The Final Element…

The Final Element… Wait…

Currently reading: Under the Dome, pretty cool book.

It’s a story alright, that’s been on my head for quite some time, actually first story I’ve ever thought of and story I have never written. I think it’s the beginning that gets me and I’ve figured that if I could finally manage to decide on how things should start the rest will write itself. I can’t tell you how many times I started on it, get about 5,000 words and just scrap it all. I feel like I want to make it just too epic, is there such a thing. A story that has you hooked all the way.

So I’ve been busy alright. My part-time has been slowly but surely turning into a full-time. Also I’ve done a couple more translation jobs along the way and leaving that out the way I also have gone out for a few days leaving little to no time to have some free time. I’ve worked on the quest line for the game Robin is making, though I haven’t seen him in a while I’m waiting on him for that. I was also offered to write news and articles for an online gaming site, but sadly I haven’t been able to attend any of the trainings because of my schedule.

Last time I had some free time to do anything I tried playing this game called “Two Worlds II” which was okay but didn’t really get much into it, haven’t touched it since. Besides all that I’ve spent some quality time with my girlfriend, and also the less I write the less the ideas come to my head and the worse my writing gets. But I’m decided to change that today. First things first though. I have to get some Chapter Outlines done on my three stories and my other story, The Final Element. I figure this will help a hell of a lot in writing and getting creative in each chapter. However this means that I won’t write much until I’ve outlined plenty of Chapters, also I will probably stop posting a story on my blog when I’m like 5-10 chapters in depending on how long it is. For personal reasons you know, I mean someone can easily take your work online and make it their own, it’s possible and scary in a way.

I almost took a writing job on a freelancing site, it dealt with ghost writing a thrill novel, chapters outlined and all, I submitted a proposal with some writing I’ve done in one of my stories (won’t say which) and it was to their liking. Then I asked myself: Am I ready for this? Well I wished I was; I wanted to jump in and write it all. For a novel with almost 100,000 words, in-your-face style of writing. I would’ve had to give up my job to write it, the job I just got. Of course it would pay more, a lot more, but I had to do well or I would’ve been out and lost both ways. And after that who can say that I would’ve gotten more jobs? I decided I wasn’t ready yet, you just sort of know when you are, and until I’ve written a couple for myself I don’t think I’ll be able to write one for someone else, actually I sort of really don’t want to, I want all the stories I write for me.

– Zogyark

First Job as a Freelancer

A month or so ago I applied to a freelance site called http://www.elance.com I had been out of school for about half a year and out of work for even longer. After applying and failing to get any jobs for the past 6 months I couldn’t take it any longer and decided to look for “something” online. My girlfriend suggested http://www.snagajob.com, which seemed good at the time, until no one ever called me back. I filled out every single position I could: Manager, Assistant Manager, Cashier, Server, Dishwasher, Cook, Bathroom Cleaner and when I never got hired in one of these jobs, I realized that the lack of jobs in this country really is bad.

So I looked online, and call it greedy but this blog is also one of the works in progress. Don’t get me wrong I love writing, but I also want to make a living out of it. My dad has always told me throughout my life “Whatever you do chino (I’ll tell you the story of my nickname another time), do what you like. There’s nothing worse than a man going to work and do something he doesn’t love. If you do what you love, you’ll be successful”. It was until lately that I had really started to do what I like, because I wasn’t quite sure of what it was.

But because it’s little hard to get recognized by writing, there’s just so many people that do it because its right there, in your room, you just need to get the will to do it, a will I lacked the last couple of days.

It’s not unexcused though, I frankly had no time to write. Last Wednesday I started my work at the bank, and Monday I went back to work. When I first started this blog I was out of a job. I started strong, with so many words. The everyday practice of journals and stories were keeping me together in writing, and then I also got my first freelancer job.

For those of you who don’t know how some of these freelancing websites work I’ll tell you. A client posts a job they need done. A contractor “bids” on the job and submits his proposal, completion time, and price. But wait, it’s not just one contractor… IT’S MANY. Any freelancer will tell you the mean competition there’s for online jobs nowadays just like regular jobs. So I offer my services as a translator, I speak Spanish perfectly and can write it well. I thought it was the best chance. However it’s not a guaranteed job, English-Spanish-English translations are one of the most bids jobs on freelancing websites. There’s literally people, refreshing the page waiting for a translating job to be posted, after a while you know who are going to be your main competition.

