Read, Review, and Rinse: What COULD she be thinking? (Big Dreams Blog Update #13)

Happy All Hallow’s Eve!

And since it’s Hallowe’en and all scary things love this season, I’ll share a scary confession: loooooong before I started this blog the idea of journal-ing for a potential public scared the crap out of me!

Anything that exposed me in a creative way was a no-no.

I would hand in art projects back in high school and never pick them up because I wanted to avoid the teacher’s comments.

So this extends WAY past the blogsphere.

Sit me in front of SAW (with a barf bag…and maybe a blindfold) and I could probably weather off the fear. But there’s something about sharing a piece of you that is so much scarier, especially when it’s 50/50 between positive and negative reaction.

I’ve even had dreams where I’ve had some of my favourite authors—I won’t mention names!—all gathered in one signing and reading my debut book aloud…and ripping it to shreds.

I don’t have a debut. Yet. And I don’t imagine this will ever happen…at least in the context of a signing.

Of course this is also an Update Day post and as being a part of the Big Dreams/Do You Have a Goal? blog hop I post a monthly summary update on my own crazy dream to hit one million words of completed writing projects.

Dreamed up by Misha Gericke and Beth Fred the Do You Have a Goal? blog hop features 18 of us crazy people each with a big dream to reach, so make sure to check out and cheer on the wackiness!

I started this blog because I stumbled on Misha and Beth’s blog hop. I thought the idea was nuts and frightening considering the levels of embarrassment if I joined the group and then totally failed at reaching my goal. And…it seemed scary sharing my dream. Throwing myself out there to complete strangers and expecting some sort of understanding and camaraderie from them—just a little too much for me at the time.

And then I actually read the goals—I think there were 6 bloggers on the list then.
As I read through the goals I kept shaking my head, screwing my eyes and calculating the fraction of a possibility that any of these people would reach their goals.

So I did the sanest thing:

I joined.

And I haven’t looked back yet. Sure at times I post and I have no clue if I’m going to commit to the writing and/or reading I’ve set myself up for—but it’s fun. Fun to reach inside my head and share and let consequences go to the wind…

I mean I know it’s Hallowe’en and we strictly save all scares for this day—but I did A LOT of scary things this year.

I joined a writing contest and finished my first synopsis from that.

I shared my work with two authors and got critiques.

And I posted my work right here and there.

Also I’m learning that it gets less and less scary as time goes on and I share more and more. Like I do more of these posts and it feels like second nature.

For this Hallowe’en I’m going to have to find a scary movie…

*sigh*

Why not?

Now to the actual updating!

I haven’t written in 66 days—ugh. It kinda just hit me earlier today. I started school and slipped into the black hole of readings and coursework.

I’ve not re-surfaced just yet…but I decided that this non-writing thing has to stop.

I’m starting to realize writing should be happening every day.

100 words is very realistic. I should be hitting at least 100 words.

Still to engage in some self-butt kicking I’ve joined NaNoWriMo. And I want to hit the 50K mark. And because I’m waffling on an idea I am going to publish my idea here so I can be held to it, and I’ll do this by blogging weekly on my progress.
(I also give you permission to ~~stalk~~ check on my progress here!)

To organize said weekly post I will frame them around Chris Baty’s No Plot?No Problem! The second part of his book is structured to follow along the four week of NaNo with tips, advice and rah-rah pep talks from past NaNo winners. (Here's one today from NYT-bestseller Kami Garcia.)

Stay tuned for those and hopefully my November Update will detail my “winning”! (What could I be thinking, you say? I know. I'm thinking the same thing.)

Not writing? I find you can still put your creative energies elsewhere.