new year, new look

What with the new year and all, I felt like it was time to change things up on the blog. I think the black background was functioning like a black hole and sucking all of my creativity and determination into an abyss of despair. Or something like that. So now it's white...probably too white, actually, but that's because it's still new and clean.

More new news: at approximately 3:30 a.m. while I was unsuccessfully attempting to fall asleep, I finally thought of a good way to word the beginning of The Story Thief. I scribbled down two sentences in the notebook by my bed, which means I'm only about 5,990 words behind my goal! Oh boy! I also thought up a cool cover idea for the story, did twenty sit-ups and twenty lunges, finished reading Lady Knight, got seven drinks of water, wrote out a to-do list for the next day, got another blanket, and finally fell asleep (and dreamt of Sergeant Domitan), only to wake up again three hours later and toss and turn some more.

But the point is that I've finally started to start my story start. I'm beginning to get out of this horrible mental zone that tells me the first three pages of a story have to be the best three pages I've ever written in my life. That's the thinking of someone trying to get an agent for a story they've already written; it's definitely not helpful thinking for someone who's just trying to start a new story.

But my late (late, late) night has put me back on track! No longer will I agonize over picking the perfect first word. No longer will I discard perfectly good ideas because they aren't perfectly good enough. I will write the crappiest drabble I've ever thought up, and I'll be proud of it because it is written.

And then a year from now, when I'm trying to edit this story, I'll pull my hair out and bang my head against the wall and curse the day that I wrote something so terrible and tried to pass it off as the beginning of good literature.

Ah, what a great process this writing thing is.