Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Updates

That Awkward Moment When: You realize that when someone finds your blog, they will know you by a different name than you blog by.

That Other Awkward Moment When: You realize that, therefore, blogging by a different name makes no sense.

So, I have an announcement to make:

I will be blogging by a different name. (Cue the epic face-palming and epic desire to crawl into a hole.) Hopefully, this makes things simpler for y'all's, though...?

Check out my About Autumn page for more details.

A few quick life updates:

-School started for me the other day. We're trying out different things this year, so I might have more time to blog, and I might have less time. We'll see what happens, but I'm getting more excited about this year!

-I planned out my entire novel, Immortal Fire. Then...I lost it. (Let us have a moment of silence.) But I plotted it out again (on Gdocs, where I will hopefully not be able to lose it...), and I'm still working on it, but so far it's coming out fine!

-I started drawing again! I got a couple books, nice pencils, and a sketch pad, so you might be seeing some of my sketches/drawings on here.

8.25.15

Family isn't just whose blood you share.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

8.23.15

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice! -Philippians 4:4

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Write What Scares You, Part 1

Write what scares you.

Hm. That doesn't make sense sometimes... Why would we write what scares us?

This can be looked at from a few different ways. So this will be a multiple part post.

One thing that I thought of, that maybe isn't exactly what they meant, but is worth thinking about anyhow: Write what makes you sad.

At some point in your novel, your going to have to write sad things. That's how it goes. When it comes to reading and/or writing sadness, I have different feelings.

Sometimes, I enjoy writing that. "Yes, let's make the reader cry!" When I'm in those moods, I almost like writing sad things. Another mood I enjoy writing sad things in is when I personally am in just a melancholy mood. Grab a Kleenex box, turn on sad music, and lock myself in my room and cry.

I don't mind reading sad things, either. (Yeah, I'm weird.) Nothing TOO sad though, y'know?

I don't always like writing sad things. It almost scares me. I'm the kind of person that crying...it comes at the wrong times, when I'm stressed or not unbearably sad, and I can barely cry when I'm actually sad. Honestly, crying is a strane thing for me.

But sometimes I'm scared of writing something sad, like a death scene, for example. That just plain scares me. I don't want to cry, and it's almost like I'm scared of putting too much emotion into it. I can be a very emotional person, but also rather blank on the outside, preferring not to show people what I'm feeling.

I tend to be like that when it comes to writing. I'm so scared that I'll break down, or pour too much of my heart into it and just end up being hurt...the death/sad scenes I write will turn out stiff and unnatural.

That's something I have to work on myself as a writer.

If you're like me, maybe that's something you have to work on too. Either way, you need to work on the sad things in your writing.

To quote Albus Dumbledore: "This proves you are still human!" (Or rather, a writer, eh? ;))

NOTE: I thought I published this last night, but I guess I didn't. That's why there wasn't a daily thought yesterday. The other two, I was awfully busy and didn't have time. :/

Happy writing!

-Autumn

Friday, August 14, 2015

8.14.15

Life is worth the living because Jesus lives.

My life will end, but because He lives, we can live on in Heaven.

I can face the rest of my life and death because He lives.

I'm typing this up on my phone and I accidentally pressed 'o' instead of 'i', which made it 'loves. But that's just as true! Thank you, Jesus, for living and for loving and for dying and for everything. Thank you for tomorrow.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

8.13.15

My ten-o-clock thought: Dance. Even if you look like a fool for doing it, out on the driveway under the stars on the driveway in Disney pjs and monkey slippers (which happens to be what I just did... >.> ;) But I don't regret it!!). Dance your way through life.

Dance like you love yourself, then DO!

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

8.12.15

I'm starting up a new post-series!

Every day, I'm going to come on and post just a quick thought. So here's today's.

Breathe in other people's hate but don't let it consume you. Instead, exhale love their way.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Camp NaNoWriMo and Updates

Hello! I'm back! ;)

I did Camp NaNo this month, which was an awesome experience! I aimed for 18,918 words, because I started the novel I was working on before Camp, so I added how much I wrote before to my word count. I'm not sure if I reached my word count goal or not, which sounds odd, but I finished up writing at nearly midnight and was ready to submit it, copying and pasting, when I lost 10,000-some of my words. I recovered the words, so I still have them, but I gave up on actually submitting.

(I don't think I reached my word count, though.)
But I learned a lot!

I started a new novel - I know what you're thinking, not another novel! ;/ - called Black and White. I started this new novel to take a little break from Immortal Fire. I was having serious writer's block on it, and I knew that I needed to change some things up, so during Camp I worked on this new novel and plotted out Immortal Fire.

Like I said, I learned a lot from doing Camp, even if it wasn't as successful as I hoped.

So, I thought I'd share with you my top five lessons that I learned from this Camp:

#1: I found out more about plotting.
I discovered that plotting out stories can be fun! I found out more about how I personally like to plot, and I think that this will be valuable for future writing.

#2: Goals.
As you can see from my blogging and what I have said previously, that I might be a little bit iffy about goals and writing times and such. During Camp, I realized that I have to write more regularly and set goals for myself if I want to accomplish anything.

#3: This might sound funny, but music.
I am a complete music fanatic. I play the violin, I sing (a lot for someone who is not especially talented at singing, and either have the radio blaring or headphones in all day. I discovered that instrumentals are a ton of help! Also, I made soundtracks for myself, which are very helpful when you need to get into a certain mood.

#5: Enjoying what I do.
I love to write. I've said this a million times, and I'll say it a million more. I've been sinking into a rut, though, lately, of not getting enough writing in, finding myself discouraged, and not really enjoying it. That's partly why I switched tactics - or novels, whatever - for this Camp.

But I think that now I can say that I found my love of writing again!

What about you? Did you do Camp? If so, what did you learn from it? Where you more successful than I was?

Here's an extra one:

#Bonus: Success.
Success is measured in different ways. Some people might say that success is purely result-based. That is a big part of success; what you end with. It's whether or not you succeeded in what you set out to do.
But another part of it is what you learned. I learned a lot from Camp, even if I didn't reach my goals. I was successful - at least I think so! - even if it wasn't in the ways I originally imagined.

Happy writing!
-Autumn