how dare we sit quietly

 Sooooo as it turns out, we're only halfway through February and I've already completed 25% of my word count goal of 200k!! I had no idea I was going to write so much this year, and I've actually been thinking for a while about how maybe I should raise my goal higher. I was too afraid to do it at first because I figured this was a fluke since I just happen to be obsessed with the current project I'm working on, but now I think it's a sign that I can actually write a whole lot if I dedicate the time and energy. 

Additionally, I think I ought to challenge myself a little more! I'll be keeping my usual goal of 1000 words a day, but I'm going to challenge myself to work on TWO projects at once!! I've been trying very hard to focus on a single project at a time because I've found that overwhelming myself with too many projects at once just makes me lose motivation. But I have discovered recently that it kind of sucks not having a back-up project to work on when I lose steam on my main one, and maybe having a plan B will help me keep up the good work I've been doing so far this year. 

So here goes! 

NEW GOALS:
-reach a 300k word count by the end of this year 
-write 500 words of main project every day 
-write 500 words of side project every day 

NEW CHALLENGES: 
-write 1000 words of main project every day 
-write 700 words of side project every day 

 I think one of my biggest weaknesses this year is that I've been underestimating how productive reading critically can be. I feel like I would have grown a lot faster if I had made more time to read more fanfiction and leave feedback, because leaving comments should involve reading carefully for what's good (and what's bad for some people but I am still of the firm belief that negative feedback should not be the reader's to give) and putting that down in a comment so that both the writer and i can see it helps us both grow as writers. i can take those techniques that i think are good and try to use them in my own writing. i think it leads to a more exponential?? sort of growth than pure writing practice does, because changing just one thing about your writing can make an unbelievable difference. of course, you have to learn how to do these new things so obviously writing practice is still crucial, but it just goes faster if you continue to actively learn new things from others so they should be used together. 

and i say read more fanfiction specifically, because obviously you could still do the same thing with novels and other original stories, but the unique thing about fanfiction is how many different and complete stories you can read in one sitting, so you can write your feedback at a good and productive pace. the thing about original short stories these days is that while they are very artful and great to read, i feel like the ones i have read tend to be....kind of vague. it's hard to build an entire world and cast in like 20 pages, and i just find it difficult to think about the feedback i should be giving when i'm too busy getting involved in wondering wtf i just read. and, obviously, fanfiction is so easy to access. there are thousands of fics (probably more tbh) being published every single day in every one of my fandoms, and it's ALL FREE. it's kind of a no-brainer that fanfiction is going to take up the majority of my reading material. 

so yeah, more goals for 2016, read read read more fanfiction and leave good, productive feedback!!!!!!!!! 

 What a fuckin year!!!! Nothing much happened. 

THE BLOCK

"Square One" threw me into a seriously tough block, for real. It's unfortunate and beyond embarrassing, but every time I write something that I think is good, I'm convinced there will never be another like it and I somehow just lose all motivation. That's so silly!!!! But it gets me every time. Is it because my ego is too big or my self confidence is too low? Seems like both, really. So I need to learn to believe that I can be better than my current best, and that sometimes I will do a shitty job, but that doesn't mean I'm getting worse. 

ORIGINAL CONTENT; BRANCHING OUT 

Another goal for this year: write more original content. Lately I feel like I'm getting a lot more creative ideas for original stuff, but I haven't been confident about actually writing it because I...don't really know how? I grew up writing fanfiction, I just don't know where to start. But I have to start somewhere! And it's worth trying, if only to get out those ideas that are always crowding up my thoughts. 

I think writing for NaNoWriMo really opened my eyes to how much I can accomplish with an original storyline. There was so much material I didn't even manage to finish the story with the 50k quota. I really loved my characters, and I loved their stories, and I had so much fun because it's been a long time since I got to do whatever I wanted with a character and be HAPPY with it. I have high hopes for that story, and for the DT project I'm working on with Alisa as well. 

SELLING

Publishing comes with a lot of pressure to cater to the readers. Since I started publishing again in late '14, every time I pick up my pen to start a new story my first thought is about whether or not the readers will like it. Or, more specifically, whether or not A LOT of readers will like it. It's hard not to think about it, and I'm not going to make it a goal to stop doing it altogether because I know it's impossible, but I CAN make it a goal to stop making that my priority. There's nothing wrong with humoring the audience every once in a while, or getting something out there purely for the attention, but at some point my interests stop coinciding with those of the readers, and if I let my desperation for attention/approval force me into writing stuff that I don't want to, then no one is happy because nothing gets written. One of my most important goals for this year will be to write FIRST for me, and SECOND for my readers. 

TECHNICAL STUFF 

Haha...how about that dialogue......Spoilers: shit's dry as fuck!!! I'm so bad at writing witty, realistic, natural dialogue. I've spent pretty much this entire year envying all of my writer friends, for whom this stuff seems to come naturally. Everything I put in quotes comes out lackluster, monotone, and just EMPTY!! Strangely enough (or maybe not), that's basically exactly how I talk. I need to learn how people who are not me talk and how to apply that to my writing, or else I will be forever stranded with boring, droning dialogue.

I think the dialogue problem might stem from the fact that I don't really seem to know what my characters are thinking. My character introspection is lacking severely, and it's really hurting my creativity and productivity. I want my readers to connect with my characters or at the very least understand their motivations and feelings, but even I don't know most of the time...Too much of my stories are completely story-driven, I don't give myself or my readers enough room to really learn about the characters, so that's something I really, really need to keep in mind as I write this year. 

Also, for some reason, I seem to be capable of only writing either really short sentences or super long run-ons with many commas. I don't know why but I always feel like I can't get the flow right. I should read more, I think, and try to diversify my sentence lengths. 

BASICALLY, 

This year is going to be all about loving myself as a creator and author (if not as a person haha), loving my characters, and learning about and from others. My publishing goal: 70k+ My total word count goal: 200k+. Here's to a year of writing and learning and writing more!!