time management and excuses

These past few weeks have been so busy as I rehearse for a musical. Usually the times are 10am or 12pm to 10pm almost every day with an hour and a half break for dinner. So, have I written during this time? No, unfortunately I haven't. I obviously have time before or after rehearsal, but I have been tired constantly, especially after rehearsal.

Some priorities need to come first before writing, unfortunately, like eating and sleeping, and especially keeping up my health. Keeping my sanity and stress down is also something that should be placed above other things. Of course, these are simply excuses. I can say that I will begin writing as soon as the musical is over, but does that mean I will? Most likely not... if I know myself well enough.

As soon as I say that I will write, I will make up another excuse. Obviously, I won't make it very far in my career of deadlines. But looking back at my document, I am surprised to find 30K words. I don't know where that came from, honestly.

What am I going to do about this? I have a writing friend who constantly pesters me for more writing, and she has been an absolute savior to me and my writing. I still maintain that I will write after the musical is done with its run, because I do feel exhausted to start up my writing again and editing what I have written (due to plot changes).

And so, the first of February is my date of working hard again and keeping up a new year's resolution.

researching reality

One thing I am working on is learning about the publishing industry by reading quite a bit from authors, literary agencies, and other professionals in the business. It has given me a bit of insight as to what I should expect, how I should act, and what I should focus myself on. I have never wavered myself on writing fantasy novels. It is my interest in reading and gives me the ability to be as creative as I want. But my focus in editing was general. I did not know how many different types of editors there were. Of course I still have a lot of researching to do, so easily I could change my mind some time in the future.

My ideas are to find a job in a publishing house as an editor. I think that my interests (and hopefully strengths) are leaning towards the line editor type of career. I like critiquing the writing itself, the plot, characters, setting. Of course, that is if I am even describing the right type of editor. If I cannot find this sort of job in a publishing house, I can always be a freelance editor, possibly. However, I still need to research more.

Reading blogs by those already in the industry also helps me in my writing career. I shouldn't expect to have agents and publishers drop at my feet for my novels. I have to work extremely hard to get them to look at my work and think they could use it. I probably won't be able to survive on my writing career. But even though my reality check helps me to not expect quite so much, I will still try. To assume I am the best on earth will only hamper my career.

So I need to research, research, and research some more. It's the best thing to immerse myself into the industry.

naming your characters before worldbuilding

Naming your characters before establishing your world and cultures is a bad idea, in my opinion. I am struggling with the problem at this moment. I created my characters' names and they all sound like they could be from the same world. However, they are from more than one culture. Names are a reflection of a culture's language, and ideally, if your world is dealing with more than one culture, then names from different cultures should sound different, especially if they speak different languages.

Take a look at names in Europe. An English name will sound different from a French name or a German name, and these will sound very different from a South African name or a Chinese name because these languages are far removed from each other in the language tree.

So, your cultures should also reflect their language and differences. A simple way to separate two cultures is to make one have a lyrical sounding language (and names) compared to a harsher sounding language. Trippask sounds different than Alania, doesn't it? When random character says that they've come from Maelasa, you can assume that they're part of the same culture as Alania. If Maelasa is in the same country as Trippask, there should be an explained reason for this for such a different sounding name. Was Maelasa founded by people from Alania?

What does a person do when they've already made names for several cultures that don't sound like they're from several cultures? Some names and places might need to be changed to reflect their differences. As much as I would like to keep the names of some of my people, it may be best for credibility's sake and to create a more realistic world. It's hard to force a language to multiple names and somehow not make it complicated. In the next story, I will definitely create the language rules to a culture before naming the characters before I get too attached to the names.

the editor mouse pokes her nose out of the mousehole for the first time

If you've managed to find this small little corner of space that is inhabited by this little mouse, then I welcome you! I am an author in training, and editor in training, and what I mean by in training is that I am no where near to being any sort of published author or professional editor yet. I'm mostly just a hopeful that is working to one day have the title of author and editor behind my name. It might not happen but we're all hopeful for such a dream, right?

So if you happen to stick around for a while, you'll get to see me struggle through my attempts to become a REAL writer as I flounder through the wonderful days that are college in hopes that maybe, just maybe, I'll be picked up by a kind company to let me look at and destroy other people's books to make them (hopefully) better. Won't that be fun? But that's a long time in the future, I think. I first have to learn to write properly and what makes a book good.

Just maybe, maybe, I might actually succeed. But until then, I'm just a small little in training mouse with a small space to record my journey.