Teens Writing for Teens, the 5th

I'm thinking about untrunking my urban fantasy. *sighs* I really just need to pick one wip to work on and stick with it.

I'm going to bed now. 'Night, guys.

Writing is going SO SLOWLY today. I finally got unstuck and thought the words would flow fast and easily. Especially because I had a nice, strong cup of coffee. But nope. ~700 words in 1.5 hours. At least that's better than my 350 words in 1.5 hours last week, which was my last productive day. But those were well-written words (as I was told by other writers) since I obsessed about word choice and all lol. These 700 words could be better.

Finishing TL by my birthday may be cutting it close. I wish I didn't have to rewrite it, but I came up with new external conflicts that changes quite a bit of it.

Anyway, sorry for complaining. I should just be happy that I'm actually writing lol

MA - LOVE the book cover too.

thanks Miss,

Yeah today i got an email that i dont have enough credits to graduate which was a shock and a half to me! I came into college with 6 extra credits from highschool, and have all my school prerequisites done and all my major prerequisites done too! So i now have to take another stupid class that i just dont have the time or energy for....

Elysium said:

I like the new cover, MA.

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Thanks, Ely and Karla!

Karla, I think everyone has slow weeks sometimes. Maybe you need to take a break from writing? That helps me a lot when I'm not writing the amount I am aiming for. A little break might recharge the inspiration!

Ally, colleges are money-sucking factories. I understand if a course is pertaining to the career you want to take, but sometimes I wonder what are we learning from other courses that mean nothing to our degree! I am an Early Childhood Education major and I have to take college algebra and anything more advanced than that for my degree.

I don't think I am going to be teaching kindergartners and first grades how to use expensive graphing calculators and multi-step formulas.

Missus Akasha said:

Thanks, Ely and Karla!

Karla, I think everyone has slow weeks sometimes. Maybe you need to take a break from writing? That helps me a lot when I'm not writing the amount I am aiming for. A little break might recharge the inspiration!

Ally, colleges are money-sucking factories. I understand if a course is pertaining to the career you want to take, but sometimes I wonder what are we learning from other courses that mean nothing to our degree! I am an Early Childhood Education major and I have to take college algebra and anything more advanced than that for my degree.

I don't think I am going to be teaching kindergartners and first grades how to use expensive graphing calculators and multi-step formulas.

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This is what I fear. I'm going to be a Social Science major which (hopefully) means that I won't have to take any kind of math. I like it and all but right now...I just want to be done with it when I graduate from high school.

Elysium said:

This is what I fear. I'm going to be a Social Science major which (hopefully) means that I won't have to take any kind of math. I like it and all but right now...I just want to be done with it when I graduate from high school.

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I think that depends on what career you want taken in social sciences. Sadly, from the get-go, you have to take math courses to complete the general education requirements of your degree. There isn't any shortcuts around it unless you take AP math classes in highschool that act as college credits that could possibly count towards the GE requirements. :<

I tried to avoid it by pushing my math courses further back and back. This is my last semester of my associate's degree. I suck at math, so I had to take two math courses before even getting into college algebra which actually counts towards my degree. College sucks!

*sniffles* That sucks.

Well, I take AP Calc now. I'm not really doing well in the class though. It's probably the only class that I'm taking that I really hate. I just hope I can get an A on my midterm.

Sifting through various WIPs to pick out one to focus on. Question is whether I'm in the mood for urban or regular fantasy.

Madican said:

Sifting through various WIPs to pick out one to focus on. Question is whether I'm in the mood for urban or regular fantasy.

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Sometimes it sucks having more than one wip.

Elysium said:

*sniffles* That sucks.

Well, I take AP Calc now. I'm not really doing well in the class though. It's probably the only class that I'm taking that I really hate. I just hope I can get an A on my midterm.

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Calculus is a tough subject as it is. I can only imagine what AP Calculus is like! You're a tough cookie though, Ely.

On an off-topic, I really respect authors who create their own mythology and create names for creatures because I have really been interested in the Wendigo, but I haven't been able to create an interesting enough mythology that can span over two-three books.

MA - Hehe thanks. But I love coming up with names for creatures and making up myths. My first novel (written when I was nine) had so many different kingdoms and it was EPIC. Plus, it was fun making up new languages for my character to speak and different kind of creatures.

But you can do it! Just think about all of the stuff you want in your wip. Maybe keep a notebook with you and jot down things when they come to you.

Elysium said:

Sometimes it sucks having more than one wip.

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It is, but I narrowed it down to two of them, based on the quirks of their worlds. Both are normal fantasy with some technology.

One is a world where everyone's fate, including that of the world itself, is known and the events leading to the end have been set in motion. But people start showing up who are not of this world, whose fates aren't known, and their actions begin screwing up the prophecy. The thing I have with this one though is the fateless people are suicidal people from Earth who made a contract to sell their fates in exchange for a new start. When they commit suicide they appear in the other world. Would be a challenge to handle a main character who offs himself in the first chapter.

Second is a world where music causes magic to occur, but not in the best of ways sometimes. The howling of wind can cause fireballs to rain from the sky, for example. So people live in special bubble cities, technology is higher than the other WIP, magically enchanted so there is no sound. The story would revolve around two kids getting kicked out of the city for whistling while on a field trip (causing the bushes to animate into destructive monsters) and then journeying to discover why everything outside the cities seems so primal, eventually discovering that their world is stuck in its final stage of creation, halted by an unknown force who hid the song that would complete the genesis.

As a senior in college i can tell you that your going to have to take math. I had to take up to calc 2 because i'm a Chem major and math is pretty damn important. Of course i didn't find out i had a mathematics learning disorder till over the summer naturally but anyway you will sadly have to take a math and a science at some point in college although there are always easy beginning courses for those subjects.

The stupid GE requirements KILL ME!!! I'm a chem major and for the last three years every semester i've had Three science classes with three labs, its been a nightmare and a half... until this year i didnt even have time to take any GE requirements that always end up as an utter waste of my time and money. I could complain for hours about how unfair and unneeded i feel GE requirements are... but i'll save you all the rant.

I'm sure I'll figure it out. Thanks, Ely!

Madican, those are some bad-ass plots. The second one is very, very deep though!

Ally, I have to take science with a lab soon. :< I actually don't mind science, but it's the fact that the lab and the science are counted as two separate courses meaning I have to pay for them separately that makes me not so excited to sign up.

Madican - Whoa. Both of your ideas sound EPIC. I wish you all the luck with them because they sound like the kind of stories I love to read.

I'll go with the second one. Now for the hard part of drafting it all out before I even put down the words "Chapter 1."

Madican said:

I'll go with the second one. Now for the hard part of drafting it all out before I even put down the words "Chapter 1."

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Same problem here!

Oh, how I hate drafting. I tend to just delve right into the story but the downside to that is that I usually hit a wall.

Hitting a wall is what causes me to jump to another WIP. This time I'm buckling down until the drafting is all done.

If only there was an easier way to outline/plan a novel.

If it was easy everyone would be doing it.

True. I guess I need just need to suck it up and take my time for once. It might be hard but it'll be worth it in the end.

I try to motivate myself by thinking there are worse books out there that are making NY bestsellers list, then if I write my book, I've got a good shot too! lol

Elysium said:

This is what I fear. I'm going to be a Social Science major which (hopefully) means that I won't have to take any kind of math. I like it and all but right now...I just want to be done with it when I graduate from high school.

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I studied psychology in school (at age 17-18) and we did a ton of statistics. Pretty sure we covered the same ground in sociology class at university too. I'm not sure if you'll be completely free of maths if you're studying social sciences.