It's Creepypasta Time.

Scareh.

Halloween arrives in just four days. I've only just now started reading Creepypasta again, and I'm rather disappointed in myself. The month of October is, for me, completely void of sleep most years.

I don't know what it is about a good Creepypasta that is just so damn frightening. Perhaps it is how poorly written most of them tend to be, convincing you every time that a real person--not some college student who wants to be a journalist/philosopher--wrote it about something that actually happened to them (without saying in all caps that it did, of course). The conjured image of the last survivor of some disaster scribbling out a warning and plastering it on the Internet for someone to find is both ridiculous and wonderful.

In fact, that was why smile.jpg didn't scare me at all. I could tell from the constant Thesaurus rape that whoever was writing it was trying to be some bigshot writer. Remember, kids: create images with your words, not just jumbled sentences of ridiculously long synonyms that make you look smarter.

You can find Creepypastas here, of course, but I like to go to the Wiki when I'm in the mood for a good scare; new ones often pop up there. I've pretty much read them all, so I'm always looking for new stories.

But there are a few things that bother me about Creepypastas, including but not limited to:

1. Stories that begin with, "please don't read this", or "I beg you not to continue reading." If the story is really quite long, most of the time I'll think, "Alright, then ^-^" and just hit backspace.
2. The idiot main character who for some reason goes through with the ritual pasta even though he is promised to either be killed or stricken insane.
3. Stories that begin or end with, "This was my first time writing a Creepypasta, guys!" or, "This was written by me, -insert random forum username here-, because I love Creepypasta." It's much more fun when the story could have been written by anybody. I guess that's why horror fiction doesn't bother me. I'm much more unsettled by myths and legends and other 'could be true' stories.
4. Video game Creepypastas. I don't know why, but I rarely find them scary. They're mostly addressed to the game's fanbase, however, so I guess that's why certain people find them horrifying.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, cliches bother me. The writing world is full of them.

Anywho, if you're knew to Creepypasta just as I was at around this time two years ago, I would recommend starting out with Candle Cove. It's the first one I ever read, and since then I was hooked.

I also agree with every single one of the choices on this list.

And here's a Tumblr full of them. I swear, I seem to have an infinite amount of Creepypasta links. This post would probably require some major scrollage if I were to list them all.

Mind Sludge

So apparently, "I'm posting every Monday evening" now means, "I'm writing the final 2-3 paragraphs of Monday's blog post Tuesday morning during the first ten minutes of History."

Do you ever have those days when all you can manage to do is stare sleepily at the page?

Ugh. I was doing so well, and now I can barely make my mind move. It's not writer's block; I know exactly what's coming next in the story. It's more of a mind-sludge that keeps the gears from turning, even though they know what they're supposed to do. This may have something to do with this being the last scene of the first third of my novel. After the end of this chapter, I've only got 2/3 of the way to go...sure, it's more than half, but way more than 3/3. I'm one of those 'chicken out at the very end' people. I've done it with every video game I've ever played. That boss battle means that the game will be over, and writing that last scene just puts me closer to the story being over.

Plus, I feel like this transition between the end of the beginning and the beginning of the middle should have a special scene, a scene that jumps off the page and grabs the readers heart. You know, one of those scenes that no one can talk about the book without mentioning. So far, however, I'm sad to say that this scene is nothing but any other scene. When we expect our story to be something, and it insists on being something else, we always run into problems actually writing the thing. That's yet another lesson I've yet to really learn.

Like most writers at this point in their story, I find that the middle is no more than a vast desert. I know where my characters are supposed to go, but I don't want the novel to fall into the classic rut that fantasy adventures have the opportunity to fall into in which the characters are doing nothing but walking. I'm also worried that this work is going to be too short. Even though it seems I have a lot of things that need to happen, I'm only going to have about 13,000 words in the beginning. If the middle and end also only have 13,000 words, then my novel will probably barely skim past 35,000.

The internet says it's a sin to write books that are shorter than 50,000 unless you're a big-time, famous writer who can get away with it, because no one will pay for a shorter book. I'm actually disappointed that my story looks as if it won't be longer. When I go over the plot line, it seems like it should at least be 60,000 words, and that's being stingy.

I hope I don't have to resort to sticking "that" in wherever it wouldn't be incorrect, like when I need more words in an academic paper. Awkward wording and creative writing do not mix--unless you have an awkward character, that is.

Trimming the fat...before the cow becomes a steak?

Image via WikipediaI know that editing during the first draft is a bad idea, but I've been compelled to do the most major form of editing that I've come across: cutting out entire scenes.

