Katie Runyon

This last week, I have done more writing than I have in the last month. I’m hoping this streak continues and I’m able to move on to chapter 14 tomorrow. It’s surprising to see how much more I know now than I did when I started this book. There were many big sections that I had to totally rewrite. Some parts were just because it was wrong POV(or mixed POV) and others were because I’m not too great with dialogue. As I look back now, I really wish I did at least a little research before getting into it. I also wish I was a little more organized with my notes. As it stands, I have 3 or 4 notebooks with ideas, etc. jotted down as they came to me. Anytime I need to find something, it takes a good amount of looking before/if I find it. I know that with notes from this point on, will be putting them into my computer with the rest of my stuff. If it’s all on the computer, I can even do a quick search for it instead of manually scanning everything for it. I just need to make sure that I back everything up frequently.

I did some editing yesterday, which felt good. I am glad I felt the urge to work on my novel. It took longer then I was expecting though, so I didn’t go to sleep until around 4am. For whatever reason I didn’t feel like doing the editing on my laptop and instead, printed out the chapter and did it the old fashion way. Of course, the papers rustling and pen moving was too much to resist for my kitten, Caleb, and he persistently attacked me.

After I was done with the editing on paper, I had to go to my Word document and make the changes there. Then I had to do a lot of copying and pasting to change the current sample chapter here on the website. The formatting was messed up, so it took me awhile to try to get it looking semi normal. I also had to do a lot of squeezing to try to fit it all onto the existing 6 pages. When I checked them on the web page though, the formatting was still messed up and realized when I hit the space bar to indent, I didn’t hit shift too as Go Live makes you. Then there was the matter of adding the news items and the update date under the excerpt link so anyone who visits knows how old (or new) the current version is.

I hope to edit my last existing chapter in the next few days and then get back to writing the second half of the story. As long as the urge stays with me, working should be no problem.

For a while, I have felt as though I was never going to finish my novel, but I know that someday I will. While doing this website and everything else, I have tried to be careful about what I say or display so that if I was to someday get published, things on this site would not come back to haunt me. After thinking about it, I become unsure if I currently wish to become published. Writing started as a fun thing, something I just wished to do for me. Over time though, it has become more work than fun, causing me to put aside my writing for long periods. I have decided that no matter what, I will not worry so much about what may or may not lie in the future. I will choose to do what makes me happy and maybe then, I can get back to seeing my novel as fun and freeing. With my new revelation will come more blog entries, mostly about my everyday life. I don’t know how or if this may influence the events of my future as a writer, but I am living in the now and living to make myself happy.