100 Words for 100 Days: Day 1

So I joined the 100 Words for 100 Days Challenge, and today is day 1! At first I was a little leery at being able to keep up with the pace. I thought, "if I haven't written anything in a week, how am I supposed to magically write 100 words today?". But then I sat down and opened up a new document and forced myself to focus and look at the book as a whole. 

I am currently tearing apart my novel for the 4th major revision. I am at a point in the beginning of the book where I am stuck because I've backed myself into a corner and am struggling to get myself out of it. So, I decided to set that scene to the side for now and skip forward. 

It's about to look l like I'm getting side tracked, but I promise this is relevant: 

Wednesday night we watched The Great Gatsby (with Leonard DiCaprio) for the first time. I had forgotten how sad that story is and how amazing F. Scott Fitzgerald is at weaving a tragic story. I hope that one day I can convey that much emotion into my characters, and have a story that haunts people for days after they have finished it. 

That being said, the soundtrack was hauntingly beautiful. My two favorite songs were:

Young & Beautiful by Lana Del Ray 
Over the Love by Florence +The Machine 

I think these artists convey so much emotion in their voice when singing, it's hard not to feel the emotion flowing through you. I like using pieces like this when writing emotional scenes, because I am in a similar state of mind as the characters in my book. I feel more "connected" to the scene I am writing. 

That being said, here's my first 100 words (actually, 138 to be exact! Take that, challenge!): 

             She stared at the bedroom’s stone wall, her eyes unfocused. The sun was creeping through the high slit of a window behind her, the color slowly sliding down the wall. The dawn had come, just like any other morning. But her parents would not see this sunrise; would not feel the warmth of the sunlight against their back. The world had kept on turning, without so much as a second thought as to the lives it had lost.
            Her father’s lifeless gaze flashed in her mind’s eye and she flinched against the white hot pain. She pulled her bent knees into her chest, her arms wrapping around them as if she could hold herself together if only she squeezed hard enough. The tracks of tears against her cheeks had long since dried, leaving her body hollow and aching.

(Copyright: Brittany Westerdahl, 2013).

Taking Time to Slow Down

I've been struggling with writing recently. I feel like my mind is going 1,000 miles an hour and actually focusing on anything is a struggle. I've had many obstacles come up in my personal life that are leading to anxiety, which is keeping my mind busy calculating all the ways everything could go terribly wrong. 

When I can't write, I feel guilty. 

I dislike the feeling of guilt, the feeling of anxiety. It's crippling, and the two mixed together will at times bring me to my knees. I think that's about the time my brain starts running through all possible situations and solutions at mach 10 and refuses to use it's powers for anything other than that task. 

When this happens, I read articles on writing. I tell myself that if I am researching or learning new techniques, I am still progressing as a writer. Within a few clicks I tripped over this article by Rachel Scheller: Making Time For Your Writing. In this article I stopped when I read a sentence that really hit home for me:


"Muller credits Brother David Steindl-Rast for reminding us that the Chinese pictograph for busy is composed of two characters: heart and killing."

Busy. My brain is busy going mach 10 - and what is that doing to me? It's killing me. I can't write, I can't focus, I can't enjoy life because I'm too busy worrying about it.

Which reminds me that I need to stop, and slow down. Take one thing at a time, and focus on what I can control. I can't harness the creative flow if my mind is too busy running around to focus on it. 

So my goal this week is to focus on slowing things down. 

What about you? Do you run into these problems? What do you do to calm your mind? 

Connecting with Other Writers

Recently I've been struggling with writing anything. I talk to friends, family, and the signification other about it but they all look at me with sympathetic eyes without really understanding how I'm feeling. I was aching to talk to someone who knew how I was feeling. 

So I did two things:

1. Joined a Facebook group of Writers

It's called YA Writers, and it's for anyone who is a writer and has graduated High School. (There is a Go Teen Writers group for those who are still in High School). It's nice because I am horrible and am glued to Facebook for most of the day. But this lovely group of people are constantly posting writer related stuff, so I'll read it and think "you should be writing right now. What are you doing?" and get back on track. 

It's also amazing to see other writers struggle. I know this sounds mean, but really, it makes me feel not so alone when I see someone else is having the same problem that I am having. I relate to them - and that's wonderful.

Most of the members have their own blogs, so I've spent the last week stalking all of them and finding out more and more about the projects they are working on (some really good stuff)! 

Also, they are all in a different stage of getting published. Some are just starting their books, some have self published, others have just been accepted by an agency, and others are biting their nails in anticipation of their next acceptance/rejection letter. It's wonderful to see the progress along the way, and to know that this actually is possible! 

What about you, do you have a favorite group you belong to online? Or maybe a close circle or friends that are writers, too? Leave a comment below!

2. Started talking to another writer I already know

Erik is my unofficially adopted little brother. He's a writer too, and currently living in Germany with his lovely fiance. For the past week we've been talking in the mornings, when our time zones overlap at a decent hour, about writing. It's been awesome to talk to someone who can relate to you, someone who actually knows the pain and suffering that goes into getting words onto paper.

It's also been nice to learn how someone else creates stories. For instance, I told him that when I write, it's like a movie reel in my head. I do my best to convey what I just watched into words, but sometimes even if I've watched it over and over again I can't get the words right. When I run into writer's block, it's typically because the movie in my head has cut off and I can't find the rest of the reel. 

Erik, on the other hand, does not see a movie reel. Instead, the words just come out of his fingertips as he writes and go their own way. (Not to say he doesn't have writers block at times, but I have noticed it is far less than I do). 

This being said, it made me curious. What do you (the reader) see when you write (if anything)? How does the story come to your mind and what does it take to convey that to the reader? Please let me a comment below. 

Using Pinterest as Writing Inspiration

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I have two Pinterest boards dedicated to my writing projects. The first is a compilation of pins giving advice on writing. The second is a collection of photos that could be, or remind me of, characters in my book. Here's what I use the two boards for (and how I keep from going overboard). 

1. Writing Tips (Fiction). 

This board has links to a bunch of awesome articles on writing. For instance, "Tolkien’s 10 Tips for Creating Epic Heroes" here. Or "How to Create a Vile Villain" here. Both articles I enjoyed.

I also have a bunch of witty writing quotes pinned here, which makes me feel a little more at home when I see there are other people in this world that can relate to my writing problems. (Or people who share said writing problems). 

At first I wanted to pin everything writing related, but you can see how that would quickly become overwhelming. So now I take the time to at least skim the articles that the pins link to, and if I like them I'll repin them. If they aren't useful, or it's something I've already read 100 times before, I'll skip over them. 

2. Story Inspiration

Is my second board, and this is more a collection of pictures. Some people say that your brain cannot create a face it has never seen before. Therefore, when we dream, the faces we see are actually not figments of our imagination but people we have actually seen before sometime in our life. It may be that we walked by that person in the store, or maybe she was once your Starbucks barista, but you have seen that face before. I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is that means we can't write about a face we have never seen and truly imagine it unless we are basing it off of someone we've met or seen before. 

Either way, this visualization board really helps me when my imagination is running low on gas. 

The other thing I like to do is find other pinners who have similar boards. If you search "Story Inspiration" and "Writing (Fiction)" on Pinterest, you'll come across a slew of people who are doing the same thing you are. I think I am following more people for writing and story inspiration than I am for any other reason on Pinterest (even food!). 

What are your thoughts? Do you think we can only dream/write about people we have seen before? Do you have a Pinterest board like mine? Do you think it would be useful? Leave a comment below :).