Adventures in Creative Writing.

I have a few things I want to talk about.

I have been working on this story called "Just a Girl From Rushmore High" for a year now. I have about 19 chapters written in my notebook, and it was really going places, but it wasn't written the way I wanted to. I have had this idea for a long time of a desperate author stealing a young girl's blog to plagiarize it and what would ensue soon after that. My story was ok, there were a few plot holes and not enough of the characters were developed enough, and since a lot of it was mindlessly written, the writing wasn't that great.

This is the premesis.

First of all, "Just a Girl From Rushmore High" is the second novel I've tried to write since I moved to Michigan about a year and a half ago. I am sort of upset at myself when I think about this. I like to call myself a writer but in all honesty, I haven't written much. I write a lot in my journal, and I have a lot of short stories, and I think about writing a lot, but compared to a lot of people my age, I just haven't really written anything. I am really dedicated to this story. Don thinks that I should lose it and try a different story idea, but I can't. I have to finish this story.

I have been writing it for a while. I would write it in class and on the bus all the time. Then all of a sudden I had a research essay to write and then immediately after that I had my exams. I was to pick it up after I graduated, but the look of those three notebooks full of crap sitting there just intimidated me. I felt like I lost contact with my characters and my plot. I haven't written a single thing since at least May.

Since I started writing it, I also got very into Fiction Press, which is where I post these works. I was reading all kinds of stories and leaving lots of good reviews, hoping the same favor would be returned to me. I was also in search of someone who could truly help me with my story. I gave up after this person flaked out on me, but then I got high speed and I decided to give it another go. I believed [and still do] that another writer to bounce ideas off of would do wonders for my work. When I write I feel like I am lost and alone in this jungle of ideas and my vision is very foggy. I feel that if I had a friend to help me, I wouldn't feel so lost.

I went on a desperate search. I searched on every writers forum I could find. And now I am happy to say that I have found two people to help me with writing. One, a 14 year old, is helping me with writing excersices, and another, a 17 year old, is helping me figure out my story and help me with plot holes. I don't know how people can write alone, but perhaps that is because they're good writers who can get their thoughts down very easily. All I know is I feel so inspired and motivated when I have someone to talk to about it.

I am also happy to say that I have restarted my story. I have changed the gender of the second main character, taken out a few characters, and added a little bit of backstory. I am currently having a problem trying to figure out how to write the author's point of view in this story, but I have realized that if I take my time with it and actually concentrate, I can do much better.

I also realized today that sometimes I write in the way you would see something in a movie. When I do that, my writing comes out very bland. For example, I was writing my first chapter today and I was trying to start it off. I started off visualizing what my character would be doing. My character ended up getting out of bed and the narrative continued to say that she had writers block. This is what would happen in a movie. You would watch a character get out of bed. I scratched that immediately, knowing that if I started my first chapter this way, the rest of my story wouldn't have a chance. I have learned that I am not writing a movie here, I am writing a book, and I need to stop not taking chances and just write in a way that shows the reader more than tells them.

It may be a while before I get this story done, but hopefully not too long. I hope to not spend a year writing this story. I would like to finish it and clear my mind up for another story that I will like better, one that I can write using current experiences. This story is about a 15 year old girl and I am very much past this stage in my life, despite the fact that it haunts me. I watched a movie today and got thinking about mothers and daughters and how mothers are so attached to their children sometimes, so attached that they can be controlling. And I thought how that must start early on when the child is in the womb, but then thought that I had no idea. And for a brief [totally not serious] second, I kind of wished I was pregnant just so I can feel that bond with another human being. But I'm not pregnant and don't plan to be pregnant anytime soon.

My point is this; I could write about that experience if I were pregnant. But right now, I can write about making life changing decisions in your youth, thinking you have the world in your hand, thinking you own everything and you will never fail. This is what I can write about because this is what I am experiencing. But how can I write about that when I have to finish this story about the 15 year old?

I'm sorry for rambling, and I know that my posts have been pretty invaluable lately. I have been extremely clouded. Sometimes I don't really know how I feel, and therefore cannot express those feelings. It is a very frustrating situation for me to be in, so I stay far away from writing in my journal or blog to keep my self esteem at a healthy level.