Word Vomit

So it's been a while since I've composed a blog post on a topic pertaining to writing, and as this was originally intended to be a writing-focused blog, I figured I should remedy this. So I am here to discuss with you a topic that is currently very near and dear to my heart:

Word Vomit.

I swear, this has more to do with writing than my stomach flu a month ago.

One of the biggest points of NaNoWriMo (the challenge that I take part in every November because it appears that I just so enjoy the sensation of failure in epic proportions) is to get people to actually step out and write something that they want to write instead of waiting for some magical moment of inspiration that may never come. If you have a story in your head, sometimes you just gotta take a leap of faith and write the darn thing! Critics say that NaNoWriMo is a negative influence on writers, encouraging lousy planning and poor writing, putting the focus on quantity rather than quality and taking blows at the respect for our art.

And it's true, sometimes my NaNo work is all for the word count, a lot of it becomes more free-flow writing than plot and character development, and just pushing the cursor forward becomes what my sister-in-law and I dubbed in November 2011 as "Word Vomit."

But now that I have shamelessly declared my half of a NaNo Novel as "Rubbish" and banished it to the deepest recesses of my hard drive to be read when I want a good laugh, I have turned to my Paper and Ink Child and, with great anticipation, am closing in on the completion of a First Draft.

And here and there, I am encountering "Word Vomit."

When a series of life circumstances thrust me into the dark abyss of Writer's Block at the end of 2010, I pulled out of it by committing to write at least 500 words a day of something besides journaling. Some of these chunks are actually still in my Paper and Ink Child. They got the story moving again, and without them, this poor baby of mine would surely have died, and the coroner would have written the cause of death: "Failure to Thrive."

I have a prewrite for my novel (a list of scenes that probably makes little sense to anyone besides me) that I've been holding to, and most recently I have found that my instances of "word vomit" occur when I've left my novel to occupy itself for several days to a couple of weeks. I miss it, start dreaming of scenes to come, and finally spew something into the word document that mostly still resembles the prewrite just so I can get to the part that I really want to write.

Through the process, I have come to decide that Word Vomit isn't an all-together negative thing. It gets a novel moving, it creates progress in a first draft. And by the end of the first draft, I'll have a better idea of how the book is supposed to flow, I'll know some of the specifics that I'm missing right now. And then I'll be free to revise the ever-living daylights out of it. When that time comes, I shall be happy to scrub every trace of vomit from the document and fill it with flowery air fresheners to chase away the stench.

Until then, you must excuse me. I need to go chase my cursor into the battle scene that I really want to write right now!

Happy New Year!

Well, it’s been yet another crazy year! But then, I suppose that time in life between graduating high school and establishing yourself as an adult is full of crazy years. Over all, 2011 was a hard and painful year, and I’m pretty ecstatic to put it behind me.

The year did have some good points though. I turned two decades old this year! I also watched my little brother start high school. I entered into the amazing world of Slam Poetry! Between that any my New Year’s Resolution last year, I conquered the writer’s block that 2010 left me with. That alone makes 2011 worth the trouble. I failed NaNoWriMo again this year, but I came out of it with a new passionate love for my Work In Progress, so even that wasn’t a total loss!

God changed every facet of life as I once knew it this year. I’m not in school for the first time since Kindergarten. I’m working full time for the first time in my life. (I also still love my job like crazy, just for the record!) I moved to go live by myself for the first time in my life—and not only that, but in a different state! Hey, if you’re gonna do something, you might as well do it all the way.

I’ve learned about spiritual warfare this year. I’ve done battle with demons and have enjoyed Christ’s victory over them. Through it all, God started to teach me just how many choices we as human beings face, and how many of those choices boil down to picking between the lies of the world and God’s Truth, and these choices are found from things as big as choosing a life-changing path at the fork in the road to things as small as picking an outfit before going out in the evenings. And sometimes, choosing the Truth isn’t easy, sometimes it doesn’t even feel good. Saying that it’s “best in the long run” grates on my nerves now after this past year, because there were so many times that I couldn’t see the “best in the long run,” and the fluffy idea that the "right choice" would make life better in some distant future that I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of didn’t seem worth the pain right now. But when I look at my life when I was choosing lies and compare it to my life right now—well, John 8:32 makes a whole lot more sense to me now.

I learned a lot in 2011 through all of the trials and tribulations that it brought me. I don’t regret the pain and struggles of 2011, because they helped me fall deeper in love with my Abba Father, my First Love. I’m beginning to trust Him a little more than I did a year ago. Well, okay, a LOT more! But I still have a long way to go. I will learn many new things in 2012, and I’m sure that it will bring hard times of its own. But I am excited to continue pursuing the life God has placed me in and finding the new joys that this year will bring!