Signing on this site wasn’t easy though. Its not like I signed up and applied right away, no sir. There was a procedure to go through, I had to edit my profile, create sample work, confirm my telephone number, add where my funds would go, take a test understanding the terms of agreements in the jobs, i had to take a translating test! And on top of that I didn’t have the job guaranteed, it really was a long process.

So after a month of bidding for jobs I finally got one, my first online job as a freelance translator. $80.00 for a simple job that would take a day or so. It’s not so bad, to do it from the comfort of your home, taking breaks when you want, working on Microsoft Word. It’s as close to writing to get paid as it gets. The problem was, The job was due on Thursday, and I only had Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday to do it. Any other day this would’ve been fine, but I had just got my job. So I had to work from 7-4p.m. get home at 5p.m. then work for about 4 hours on my translating job.

I ended sleeping at 12 a.m. and getting up at 6a.m. to get ready for the bank again. This was really affecting my health. Lack of sleep, headaches, the turnaround was a little too brisk for me. I went from not working for months to working nonstop for days… No good. AND on top of that I got a cold on Tuesday morning. I felt like lightheaded, cold, with a runny nose which wouldn’t stop running. And I still had to get home and work, there was no break. During this time many things happened, ideas for stories came, from real life too. Things like a drunk man on drugs yelling outside in the neighborhood at 12.a.m. saying how he was going to kill himself and reciting the Declaration of independence word for word. The cold also gave me awesome new ideas for my Zombie story, which I’m editing, which is a mess at the moment but I’ll get around to it. I also got to hear how surgeons talk, what a hospital cafeteria is like, I imagined the hospital empty and I sitting by myself and I got another idea…

Oh another reason why I haven’t been writing much on here is that I have a little project going on writing the quest line for a videogame someone is in the process of making, however since it’s top secret I can’t let loose of them on public, not like many would read it anyway. But it’s cool, I like that part, I want to write this text and look back someday at this game, if it ever makes it on the market, and say: “Hey, I wrote the quest line for that game” That would be awesome.

However back to the freelancing job. Thursday morning came, when my client sent their review and loved my job and I got my $80.00, oh man did that feel good. I felt like doing it all over again. I guess the lesson is after trying hard enough things will come to you. And sometimes they will come out altogether at you, and this tests you if you can take the pressure or if you’re going to break out and fail. But you don’t want to fail, you want to succeed and you do everything in your hands, give away your sanity, your sleep, your time in order to do so… Sometimes it’s the only way.

Anyways I wrote this because I feel to let out of somethings, to let my writing flow because I need my practice back, to be able to move on with my stories and quests and jobs. I shall get back to this blog good this weekend, of course unless I get another job, which I hope I will, because I’m really into the whole freelancing too. So many things it’s very exciting, the only thing that’s not so much is this cold, I can’t wait for that one to go away.

– Zogyark

January 21, 2012 – Mr. Dr. Professor Landon

When I turned in one of my first papers in my English Class. Mr. Landon looked at it, then made into a little paper ball and threw it in the trash basket. Then he said “Write it again, this time go straight to the point.” so I did, and the story suddenly was more readable after skipping boring introductions and pointless descriptions. “See how better that looks?” he said.

I guess this is my theme when I write nowadays. In whatever I write, I try to go straight to the point, avoiding details and descriptions of the characters. It’s not just about going to the point, but if you can describe and give details as the story moves along it kind of flows more nicely. I hate when I’m reading a book and in the beginning I’m being thrown different, irrelevant things such as the shape of some building, the color skin of some people, the background or fictional background of someone much irrelevant to the plot. It seems that many writers do this to fill up space and add words to their count. I remember I won a book in an English Contest for top 3 writings of the college. The book choice was minimal, about five books, with authors I didn’t know. I don’t blame them though I know few authors, I’m more of a writer than a reader.

It’s hard to draw some people in the story, specially if you’re not very popular like Stephen King or James Patterson. I read the book, I tried my best, but after the 30th page I thought. I think I’m done with this story, whatever it is about. I closed the book and never read it again. It’s still gathering dust in one of my shelves, it had a nice cover that’s how I picked it. Make sure your book has an interesting cover and people might pick it.