Or rather, ripping them out. I literally tore about five pages out of my notebook when I realized that I was going in a direction that was completely wrong. In fact, I may  need to do away with several scenes. They're all getting repetitive.

At this point I fear I may even need to re-title my novel, "A plot revealed through a bunch of characters sitting around talking about it."

Of course, the problem isn't that extreme, but it might as well be. Any problem is magnified to twice its size in the eyes of the readers, be it an inconsistency or an author who is too frightened to leave the exposition.

As I reminisce about my older novel projects that have been started but never finished, I realize that they all could have possibly been saved had I sat down, looked at all of the scenes I had, and figured out which ones could be combined, especially if they take place in the same setting and are made up mostly of exposition. I just don't know how to get the beginning of the novel all squared away so that I can jump right into the middle. It has always been a problem of mine; the first novel I ever started writing had about 150 pages and at least 20,000 words before I really even got into any of the action at all.

Now that I have recognized this problem, I feel as if I've taken a huge jump forward in remedying it. There are some scenes that just don't belong. Even if they reveal necessary information, that necessary information may not be necessary at that exact moment in the story's timeline. You can always put it in wherever you feel it needs to go in the rewrite. The first draft is, more or less, about getting the very basic story out of you and onto the page so that you can work with it. It's better if you don't even worry about spelling and grammar until you sit down to do that editing.

 Some things are even better left unsaid, like Hemingway said in his famous Iceberg Theory.

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.  ---Hemingway

For example, Hawthorne never writes, "The Reverend Dimmesdale was too scared to admit what he had done."

He makes you know it, and without ever saying a word.

Related articles

• How to Silence Your "Inner Editor" (thewritersrefuge.wordpress.com)

Girls Write, Too

I'll never understand why it's so hard for readers out there to believe that a chick can write a kick-ass story that isn't pumped full of abs and estrogen.

Of course, considering what they've got to go on, I don't really blame them.

Everyone's heard the classic spiel saying that female writers who don't write erotica and romance should use a unisex, or even male, pen name. If they don't, their sales will suffer, because most readers out there will see the female name and immediately judge it to be in contrast with the genre of the book. Just once, I dare some writer of beautiful, passionate erotica to use a pen name like "Paul Schmidt", or "Al Gutman."

Nothing is worse, however, than the pen name that sounds like it came straight out of either the 60s or Lord of the Rings. No one is going to believe that your name is Rain Firestorm. Move on to the next name on your list, unless it's Crystalline Promise.

I won't deny that I've always wanted to publish at least one erotica under the psuedonym, "Jane Doe."

I don't know why. I can't write erotica--it's just that it would be pure awesome, just as awesome as I. M. Hornay. 

Halloween 'Be Approachin'

Image via Wikipedia Today I finally began regularly working on my novel every day, bringing my goal of at least 1,000 words each day back into the forefront. I've been thinking about doing something weird with the story: cutting out an entire character.

Well, not entirely cutting out said character, but rather cutting them out for the majority of the plot of the first book in my series. I had originally planned to have my main character and this other character, who is her foil in every sense of the term, undertaking the journey of the first novel together. Now that I look at the purpose of the story a lot closer, I think it just might be more useful to have her make that journey solo.

Plus, if I did that, I could cut out the scenes where my main character and this character become better acquainted.

Or, you know, I could just shove them together as still 'sort of enemies' and see what happens from there. That adds drama, for sure.

Part of being a writer is struggling with decisions just like this one. You have several different ways that you want the story to go, but  you just can't let go of any of them to use just one of them. It is in situations like this that I propose a compromise of some sort, or a merging of the plots together so the good parts of all of them sort of happen. Usually, when you do that, one of them shines as the strongest and best one to take center stage, anyway. There's just something about seeing all the story directions in action that helps you figure out which one really was the "one."

Now that the first and most rambly part of the post is over, I'd like to bring to your attention this author and his books.

They are for children, and yet they are amazing. Any true horror fan would love his work; trust me, I'm a horror nut, and after reading the first one after dark, I wasn't able to get to sleep until I forced myself there.

Because, you know what? It always seems like my bedroom door does that violent shaking thing where it sounds like someone is trying to get in RIGHT when I've scared myself silly with ghost stories all day.

After the first anthology of scary stories, O. Penn-Coughin's stories only get better and scarier. Not to mention, of course, that if you read it on kindle you can only view one page at a time, making those scary illustrations seem to actually jump out at you at the end of every story. Trust me, they're a lot of fun.

I've only just started with Kissed By a Clown, and so far I wouldn't recommend that those of you out there with elementary school aged children let them get their hands on it.

