Intimidated

After the Christmas rush in buying gifts when I came home, I quickly turned on the laptop and checked for updates. Eventually, I still can’t get my 5 free paperbacks from createspace. One, they won’t accept my manuscript because the royalty thingy was named after my sister and not me. So I have to inform them that I approve for my sister to have my incomes if ever I got to sell my book. And guess what? I still have to wait a day to get there response; either a Yes or a No. Two, I am not that confident anymore about my manuscript. I mean, first of all, who would want to trust a 16-year-old kid who wrote a rushed-story in four days? Most would think it’s full of crap and that’s what brings me down. Second of all, I still have this bugging feeling inside me that I didn’t write it well enough. I want to re-write the 243-page story.

And you know what? To intimidate me even more, my silliness encouraged me to skim through this website about literary agents. I’ve heard that you have a better chance of being known when you have a literary agent plus, they arrange interviews and tours for you. Sweet deal, huh? Again, I am underage and I don’t have a job yet so I can’t pay for a literary agent, luckily, the payment is if ever I sell a book. I can’t wait for the royalty check. ^_^ but then again, reading about creating a query for a literary agent and how big of percentage I may be rejected took the spirits out of me—yet again.

See, I know writers should have this mental preparation for rejections. But this is my first time, okay? And it’ll be hard for an easily-moved-and-sentimental teenage kid like me to accept rejection no matter how optimistic I try to be. Though coincidence or not, when my mom bought me my medicine, there’s this little paper attached to it. Written on it was; “ACCEPT YOUR MISTAKES. Mistakes teach us precious, rare lessons that can’t be acquired by success. Be willing to take new direction in life. Accept and face the reality and move on with life." -MD ROBINSON

The last line bothered me a little. If accepting reality means facing the cruelty in this world and knowing that there are soldiers out there not coming home for Christmas, then I guess I’d prefer to live in fantasy where everything is possible and fairies just say 'bibitty-bobitty-boo' to grant a wish. Though that’s a little sidetracked from the quote. Mistakes teach us precious, rare lessons that can’t be acquired by success. Well, you learn from your mistakes and experience is the best teacher. I believe that when you don’t commit a mistake, then you’re not succeeding at all. I guess I should start building up that courage in revising again my manuscript and trying to create a query letter and then finally, submit one. All I need is a little motivation, a little push, and a  little support from—whoever you are. Be rejected? I’ll try my hardest to accept it and move on to another rejection. I guess I’ll just find a thousand ways to be rejected and then discover the right one to be accepted. [Rings a bell? ;)] Though in every mistake or rejection, I’ll do better every next time.

Happy Holidays! Rejections, I am armed for you!

Re-write until you're satisfied...Say what?

I have finished proofreading “Scarlet” and as far as I’ve read it, yet again, I am not satisfied. I guess what they say is true. One will always find it hard to be contented with his work. No matter how many times you have proofread and revised your work, in the end you will still not be satisfied. There will be no perfect story, just a better one. And I am believing that I am achieving for the better of “Scarlet”.

My main concern, though, is I’ve been using ‘but’, ‘as’, ‘though’, and ‘because’ too much that it’s getting irritating. Thanks to my sister for reminding me that I can cut the lines to drop off the weak words. ;)

And for the record, seeing that it’s December 23^rd when I’ve started proofreading the story at December 22^nd, 9 P.M., I didn’t feel tired at all. In fact, I feel like I could be awake the whole night. It won’t be a good option, though, since my head is starting to ache but I still don’t want to sleep. [there goes the ‘though’ and ‘but’ again. Ugh]

Oh yeah, there’s a tip I’ve read; you need to abandon your story for a month or two. The “A” word seems pretty scary, but it seems like a good tip. I mean, it would be a good one to see your story in a new perspective. As far as I’ve edited today, I just abandoned my story like—let’s say—23 or 24 days? Geez, I need to abandon it once more before revising it again. I hope I can finish proofreading this and be contented with it before January 30, because that’s when my free 5 paperbacks from Createspace.com expires.

Wish me luck :) Happy Holidays and procrastination, be gone!

First Step

Well, hello to you...whoever you are.  See, I’ve decided to record my progress in achieving my dreams. Now I do feel like Julie in the movie “Julie and Julia” when she started blogging her progress in cooking Julia’s food though in my case, I am here to blog about how I am doing with my writing. Here’s a little histroy of my ‘dream passion’.
I started to write a silly story at the age of thirteen, my 1^st year in high school. This story is about a girl who met a prince and a bad boy. It’s kind of a typical teenager love cliché and to be honest, as I read through it at my current age…I find it humiliating. One, I gave the prince a weird surname—Lingerie. Of course I didn’t know what that means back then until my sister told me what. Next, I have written another novel based on my favorite anime. I must say, I did a pretty good job at that and it’s finished though I am not yet done proofreading it. I, too, am embarrassed again.

At the age of 13 to 15 years old, I’ve written tons of unfinished stories and some are still stuck inside my head or inside a USB with virus in it that can be deleted any minute. Well, back then I was thinking “Why can’t I finish a story?”, and the answer came to me.
I don’t know how to make a skeleton of the story. Though I finished three novels without making any character description or such, as I skim over it…the stories are CRAPTASTIC. They’re ready to be burned.

But now, I knew how to do the basic steps. Creating your character’s storyline, their appearance, the plot, the by chapter tiny story, etc. And with that, I’ve finished a story that I am proud of. Well, I finished this because I wanted to join NaNoWriMo 2012, a writing event. Last November, I remembered NaNoWriMo suddenly so I checked on it and guess what? I started to write “Scarlet” four days before the event ends. I skipped school for three and a half days and busied myself in finishing Scarlet. I wasn’t able to finish to 50,000 words but hey, luck was on my side because they’re having a ‘Young Writer’s Program’ where the target-words are just 30,000. I made my novel to 47,000 + and I was able to submit it and win. The feeling was inexpressible and skipping school was worth it. Now, I am hoping to publish “Scarlet”, self-published or not.