Victorious! Or not . . .

                I am very happy that I can pride myself on never being one of those bloggers who blogs to avoid writing. That would be completely awful! After all, I’m a writer, not a blogger. Okay, as compelling as those reasons are, I have a deadly confession to make.  Don’t judge, okay? All right, well, recently I have been a procrastinating writer (hangs head in shame). Yep, I have done almost anything to avoid working on my novel, including reading many of Go Teen Writer’s inspiring blog posts, reading other blogs, checking my email several times in the span of ten minutes (pathetic, I know . . . remember? You said you weren’t judging!), and working on writing prompts and other writing. For example, my play that I submitted to Teen Ink a while ago is on the front page of the plays section. I really appreciate that, because it makes me feel like I’m a talented writer, even though it’s only up there because there are only 70 plays in the section. Still, it's a feel-good sort of thing.

                While I have been busily procrastinating (and it’s harder than you think! Nah, just kidding; it’s really not), I decided today, when I had a few free minutes, to print out my winner’s certificate for finishing my first draft of Relatively Normal, my Camp NaNoWriMo manuscript. That being said, I clicked the print button eagerly, and when it rolled out, the print job was completely spotty. Well, technically, pinstriped with various not congratulations-you-won blue shades. That was kind of disappointing, to tell you the truth. I walked into my room holding the certificate.

     Anni, my sister, commented, “So, you printed it?”

     I replied, “Yep, I got a certificate of achievement from Camp Tie-Dye.”

                I have been not working on my manuscript because I need to add 4,000 words to two of my chapters, as they are short, because I had just wanted to get to the end and didn’t have anything else to say. However, two 1,200 chapters are blatantly obvious when the rest of the manuscript has chapters ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 words. I was also considering doing an epilogue, although I’m not sure if I should or not. The reasons why my chapters are so long are because a) I used five alternating points of view, and b) they needed to get me through an academic school year (that probably sounds redundant... Oh well!). That, naturally, leaves me with eleven chapters, which is such an odd number. Like, eleven? I wanted to start and end with the same person, though. It still –obviously- kind of bugs me, though. Well, that’s it for now, I guess. I’d better get back to my dreaded WIP. I like my novel, I really do, it’s just that I don’t think it’s very good. I mean, I like it, but it’s not good enough for anyone else. That sounds like I’m going through a break-up right now, doesn’t it? I need to stop making things sound like break-ups when they’re not. Hey, maybe that should go on my to-do list. That, and to stop reading so much. The good news is that these days, I can blame anything on either hormones or my lack of a frontal lobe, or writing*. 

*My dad still accepts that, happily, so i guess eventually I'd better give him my manuscript to show him that I don't just play Pong all day. Note: I only played Pong in library, when Ms. Tschunko was blathering on about some book talk, so that doesn't count. It's not like I'm a Pong addict or anything (is there such a thing? Yeah, probably).