But you and your older children?

Go nuts. Knock yourselves out. It seriously rocks so far. 

I Always Miss Banned Books Week.

I'm about fourteen days too late to do a post on this, but it's never too late to stand up for freedom of expression through the printed word, right?

I mean, that's the main reason why I decided to at least start out indie. Publishing may be a big business, but I at least want my writing to stay a labor of love, even if I don't make a ton of money from it. I can always hold a desk job, anyway, just in case I can't make living being a lowly scribe. That's why I'm going to college, right?

The ALA has a pretty good list of banned and challenged books, which I seriously should have found earlier due to the fact that it's on the freaking American Library Association's website. You can find pretty much all of them there from what I can tell, so it's a good place to start if you're just now diving into the world of banned books.

It's my personal belief that if a book mentions something that you just don't like, you shouldn't read it and leave it at that. Being in disagreement with something isn't some sort of sign that you're the 'chosen one' appointed to save the rest of the world from being competent enough to decide whether or not they can handle seeing it, too.

It's not like we're going to open up a book and say, "Gaw! This book mentions crack and bestiality so much, and I think it just might bother me, but I have no idea if I should continue reading until someone tells me I shouldn't. Oh well, better keep going."

Not to mention that most banned books are so mild that it's hard to put your finger on just how nervous a person would have to be to think that they would destroy society.

If you're going to try to read most or all of the banned books, which is my personal goal, I would suggest starting with Fahrenheit 451. A friend told me it wasn't really about censorship, but how Ray Bradbury was terrified that television would destroy society.

After reading it, I see his point, but still think it's mostly about censorship.

Ray Bradbury's techno-phobia does grace nearly every single page, though. Can't argue with that.

If I Could Only Master the Art of the All-Nighter

After missing two whole post days, I finally managed to churn this one out on time. This is Thursday's post, and it really isn't much. Then again, I can't really say that anything I do is "much"...it just feels weird.

I have made a somewhat life altering decision: I'm going to put my novel in second place, and my schoolwork in first.

Well, maybe it isn't life altering...but it almost certainly is necessary (and extremely temporary). Right now I have two papers due at around the same time that I haven't even started on and a myriad of tests I'm certain will come as complete surprises to me when I show up for my classes. I sort of know they're there, but let's face it, I have no clue when they'll show up and slap me in the face.

I also might even have one class I've forgotten completely about and haven't even shown up for in a week or two. Yikes. For some reason, my brain has been extra scattered lately. I even managed to spell "immediately" as "ammediatley". This usually happens to tired people, but I'm not the least bit tired. I'm busy, sure, but you can't really count that seeing as I've put nearly everything off.

My novel is now about 35 pieces of notebook paper and about 2/3 of the way through the first part. I've got it split up into three parts, so that's about 22% of the way through if I don't totally suck at math.

Which I do.

I guess the point of this post is that somewhere in all the mess that unfolded in my trying to fit two scenes on the novel a day in between homework and all of the random crap that popped up, I stopped and said to myself, "Hey, remember when this used to be fun?"

So for the next two weeks, which is all that it should take for me to get those two long term projects done, I'm not going to write like it's a job--just a hobby. I'll get back to the rush, which I also love, later.

Make sure you're enjoying what you're doing, or you'll strangle your story to death.

Writers With Misophonia

Image via Wikipedia

A more appropriate title for this blog post  would probably be, "Writers With Misophonia: Are There Any?", because I'm seriously convinced that I'm the only one in the universe.

I  know that only neurologists and those who suffer from it seem to consider Misophonia a real disorder, so I'll probably get nothing but the usual, "Just suck it up and get over it, you psychopath" response from this post, but I'm willing to risk that just because I know how difficult being a writer with Misophonia can be. I'm even beginning to think that it just may be impossible, and that absolutely no one has ever done it. How on Earth am I expected to write when I can't find any time at all that allows me to retreat into a quiet corner with my headphones for at least two hours?

I've said  before that it seems like most professional writers out there apparently have all day to their quiet little selves, as they insist time and time again that you absolutely must write every single day uninterrupted for whatever length of time they deem appropriate (because they are the God of writing, it seems.)

I cannot do this, because everyone in my family and community seems to need to make these noises to live, and my amount of trigger sounds is on the rise. Right now it includes:

• lip smacking
• chewing
• crunching
• whistling
• mumbling
• coughing
• sniffing
• pen clicking
• throat clearing
• sighing
• beeps and other noises at certain frequencies
• so, so many more that I just can't list them all.

