Just picture it. It's 11:28pm, on any given day. Today, it just happens to be this day. It's been raining for days and everything I own feels damp even though I've purposely tossed it in the dryer to amend that. I'm sitting in a basement with the guys, tossing my d20 around. I'm not really paying attention on doing anything special but hitting the damn beast because I'm too preoccupied with how I should be doing grad homework and not playing D&D up to two times a week. My mouth tangs of soda and not enough food.
Then someone makes a passing comment about something; anything will do, really, and before we know it my beloved crew has derailed onto a 15 minute tangent, 20 tops. It's the moments like this that really bring us together, but the game is on pause.
I demurely open my netbook. That should be just long enough to finish that paragraph from before.
This is basically my life, and I think, in varying degrees and measures it's the life of a lot of writers nowadays. Humans are really odd. We construct all of these conveniences for ourselves to spend more time in leisure. But then we become restless and fill that space with non-leisure.
I personally just seem to be programmed to defrag myself constantly, always appropriating space for more work, social obligations, school, Twitter...
And if I'm not careful--slowly, the writing gets slowly pushed aside, and aside, and aside, until it falls off the table.
But I love writing, I think. Writing keeps me alive. And it makes me happy. It sustains me--why can't I sustain it?
Well, the natural response is that I'm lazy. I'm working on that. There's also the trauma inflicted on me by several people in my past who thought I was isolating myself and wasting my time with something that had no immediate product (by product I mean money. ).
And the biggest reason is? I don't have a real reason. I should just be writing, making time for it, even if it's only a few moments or six hours, or whatever. I'm doing it now, aren't I? And the world isn't crumbling down just yet.
When I work at the writing center at my school (not this semester), I sometimes have space in between appointments. Sometimes they don't show. So I take the opportunities as they come.
One of my co-workers once marveled at my ability to find time to write. Half-distracted, I replied, "Well, I'm just a writing raccoon. I steal it where I can, however I can."
So, yeah. That's kind of what this blog is going to be about.
I wanna do a lot of things with this blog, actually. Basically? Whatever I want that relates to my writing life. For example, I'm probably going to talk about books. I'm on a quest to read 100 books for pleasure this year, along with my friend Marie K Stevens (check out her blog here) and I'm gonna wanna talk about what I like about the writing and what I don't, what I wanna try in my own stuff and what I wanna stay away from.
Naturally, I'm going to talk about my writing process/progress. That's probably apparent. I have one major project I'm working on now, and I'm trying to stick to it. I can foresee wanting to talk about what I choose to send out, too, how I do it, and what not.
I'm probably going to talk about my fanfiction too. I have a 28 chapter fanfiction in the works, and I haven't updated in months. I'd really like to finish it. Because it counts. It does. So what if I can't publish it traditionally?
And just a heads up, I'll probably chat a little about PbP roleplay, videogames, anime, TV shows, and etc. Because the main ingredient in all of them issssss.....
The purpose of this blog is to get me writing about anything, and keep me writing however I can. No matter what. I might update several times a week, but always at least once. That much I will commit to; I don't think that's a bad start. How's every...(one moment as I glance at the corner of my screen) Friday sound? Awesome. =)
Yours truly,
The Writing Raccoon
