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Not that you need to enter my crazy mind, but here you go anyway. Enjoy! |
| A personal journal about the crazy life of a writer, a mom, and an avid reader (sometimes I even feel like one person). I can't promise this will be organized or even stick to one topic, but I can tell you it will chronicle my efforts to get back into the writing community and build up my career. Thanks for reading, it's great to have you here. Feel free to reach out! |
| Hey friends, we are officially in the Roaring 20's! I don't know about you, but I have a ton of writing goals for this year, not the least of which is to become more active on WDC. I have a handful of reviews sitting in my back pocket, waiting for me to get to them. If I've promised you a review, I swear, I haven't forgotten. I've just been swamped for time. I will get to you soon, I promise! Likewise, if you have something you'd like reviewed, don't hesitate to ask. One of my biggest goals this year is to finish the draft of Secrets in the Shadows (working title) and prepare it for publication, so I will be posting the chapters on here for feedback. Anything opinion or rating you care to share would be greatly appreciated! I will try to minimize any spelling/grammar mistakes, but they will be rough as I'm trying to power through it and catch any plot holes. Please forgive the little mistakes and concentrate on the big stuff. Hope you all had a great New Year and start 2020 off on the right foot! Cheers! |
| Writing a new story is hard, and I've got about a dozen bouncing around my head at any given time. You all know I've been working on my novel through the craziness of November, and even if I did let life get in my way, I made a decent amount of progress. Today though, I decided to take the plunge and share a little bit of it with you. Let me tell you, showing someone else what's been brewing in my mind is not an easy thing to do. It. Is. Terrifying. And yet, here I am doing it anyway. I've posted Chapter One of my novel, working title Secrets in the Shadows (not sure that will stick, but hey, it works for now). If you're interested, I would love the feedback! |
| Well, NaNoWriMo is over, and I can't say I made my goal. My final word count was a little over 22,500 words and actually, I'm okay with that. I didn't make the 50,000 words and I didn't finish a draft, but I started one. I pushed through my ideas and made them real on paper. I fleshed out the plot and figured out where I wanted my characters to go. I strung the scenes I saw in my head together, connecting them by this thought or that instead of letting them clump and pile one on top of the other. I found my story and I found my voice. Overall, National Novel Writing Month was a success. |
| Well, I may not be where I needed to be for NaNoWriMo, but I have officially moved into Act 2. I was having a lot of trouble concentrating on the details of the story because I wasn't sure where I wanted it to go, so I spent the afternoon mapping the remainder of Book One out on paper. Guys, I think I've got it. This morning, I have no idea how I was going to get the beginning to connect to the ending, how I was going to incorporate the characters we needed to see, but I'm pretty sure I've cracked it. And boy does it flow. I've rewritten this story so many times, cut and added so many scenes, that the biggest issue was it felt too choppy to feel right. Now, for the first time, it feels organic. I cannot tell you how excited that makes me. Now I just have to write it. |
| Week 3 of NaNoWriMo is here and I'm not even close. BUT, I have passed 10,000 words with two decently large scenes to add that were previously written but need to be changed for this version, plus a decent ride of inspiration to get my characters into the second act. So HOPEFULLY I will make 15,000 words by the end of the day (it will probably only be 13,000 if I'm lucky, but hey, a girl can dream). Every year I decide to try this (though this is only the second year I've registered) and every year I underestimate the amount of time and commitment it takes to write that much in just a month with everything else I have going on. This year, I think I'll be happy if I make 25,000 words, which will put me squarely in Act Two and give my characters a lot of momentum to really start heating stuff up. I'm still trying for the whole shebang, but at this point, any progress on this rewrite is a huge success for me. Either way, I'll be posting what I have at the end of the month for review and hopefully some feedback to keep me going. Cheers to the writer's life, all. Keep it up. You're all heroes in my book. |
| NaNoWriMo. What do we think of when it comes to National Novel Writing Month? For me, I think of INSANITY. I mean, what was I thinking?! Fifty-thousand word in thirty days? With a full-time job, a nine-year-old kid, a four-credit college course and a relationship? I must have been insane to think this was a good idea. Here I am, Day 12, and I haven't been hitting my goals. But. I've written under deadline before. I had to hit 30,000 words in three weeks because I was writing for a client. She called it a novel, but 30,000 words is really a novella. Still, it had a beginning, middle, an end, and the characters had backstory and development. One of those weeks, I didn't have time until the weekend, and I wrote 9,400 words IN A DAY. So, it can be done. I know it can. I just have to find the time to do it. Almost halfway through November, and I am not halfway done, but don't lose faith, dear reader. I may make my goal yet. Just you wait and see. |
| Who would have thought the first day of November would be more terrifying than Halloween? And yet, as National Novel Writing Month commences this November, I find myself scared out of my mind. There is quite a difference in writing because I want to, writing because I'm inspired, and writing under deadline. Oh, the discipline that involves! I participated last year and let life get in the way, so even though I kept writing some, I stopped adhering to the deadlines and definitely did not hit 1,667 words a day. This year, however, I'm hoping I'll keep at it. I'm rewriting this story that's been in my head for ages (again) and I'd really like to get a draft out soon so I can either continue on with the rest of the series or start something new. But I know me, so until I get this first installment on paper, I won't be able to let it go. |
