What I've been up to in March + future plans

March is a strange month. It comes after the 28 or 29 days of February, and it's got daylight savings to boot.
For me, March was a month where I got very serious about editing my current novel, and lazy about writing a different novel. Now let me tell you, editing is hard.

See all those red lines and scribbles? Editing is no joke. I plan on writing a series of posts about my editing processes. Because it is looooong.

On the personal side of things, life is bumpy, as it always is. I have my good moments where I edit whole chapters in the space of a day, and days where I barely have the energy to leave the house.
But I've been slowly slowly beating depression's butt.

With depression, it's hard to actually get up and do something productive. I've been writing this  post since February. But I really want to reconnect with the online world, so here I am.

My Relationship with Books

To be a writer, first you must be a reader. (I think someone important said that.)

My first interaction with books was when my mother would build me little forts out of books, and I'd choose one to pore through. I don't have any memory of this, but mum insists it was really cute.

My first memory of books was reading in the dead of night. When I was a child, I was scared of the dark (still am, come to think of it), so the light in the hallway outside my door was lit until one of my parents woke up or so. Each night, I'd wait for my parents to fall asleep, and creep out into the hallway and sit right down on the floor with one of the numerous books I'd borrowed from the library.
That was how I'd read most of the Harry Potter books, and the Lord of the Rings, as well as playing Pokémon Silver. When I heard the creak of my parent's bed, or the sigh of them being roused from sleep, I would hustle back to bed and pretend I'd been asleep. If I was lucky, it would be a false alarm, and I could go back to reading until it was time for school.
To this day, I have reading-induced insomnia.

When I was in highschool, reading was never really cool, so I stopped it for the sake of joining in with my friends. What they didn't know was that I was devouring books like Les Miserables and attempting at War and Peace. I was the first one in my group--and probably the school--to read Twilight, and thought it meh before moving on to real vampire books like Anne Rice's series.
I'd also spend my nights reading fanfiction, or original fiction online, on fictionpress and its sister site. I must have read hundreds of words worth of books in those years.

It was only when I had graduated from highschool, when I'd removed myself from several toxic relationships, that I'd enveloped myself in the world of books.
I firmly believe that it was my lack of books during my teenage years that made me so heavily suicidal. Now years later, I have my books and I feel so much better.

Books are magic. Everyone says that, and that's because it's true. Twilight was so popular because girls could leave their boring/over-complicated/abusive/etc'd lives for a little while. And it's because I can leave myself for so many hours at a time that I've been able to cope with depression.

And with the devouring of books came the inevitable writing of books. I'd run out of books I'd wanted to read. I'd read everything on fictionpress; so I wrote something I'd want to read.
That part still remains. Right now I'm in the mood for selkie/mermaid hybrids and the end of the world and human sacrifices, and that's exactly what I'm writing.
Write the book you want to read (I'm sure someone definitely said that.)

Mental health and writing.

TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HARM AND SUICIDE

In which I blog about my other blog

So, to some, it might not come as a surprise that I review books on the side under a pseudonym, Nikki Mars.
I just started updating that blog, after having it be on hiatus for 3 years. I've dusted off the cobwebs and gave it a new layer of paint to freshen it up. My first review is of Divergent, and some of the issues in plot I had with it. Check it out.

In the meantime, I plan on making more writing based posts to fill this blog up. Right now I'm working on a post about likeable characters: do we have to like a character or not in order to have a good book?

If you have any other requests for writing based posts, or even just life stuff about me and my furry animals, please leave a comment or email me. I love hearing from you all.

Current Writing Shenanigans

So, I suppose I should write about what I've been up to, writing wise.

I usually work on two projects at once: drafting one novel, and editing another.

Unfortunately, uni hasn't been giving me enough time to develop a new concept, and to draft it too (that's going to be a NaNoWriMo thing, since I'll be done with uni forever), but I've been busy doing mass edits on one of my older projects, which some of my older readers from LiveJournal might remember, my NaNo novel from 2010, titled Fool's Gold.

At the moment, I'm in the midst of a complete rewrite of the first 3 chapters, after coming to the conclusion that the first chapter literally did nothing to further the story, other than a bit of worldbuilding and info dumping. Events that have happened in chapter 3 now happen in chapter 1, and it gets complicated after that, with bits and pieces from all those chapters happening in different places.

After that, chapters 15-18 are going to need to be scrapped and rewritten from scratch, because I was young and dumb and wrote awful things that my current feminist self cringes with disgust at.

I'm glad that I've finally decided to work on this novel 4 years after having drafted it. I've grown so much as a writer, Fool's Gold having been my second completed novel. Now in mid 2014, I've already written about six novels, in various stages of completion. I've discovered books that have helped me develop a vibrant voice, that have made me reconsider plot points, character development, and world-building.

I hate it when people call their books their babies, but this novel has been on my mind for almost 5 years, and it's finally so close to being queried to an agent. It's an exhilarating feeling knowing that I've worked so hard on it, and it's been 5 years in the making.

Keep an eye out for future posts on my progress.

Books I Read and Loved in 2014, Part 1

Hello wonderful readers, I'm on the cusp of the second half of the year, and I realise I haven't posted in months (I am pretty active on Instagram if anyone wants to follow me in my day to day life. Lots of pictures of my fur babies). So, I thought I'd talk about the books that I've read and loved in the first half of 2014. Currently, I'm sitting at 77 books read, but quite a few of them didn't really move me all that much.

I really need to post more often...

Dang, I haven't been here in ages. And I hate knowing that I've neglected this blog.
So, what have I been up to since January? Not much, really.

~

Started my last year of uni, with some classes that don't feel relevant to writing at all. But I did have to get myself an internship for one of my classes, and that worked out great. I got an internship at Little Raven Publishing, a small Australian-based erotic publisher, which was super fun. Something nice to add to my writer's resume. In the long run, I hope to get a job in the publishing industry.

~

Got diagnosed with bipolar disorder and OCD, and finally got treatment for it, which is, like, the best thing ever. My mood swings haven't been quite as intense, and it makes it easier for me to find the motivation to do more that just lie in bed with a book on my face and a dog on my legs, day after day.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects I've been getting is intense vertigo every time I stand up, but it's so worth it.

~

I guess you could say I'm the bees knees

Got another tattoo, and they're my favourite ones yet. Lately I've been really passionate about gardening and flowers, and the importance of bees. Also, it shows my love for puns. 

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Officially came out as pansexual to my peers, which may have been the scariest, yet most exhilarating thing I've ever done.  I don't think I've ever felt prouder of myself, and relieved at all the positivity gained from it. 

~

Started plans for a new novel, and all I'm going to say about it for now is that it's a modern retelling of The Snow Queen, with mermaids, a guest appearance of Cthulhu, a damsel saving her knight in distress, and no love triangles whatsoever. More details to come as I go through it. 

~

And, saving the best for last, my family has grown by two! 

Meet Selina and Luna!

They already get along so well with Layla, in fact, Luna just adores Layla, and loves grooming and bopping her on the nose, as pictured.

So, that's been my life for the last few months. I hope I can post more frequently than before. Maybe at least once a month like I used to, at least a book haul or what I've read for the month, that sort of thing.

See ya next time!