This is not a real story.

This is your chance to get to know me.

This is my chance to give my readers advice, to talk with aspiring writers.

As my readers know, I've been doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and my story updates are currently on a weekly(ish) basis for the month of November.

What many of you might not know is that I started really writing only two years ago. The first story I ever wrote, I published on this site. Without revision. Without proofreading. I wrote and when I finished for the night, I posted the chapter. He Might Be the One is a train wreck, but I won't go back to edit it; at least, not right now. Because while I cringe as I read those first chapters, it reminds me that I started with no real knowledge under my belt aside from a love of the Fairy Tail characters and a desire to write something. The fact that I still get reviews on it, and that people tell me it's one of their favorite stories, warms my heart and gives me the push to keep writing.

It's not often that we really get to talk with one another on this site. I never have time to respond to every review that I get - and believe me, I wish I did because you're taking the time to review my story and I want to thank you all personally for that. Sometimes I'm asked for assistance by my readers, and I try my damnedest to be there for them, to help and nurture their growth as writers themselves. I want you all to write.

But, sadly, I don't have clones who can handle my schoolwork, being a mother, being a wife, chores, bills, reviewing and responding to reviews, and writing. I'm sure there are other responsibilities in there, but I probably forgot about them (oops).

What I do have, however, is this deep desire to see you all succeed in your endeavors. I want to pass on the knowledge I've gotten from my own writing, from my classes, from life in general. Some of the stuff, you just pick up along the way after you step in a pile of shit and smear it all over your pristine white writing carpet. I know I did several times in my stories.

So, I'll start this weird little series off with something I wrote for the Pep-Talk Forums on NaNoWriMo. You can get to know me a little bit, and hopefully I can help you get the pep back in your writing step.

I'm normally a serial writer, and currently have six ongoing novel-length works in progress right now. But, I've taken this month off from working on any of those to do NaNo. Week two hit me hard. I've never, in the two years I've been writing, stuck to a single story for this long. I get a chapter written, then mentally switch gears to the next story in my rotation. The next one-shot, or ongoing chapter-story, or even a quick outline for an idea that popped into my head that I just have to get down.

Needless to say, I forced myself to push through the desperation and temptation to pick up one of my other stories and just work on it for a little bit. The closest I came was reading something I'd been working on and actually put on hold to do NaNo, but then I closed the document and jumped right back into my novel. Every day when I sat down to write last week, I questioned why I was still doing this, what I was really going to accomplish with killing myself and harping on every character that spilled from my fingertips.

And just when I was ready to hang up my writing hat and crawl into a fuzzy blanket and read too much fanfiction to be healthy... When I stared at the blinking cursor and thought about the 17,000 words I'd written so far and how I didn't think they were going to stay in any later drafts... I had that moment of clarity that we always talk about with vague hand gestures and twinkling eyes. I thought I'd written my characters into a corner, that my main character wasn't acting like herself, but I used that doubt and fear I was feeling and crammed it into each sentence. And by the time I was done writing at the end of each night, I would pull my head out of the world I'd created as a panting mess and stare at the words on the screen. I'd wonder how they managed to make it there, when I was running from the guards through poisoned brambles right along with my characters. How could I have possibly written a thing while she was trying to kill the man who saved her from the prison.

The epiphany, the muses, or just a good wallop from a fiery halibut of inspiration right in the center of the brain. Whatever you want to call it, it's there and it'll happen when you think nothing will ever come out of the cramping fingers and excessive backspacing you're doing. You could be scrubbing between your cheeks or picking belly button lint, and it'll hit. And when it does, harness that and latch on like a creepy little level five stalker with a sniffing fetish. I sure did, and it got me to the halfway point.

One other tip, for those of you still reading this:

Make it weird. If you're not just a little freaked out by the insanity you've just put down, dig deeper. Make yourself extremely uncomfortable, and then just go with it. Pull out the hot pants and let your oddball come to the keyboard, because that is when the real magic happens. You could compare a man losing his virginity to jumping crotch-first into a fire-nado of lust, and even if it never makes it past your first draft, you'll still know that you have the ability to write something so off-the-wall.

Because you are creative. We have voices that need a microphone to shout their stories to the world. This is the perfect opportunity to snake it up and shed your normality. So when you sit down to write, don't think about how many words you're getting down. Just go for it. Dance like nobody's watching, and write like you've just gotten frostbite in your fingers and you have to finish the story before they fall off...

Extra points if you dance while writing with frostbite.

So, here's what I want from you, fellow readers and writers. Ask me a question. A whole series of questions.

What things are there that you want to know about writing?
Plot hole issues? Character development? How to get into the writing mood?
The sky's the limit.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just a woman who enjoys telling a (debatable) good story and making my readers (hopefully) feel something while they read. I'm no Koontz or King or Rice or Ward or Hubbard. And if there's something you don't agree with, by all means, please let me know. I want to learn from you all as well.

There's so much animosity in the world nowadays, and I'd much rather propagate a love for texts and creativity than hatred. Well, unless that hatred is in the form of characters interacting with one another, then it's totally fine.

I hope to hear from you all.

(insert furious backspacing because my fingers have given up on properly typing a valediction)

~~GemNika.