| Revising and rewriting a story is not an easy task. The one I've been working on (for years) has been "finished" and then rewritten at least five times. So, now I'm struggling with how to incorporate the parts of my story I want to keep and those that can be discarded. My story takes place two years after my main character and her best friend meet, but how much of the meeting do I need to show? Their friendship is important, but is it so important that those beginning scenes need to be included? Or do I stay mostly in the present and let the story unfold from this point forward? That's where I'm stuck. I have so much back story, so much plot line that I took what was originally going to be a stand-alone, turned it into a trilogy, and then spread it out into a series. I have plot ideas that span at least six books to date, and with all the revisions, I have source material already written for the first three. It's piecing it together that's driving me insane. And yet, even with the hair pulling stress of trying to make it work, I can't get myself to scrap the story. My characters have become so real to me that abandoning them now feels altogether wrong. So how do I it? Keep writing, right? Just add in what I want to for the rough draft and cut out all those unneeded scenes later. I suppose I'll have to run with that for now, because I'm struggling with getting the beginning to feel right. My goal is to get the first chapter sorted this week and posted soon. Stay tuned if you're interested. I could use all the feedback I can get! |
| I've been out of the writing game here at WDC for some time now, but in doing so, I feel like I've lost a part of myself I was just beginning to love. Even though I talk (a lot) I'm not that social, and my comfort level when it comes to jumping into new communities is virtually non-existent. Because of that, it was easy for me to fade out here and tell myself I wasn't that involved anyway. Big mistake. Even introverts need to be connected. And being connected to other writers we can relate to? That's huge. So, I'm back, hoping to connect with other writers and stay involved this time. Consider it me trying to build myself into the writer (and the person) I always told myself I wanted to be. Bear with me, because I'm definitely a work in progress. Over the last few years, I've made a few strides towards my writing career. I've ghostwritten four novellas for a client, and even though it was first-draft work (all she paid for) the reviews by Amazon readers were an average of four stars. I've published my first collection of poetry (also available on Amazon, soon to be revised and expanded) and am gearing up to release my second. Added to that, one of my writing teachers at the University I'm attending online thinks one of my short stories is actually good enough to publish. I've finished drafts for two different novels, one of which I'm currently revamping (again) and will be posting on WDC for review (if you beautiful people wouldn't mind giving it a read). I've built up a small following on Facebook and and even smaller following on Instagram, but I'm slowly building up my social media presence after taking a bit of a hiatus from that as well. It's my personal life that's gotten a bit hectic this last year or two, but I think I'm finally finding a good balance, which gives me the freedom to get back to what I love. I'm the busy mama of an energetic and challenging nine-year-old girl. She is all sugar, spice, sass, and pizazz, let me tell you. She just started third grade and is growing up way too quickly. Her dad and I split up when she was three, so she had some pretty tumultuous years, though even that's settled this last year or so. Now, she's got a steady equilibrium between us, which is good because it had me worried. So, that (one) stresser aside, I can focus more on the day-to-day and building up my independent little girl while working full time and trying to finish my Bachelor's degree in English. Did I mention I started a new relationship about six months ago? For once, I'm not dating a jerk I make excuses for, but a relationship does take up more time. I'm also saving every penny to buy a house, which is not an easy thing to do in today's economy in the States. Sooo...with all of that, I'm trying really hard to build a career as a follower and achieve a few personal goals. I signed up for NaNoWriMo this year to try to finish the current draft of the novel I'm writing. I'm hoping (cross your fingers) to re-release my first collection of poetry and release my second right after the first of the year. For WDC, my goal is to post my current novel and some poetry for feedback, as well as blog post at least once a week, if not more. I'm hoping to get reviews on my writing, but that also means I need to give reviews. Hopefully I can do this at least once a week too, so if you have something you'd like reviewed, please, please, please send me an email. I'd love to take a look. WDC has an awesome community and I can't wait to get involved again. That being said, if you want to chat about anything, please feel free to hit me up by email or messenger, or find me on Facebook, C.N. Greer, author I'd love to get to know anyone who wants to and get back in the game. |
| I dare you. I dare you to take one day and set yourself free. Free from vices and inhibitions. Free from fear, oppression and self-doubt. Free from every negative emotion, every thought, every memory, every heartbreaking dream you know will not come true. I dare you to let it all go. On this day of celebration for the birth of our nation, I dare you to truly appreciate what it means to be free. To celebrate with reckless abandon. To say the words you've held back, to feel the things you are afraid to feel, to do the things you want to do. I dare you to live today in a way that will honor those who fought and died for our freedom, not just in the Revolutionary War, but in every war. Not just in combat, but those who serve our country every day. Honor our soldiers, honor our veterans, honor our dead. Show no fear in the face of adversity. They didn't. They don't. I dare you to take a risk. Even a small one. Defy logic. Voice your opposition to the government. Rise up against that voice in your head telling you that you can't, you shouldn't. That you're afraid. Free yourself from judgment--of your own person and of others. Be proud to be who you are, to be American. Dare, even if just for one day, to free yourself from the thought-pool of the masses and think, see, act, be independent. And then, dare to do it again. I dare you. |
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