What a Busy Month

June has been one of those months for me where I feel as if I’m frantically running around, trying to keep all my plates in the air, but it never ends because gravity is not on my side. I’ve been crazy busy, and there just doesn’t seem like enough hours in my day to finish everything.

First off, I had three birthdays to celebrate and shop for. And after Memorial weekend, I had Father’s Day, and now Fourth of July is around the corner. (Today my family is doing a pre-Fourth of July BBQ, so I’m quickly cranking this post out. I ran out of time to write it days earlier.) And two days after that holiday is my Mom’s birthday, so guess who has to celebrate (and spend more money) again?

It seems like I’m Editing All the Things lately, too. Earlier in the month, I managed to acquire another internship at an independent publishing house (because unpaid writing/editing positions seem to be what anyone will ever offer me…hopefully all the experience I’m racking up will be worth it). I’ve proofread two complete manuscripts in the past four weeks. I find it oddly satisfying nitpicking all the sentences, locating all the incorrect usages of grammar and misspellings and inconsistent details. Of course, it can be time consuming though, since I have to read twice as slowly in order to carefully read the pages. My fingers are itching to do some content or line editing (especially with the second manuscript I had to read), but at least it appears that my project for next week will involve actually doing track changes to the writing instead of just recording all the errors on a separate document.

But that’s not all! Two weeks ago, I volunteered to be a part of the Writing & Content team for the young adults/professionals (people who are mainly in their twenties) at my church. I figured it was probably time that I should do something more than passively showing up and participating in their activities. And when they launched the program for this summer, they just happened to be seeking out some writers and proofreaders to join (which was decided on the day of the launch).

So there’s a total of only six of us on this Writing team, and I’m the only one with some actual experience. One was part of his college’s newspaper, but he majored in Political Science. Another writes a lot of report stuff at his job, but it’s more of a financial advising slant. As for the other three people, they’re just doing it as a hobby. (Well, one was actually roped in by our leader because the Writing team is the smallest group, and this friend of his didn’t know which team to join.) It’s heartening to read all their writing in each of their blog post drafts (especially as I’m going through and proofreading them), but I fear I may be overstepping or becoming too intimidating/intense. I’m basically doing the same tasks that I did when I was the Editor-in-Chief for the Oakland Arts Review, and I find myself slipping back into my old role. I’m just trying to make sure things are moving smoothly, everyone! And that your work is polished so you look good!

Speaking of writing…

Tomorrow is the first of July, and I was originally hoping to begin my Summer Writing Project on that day. But sometime last week, I decided it wasn’t going to happen. Not on the first of the month, anyway. I haven’t really thought about what kind of project I want to do, and I feel like I need to wait until things start to settle down in my life before I dive into a new project. So perhaps in the middle of July I can get back to writing creatively?

Currently, there are three different stories that I’m pondering about. One is something that I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year, and it’s sitting at about 5k words. The other possible story is even shorter at only 681 words. (It was originally supposed to be a short story, but then last September I began to sketch out the world and its characters a bit more and the plot grew.) And the final story is the basic idea I mentioned in a previous blog post – you know, the Shiny New Idea that started to distract me during my Spring Writing Project.

Except…part of me thinks, after the two-month long project I completed for the Spring, I should take a break from long-form stories and focus more on writing shorter stuff. So I don’t know.

I’m disappointed at my lack of reading books this month, too. I only read one book: NOW I RISE by Kiersten White. And I finished that novel back on June 9. I suppose the manuscript reading I’ve been doing could count, but it’s not quite the same. I have to read those. Also, the pile of unread books sitting on my dresser is currently at eighteen.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I decided to watch a season of one series on Netflix during this month, too. But since I started it seventeen days ago, I’ve only gotten around to watching 8/13 episodes. I just keep running out of time in my day to watch (or read) anything.

So here’s to hoping that July will settle down a little bit…but probably not.

The Page 49 Exercise

Two years ago, when I was participating in my annual NaNoWriMo, I experienced something that every writer runs into at some point: writer’s block. Like most of my NaNoWriMos, I had decided to spend the month mainly writing short stories, with hopes that one would eventually stick and I could work on it for more than just a couple of days.

To generate some possible story ideas, I headed over to NaNoWriMo’s forums. They’re always a hit-or-miss for me, but it’s worth a try. And on this particular day, someone had given the suggestion of reaching for the nearest book, flipping to page 49, and then whatever the first sentence was that appeared on the page, it would become the opening line of your story.

Theoretically, you could choose any other page instead of 49. But the argument was that it was a page number early enough within the book where the action was beginning to take place, so it should provide exciting material. Also, every book should have at least 49 pages. (And I think, because it’s an odd number, it’s just more convenient to glance at the right hand of a novel rather than the left.)

So I picked up the first book sitting on top of my unread pile, turned to page 49, and then typed that specific sentence out as my opening line. This suggestion actually worked quite well for me – I ended up writing 38k words for it.

Now I’ve gotten into the habit of recording the very first full sentence on every 49th page of every book I begin to read. I scribble it into a notebook of mine, ready to use as a launching point for any sort of future story. The subject of some sentences certainly make it obvious which book I was reading, but I’ve found that the more “vague” the lines are, the wider the range it is for me to take the story into any sort of direction I choose.

Some great lines I’ve recorded that I haven’t applied to a story yet:

• He’s talking to her again. 
• You’ve probably heard that he never ages. 
• Her stomach tensed. 
• She unceremoniously withdrew from school and said good-bye to friends in awkward little conversations. 

(If you can figure out which books each of the above quotes are derived from, I applaud you. Because I can only remember two out of four of them.)

Perhaps it’s a weird habit of mine, seeking out every 49th page to see what the first full sentence is, but it’s now become a fun little activity. I think it’s so interesting to see what kind of story you can spin on your own based on those couple of lines.

I hope I’m not the only one who has such “silly” techniques to help ease writer’s block.