Category: Blogging

And now, a return to your regular viewing

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Thoughts, Writing

I can safely say from August 9th through until today (September 5th, I note), I have done next to nothing productive. I actually went away during that time, and should have had normal internet to retain contact and updates, but just a fluke of location made the connection non-viable. Aside from that, with my cat dying, and being hit by the most god-awful case of influenza, I just lost a lot of time in the past month.

I have glimmers of awareness that I am, in fact, rejoining the land of the living. I can stay awake for most of the day! For a while there, I was actually sleeping some obscene amount, over 20 hours a day. That is unheard of in my life, so there’s some gauge for the severity of my illness and despair. I’m also hungry. You can always tell that I’m on my way back to good health when eating becomes a priority again.

With my experiences to reflect upon, I have come to terms with the fact that I have absolutely no way to focus on my writing whenever I go away. I take my equipment, I intend on using spare time to keep working, and it NEVER happens. Ever. So I accept that I am not an out-of-house writer.

It was a surreal feeling to truly quantify how long it had been since I was even mentally in my story world. I considered this while I was still pretty ill and prone to sleeping all day, so the thoughts were kind of hazy. I was actually wondering what I used to do, before all this, before the month. Who was I? What was important? It was like my characters were under an invisibility cloak, and I had suddenly realised the room was very empty. So I searched, and I came across an anomaly in all that blankness, something from a half-remembered dream. I used to write. I have people waiting for me, stories not fully told.

It didn’t all come rushing back in some blaze of creative glory. I was probably in the middle of drifting back to sleep, but the knowledge had been released, freed from the cone of silence. I thought of names and faces I hadn’t considered for almost an entire month, of their plans and conflicts, and it was weird. Weird that I hadn’t thought of them, when they had consumed so much of my mind previously. Weird to think about them again, and not have the clarity of the constant, immediate work on their story, but also weird because there was that secret little passion tucked away with them. The one that makes me a writer. I remembered their story, and it began niggling in the back of my head. I want to read what I’ve already written, and throw myself back in. I need to.

So maybe to say I’ve rejoined the land of the living isn’t entirely honest. I’ve woken up, though. I’m here. The part of me that doesn’t just lay around and feel sad and lost is gaining ground, gently soothing back the parts which are still tired and raw. And I missed you guys. I like my collection of internet peoples, you’re all so bright and interesting! It’s nice to be aware again. I hope your month hasn’t been anything like mine.

~A

Of all the best intentions

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Thoughts

I make plans to blog on Sunday, and that’s fine. I forget it’s Sunday when it is. I remember, and half-write a post. I get distracted and irritable, then watch anime for four hours (finally got around to watching Darker Than Black, and it’s all kinds of awesome). I forget it’s Sunday again, or forget I meant to blog, I’m not sure which happened anymore.

Monday morning, and I look back over the past week of taking a break from most major writing. I’m feeling the urge coming back, but I still have a handful of other responsibilities. I ignore half of them, and read the internet to see what other people were doing while I was asleep. Then I remember to blog, and come to write this post.

After walking beside the beach yesterday, I want to take a little more time. Relax, hang out. We’ve got something vacation-like booked in a week or thereabouts, but as with all organised holidays, it’s never really that chill for me. There are Things that we Will Be Doing. It’s planned. I enjoy going to new places, and it’s awesome that my husband gets so excited to be doing something different, but it won’t be the same as just sitting around outside.

Some people write long blogs, and I could do that. Keep going, talk more in-depth about my thoughts, my work, whatever comes to mind. But I write short, as just a window into my daydreams. As with all the best intentions, I’d like to go laze about under the rain, but I’ll probably get back to writing a story soon. I can feel it building.

~A

I didn’t write, because I was writing!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Writing

Yesterday is a haze of words and writing and tapping away merrily. Obviously that doesn’t include creating a blog post, but I’ve declared my efforts yesterday a rousing success!

I don’t like the idea of measuring things too much. If I wrote this amount of words, or kept at it for that amount of time. We all know there are days when you slave away for hours, and your pour out thousands of words, then find out that they are part of a scene you scrap entirely. That’s okay! Those hours and those thousands of words were just part of the practice that turns us into better writers. They aren’t a waste! They aren’t really lost! But it puts the achievement scale into a different perspective to me.

Other days, you might jot out a handful of lines, and that be your only writing work for the day. Or the whole week! But those words might be a pivotal point in your story, and the enormity of it all has to stew for a while before you can really put it together.

So instead of making measurements (don’t worry, I still glance at the “words added today” bar when I’ve saving and closing down for the night!), I just celebrate the effort. I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about these stories. I tried to plan them a little more thoroughly, but it got to the point where I just needed to get them out from sheer excitement. So I’m back to my usual, “I know where this is going, but how we get there is a bit murky for now”. I guess this is just how I write!

I also happened upon the relieving success of finding the right name for a character. It had been evading me since the beginning, but I have something going here that seems to be pretty awesome. Now I can just charge through the rest of the story with a carefree demeanour, and see how we arrive at our destination!

~A

Blogging out of time

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging

Hey, it’s an early Monday update, but I have to tell you about my brand new, super exciting guest posts!

I was lucky enough to be asked by some of my favourite people to guest on their blogs. My first ever guest post went up yesterday, followed hot on its heels by my second! Today is an exciting day!

Go ahead and see what else I’ve had to say!
Momentum (the best kind) – guest post for Cynthia Robertson at her blog, Cynthia Robertson, Writer!
How to Put Your Writing in High-Def – guest post for Lisa Kilian at her blog, What Not To Do As A Writer!

And of course, a big welcome to my new readers and thank you to everyone for the lovely comments you have left! I’ll be updating my blog normally tomorrow, and there may be some more guest posts from me coming soon.

~A