Saturday, March 12, 2011

March Madness Goals

So a few days ago, on March 9th to be exact, I signed up for Denise Jaden's Awesome March Madness, I mean it's not the March Madness of basketball fame, but still it is very very cool. Plus it allowed me to set some goals:

So without further ado, here are my goals for March Madness:

1. Write at least one chapter in my current YA WIP.

2. Write and post at least 5 blog entries in my poor neglected Livejournal.

3. Write at least 500 words a day. So by the end of March I will have 15,500 new words. Of course, they'll be spread across a few different projects, but they'll still be new words.

4. Prepare for Script Frenzy. Get to know my characters - who they are and what do they want. Unless, of course, this is cheating.

5. Try to read at least half my current to-read pile.

6. Try to avoid overusing the phrase "at least."

7. Also I'm working on limiting my Pepsi intake to three can a day. (So far today, I've only had one.)


So without counting this sentence I am at 267 words. (Yes, I am ignoring the fact that I signed up for it on March 9, so I have eight days or 4,000 words to make up for.)

267 down, 15,233 to go.

Awesome Must-See Video

I have to admit that I've really never thought about making a nonnarrative short film, although I suppose one could argue that Youth is a narrative film. Nonetheless this is an awesome film and I wish I had been this talented when I was 16.

YOUTH from Tommy Petroni on Vimeo.

I absolutely love what Molly O'Neill said about this film over at 10 Block Walk: "Or, as you might also care to see it, it's essentially the heart of many a contemporary YA novel, in under five minutes."

I have to agree with Molly. And I loved the skateboarding bits, but that might because one of my MCs is a skater.

I love this film.

Thanks, Tommy for sharing this with us. I know we'll be seeing more of your work in the future.

Cross-posted from my livejournal

The Very Memorable First Post

Welcome to my new blog.

First posts are really hard to write. Okay, so I find posts, in general, very hard to write, because honestly while I've always liked the idea of keeping a diary/journal, I've never been really good at maintaining said diary/journal. But I love reading blogs/journals especially those by authors (both published and aspiring to be published), agents, editors, and the like.

Although I've been on livejournal for almost six years, I only have 47 entries. And until recently I pretty much had abandoned it. 2010 was going to be the year that I made a serious return to writing and blogging. That didn't happen. Then 2011 came and I decided not to even fool myself into thinking I'd make resolutions again.

Then last month, YA author L.K. (Lisa) Madigan passed away. Although I only knew L.K. from her often funny Drenched in Words, I felt part of her world. As the news spread, so did the tributes by those who knew her well and those, like me, who only knew her from her words. The following quote (from her advice on writing) often popped up, which coupled by the fact that L.K. knew she was going to die and that she wouldn't get a chance to write all the books she wanted made me decided it was time to actually sit down and be a writer.

The main thing is to WRITE. Some days it might be 2000 words. Some days you might tinker with two sentences until you get them just right. Both days belong in the writing life. Some days you may watch a “Doctor Who” marathon or become immersed a book that is so good you can’t stop reading. Some days you may be in love or in mourning. Those days belong in the writing life, too. Live them without guilt.
                                                                                                   -- L.K. Madigan


Thank you Lisa for your words and for inspiring me to get my butt in the chair and write. Thank you to all the authors whose blogs I read who keep sharing their stories and encouraging us all to achieve our dreams.