Category: Writing

Posted in updates, Writing

Back from Vacation

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been about two weeks since my last post and boy, has it been busy.

The five hour drive back home wasn’t bad. The heat definitely didn’t make it any better. We went shopping the next day before going to the beach and a water park the next two days. Luckily, I didn’t get sunburned unlike my family. I’m sure they’re still peeling even now despite wearing sunscreen.

My cats were not happy with me when I picked them up. Of course, they changed their minds when it was time for dinner and I fed them. My first cat, Princess, drooled when I petted her and held her in general. I definitely felt guilty for leaving her with the sitter. My second cat, Olive, didn’t seem too upset with my absence, but she has definitely been very cuddly lately.

It wasn’t all fun and games, however. There’s some family drama going on that (thankfully), my immediate family isn’t involved in, but it still put a damper on things. We also had a death in the family, a cousin. Been supporting his family this past week. I didn’t know him very well and it’d been years since we last saw each other. Despite that, it hurts. All I can do is be there for his family and for his parents.

Everything affected my writing schedule, but I know it wasn’t because of laziness or procrastination. Unexpected things happen and we have to roll with the punches. Sometimes, they can be good. Sometimes, they can be bad. All we can do is keep moving forward.

Posted in updates, Writing

My Writing Schedule – An update

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

Recently, I discovered a writing schedule for myself where three or four days out of the week would go towards editing/ rewriting chapters of one of the novels I was working on. The other days would be reserved for writing a new chapter for the second novel I’ve been working on. This only worked because I decided to limit myself to only focus on two novels. Having multiple projects at one time is not helpful to the completion of any projects. Plus, it helps that the projects are from the same novel series.

This past week, I’ve followed the writing schedule I set for myself and found two things that I’ve noticed.

First, while I usually aim to editing one chapter a day, it came to my attention that sometimes I want to do more. I had to remind myself that it was okay to work on two chapters a day instead. Limiting myself wasn’t the aim here.

Second, I’m having a little trouble with the writing portion of the week. I don’t necessarily have a word count for the day, and that hasn’t been an issue before. Mostly, I think it has to do with my plotting where I didn’t plan all the details and only focused on the major points. That can be taken care of easily.

Five hundred words or more is what I think is a good amount for the day. The novel I’m writing is an online novel so word count works differently. Three thousands words a chapter is pushing it for an online platform.

In general, I’d like to say that this writing schedule definitely works for me. Switching between editing and writing makes me feel a lot more productive. There are days where I don’t work as much as the others, but I don’t feel like I’m being lazy. Taking breaks is important too. Burning out or making this feel like a chore won’t be helpful in the long run.

Next week, I’ll be going on vacation. I haven’t decided if I’m going to take a break from writing and editing in general, but I’ll still take my laptop to do a little work just in case.

Posted in Writing

My Writing Schedule

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

Like most writers, I often struggle with having more than one project on my mind. Usually I take it a step forward and start writing said other project without finishing the first one. This cycle continues over and over again and I feel like I never get anything done.

I’ve been struggling with this dilemma for a long time. I always dreamed of “making it as a writer”, but I could never get past “I need a decent job to support myself”. While the latter is true, I feel like I haven’t’ done enough to follow that dream of “making it as a writer”. It’s not like I’m blaming anything or anyone for that. Teaching takes a lot of hours of the day during the school year. And yet, it sort of feels like it’s also an excuse?

With all those thoughts, I’ve finally buckled down on myself this month. If I wanted my writing career to go anywhere, I needed to start making some changes. I limited myself to two stories I can work on. Everything else needed to wait. The first one, is a novel that is in the midst of being written. At least, one chapter a week since I’m posting it on Wattpad first. The second one is a story that I’m editing/rewriting. So, one story to write and one story to edit.

With that in mind, I needed to figure out how much time I could dedicate to each story. Now, I can’t say what or how it finally clicked for me. To be honest, I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out. It now seems so simple. I know my writing habits and how I like to procrastinate on certain things.

Even though there’s only seven days in a week, I decided to divide the week. You’d think that would be an easy thing for me to figure out, but apparently it wasn’t. The simplest things are always the hardest. So, I decided to dedicate the first three to four days of the week, editing three chapters of one story. The rest of the days are dedicated to writing. Of course, this only works when I have the plot details ready for that story.

Needless to say, I tried it this past week and it worked. However, it’s more than doing it. It also came with the discipline of knowing what I needed to do and executing it. Discipline played a huge role in keeping to the schedule. I stayed up late one day to make sure I got more writing done.

As it stands, if I can follow this schedule for the next two to three weeks, then I will know that it works for me.

At least with this, it won’t make writing a chore and I’ll have more fun with it. Maybe in the near future, I will start on the first step of “making it as a writer”.

Posted in Writing

Back in the Saddle

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

After the long vacation, I took from writing, I like to say that I’m back.

The last time you heard from me was that I was getting married and I apparently forgot how to time manage a lot of things. However, I’m here to say that I’m happily married and, now that everything has calmed down, I’m ready to restart my writing adventure. Truth be told, I didn’t exactly stop altogether but I wasn’t as focused on it as I should have been. I had been updating my Wattpad story, The Vampire Prince Returns to High School, as well as, continuing to rewrite The Vampire Princes goes to High School (the first in the series).

As it stands now, I want to focus more on getting my novels published. I can’t say that this is my New Year’s resolution mostly because it’s something that I always wanted to do and it’s not new. I have started looking for potential agents for a novel of mine I’ve titled Clan of Ash as motivation to finish revising the last handful of chapters. Sending out queries is a little too early at the moment but I’ll use whatever works to get me motivated.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who has followed me. I hope to update more frequently in the future. I don’t have a schedule yet. I’m going to play it by ear and see how it goes.

Thanks.

Posted in updates, Writing

Catching Up

Posted on by Kassandra Carrillo

It’s been an exhausting two weeks and I finally got a breather.

This past week I had a family emergency put a stop on everything I had planned. Everyone is alright but the house isn’t and, well, it was a lot to take in. Still is but we’re managing. I’m trying to get everything back on track but, quite honestly, I don’t know where to start.

I do have some good news. Plans for the wedding are moving forward. My maid of honor has found the perfect color and I’m looking for wedding invitations now. I got offered a job that will help me continue on the path of becoming a teacher. I haven’t changed from what I want to do (be a full-time author that supports me) but, honestly, I don’t mind being a teacher as a day job. Eventually, I’d like to teach creative writing and I think it’s a good way to go.

Among other news, I did learn how to crochet and I have gotten decent at it, if I do say so myself. I’ve got about 10 or so small projects completed.

Though I am a few days behind, I do plan on participating in Camp NaNoWriMo for July but as I mentioned before, I’ll be focusing on revision. There is some stuff that I have to figure out with the website since the layout is different from actually writing but it shouldn’t be too bad.

Hopefully by next week, I’ve gotten back into the flow of things.

Wish me luck. Have a great weekend.