The End of Pregnancy

Today I'm 39 weeks! Woohoo!

Except for my little princess doesn't seem to be too interested in coming out to meet me quite yet. She seems to be quite content where she is. I, however, am not for several reasons.

1. Above all I'm so ready to meet her!

2. I can't sleep comfortably at all. If I have to get up every few hours to pee or because I'm burning up even when it's 60 degrees then I would much rather get up every few hours to feed or comfort my new little princess.

3. I'm tired of being fat! Yes, yes. I'm pregnant and not fat but I'm still fat and still annoyed about it.

4. I've been pregnant for 9 months. Come on already. I want to drink coffee to my hearts content and I want to be able to have a few drinks of a beer! I've been craving beer since I was 3 months pregnant. I have no intention of drinking myself into an oblivion but is one beer too much to ask?!

5. I don't want to have a c-section. I'm terrified the drugs (if I have to be induced) won't work and I'll have to have a c-section. Cosmetically it may be better (so I've heard) but I'd rather not have a scar on my stomach (I have enough stretch marks) and I'd love a nice easy recovery (even if the labor process will be harder).

Five reasons is enough, isn't it. I'm sure there are more but the little girl is kicking as we speak and I'm not in the mood to write anymore with her foot stuck up in my ribs.

That's right. She hasn't even dropped yet.

Hopefully I won't be blogging on Monday (because she came over the weekend!) and will be back on Friday to let everyone know how it's going.

If not, well, then see you all on Monday. Have a great weekend! And if I'm not back before then Have a great Christmas! Eat, love, and be happy!

Building A Novel

I didn't blog on Monday like I was "supposed" to but for good reason. I've been "Building" my novel. I guess that's just my fancy (or not so much) way of saying I'm planning my novel out.

Most people would actually call this World Building because that's what I'm doing essentially but I have a problem with this terminology.

There are about a half a million websites on how to begin world building. There's books, courses, workshops. You name it, they have it, and each one of them calls it world building. (There is one exception that I'll mention later)

But visit one of those websites and you know what you'll find? World building tactics, yes, but something else. Culture. That, in my opinion, is not world building. It's obviously culture building.

The type of solar system your world is located in, how many planets, how many moons and so on? World Building. Your map, the regions, plants and animals? World Building.

But what about language and customs? What about Ceremonies and Holidays? That's not World Building. Those things have to do with people and their way of life. The world has an effect on it but it's not about the world. It's culture.

For this reason I've come up with a new term. Culture Building.

For most people this is really just about terminology. Who cares, right? World Building, Culture Building, whatever it's called the basic idea is the same and you still have to do it.

Well, for me, I could never get past it. I would do the basic steps and then I was burned out. God, world building takes forever, kind of mentality. I guess it's about moving on, going through the steps.

So that's what I'm going to do. Go through the steps, I'm going to "build" a novel

This is what I've come up with so far. (Obviously, there is just a basic outline. I'll go through the actual ABC's and 123's of it in a later post)

BUILDING A NOVEL

1. World Building: This includes things like the solar system, planets, moon, constellations, orbit, rotation, etc.

2. Culture Building: I'm still working on this because I think there is a lot of work that can be done. I want to have it all even if I don't use it all. So far I have things like People, Social Organizations, Commerce, Daily Life, Home Life, Religion, Government, Community Life. I'm not sure how I'm going to organize any of this yet

3. Story Building: This is pretty simple. I'm going to use Theme, Symbolism, Structure, POV, and Tense

4. *Character Building: Here is obvious. Main, Major, Minor, and Extras. Under each I'll go ahead and come up with what I need to know about each set of characters. Obviously main and major will have a whole lot more than minor. Extras I'm putting in because sometimes an extra can turn into a minor, possibly a major, so I want to at least know that person exists. This can also do wonders for culture building. An extra, a waiter, for example, in a local shop. Maybe there is something specific I need to know about how waiters act in my world. Or something along those lines.

4. *Plot Building: Here I really have no idea. I've never been much of a "plotter" I do plot but small sections at a time and usually not very well. It messes me up later which is why I'm adding it. This I will have to work on.

* Character and Plot are not really separate in the building process so unlike the others that you can pretty much do in a linear fashion this takes going back and forth between the two in both the planning stage and writing stage.

I bet most of you are thinking why go through all this work? Well, I have a couple of reasons.

1. This one is the most important: I can't write. It's just not coming to me so I'm using my writing time as building time. So far it's been working quite well. I have way more ideas about this story than I did before starting. It's actually starting to feel like a real novel

2. Other people have great systems. Most of this information I go from other websites but it's still someone else's system. I'm sure it works for many people but I wan my very own system that I created. Maybe I'll be using the information from others but it will be in a way that works for me.

3. It's really fun! I didn't use to think planning was fun. I thought it was just a thing I had to do so that I could get to the really fun part, the writing. Now, the writing is still the best part, but I think I've learned to enjoy the whole journey now.

How about the rest of you? Any of you "Building Your Novel"? How do you do it?

*****

I want to give credit for all the world building information I've been using. There's quite a bit...

1. http://steph-wordbyword.blogspot.com/p/stephs-worldbuilding-guide.html  I'm using her ideas from Off/On Planet.

2. http://www.seventhsanctum.com/www/wwwfull.htmlHere I didn't use any particular thing but some of the articles gave a few ideas on how to do what other articles just mentioned. I really liked that. Plus it's very extensive

3. http://www.novel-writing-help.com/This website is a cornucopia of novel writing advice. This is where I got "Story Building" from and just made a few adjustments to make it my very own.

