10 Years Today
Wow. This year's writing anniversary kinda snuck up on me, but I didn't realize it has been ten years since I started this journey. I've been quiet on here, but that's for a good reason. I've been hard at work on other projects and trying to build up to a career.
I guess I'll start with the creative side of things. As I've written here before, I actually finished writing a novel called Watch Us Fall. It's a story about the perfect high school romance gone horribly, horribly wrong, and it takes place in my fictional small town of Crystal Gates. I've been querying it around to different agencies in hopes of getting it published. I've had no luck so far, but I'm going to keep pushing. On top of that, I'm also working on another one about a former conversion camp that was turned into a school for wayward kids where students keep disappearing. The working title for this one is The Unfeeling, and it's based on an idea I had a few years ago for a short story. I'm really proud of how my character work is coming along, and I'm trying to get better at writing mysteries to keep the plots engaging.
Outside of those personal projects and my publishing ambitions, I'm currently participating in a statewide writing competition. Tonight I'm going to finish editing my entry and turn it in. My entry focuses on two sisters held hostage by a cruel monster. This actually began as a work for my Creative Writing class that I got a lot of feedback on, and so I'm working on making it the best version it can be. If I win the contest, it'll look great on a cover letter to publishing agencies. If not, I'll upload the story here and try again with the next contest.
Writing is about buckling down and pushing forward with determination. I've wavered a few times, but I figure that as long as I keep marching on, I'll get somewhere. A decade ago, I made this account and started my writing journey, and over the years I've come to realize a lot about not just writing, but myself. I know that this is what I want, and I'm prepared to devote myself to it no matter what.
Professionally, I'm taking a number of writing courses that I think will prove beneficial in making a career out of this. Obviously nobody is hiring for storytelling, but I think I could have a time as a technical writer or journalist or something.
For now, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. One day at a time, right? Finish this contest, move on to the next. Query Watch Us Fall and finish The Unfeeling so I can query that one too.
And hopefully one day I can make everybody proud of Alex Sorrow.
Nine Years Later
It's been nine years to the day that I started writing on dA, and in a way, that was the start of my writing journey.
I haven't been uploading on here very much, but I'm still writing. Right now, I'm working on finishing the fourth draft of a novel. Hopefully the fifth one will be the one that I can pass around and maybe get published.
I've never stopped working on writing stuff. Sometimes you have to write with the door closed, and I'm not ready to open it just yet. I don't know where this is going to go, if it even goes anywhere, but I work on it every day, inching closer to that finish line.
I believe it's somewhere over 150,000 words right now. For reference, it's getting close to the length of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm going to need to do some serious trimming in the next draft to get it down to a much more manageable 70k-80k.
It's nice to write this stuff down. ^w^
Second Draft Done!
I'm still going to work on a third draft, and then possibly a fourth and fifth and so on until I get it just right, but this is a huge step forward! I feel like everything is starting to come together. >w<
It's Been a While
Of course, that doesn't mean that I haven't written at all. I've actually been doing a lot of writing lately! For the curious, I'm still working on that novel and trying to average 500 words a day, and 1000 words on days that I don't work. I'm at 70ish pages in the second draft now. owo
The hardest part is not giving up, but weirdly enough, that feels like it's coming more and more naturally. There are a lot of writers out there who just lose interest, but I can't. In fact, if I don't write for a day, I feel really bad. This is part of who I am, and I'm not going to stop anytime soon.
So I'm going to stay silent for now, but I am still working. I promise you that. ^w^
Vacation Getaway
We arrived in Grand Haven, which is this coastal city on Lake Michigan with a huge beach, a two mile sidewalk along the water that went past the beach and through the port, and a bustling downtown area. It was the perfect place for a vacation, or perhaps a Dead Rising style scenario which, coincidentally enough, was what I was going to write about before we realized that we weren't going to get anything done at all. We got to our motel, where I had reserved a room for two nights, early on the first day, and the guy working there informed us that we had actually scheduled Day 1 of our vacation during the Coast Guard Festival, the busiest time of the year in the city. Greeeaaaat.
Armed with a map helpfully provided by and marked on by the motel worker and my wits, I led us to the beach and immediately got us lost and nearly in the next county. My girlfriend took control at this point, and we eventually got downtown, where they were hosting a carnival. We wandered through the attractions and shops in search of food, starving and tired after I had made us walk so far, and we ended up in this busy sandwich shop. After eating, we walked down almost the entire path when she said she was tired, and then we walked another mile or so back to our motel where our room was finally ready.
I actually think that we walked at least five miles that day, probably even more. We got back to the room, and I took this time to note that I had actually helped her relax by working her really hard and then allowing her to lay on our surprisingly clean motel bed, but I don't think she appreciated it too much. For dinner, we just went to this small sandwich shop across the street from the motel, and I got a pretty good burger.
