Deciding to commit

On writing discipline

Last year, I made the resolution that I would update Ruin at least once a week. My fear has always been that I wouldn't have enough. That I'd get to some point and then the idea would disappear or I'd stop wanting to write, or I'd get distracted.

So the whole year was an experiment. If I could keep up writing one update a week, then I could prove to myself that I could do it. And I did it. A year later, only a couple more updates to go to complete the year and I'm still going strong (with plenty of updates that I feel I absolutely must put out still).

Ruin is the only story I've got in my head, but there is a lot of it, and after a year of battling through distraction, indifference, lack of confidence, I've come out on top of it all and still determined to get it done. I want to write, even when I don't want to write, and I have plenty of ideas left that I want to explore that still surprise me.


For the next year, my main resolution is going to be all about focus training. I'm going to work on writing an hour a day at least five days a week. This will be one hour of distraction fre writing. I'll lock myself in the bedroom with a computer and write. It doesn't matter what I write or what I do so long as I focus on getting something done and take that time to myself.

And no distractions allowed. No internet or email peeking or blog poking or twitter. For starting at least one hour a day.


This deciding to commit thing isn't new for me. Sometimes I just get to a point where I'm ready and then I get determined. So I'm determined. I'm going to write a book, and I'm practicing saying it out loud. (But still not talking about it out loud.)


Also, this is awesome.

Inspiration in the strangest places

Saw the creepiest and saddest thing today. From this post on the EPBOT girl geek blog (by the woman who does Cakewrecks)-- not the first video but the second one.





I know the music is part of what really does it, but just hearing the story sends a chill over up my spine. Five years ago this park was closed in preparation for a storm, and it never reopened. I'm sure it wasn't the first storm they'd had to close down for, and I'm betting they didn't expect it to never open up again. Come January, the entire park will be bulldozed and sold for scrap.

A lot of the destruction is made by the storm, but there's also plenty of destruction made by human hands. It's also interesting to see how quickly nature moves in when people are gone.

Well, in the blog I got this from, someone then mentioned looking at current pictures of Chernobyl and the areas affected and abandoned in the aftermath of that. Well that lead me to this site where a woman goes on a trip to see the old villages that were evacuated. It's clear that English is not her first language, but it seems to really only help the simplicity of her descriptions and at times make her descriptions more poetic.


This is what I want for Ruin. Especially the Chernobyl stuff. There's something there. In Ruin, they have a creation myth, and it's essentially the same thing as their destruction myth (The story of the Two Brothers). I think that something horrible happened once upon a time, and most of the people have forgotten. It still shows up in their myths although heavily veiled and still affects their behaviors (like their almost instinctual fear of the ocean-- although note that Paula was the one who was greatly disturbed while the others with her that day were not).

I imagine Ruin being a large continent like Australia. So that makes me wonder about the rest of the world. Is it still alive? What is there to find? Are there people who still know the truth? And if so, are they trying to protect themselves?

I downloaded that You Tube video and made it into a format that will play on my DS so I can be inspired on the go. I'm also going to watch 28 days later. *shudder* Supposedly, it's a similar idea, though I know it also involves zombie-like creatures. *shudder again*