What's up Wednesday

What's up Wednesday is run by the lovely Jaime Morrow and her sister Erin L.Funk. You can check out their blogs by clicking their names. It's a really simple blog fest. Each week we answer the questions below and you get to learn a little about what we are up to.

1. WHAT I'M READING
2. WHAT I'M WRITING
3. WHAT INSPIRES ME, RIGHT NOW
4. WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

Another week another What's up Wednesday :) I have kind of been struggling with my blogging of late. In part because of NaNoWriMo but also because I've just not been up for talking much about what I am up too. I guess because there has been quite a lot of upset and stress in my life lately and I'd failed to stay positive which really sucks as I am normally pretty good at that. 

At any rate I am slowly trying to get back into things but I apologies if I am a little slow responding to comments right now. 

Any who, lets get started. 

1) What I'm reading: 

My reading has been a little slow of late. Again because I am in this whole I just can't be bothered place. I have however been reading lament by Maggie Stiefvater. I am enjoying it when I am reading it, in fact really enjoying it.

I have been thinking a lot lately about reading Alice in wonderland. We watched both the animated Disney version of Alice in wonderland and the newer movie recently and I was thinking about how much I enjoyed them both and yet had never actually read the book version. Which is rare for me as normally if I know there is a book version of something I like I am diving for it with relish. 

The problem is that I tend to find classic books a bit to long winded and drawling. Lolita for instance. Love the movie but really struggled with the book. Not helped by the fact that the main characters comes over as a completely self obsessed fool. Perhaps that's because he was. I have no idea if the book is actually based on a true story and real people or not I may have to look into that. 

It frustrates me too that I do not get on with the classics. I feel like I should be swooning at their pages or something when in reality all I do is think seriously, did no one every tell you to keep things tight. Yes I know this from the woman who is currently rambling away like crazy, on that note, lets move on. 

2) What I am writing: 

Well finding Kelsey for NaNoWriMO of course, which is going okay. Although I have kind of hit one of those points where I am constantly wondering have I built the tension enough here or is it to weak or maybe just maybe it is way to long winded and I'll just be boring my readers to death. A bit like this post I guess lol. 

This is the problem I find with NaNoWriMo, in your hurry to reach your word count you let the quality of your work slip. This may be my last NaNoWriMo for this very reason. As I was doing really well keeping my work nice and polished before I started and now it is just a mess of bad grammar, run on sentences and bad dialogue that I am dreading having to go back and fix. 

Because of this I started a new project that my publisher asked me to consider a while back in the form of a children's book. Called Barely Able Bailey about a polar bear and snow fairy. 

The upside of this was that me and CJ had great fun running around SL looking for polar bears and he got the cutest polar bear avatar. The down side I realised that the thought of writing a children's book terrifies me. I just keep asking myself, am I dumbing this down to much, or am I using words that are to difficult for a child. It doesn't help that my own son, thanks to living with a writer, already has a pretty good grasp of the meaning of some of the more difficult words and even uses them, not always correctly lol, but still it is dead cute. 

Any who to cut a long story short. I am writing right now but I am not feeling good about any of it. Grrr so frustrating. 

3) what inspires me right now. 

All the people who have completed NaNoWriMO. I will too, only 5000 odd words to go now but I just wish I was completing it on a high instead of just looking at my manuscript and thinking. I am seriously going to have to rewrite the entire thing. 

Seriously does anyone else feel that NaNoWriMo just leads to a heap load more work in the end than it would have taken had you have just taken your time with it and done it right. 

Urg feel so bad talking about NaNoWriMo in that way especially given the fact that my first Novel Insane Reno was written during my first NaNoWriMo. 

4) What else have I been up too. 

Stressing. Pretty much just stressing lol. About my dogs death and his illness before that, about Christmas and my husbands lack of ideas when it comes to what he wants. About NaNoWriMo and the state speed writing has left my WIP in, about my own illness which has left me feeling terrible the last few weeks and well a few more things besides. 

Plus side my lack of I can't be bothered has led to me spending more time meeting new people in my bid to procrastinate and I have actually made some really nice new friends. 

Every cloud a silver lining and all that. 

Well that's me. How about you? 

Happy rest of the week all. Love and hugs Joss. 

P.S sorry no pics but I really need to get on with my NaNoWriMoing, may add them later.