Memoirs, Incentive and Life in General

 I took a few days off of the blog to get some productive writing done on my story, as well as write up a memoir for a contest. Actually, a lot of the time went into working on the memoir. I found out about it on http://www.freelancewriting.com. They have a list of current writing contests there, though the majority of the contests are for either already-published works, or poetry. But while I was perusing the list, I spotted a contest by Memior Ink for original memoirs and I thought that while I am typically not very good at writing short stories, and I wouldn't say I'm good at writing memoirs from scratch, I did write two memoirs back in the days of high school.

I asked mom to look through her memory boxes and find my old creative writing portfolio from my Junior year of high school. At first she said that she didn't want to look for it, then that she didn't find it, but yesterday she contacted me saying that she had found my old writing portfolio. So yesterday I typed up an edited copy of the memoir, retitled it, and polished it up so that it might actually stand a chance. The contest deadline is August 8th, so I don't have a ton of time for the memoir to sit around before I edit it and all. 

The day before that I worked on chapter five of my current manuscript, Imperfectly Perfect (or so it the working title) 

So I think I'm forgiven for not updating daily. I hope to finish chapter five and write a good portion of chapter six this weekend. 

At work I got a really nice surprise today. Our scorecard works on a 1-5 scale. 5's will get you fired, heck 4's will get you fired. If you get a 3 or above, you qualify for incentive (and also are safe from being weeded out). However, 3's almost never get incentive. Incentive is awarded to the people whose scorecards are in the top 40% of the entire team. As our team only has fourteen people, that means about 4 people get incentive, so it's almost always a 1 or 2 that receives it. I've gotten incentive for the months of April and May, and in June my scorecard was a 3, so I was basically resigned to the fact that I would not be receiving incentive for the month of June. Well, the other catch to incentive is that even though I may qualify for incentive in April, but I won't see that money  until the end of June. I don't even know if I get the incentive until the end of May, so it's all very retro-active. 

Anyways, I was sitting at my desk, and my manager came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said in a whisper. "guess what?"

and I was like "what?"

and she said "I just got in the list of incentive winners for June and I saw your name on the list. I don't know how much you got though. 

So... with a 3 on my june scorecard, I still get some extra incentive money come the end of august! Which is really awesome cause I kind-of really need it. I actually got an email at work near the end of the day telling me how much incentive I would be receiving. The lowest possible is 100, and I got more than that so I am currently one fairly happy girl. Now that I've been getting one normal paycheck, with a little extra thanks to overtime, and one big paycheck with incentive included at the end of the month, it's made living a tiny bit easier. O, it still goes right out the door, but at least I can satisfy more of the people that are asking for the money I make. 

The best part is, I rocked out July and am possibly looking at a 1 on my scorecard for July, which would be GREAT for my end-of-the-year review coming up in October (September is the last month that counts for the 2010 work year) but will also guarantee that I get incentive for July. Though, if I do get a two (still rather possible) it will be a very high two. So I'm not worried at all and for the first time in a long time have absolutely no anxiety concerning my monthly scorecard coming up. 

Anyways, that's all I got for today. Finished reading On Writing and also finished reading Twisted. Am currently reading Just Listen.

On Writing

Seriously, if I want to be a writer I REALLY should learn to spell writing/writer correctly. I keep trying to spell it w-r-i-t-t-i-n-g/w-r-i-t-t-e-r. stupid really. Anyways, rant over.

I actually did work on my story today. I'm just updating this blog because, if there are other writers out there (ones that can actually spell writer) I have recently found an amazing book about writing that I absolutely love! It's called On Writing by Stephen King.

I actually have not read any of Stephen King's works before, as they (from what I hear at least) really are not my style. But I came across this book from a blog I had googled saying "Books every writer must read." and while Stephen King says that at the top of that list is Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White, I would say if that's the number one must read (I am in the process of acquiring it and have yet to read it though I plan to) On Writing is number two.

On Writing starts off with a lot of glimpses into the life of the young Steven King and events that either 1- humorously teach a truth about a rule of writing or 2- made him who he is today. This part was very enlightening to read, the most humorous of which, in my opinion, is when after relating to us a story about how his brother magnetically charged a nail and wrapped it in a lamp cord and plugged the cord in, effectively blowing the transmitter on the block, that it would not hurt anyone who considers himself/herself to be a writer to wrap their TV cord around a magnetized nail and plug it into the wall.

This was very encouraging/funny to read because my husband and I can't afford cable. So while I have a monitor that plays DVD's and COULD hook up to an outlet, we effectively only watch TV when visiting mom's/dad's/grandma's/aunts... you get the picture. Stephen King says that the skill/talent of a writer is directly in proportion to how little the so-called writer watches TV. With this truth, I'm SURE to hit top selling status...someday at least. It also makes me want to keep it to where we have no TV even if we can someday afford it. I've never really been big TV watcher as it is.

Also, other highlights of On Writing include Stephen King's illustration of the "writer's toolbox."

I actually have yet to finish this book, but if you are a young writer, I highly advise reading this book. It's almost like being in a private lesson with Stephen King himself. As I said before, I've never read any of his works, but I like him quite a bit thanks to this book.

Also, a slight rant. Because Stephen King says that there are reasons to give up working on a manuscript, but difficulty of any kind is not one of them (mentally, physically, technically, ect)... Well.. it looks like I will be re-typing out 80 pages because I must continue on with Liliana's Story also. And due to moving computers at some point, and files being lost... I don't have the first 80 pages on electronical-copies. So, I must retype those 80 pages before I begin continuing the story. NOT something I'm looking forward to.

Will let you know what I think of Elements of Style after I've read it.