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.

Dealing With Referrer Spam

Image via CrunchBaseAgain, this blog post might insult the intelligence of people out there who know their way around a command prompt. The rest of you who are lost when it comes to technical affairs, please read on. You're among friends.

Many of my readers are starving writers themselves who are also running author blogs. You may have noticed  a plethora of websites that are supposedly linking to your blog. They clearly aren't, and most of them are sites that contain questionable content. That, ladies and gentlemen, is referrer spam. In the eyes of search engines crawling your blog, those websites have links on your site. This boosts their ranking in that search engine, and a good time is had by all.

Well, all but you, of course. From what I can tell, it won't hurt your blog or its reputation at all. It is merely annoying, and makes it incredibly difficult to see who is actually viewing your blog. Not to mention that, if you're anything like me, you're probably feeling a bit used.

Blogger is famous for referrer spam. This is a well known fact, and while it can be annoying, using Google Analytics instead of trusting Blogger Statistics can fix the problem. When I get a new traffic source that I haven't already identified as just plain old referrer spam, however, I usually click on it to see if it is, in fact, real. Most of the time it turns out to be the same old referrer spam as before, but it's still worth a try...sort of. Today I linked clicked a link that looked legitimate to see if it was referrer spam and saw a message that said something along the lines of, "If you create a premium account with us, you might see your links in our private section, which is probably where they were linked from."

Not really. I paraphrased, so those quotations don't really belong, but it just looks better that way, doesn't it?

I couldn't help but feel insulted. I'm not that stupid; I know you're referrer spam, silly.

If you're getting as tired of referrer spam as I was, it would be a good idea to sign up for a free account with Google Analytics. From what I've noticed so far, it doesn't seem to pick up the referrer spam when it shows your traffic sources, giving you the sites that are actually linking to you and not showing the ones that aren't.

 And if you do click on one of these links in  your traffic sources, for the love of all that is holy, don't sign up for anything to get access to some "special area" of their website where they say they actually are linking to your blog. Believe me when I say that they aren't.

I've also heard talk about some sort of "nofollow" tag thing that might work, and am planning on asking my boyfriend just what it is and whether or not I should use it. Apparently a lot of people hate it, but they seem mostly to be  Black Hats. I'll give you guys a followup on that as soon as I can.



***If you're using Google Analytics and have noticed it actually picking up on and showing the referrer spam, let me know that, too! Oh, and don't be stupid like me and click on the links to the spam site. They'll enjoy the traffic.

Freewriting Prompt: Prompt Writing, Sans Prompt

I haven't done a writing prompt on my blog in a really long time, and I thought I would try one out again. I wanted to make use of Freeblogging, which keeps track of time for you, but I couldn't think of a good fiction prompt that I could honestly keep up for any length of time without stopping for a good while. The result was me doing a promptless stream-of-conciseness writing exercise, just like the first one I ever did.  This is by no means a work of fiction, essay, or anything serious at all. Just me rambling and trying to find whatever stories and blog posts might be lying beneath the mess of seemingly meaningless text.


It's a great thing to do, but I wouldn't recommend anyone else making an ass out of themselves by sticking it up somewhere for everyone to see like I did. 

I decided that, for my first writing prompt in a long while, I would do a completely promptless stream of conciousness exercise. That's right. I don't have a single thing that I'm supposed to be writing about. I'm just letting it all come right out of my head as I type, which is something that you should probably be a little bit worried about. No going abck and erasing the embarassing or horrifying stuff. Nope. Not at all. Here it goes.

I'm watching Family Guy right now. They're making fun of the moon landing or something like that. I don't know becuase I'm only half-way paying attention. I think I heared something about surly blondes. Don't really know how that fits in there, but it's there. Kinda silly if you ask me. Guess it would have made sense in context, but I don't have the context because I wasn't paying attention. Just gonna have to let that one slide, I guess.

HA! Stewie just stole Brian's Peanut Butter Jelly Time thing. HA. That was something that Brian did, not Stewie.

I have no idea what to say now. Oh my God. It's like my mind just went totally blank. Usually when this happens while I'm writing my book, I just put on a song that reminds me of the stuff that's happening in my story and think about it until I finally have stuff to put on the page again. I can't really do that now, seeing as I'm just doing freewriting.

My cousin just came to the door. I bet he thinks I'm pretty weird, sitting here writing on the computer and yet talking to him at the same time like I'm not really thinking about what it is that I'm typing. Oh boy. My family thinks I'm pretty damn weird anyway, though, so I guess it's not a big difference.

Geez, let's talk about how awkwardly that was worded for a moment. Gaw. I can't believe I let that sentence at the end of that paragraph right up there leak out of my head. I'm entirely sorry. Good God.

You know, the first stream of onciousness prompt I ever did required me to not puncuate or capitliaze a single thing. I could n'efve evend end the sentence. And now this thing is freezing up, and I can't see where I'm typing. I bet the typos are absolutely endless. I am sorry. So, so, so sorry.

I want a banana.

Well, looky there. I didn't type for quite some time because my computer froze, and it's still letting me continue writing. I wish I would have known that, otherwise I qwould have actually planned somethign to write here. Instead I think I'm just going to sing a song in my head, but not write the lyrics down. That's difficult. Oh wow, is it ever and called it macaroni....DAMNIT!

Well. There you go.