currently writing: a new series

dedicated to the recording tidbits of the stupidity, the madness,
the odd choices of words i find in my journals

i have the series of posts called "currently reading", but i just realized i didn't have one about my own writing. sure, i write about writing all the time, but it's more about my general methods. so...this will be a little bit of that, a little bit more particular, and a real-time look at what i'm actually working on.

writing has two sides for me right now: the creating of new works and the editing/submitting/waiting patiently for movement on finished works. 

as i'm doing my taxes (early, hallelujah) i am realizing how much i have to jump around from idea to idea. this past year, i started out finishing from the desk of a serial monogamist, started and finished falling stars, rewrote draft upon draft of falling stars, and started the sequel to falling stars. 

yes, i'm crazy. and for a lot of last year, i had a lot more on my plate (doing accounting/tax prep for two of my husband's NEW restaurant locations--and it was my first time to do it...period) oh, and i am a real estate agent. it got a few gray hairs. not even kidding. but i promptly pulled them out and cried a few tears. i'm a year older than my husband and he'll never let me live it down, so any reminder of "old" hits me like a ton of bricks. :)

so this year, i am starting another new project. because i had another rewrite for falling stars and added 80 pages, i had to halt on my sequel, and  i will have to literally start over on it with new circumstances. i'm totally fine with that! i've said it before, and i'll say it again: nothing you write will be a waste, even if it's not used right away or in the way you first intend. for instance, a detail i discovered in writing the first chapters of the sequel brought me an extra detail that i eventually added to that rewrite of the first book (falling stars).  anyway, while i wait to finalize book numero uno, i want to keep moving.

maybe you're asking why. why can't you just take a breath, ashlyne? why do you have to keep chugging along when you know you'll have to stop...well, who says you can't write simultaneously? i happen to love switching off during first stages of a new work (research/character building). it keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by one project and feeling strapped down by the daunting task of starting all over again. if i can choose between moods every few weeks and do a little here and there (by the way, i can do this right now because i'm not under deadline...when there's a deadline, no switching allowed!!) that way, i'm always moving forward on something, and at some point, it will be clear which one of the ideas is the winner, thus the one that gets to be written first. and by then, you're on your way and on a roll. no awkwardness, no overwhelming feelings, no stress--well, some but it's the kind that makes you feel really alive, right?

bottom line, i'm writing a new work. a series actually, which is funny because i titled this post "a new series". i originally meant a new blog series, but i just realized that i'm also writing about the new series. hmmm:) 

the series takes place in high school from 2001-2004. that's about all i can tell you because i'm still fleshing literally every other detail out, but what makes me excited is this method of "fleshing". everyone knows i have a million journals. it's one of my bio bullet points, or at least it was when i was singing. if you don't know, i have about 26 journals from growing up. i started them my freshman year in high school on a trip to paris for school. i didn't want to forget anything, so i started writing about each day. and it stuck. fourteen years later, i have too many to even put on a shelf. right now they live in a bin in the back of my prius--no room in my townhouse either, and my journals, they don't like to be split up from their brothers and sisters. 

my little library. (and this isn't all of them)

so i go out to my car, open the back hatch, and thumb through my journals like a little library trying to find the next one in chronological order. i did it two days ago, and i remember thinking...wonder what people driving by think of the girl in her robe in the shared driveway checking books out of her trunk.

so, i don't think i mentioned this before but i have never ever gone back to reread any of my journals. i thought it would be too painful to discover some of the memories in my past, the growing pains, the ones we all try to forget. so i kept them all but never opened them. but i decided that instead of going out and interviewing high school students, which i would have to tailor anyway to the years i wanted to use (which means there are no iphones or facebook) i would ask my high school self for as many answers possible. i can't edit myself now...it's all in there.

my current three

and do you know what? i was chatting with my beloved grandma donna yesterday and told her this very thing: i thought it would just bring back my old heartaches and memories i had put to bed, but i'm actually able to read it and let it go. i know how it ends for that little lady. i know how awful it will get but also how wonderful it will be. i know all the poems she wrote in high school will eventually lead her to be a songwriter. i know her dream of singing will actually come true. i know the silly boyfriends she worried about will just fall by the way-side when she finds her prince. i know she'll be safe and she'll figure it out. and all those worries...they just go smack into my characters!

it's a win-win for two parts of my life. because i can be the slightest bit detached, i can squeeze details out of my pages while also relive them just enough to let them go.

am i crazy? i think you already have your idea...

& that concludes my first "curren
tly writing" series.