Jeff Landon was my English II teacher, and he was good at what he did, and probably still does. The man would give you English puzzles, writing scenarios to work with, random stuff. He threw three words at you and said “Write me a story about these three things.” Some stories came around good, some not, others were funny, I liked the funny ones. But to me funny stories are just two or three pages long. The man had a good sense of humor, he was funny and could come up with some funny stuff, something I’m not so great at.

Landon published a few stories and poems. He wasn’t no one, he had some skill, he was good. There was this guy in this class, funny dude. He would always call him “Mr. Dr. Professor Landon” Sort of as to make him seem like some godly teacher. He asked Landon if he ever wrote a novel. Landon said he had tried, many times, but at could not get past a point. I remember this well and hope that this curse doesn’t stay with me, since after some point I want to move on.

I got three stories I’m working on now, and I think that should be plenty to keep the creativeness going. Now I just need to fill in the gaps and whichever I’m in the mood in I could work on. I like variety because when I stick to continuing only one, i sometimes get bored and can’t come up with anything goo.

I haven’t seen Landon in years, but let’s hope that this post helps me get in contact with him again, he’s a good teacher to have.

Pizza and Movie time for now, a break is sometimes necessary.

– Zogyark

January 19, 2012 – Limitless

Writers, if you’ve never seen Limitless you have to see it… Now.

Movies are always good. Watching movies often will improve your writing skills. You watch a scene and you think “Hey, I could make more of that.” or “I would’ve done this instead” It might not seem relevant at that moment but it will be in the future, in the near future I hope.

I often write about my day if I have nothing else to write about. But who wants to read that right? I’ll write about anything that I can get a hold of. Oh yeah, so why is Limitless a writers movie? Well I’ve been reading through some posts, and I often catch some writers get that infamous writer’s block. When your mind goes blank and nothing comes up, and whatever comes up seems so stupid you just want to quit altogether and eat something, play a game, or do whatever other things you do to pass the time. Limitless is a story about such a writer who seems like he’s going nowhere.. until he finds a little wonderful pill that we all wish we had, and would all probably try it regarding the side effects.

My favorite part of the movie (and I’ll try not to spoil it too much) is when he starts writing, when everything is clear, when the words are flowing through the screen. If you’re really passionate about writing and have written stories, you can tell which moment that is. That’s the moment that you just type, and type, and don’t stop. You don’t want to stop or get interrupted, you’ll miss phone calls, not open the door, not want to eat. Because that moment may not come back soon. All the words come together into nice structured sentences and all the commas and periods fall in the right place. A writer’s dream is to be able to write this way, everyday. If you can do this, you can get far at it, you’ll have hundreds of thousands of words in a few weeks and out of so much words, something good must have come out of it. Unfortunately for most of us, half of the time its not like that. I for example can write a lot sometimes, but more often than not I make grammatical mistakes. Then I have to go back and edit once I’m done and that holds me back for a while from writing the next great chapter, or starting the next great story.

What the movie teaches us, is to use up every minute of our time doing something productive, anything. Go out, learn things, write, apply for a job, talk to people. All of these things will help you. If you find yourself searching on google… What to do when you’re bored. It’s time to change that. And by the way, when you’re bored you can search things starting with what, how, why, when or who and see what the top most searched things are, you’ll have a blast with what you find. Not that I do that, but I’m just saying.

Anyways, I wrote just a little today, There’s always something else to do, chores to attend. I wrote Chapter 2 of Syphon Soul, I think it’s an interesting name for a story, I bet no one’s used that one. I edited that and Chapter 1, though I’m sure there’s still some mistakes. I finished Chapter 1 of The Bond, but I got lazy and didn’t edit that, maybe Mr. Landon could help me out, best English teacher there is, take it from me. I’ll write about him next time maybe unless something else comes up, he’s the man that inspired me to take writing more serious.

I’ll be spending time with a special someone this weekend so I won’t write much unless I have the chance or unless there’s something brilliant that I have to write then I’m sorry for her. I’ll be sure to write at least a post a day, they help a lot, I can see the words in my head just waiting to be released to this page like in the movie.

– Zogyark