Del Ray - Gods & Monsters It's taken me a while to discover Lana (yes, I know - I'm super slow!) but now I'm hooked! She has a fantastically unique style - pop-y and hypnotic all at once. Also very keen on Dark Paradise from the same album. 

I have also discovered Taylor Davis - an amazingly talented violinist who popped onto my Tumblr dash a few days ago with her own cover of the Doctor Who theme (see embedded) I thoroughly and passionately recommend checking out her whole Youtube channel, especially her covers of Now We Are Fee (Gladiator)  and Promentory (Last of the Mohicans)

Today, I have forgotten how to write.

And it really sucks. I've spent the last few months deciding that Writers' Block is a silly excuse, but today it's hit me hard.

Blergh!

I hate unproductive days.

A General Update

I feel like a lot has been going on this past week - nothing big, just a lot of it. The air smells different, and everything has shifted slightly. 

• Last week, I was dropped from a project I was becoming very immersed in. It was quite a jolt back to reality. It's hard enough finishing something, but being pulled out of a world unexpectedly is even worse. Thankfully, it was nothing I had done, but I wish that I'd had some warning in preparation. The story was by no means one of my favourites, but the world and the characters were finally becoming solid in my mind and now they've been taken away from me. I miss them very much, but I have no rights to them. That's the worst part of being a ghostwriter. 

• I've finally been given the go-ahead to start the sci-fi/fantasy novel, and it's going absolutely fantastically. It's coming very naturally to me, and I really think I'll be able to create something beautiful, something I would be proud of to call my own, out of it. It's going to be incredibly tough to give it up, but I'm not going to think about that until the end. I'm just going to enjoy it.

• For my own writing, I'm going back and forth between my fanfic and Bonsai. Both are going reasonably well, although I have days where I cannot bear to look at either. I am thankful that I have so many different projects on the go, so if I hate a couple there always something else to work on. I can't not be writing - it makes me irksome. 

• My partner and I have finally sent of for my fiancee visa. Very nerve-wracking. All the fingers crossed. 

• I am falling hard for Veronica Roth's Divergent. I am trying to resist, but it's a big struggle. If I was still in my days of deep fandom, I would be ficcing the hell out of it! As it is, I am reading and learning and using it to inspire my own writing. I wouldn't call her a brilliant writer, but she has a very easy, very skilled way of immersing the reader deep into her world and into the minds of her characters. I am very impressed. I've fallen a little bit in love with Tobias Eaton, but I suppose that was unbearably predictable. I'm a sucker for a hard-luck case. 

Falling Behind and Going Backwards

Having taken a few days off for a friend's wedding, I am desperately struggling with my NaNo. The key to success is definitely making sure that you some Every Single Day, even if it's just a couple hundred of words, otherwise - if you're like me, at least - you will find your concentration and enthusiasm dwindling, and your mind wandering to other projects you would far rather be doing. 

As it is, I've decided not to worry and let myself take a break. I love it enough to know that I will certainly return to it soon enough, but right now I'm going to concentrate on my work and use my fanfiction as my Hobby Writing. 

I have been writing this particular fic on and off since 2006(!!) and I consider it to be my Masterpiece. Of course, the quality of writing has changed massively over the years, but looking back at the beginning of it, I don't cringe as much as I do with other things and, over all, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I definitely intend to finish it and have it on my bookshelf as the definitive work of my early writing-life, and at the moment the word count sits at 119,678 words. Which is quite a lot. 

I wish that I was working on it more frequently, but my Harry Potter passions are very sporadic. Although, when they do get me, they get me hard. It's definitely my favourite state of being, and I am reminded of how ardently I fell in love with Potter all over again. It's my safe spot and my area of expertise, and oh! how I wish I could make a living out of it!! Coming back to this fic is like sinking into a hot, bubbly bath and feeling all of your muscles relax after a day travelling on a coach. 

Finishing is a very long way off, but we'll get there in another ten years or so!

Homesickness

It's been nearly a year since I left my university town, Aberystwyth, and not a day goes by where I don't miss it desperately. It gave me the stability and the unconditional love that I never experienced growing up in Devon. No matter how stressed out I was, simply walking along the sea-front or coming into the train station was enough to lift my spirits and give me enough perspective to make it all better.

I hope, one day, to be able to accurately write about my love for Aberystwyth and do it the justice it deserves. I doubt I'll ever fall so completely in love with a place again, for no love will ever be as deep as your first.