Likalia’s Labyrinth

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Archive for category Musings

I Think I Lost Something

Nov 2

Posted by Likalia in Musings, My Life, NaNoWriMo | Comments off

I am trying to get my brain to remember how to do this whole blogging thing. I used to find it much easier to open up this window and enter anecdotes, rants or ramblings. They might not have been award winning material but they were something.

Last night while I was procrastinating about NaNoWriMo I was chatting with Tweek mentioning that I couldn’t seem to start writing (both a blog or my novel). He advised me to just start typing, to try to do a little stream of consciousness writing to get myself started. This used to be the way my brain worked all the time. I would sit down and somehow a blog, poem, story or whatever would take shape. It never required a great deal of work.

However last night I just couldn’t find my stream of consciousness. I lost it somewhere, maybe I left it sitting alone in the dark for so long that it fell into oblivion or perhaps I just wasn’t trying hard enough (though isn’t the whole point to not have to try?). I know I’m going to keep looking though and hopefully soon I’ll fall into the same black hole and the words will just flow again.

NaNoWriMo Stats – Day: 1  – Word Count: 807

NaNoWriMo 2009

Nov 1

Posted by Likalia in Musings, My Life, NaNoWriMo | 2 Comments

At the moment I am sitting in my truck at the beach, mini-me providing me with the ability to blog. What I am not doing is starting NaNoWriMo. I definitely should be I need to write 1,667 words today, and every day until November 30th.

At the same time that NaNoWriMo is going on NaBloPoMo is happening. I don’t know why I don’t just sign up for that, posting a blog a day seems far less daunting to me at the moment then writing 50,000 words in a month. Of course my blogging habits of late don’t lend to well to daily blogging anymore than they do daily novel writing.

I guess I am just not feeling the desire I used to when it comes to writing, which is sad. There aren’t many things I love but writing has always been one of them and it feels wrong to not be putting work out into the universe.

This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, each year I have fallen drastically short of the 50,000 word mark. I always have the best of intentions but quickly end up abandoning my novel. Sometimes life just gets in the way, other times I just haven’t been motivated. I’d like to think going into my third attempt that I will really try to put 50,000 words – good or bad – down on paper or a word document.

I’ve re-read what I wrote in previous years and it isn’t horrible. It isn’t as though I started writing then got discouraged by bad prose. I’ve always been fairly confident that I am a good storyteller, on paper anyway. I’m hoping this year whatever component of my brain that has thrown me off track in the past will just shut-up and let me be.

Now I just need to find the story I know is somewhere in my brain waiting for me to pull it out and mould it into something. Of course the brain is a very large labyrinth to wander around looking for one so it should prove to be an interesting month. I might even try to at least accomplish a blog a day if for no other purpose than to give me a place to gripe about how I haven’t written my 1,667 words for NaNoWriMo, and to try and get me back into daily blogging.

Here goes…

Gadgets vs Gummies

Mar 1

Posted by Likalia in Enter the Geekery, Musings, My Life | 1 Comment

I had gotten it in my head that I wanted a new phone, something I may or may not have mentioned.

I was weighing my options: Apple iPhone or Blackberry Curve.

I even polled some friends who came back with even votes for each. Except for Indigo Eve who picked X, as in NO phone at all, despite me telling her that wasn’t an option.

Then Tweek mentioned that you can’t IM on an iPhone and I was pushed towards the Curve. I went to the store, looked around, found out that the guy had left at 5:30 (despite someone telling me he didn’t leave until 6), and promptly walked out of the store.

I am now not getting a new phone. Guess Indigo was right all along. It isn’t like my phone has anything wrong with it anyway, I was just in a gadget rut and wanted some new toy.

Instead I went and bought some gummy bears.

The upside to gummy bears they are cheap, plus very tasty. The downside to gummy bears, THEY ARE VERY TASTY!

seperator 
This entry doesn’t mean I am back, I don’t want you to get excited and think that I’m now going to be blogging regularly again. Lately I just haven’t been feeling the writing, which I hate. It is like the older I get the less like a writer I feel. I can’t even remember the last time I took a notebook somewhere and just wrote, for me. I look at my old entries or my musings and wonder who that girl was that wrote them and where she went. Which is perhaps as good a reason as any to try to start blogging again, if only to know I am writing SOMETHING again.

We’ll see…

For now I’ll just enjoy my gummy bears.

Here We Go Again

Jan 1

Posted by Likalia in Musings, My Life | Comments off

I thought that I would try to start off the new year on the right foot, at least in my attempting to blog daily. I did so well the other year, then last year I was good for the majority but dropped off at the end. This year we’ll see how it goes. As with last year I am not going to hold myself to it, but I’m really going to try.

Glancing back over some posts the other day I remembered how much I used to enjoy blogging, well writing in general really. I spent so many years thinking calling myself a writer, then the last new years I’ve felt like calling myself that was a lie. Can you really call yourself a writer if all you write is a few blog posts?

Perhaps because of that feeling the last little while I’ve felt as if writing was more of a chore. It is only worsened by other people calling me a writer, then I think I am letting others down when I don’t write. Of course I know that is all  undue pressure I’ve been putting on myself.  I am going to try to not do that this year, I apologize in advance for post which may not live up to expectations, mostly my own, but I do hope you hold some expectations of my writing.

So like the title says here we go again, let’s see what comes of this New Year.

Writer

Oct 7

Posted by Likalia in Musings, My Life | 2 Comments

–noun
1. a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., esp. as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist.
2. a clerk, scribe, or the like.
3. a person who commits his or her thoughts, ideas, etc., to writing: an expert letter writer.
4. (in a piece of writing) the author (used as a circumlocution for “I,” “me,” “my,” etc.): The writer wishes to state….
5. a person who writes or is able to write: a writer in script.
*source dictionary.reference.com

I haven’t written anything in a very long time, obviously I am excluding this blog in the word count. The last time I really sat down and tried to write something was last year when I attempted (and failed – I think they call it something more positive) NaNoWriMo. The emails have started coming to remind previous participants of this year’s event and frankly it makes me want to run screaming. I am automatically shown as a participant due to last year but I just don’t know if I can. Though at the same time I am apparently in need of a reason to write something (anything) beyond the confines of this site.

Where does that leave me though? With less than a month til the start of NaNoWriMo it requires me getting my head into a place where I can write, organizing my house so I have somewhere to write, and perhaps creating an outline for any potential writing. None of which seems particularly easy or fun.

That last line seems to me to be the problem in a nut shell. I used to love to write, I’d always have a notebook that I would fill with essays, short stories, poems or notes. I knew beyond a doubt that I WANTED to write, that I was (am?) a WRITER. I also KNEW that I COULD write, and WELL. I don’t seem to know any of those things with certainty anymore, except maybe for the being a writer part on good days. Hopefully one day I will feel that confidence again, but for now I’ll try and convince myself of the merit in making a second attempt at November novel writing.