But the Coast Guard Festival actually peaks at dusk when they were preparing a fireworks display, and we decided to go. We got in the car about an hour and a half early and headed out, but the city was absolutely packed with people parking literally everywhere. There was nowhere to go without parking by one of those "WE DEFINITELY WILL TOW YOU" signs, and there was no way that she was going to let me go back to the motel and have us walk, so I devised a plan. I got as close to the water as I could, and made her take two water bottles and get out of the car. I then began driving back to the motel alone, but actually found some hopefully legal parking on the way back. It wasn't close, but it was something. After securing the car, I ran back. Like, I think I ran a mile that day. While I run almost two miles whenever I do my cardio, I was also in a hurry to get to her as soon as I could. There was some confusion about where she ended up, and neither of us had really good cell signal in the area, but I somehow managed to find her within half an hour, and we got a seat for the fireworks. We ended up waiting another hour and a half for them to start, and when they did, they were... actually lame.
I know that's probably not nice, but in the town I live, every Fourth of July (America Day) there's this huge fireworks display. These ones were pathetic compared to it, so after a long and tiring day, we decided to just head back. We stopped for ice cream on the way, and as we walked, we looked back at the fireworks. The finale was alright, but for the most part, pretty meh. Actually walking back to the car showed me just how far I'd actually managed to run, and I was pretty proud.
For the second day, we decided to go to the beach. I have this "recreation passport" that lets me get into state parks for free, so we got pretty good parking despite how heavily packed it was. That beach was filled, and although there were "red flag conditions" and "swimming was absolutely not recommended", there were people enjoying the waves. It was a really windy day, and the waves were gigantic. You know those wave pools they have at some amusement parks, like they kick up huge waves for people to get thrown around? These made those things look like kiddy pools.
We set our stuff out, and went out to enjoy the waves. This lake was not fucking around either, I was legitimately thrown off my feet a few times, and then the current would pull you further out. There were some times when the waves felt like they were slapping me, and once when I had my back to it, it felt like I'd just done a back flop (like, fell into a pool on my back, it really hurt). People were leaving the swim area (us included) just to get to the really big waves. I heard a girl scream as a wave lifted her high up, and I thought she was just doing that whole "I'm a teenage girl AAAA hahaha" thing, but I looked over and she was just this little preteen whose dad was coming to get her and her sister out of there. They were out further than we were, I can only imagine how terrified they were.
Around this time, we decided "hey, maybe we shouldn't go so far out, this isn't a good idea" and began to head back to safer waters. As we were there, the waves began to pick up even more. I saw some guys who were way out beyond the swimming area, and one was waving his arm frantically. A man in a fireman t-shirt was wading out into the water, and as he passed us, he yelled for us to go get somebody to call for help. That's the moment that I first realized that shit was starting to get intense.
I took my girlfriend's arm and didn't let go until we were out of that water. The waves slammed us back to shore, and people were finally beginning to realize something was wrong. We ran to our stuff, and she called the police, explaining that we were at the beach in Grand Haven and that there were people struggling with the waves. The operator asked if we were near a pavilion (we weren't), and then I had to run to find an address or a landmark or something so these people would know where to send help. I absolutely flew across that beach trying to find what I could, but I guess she gave the operator a good enough idea of where we were, and then beach officers began pulling up in golf carts with the sirens blaring. My girlfriend led the way to them, still on the phone with 911, and gave her phone to the officer who got out of the cart. He talked with the dispatcher, and then gave the phone back. As we watched, more and more officers began to arrive, ushering people out of the water and evacuating the area around the water. Some people struggled to get out, and then around 6 people were still stranded out in the water.
Watching all of this happen was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. My girlfriend was panicking, sirens were wailing, people were working on getting out of there, and a soaking wet girl with teary mascara streaking down her face hurried up to the officers and pleaded with them to save her boyfriend and best friend that were still in the water, struggling in the waves.
Boats began to arrive, people on jetskis, a lot of bystanders began to form a human chain to pull people in, and then my girlfriend and I realized that we couldn't really do anything, and we began to pack up. As we got our stuff together, we saw a Coast Guard woman calling out for help, and hurried to see what she wanted. She gestured to a bunch of stuff scattered around and asked nearby people for help bringing the victim his stuff. A group of girls were helping, my girlfriend tried to carry his cooler, but I took it instead because it was heavier (and that was probably the heaviest cooler I've ever carried), and we brought everything across the beach. When we were setting it down, I saw the crying girl from before sitting in the sand, surrounded by people, cradling a girl's head in her arms.
We got our things, and left. I checked the news later and got the story, or at least, the story that they tell. It turns out, an older man in his 60's had already died because of the waves that day, before we'd even shown up. They got everybody out of the water, but another victim died in the hospital. We found out that it was actually the same girl's boyfriend that we'd seen; we learned it was him that had died when a different news article emerged about how she had gone missing and was possibly suicidal. We watched that girl's life fall apart in one horrible incident.
This is all in the news, by the way.
Our vacation didn't really feel the same after that, but I still wanted to make it special. I took my girlfriend to this Musical Fountain thing that they have where water shoots up and flashes different colors to the tune of the songs, and that was a good show. We got ice cream, and slept in. Day 3, today, we wandered around downtown, ate at a local restaurant where I guess I was supposed to bring the check to the counter instead of leaving the money there on the table, because the waitress followed us outside to tell me that I hadn't left enough and that I was stupid (mostly the first part), and I went back inside to pay the 35 cents I had missed (forgot about tax >.>).
After that, we did some shopping and just spent time together, and then the vacation was over. As someone whose family doesn't really go on vacations, I think that it was a lot of fun. owo Maybe we'll go back there someday, but for now, it's time to get back to work.