1/6/2012
I thought “Zombie Press” was a clever name. My manuscript was returned with a big bite mark and the words, “Needs more brains,” scrawled in red… I hope that’s ink.
1/7/2012 (for Brandy Joyce)
I found a sock; not mine. He missed that“lucky” sock. I wondered, he worried. Eventually, our paths crossed again. Upon realization, I returned it and got something special myself.
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So Thursday was the University of South Carolina's orientation (Aiken campus). Even though I'd previously been a student there, I had to go to another one in order to be able to register.
First, a little back story: I had originally planned to go to a Georgia school so that the Department of Labor would pay for what the Pell Grant would not (on the condition that they would get whatever was leftover from federal grants and that I would pay them back eventually), but when USCA contacted me about a special academic loan (something I was hesitant about before), I thought that might work out better, as I would get an overage check which I also wouldn't have to pay back until after school. So, I told the DOL I would go back to USCA, and agreed to go to Orientation on the 5th of January...
Fast-forward to Thursday. I did all the little class stuff I had already previously done a year ago, and finally got approved for registration. However, after registering, I went to the Financial Aid part of the site and noticed that even with the loans I was approved for, I would've owed about $3,000 out of pocket! I can't afford that, and neither can my parents, so I dropped my classes and decided to go to Augusta State in the summer. I now have plenty of time to prepare for that (inquire, research, apply, register), and I can talk to my DOL counselor about getting their help in case tuition (which I hear is a LOT cheaper than USCA's) costs more than Pell will cover. My sister Ashleah said that ASU's tuition is more along the lines of Aiken Tech's, and Pell always covered everything I needed from them, leaving me with an overage check every time. We'll see how that works out.
ANYWAY, the point I was trying to get to is that with orientation and all the running around and STRESS, I didn't have any time for wriiting. I had some ideas for stories and a drawing or two, but lacked the motivation to actually DO anything. So that was one day without WIP500, or even 30 Words 30 Days 30 Stories. Fortunately, the latter allows the option between writing and art, so yesterday I drew a picture of a zombie editor and then wrote the 30-word story to go along with it, which marked my 30 words for the day; however, those 30 were pretty much the ONLY words I wrote yesterday.
I need to work in my novel, or at least write the two short stories I had ideas for recently...
OH! Speaking of short stories... one of my Facebook stories ("No More Room in Hell") has been accepted into Firefly & Wisp's zombie anthology. :-D So I'm happy about that. But with happy news, there's usually sad news. And the sad news is that some time Thursday (most likely while I was at orientation), I lost the "Book Nerd" button off my book bag. That's devastating, as it was my favorite button, and I had won it from a Novel Novice Twitter contest. Oh well. *sigh*
Well, in addition to the 30 words I wrote for today (which I included here, so I probably shouldn't count them separately), I've written this blog about my failure to keep up with #WIP for two days straight (and other school-related stuff), and in doing so, I've written over 500 words for today.
I did the math, and even though I missed two days (except 30 words for one day),, I still have a daily average of over 445 words, thanks to the big counts from the first two days of January. That's at least 55 words less than the desired daily average, which isn't too bad considering that it's a year-long thing, and I still have 359 days remiaining. I could write the two stories I have the ideas for and kick that number up a bit, and may be able to get a little bit ahead. We'll see.
Since I won't be attending school this spring, I'll have about four months (give or take a week or two) to work on my writing. I got a couple of quasi-history books yesterday (Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant and Christopher Hitchens's Unacknowledged Legislation), so assuming I finish the books I already started, I'll most likely have ideas for more stories, or at least some essays, when I finish them! In truth, I already started Hark! A Vagrant since it's comics and as such a quicker read, so it won't take long to read that.
I've rambled for far longer than I intended. The only things I meant to say were that orientation caused me to miss two days of #WIP50, that I'll be free to write through the spring semester, that I've been keeping up with the 30 words as best as I can, that another story of mine will be published in another Firefly & Wisp anthology... and I think that's it. And I wound up with over 900 words!
Hm. That may have helped my daily average… It did; 471-word average! :-D And now, I’m done.