4. http://hollylisle.com/maps-workshop-developing-the-fictional-world-through-mapping/Holly has a great website with so much information on how to do just about everything.

5.http://www.amazon.com/Lisles-Create-Culture-Clinic-ebook/dp/B004EYUHRE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355921092&sr=8-1&keywords=holly+lisle+culture+clinicThis is a course, really, and yes it cost but I used this for my own culture building (plus another website) and it's really in depth. I don't like the way it's organized which is why I'm doing it myself,  but it provides a lot of ideas for culture creation. Most things I wouldn't have questioned without it.  Her language clinic is also amazing.

6.http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/I'm using this with the culture clinic to create my own way of culture building.

So those are the websites. Have fun!

38 Weeks Today!

Today I'm 38 weeks... as you can tell by the title. It's weird being so close to the end of pregnancy but not knowing exactly WHEN it will end, just that at some point it has too.

I am hoping she is born sometime this week, although it's not the full 40 weeks. I am just terrified of her being born on Christmas or Christmas Eve. My mom had a Christmas birthday and most of her life no one bothered even saying Happy Birthday and she got the same amount of gifts as her brothers and sisters. 

I don't want that for Em. I want her to have her own birthday. It's special, particularly when you're a child, and it wouldn't be fair to her if it was on Christmas. No one remembers or even cares. 

I will, of course, because I know what it was like for my mom but the other day my in-laws were talking about just getting her one gift if she was born one of those days.

So, in short, I'm hoping she comes a little early.

Of course, if she doesn't come the last date she can naturally is the 28th. The 29th I will be induced and that will be that. I wouldn't mind the 27th, 28th, or 29th so if she doesn't come by the 22nd, I'm going to hold her in until at least the 27th! She'll thank me later!

Pregnancy Effects No One Told Me About

When I was maybe 9 the only thing I ever wanted to do (besides being an author) was being a mom. My first niece was born a year earlier and I remember thinking I wanted to be a mom, that's it. I wanted to take care of the little creature who could barely speak or walk but somehow she was the sweetest little thing in the world.

Later on, I imagined getting married at 20 (which coincidentally, I did) and having a baby right away (luckily I did not do that). I wanted four kids and I wanted them all before I was30. That changed, of course, when I got a little older and wanted to go out but I can honestly say I never stopped wanting kids, I just didn't want them right away.

The thing is when you're younger and thinking about your future and getting married and having kids you (okay, well me, at least) almost always think of having the child not everything you have to go through to get it. I'm not talking about how but about pregnancy. I never imagined being pregnant. I imagined having a newborn but not a huge basketball where my abdomen used to be.

Now, to be honest, for me, pregnancy has been pretty easy. I never had morning sickness. I didn't have any wierd cravings. I didn't have any big scares with my baby. I felt her move when she was supposed to. All my doctors appointment assure me that everything is perfect. I really have nothing to complain about... but of course I do.

First of all, I've been thin my whole life. I've never dieted, never really exercised much. I was just thin. I'm not used to looking in the mirror and seeing a huge stomach and thighs. I've cried a few times about it.  I knew it would happen but knowing it will happen and it actually happening are two very different things.

But I can get over that. Okay, so I'll have to diet and exercise to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, okay. I can deal with it. I don't like it but I can deal.

The one thing I'm not sure I can deal with, although I'll have to learn, is not writing. I mean, yes I'm writing this but that's different. I can't seem to write anything to do with my projects. I try and try and nothing comes and when something comes it's complete garbage. I can't even stand to look at it, let alone read it.

I've cried about this too.

I feel like I'm actually having writers block. I don't really believe in writers block so for me to say that... well it's bad.

My husband tells me its just hormones (I HATE when people say that) and once Em (that's our babies name... Well Emilynn, but Em for short) gets her and we get settled into a new routine I'll get back to writing but I'm afraid. What if I don't?

I have all this free time right now and when she comes I won't have any. Why will I be able to write then?

So this particular piece of pregnancy I can't stand. I hate it and all I can do is hope it disappears after I'm no longer pregnant but I'm not sure it will.

Anyone else had this kind of problem or am I the only one? Is this amazing pregnancy that has been almost symptomless the cause? I mean no one can have it too great, right? There has to be something that's wrong.

What do the rest of you think??

The Possibilities

I would consider myself a writer, you know, the unpublished kind with mounds of notebooks with the starts of a million different stories, but, still, a writer so I have to ask myself why I’ve been sitting here for a little over an hour with nothing written on this blog post?

Well, I guess when you see it there will be..

But for me this page has been blank for awhile now. I started it a couple of times and then erased it. I started off with a story about me and my life. Erased it. Then about writing. Erased it. And about a thousand other things. Erased them all.

I’ve written my whole life. I have not only the notebooks mentioned above but also a thousand journals filled with my thoughts. So why is writing a blog post so hard?

I’m going to guess it’s because it’s out there for everyone to see. I think as a writer who lives mostly in my own thoughts, spends time putting those thoughts on paper instead of saying them aloud it’s hard for me to want to put something I wrote on the internet. Like I’m giving a part of myself away.

But I want a blog so I’m trying.

I’m not quite sure what I want this blog to be about yet. There are so many options. I could write about living in a foreign country, or being married, or having a beyond spoiled cat, or becoming a new mom (which I will be in a few weeks!), or write about writing.

I love all the ideas so for now I’m going to leave it open to all of them.

And for now this blog is going to be Simply Me. Nothing more, nothing less.

Feel free to look around and leave lots of comments! I love comments!