I think I might be using this blog to procrastinate!

Sometimes I don't feel like writing, but know I HAVE to, so I end up writing a silly little blog post as a warm up of sorts.

Today I'll warm up on the subject of writing something that has a life of its own and pulls away from what you intended for it. This happens so much with me, I have to constantly slash and burn stubs as they try to sprout. If you can imagine the super slobbery, intimidating, downright ugly thousand heads of the Hydra, that's pretty close to what my WIPS look like.
















Out of those thousand heads, only about four are what I originally had planned for the story. About 986 are heads the story thought up all on its own. The remaining ten are sort of the compromise between what the story wants and what I think is okay. It's a matter of chopping and chopping and rewriting and starting from scratch until that scene WORKS, until that scene becomes one of the scarce ten heads that are alright with both parties.

I could plot and write outlines all I like, but at the end of the day these limitless possibilities will spring up, and it'll be my job to stop them before they go too far or encourage them to grow more. I would say it's like a garden, but that's if you like your gardens with dismembered hydra heads sticking out of the grass.

WHICH I DON'T.

So far, I'm working on two simultaneous WIPs, the descriptions are in the sidebar over yonder.

DEMON CLEANERS just recently hit 20k, which I'm so psyched about. It's taken an awesome turn and I'm just going with it. TWDNB is at a measly 6k, but it's coming along! Both of them haven't turned Hydra yet, but it's only a matter of time.

*sharpens sword*

Baking Bad.

(Get it? Intsead of Breaking Bad -? Okay. I'll stop.)

So, between my new job and querying, life has been pretty hectic. (New job is CRAZY hectic, agh agh agh) What little downtime I have I usually pour into writing (yeah!), reading ARCs (double yeah!), or a recently acquired vice; baking. (I SHOULD be riding the bike I got for christmas...but...uh...)

I've made everyone in the house gain at least four pounds. I'm apologetic because gaining four pounds is no fun period, but I am also a little proud of myself because the fact people are eating it attests to quality!

Baking is calming. Favorite recipe I've made so far? Banana-pumpkin walnut bars. Eventually, I want to get good enough/experienced enough to start making healthier things, with soy milk and wheat flour, etc, but retaining all the taste. For now, it's mostly white flour, but once I get familiar enough with how the ingredients work with each other, I'll be able to implement healthy stuff in! (Does that...is that somehow a metaphor for writing? Is it is it is it?)

Right now, the greenhouse kinda erupted with strawberries, so I'm making a version of this;


















with strawberries! And if there are more berries tomorrow - I'll try strawberry flan! I'm also growing vanilla bean, gonna dry it in my closet instead of paying $3 a bean at the health food store. (Have I mentioned I'm cheap? Because I am.)


As for writing - I'm being rebellious. A lot of people advised me to write an entirely new WIP, which I started, but I ended up starting to write the sequel to my querying novel. WHOOPS. WHOOOOPSSSSS. ISN'T THAT THE BIGGEST LITERARY NO-NO IN THE WORLD?! WHAT CAN I SAY, I LOVE THAT WORLD TOO MUCH TO LEAVE IT YET. I've tried over and over to go to the new WIP, but I keep getting dragged right back into the sequel. Evil, evil imaginary world of mine. Filled with...addictive substances.

Whenever I get a request for a full, (which I got today! YAY!) I get this hot, heavy sickness in my stomach. It burns, but in a good way - everything is hanging on your full. Before I send one, I obsess one last time, going over the manuscript in a fervor, knowing that it's as good as it will ever be, but this comma here is bad, and this sentence is too slow for the agent's taste, and oh god oh god it must be perfect even though it was perfect just a week agoooooooooooooo.

In the end, I send the same manuscript I finished writing last month, but it still feels WRONG. I still feel like I could do something better, even though it's the best it ever has been.

And then I remember the cake in the oven.

Oops.