I think anything soft, distant, and coming from the face is included in that list. It makes writing damn near impossible without music (which most professional writers also say is a no-no), and it only gets worse as you get older. One of my teachers smacked his lips at the beginning of nearly every sentence, and I ended up having to drop the class. It's an absolute nightmare. I'm even bothered by seeing people moving their lips in such a way that I know causes them to make those noises, even if it's from across the room and I can't hear it. I have to look away from people chewing their gum or licking their lips, or else everything that I'm trying to accomplish at the moment just gets replaced by a blind rage that I can barely control if I don't literally get up and run out of the room to escape. The worst part is that these are simple noises that happen nearly every moment of every day--especially in your average American college setting, where chewing gum is thought to be nearly as important as breathing.

Imagine trying to write in that sort of predicament. So far I think I'm the only one trying to.

On the off chance that I'm not, however, I want to plead with every Misophoniac writer who may be reading this. Please, please, please keep at it. I firmly believe that there are more people out there with Misophonia than the statistic says, because most of us don't even know it exists. If that's the case, at least one or two of them must be or want to be a writer. We have to find a way for those people, because there is nothing more disheartening than thinking that you may not be able to do the thing that you love most of all because of some sort of impairment you can do nothing about.

Right now, music is my only option. I, like only a very few people who have Misophonia, am triggered by my own noises. Earplugs are out of the question. I tried them and couldn't stand the sound of myself breathing.

I know that it's easy to feel very, very lonely if you're have this disorder. Most people don't believe you, or will even make your trigger sounds repeatedly just because they know it gets to you and don't understand how severe and uncontrollable it is. I've been wanting to write a post about this for weeks, but have been scared of backlash from the majority of people who just can't understand. Once I thought of how lonely and frustrated I have felt (and feel) thinking that I'm one of the only people in the world who struggles with this, I knew I had to at least say something for those out there who still haven't figured out what's causing most of their misery. Misophonia may dictate your entire life, but it helps so much to know that you aren't crazy or alone. 

The Most Comfortable Addiction

I have a confession to make: I haven't been doing my homework.

Oh, sure, on the high school level this is a minor blunder...but when you get to college? It's supposed to consume your life, or at least that's what everyone says. The problem is that it isn't consuming mine, and when I sit and compile a list of everything I've been assigned for the week, I quickly see that I've got enough so that it should.

The funny thing about college is that so far all of the assignment are long-term and incredibly easy to forget. They have to be, I suppose, since you don't have every class every day (think God, Krishna, Quetzalcoatl and everybody up there for that one!)

Now, I know I've done posts on how hard it is to find time to write, and believe me, I'm still struggling with that one since most noises wipe my mind as clean as a blank slate. But what is a writer to do when there are other things in her life that she's actually neglecting because of her addiction to her writing?

My first thought was, "Well, I suppose I could skip writing on some days when I have more homework," but my heart began to palpitate the moment that one sailed across my brain. No way. Even if it's just one sentence , I have to do something.

But what happens when I do that, "Just one sentence before I start my homework" thing?

I write five pages, look at the clock, and see that it's midnight.

Then I look down at the page and keep writing.

The most obvious choice is to get the homework out of the way before I start the writing, but every creative writing book and class I've ever attented would shake their collective fingers at me and scream. "The writing should come first!", they've all cried without exception. Isn't this advice for people who are likely to put it off?

Clearly that isn't my problem, here. I've even been lectured in the pages of a book on how I should be putting my writing way before going to the gym, as if I've ever actually set foot inside one. Nice one, Help Book. You know that the gym and I are so distant that I don't even know how to pronounce it.

Seriously, what is up with that? Has anyone else read writing help books and noticed that every single one of them warns that you should write before doing your daily exercises, as if all writers are addicted to bodybuilding or some crap?

Pfft. My writing is the reason why I lack muscle tone, and probably will until this novel gets into the beta reading stage.

So, what are you to do when you're addicted to the craft? The other areas of my life need some love, too, seeing as I'm either graded on them or need to clean them before my mom pitches a fit.

I think I'm going to try out this "Getting the stuff that needs to be done first out of the way" thing, even though against every piece of writing advice I've ever heard. Yes, Mr. Self Help Book Writer, I know that writing is more important than studying for my History Exam, but it seriously needs to get done.

On a related note, my novel now has 8,208 words in it, and I'm about 20% done.

And yes, I've only been working on it for a week and a half.

Now do you see the extent of my problem? Everyone's told me that a normal person doesn't fill that many pages in so few days, because a normal person has a life.

I do have a life. I'm just not living it,  because I'd rather be living the life in my head.