From now on, no more blogging after midnight

So I’m stealing an idea from Drew over at House Valerius and sort of outlining my writing goals for the month. I’ve probably done something similar before, immediately forgotten about it, and failed miserably. So, it remains to be seen whether July’s “Currently” post will have any summary of whether or not I crashed and burnt this month.

Regardless! Here we are. It is 12:44am, I am feeling slightly manic – actually have you ever wanted to be, like, a supervillain? All I’m saying is if I could have super powers and cackle and live in an Evil Lair I’d be with minions and a sweet cape  –

– ANYWAY

This month Is Glimmertrain‘s Very Short Fiction contest, which I intend to enter with the short story that’s been murdering me for the past few weeks. The first chapter stands alone quite happily, so that’s what I’ll be submitting. The rest of it is goal 2 for July; this could be a novel, and while I have only the faintest inklings where it might be going, I’m excited to follow it. It jumps back and forward in time, I’m going to pull in some Burroughs-esque bits and pieces and maybe some magical realism… It’s hugely experimental for me and I’m excited because I’ve never had a project I felt I could really play with like that before. I’ve had some ideas, and some things I wanted to try, but it’s always felt forced and I wasn’t sure how to do it, so I never moved forward with it. This story! This story wants to be written. I’m going to dig my fingers into these characters until they bleed.

It’s also lit. Oh, lit fic, it’s been too long. I love you and your lack of plot-related requirements.

I am also going to spend more time reading this month. It would be nice to get through a book a week, if somewhat optimistic. I’ve been into Planner YouTube for a while and I might see what Writer YouTube is like…. the planner people are all doing a special July thing where they use only one notebook and I just can’t do that, I need all the notebooks because of my brain. If I don’t write things down they get forgotten, even the things I’m sure I will remember and especially that great line that I’ll repeat a million times so I don’t forget it whoops what was it again…? I have, occasionally, considered videos. Then I remember that I don’t know how to edit them and wouldn’t know where to start, and that hearing my own voice on a recording makes me crawl into a tiny ball and pretend I am somewhere else. I think I could manage it if I didn’t have to hear myself, despite the social anxiety. But… that is my voice? I sound like a child!

Lastly I am going to be participating in writer games on Twitter. Last month I sporadically joined in with #WritersLifeIGJune on Instagram, which I enjoyed immensely. Granted I tended to forget about it… but when I remembered, it was fun. This month I am going to take part in #WIPTruthOrDare and #ShareWords. Naturally I am going to be drawing from the new story, which was titled Chasing Regrets until I thought of a new title in the shower that was way better, but I didn’t have a notebook in the shower so now I have forgotten it god fucking DAMNIT.

Don’t mind me, I’m just going to stew here until dawn trying to work out what that title was. It was so brilliant…