I am worried about...

So as I delve deeper into my book, I find myself worried with five things. Well for right now, it is only five things. I am sure in the future there will be more.

1. Tense
Tense is something I have always struggled with. It is so hard for me to write in only present or only past. I find that one sentence is in present and the next in past. I struggle with it constantly. I try to make myself aware of it and correct each mistake but I know there are a lot slipping through the cracks.

2. Subject Verb Agreement
This one does not plague me as much as tense, but I still worry over it. I think I am actually pretty good at, but I know it is a big deal therefore I analyze each subject and verb combination way too much.

3. Consistentcy
I am really afraid of making some silly mistake. Like in one chapter someone is blonde and the next a brunette. I really hate seeing mistakes like that in movies or books which makes me more critical of my own writing.

4. Passive Writing Vs Action Writing
I wasn't concerned with this at all until I read a blog recently discussing the pros and cons of each. Now I am over analyzing my sentence structure as well as my tense and subject verb agreement.

5. Short Chapters
Probably not that big of a deal, but I am finding all my chapters to be around eight to ten pages. Then I start doing math, which is never a good thing. I am guesstimating that by the time this thing is done it will be close to 400 pages which at 10 pages a chapter is 40 chapters. 40 chapters seem like a lot to me.

I am really starting to feel like reading about writing is hurting my writing. I am thinking each sentence, each word to death. At this rate I will never finish my book. Someone please help!

Challenge Poem

Okay so I took on a challenge poem. Basically that means you have to write a poem with stipulations or guidelines. Here are the stipulations:

4 stanzas with 4 lines in each stanza
no more than 12 syllables, but at least 8 syllables
include an unusual shade of blue, brief reference to a Biblical or mythological character, and have either extreme hot or cold.

Here is my poem.

Ice Statues

Like Cain, I am cursed to wander, searching
for escape from this medium between two
worlds. Slowly, shifting glaciers slightly
altering scenery make it possible

to decide where I'm going. Even though I know
that first I must release this lightly
fading vortex of thoughts, which make capable
hypothermia to set in, thickening

burgundy blood. My heart beats slowly.
Breath reveals itself in the air. Wind is able
to numb my nose, while summoning
and sucking out the memories of you

and others I've known. I become unable
to move under an aquamarine sky. Sinking
deeper into the harsh translucent snow,
as if my past is freezing indefinitely.

Started over...again

So I am starting over for the fourth time. After one hundred plus pages, I find my characters stuck. I don't like where they are or who they have become. I've decided to start again, this time with a more clear vision of who I want Josie to be.

I don't want her to be a vapid, love-struck teenage girl. I don't want her to be some ass-kicking, sarcastic, angst ridden teenage girl either. I do want her to be a teenage girl though. And for me a teenage girl is made up of some sarcasm, fear, courage, tenacity, anger, love, narcissism, and indecision. That's a lot of stuff to cram into her personality, but I think if I can do it, she will be normal.

Hopefully now that I am on my fourth draft of my book, I can get it finished and edit it. Wish me luck!

Lipstick Pollution

Your voice still echoes
eating at my cerebral
lobe, staining thoughts.

I sleep in your red
boxers. At night, the sheets
rub against my legs.

Light and voices
radiating from the TV
keep me company,

while I wait for you
to crawl into bed, smelling
of Kamikazes and smoke,

whispering goodnight
from a mouth polluted
with her lipstick and sex.



So, Lipstick Pollution is from over three years ago, and it doesn't describe anything in my life, but instead a movie that I can't remember the name of now.

First Post

Okay so this is my first post. (Obviously).  So I guess I decided to start a blog mainly because well I want to get my name out there as a writer. I think this will be a good start. Hopefully one day it will be the place to go in order to find out when one of my books will be published (if that happens.)

I am about one fourth of the way through my first real attempt at a book. Right now I have about a million and one ideas rolling through my head about my book and where it is going. My husband keeps telling me to outline it and I tried but I just don't think I'm a good at outlining. I guess that would be mainly because I'm not sure where it's going to end.

I am in love with my characters though. Some days I like some more than others and everyday I feel like I know them better. Especially Josie, my main character. I find that she is becoming an adult faster than me and well I'm kind of already supposed to be there. And sometimes I find myself so wrapped up in her world, its hard to find mine again, and for me I think that is pretty big.

You see, I used to hate English in school, I mean I really hated it. I had this old hag for a teacher and she killed it for me. Then I get to college and I realized that not every essay has to start the same or end the same. I learned that it was okay to have your own opinion and sometimes even disagree with the teacher/professor. And I fell in love with it all over again.

I hadn't written anything I felt strongly about since third grade, when I wrote about Turkeys and how I thought Thanksgiving was a cruel holiday because we were celebrating killing turkeys. Silly I know, but at nine well I was serious about it.  Then I write this essay and my professor loved it. And then I get a poetry teacher who was pretty great and then I decide that this is what I want to do. I want to write. I've been slow to start but I have started now, and hopefully one day it will be more than a blog.

The second reason I wanted to do a blog is get some of  my poems out there. I hope they're good and that they're understandable. So on that note I'm going to end with a poem that I wrote over a two years ago and hope that it is good. If you like it let me know. I need some encouraging thoughts!


Hotel

Fingers glide across the strings
caressing the neck of a newly
purchased Breedlove. Raspy echos
bleed through the hotel room
walls, staining the wallpaper.

Water beads on my face, venturing
past my collar bone.  The cheap
showerhead teases with trickling
water.  You stop playing, a Marlboro
igniting, hanging loosely from your lips.

I wring water from my hair, ambition
and smoke fill the room.  Hazel
eyes trace my towel-covered figure
scanning for input or inspiration,
circumnavigating my inner thoughts.