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» Hatrack River Writers Workshop » Forums » Open Discussions About Writing » 08-27-07 Did You Write?

   
Author Topic: 08-27-07 Did You Write?
rstegman
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08-27-07 Did You Write?

This is an attempt to allow everyone to shame yourselves into writing each and every week. It never works for me but you might get lucky.

Remember, Editing IS writing, even if you are editing someone else's work. It is all writing.

I did a little writing, nothing like I had hoped. It was a busy week which threw me off. I edited my Waxy dragon story, adding about three hundred words I likely wrote eight hundred words but I had zapped several paragraphs and write them all new so that is why I have such a small number. I then came up with a way to correct the other Waxy story I had started earlier to get it going the way I wanted. Never got the chance to open that.
The Waxy stories are a series of short stories set with the same character, similar situations, and she grows in knowledge, skills, and experience as the stories go. I started writing these story by story, and only started thinking about the whole "world" she lives and plays in, after I had a good number of stories written.
I am now thinking about WORLD BUILDING for her and her stories, thinking about background rules of science and magic, thinking more about how she would react to things and why, Considering how descriptions in one story effects the other. I had over thirty stories written before I sat down and drew the house she lives in. I imagined different parts of the house, but never together. it took a lot of work and several revisions before I got a house layout that would fit the descriptions I had. At one point, I did not even have the bathroom in the house!!! There were other things that were never described in the stories that I had to come to words with. While each short story is heavily edited when it is posted, the entire series will be heavily edited overall when I start to consider publishing them.
I first thought of a novel, made up of a bunch of short stories. I then realized that I might need twenty to thirty of them for a novel, what do I do if all I write are forty? What to do with the extra stories. I came up with the idea to have them as individual picture books, The stories are between ten and thirty pages long so far. Add a picture per page and the book becomes a nice length for children. In this system, it matters not how many stories I write. Thirty to three hundred would not matter since each book is published separately.
I think the most likely scenario is that the stories would be bundled in small groups, say five stories, with pictures. they would not be inundating libraries and book stores with hundreds of books, even if the series becomes popular. They would be a small enough number of the books that if the series were to end, writing a few more stories would not be THAT hard. I have a lot of stories to write between what I already have, so it will be a long time before publication will be a consideration.

I am keeping up with my story ideas. I just sent out last months ideas this weekend. Each month, I write a cover sheet that basically tells about what the attached file is, and a little about my life to the moment and send them out to family and friends who made the mistake of asking that I send out the story ideas. The story ideas are in generic text files with no formatting except hard returns and tabs in the paragraphs. They generally are about fifty to sixty pages of text each month, singles spaced. Not bad for drivel... Most people just love reading them and thinking about the possibilities, though they are really intended for authors, to give them ideas of what to work on when they have no idea of what to write.

One of the problems with my writing time was that I broke two pairs of glasses this week, and had to order new glasses. The first pair, I was adjusting the bows at work since they seemed off kilter. the glasses broke at the nose. I went out to my car and got a second pair, an older pair of reading glasses that fit my eyes, but were in bad shape. After work, I ordered new glasses, spending money I really did not want to spend.
The next day, I was at a laundry mat and took my glasses off while reading a magazine. the glasses started wobbling. I had forgotten why the glasses were in bad shape. I had broken them before and repaired them, not doing a good job and being very sloppy. Well, the repair broke. I went out to the car and got one more pair of glasses. These were newer reading glasses. I did not know it at the time and it took me a while to figure out what they were and to get used to them. I wear what is called MONOVISION, where one lens is set for reading, and the other was set for distance. Your mind adjusts for this combination, swapping eyes depending on what you are doing. I was thinking these were monovision glasses with the lenses opposite what I normally get. No, they were reading glasses.
To use this in a story, one could have a cache of old weapons, or old tools, and as one breaks, you go to an older technology to do the job. Consider using a laser screw gun to undo bolts and screws. The lasers never mar the metal as they apply force. That breaks so you go to an electric screw gun. It uses the bits to fit the nuts and screws. That breaks. One then has to go to an old adjustable wrench, then to a set of open end and box wrenches, and finally a pair of plyers (not recommenced) to finish the job,. You get the job done, but it is not as nice as it started out to be.

So, to the question of the day, Yes, I did write.
Did you?



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JeffBarton
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Yes, I wrote - mostly rewrote. And edited. And wrung my hands over it. And rewrote. And pummeled it with a sledgehammer. And then sent it off. *gasp*

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debhoag
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Good for you, JeffBarton! Which story did you send? one that was posted here? I'll keep my pencils crossed!

And, when are we going to see one of these famous Waxy Dragon Stories? She sounds like a hoot, and I get a little more curious every week.

And lastly, yes, I did write, finishing a first draft on Alchemy: The Monk's Story (16,000 wds) and an actual sci fi, Call Me Ish, at about 3800. Now I'm goofing off and waiting for crits to come back, so I can get them cleaned up and out the door.

And, just because Rick Norwood pointed out that I don't have overabundance of happy endings, I'm trying to think of a story with a happy ending, just to show that I can!

[This message has been edited by debhoag (edited August 28, 2007).]


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KayTi
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Another week, another flash fiction in the can! Yay. Not my best, but not my worst either.

Next I need to work on polishing these flashes so they are in some sort of shape, then getting more crits on them via the F&F here. I also want to start thinking about my WOTF submission for this quarter - deadline end of September.

More reading about writing - finished reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which makes all writers sound neurotic, but funny. Reading one called Building Fiction now.


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Leigh
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I actually wrote! 3 words added onto a story I want to write! Better than nothing...
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Robert Nowall
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Not much. I finished the short story I was working on and fiddled with it a little---then real life intruded. I had some trouble at work---harassment, really, ostensibly because I dared to be sick, but really because I wouldn't run mail through a machine that would shred it---and had to expend a certain amount of literary effort in that direction writing grievance statements.

Then there were other things. Sunday was a bad day. Work was hellish---no harassment here, just extremely active. My car wouldn't start when leaving work, and dealing with that took up most of the day. The rest of the day involved going to a union meeting. (On the other hand, I did win a couple hundred dollars for attending the meeding---the day wasn't a washout.)


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franc li
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I wrote in the evenings a lot. I wrote while waiting for a plane Saturday, though not on the plane. Then I take Sunday off, though I wrote something else. Monday I didn't get to write till I was sitting in bed, but got some good stuff down. It was the first day of school for my children.
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Wolfe_boy
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I wrote my flash story posted on here (Solomon's Tale) and edited it thoroughly. Actually, just emailed it off last night.

This week will be focused on working on some overdue crits I've got in my inbox.

Jayson Merryfield


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Marzo
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I recall writing a bit, but not nearly as much as I would have liked to. I hit 3k with my current project, which is looking like it's going to wind up at around 9k, give or take.

I think once I reach the halfway mark, I'll be brave and toss up the first 13.

Rstegman, your 'Did You Write' posts always act like a kick to my rear. I'm off to write now. :)


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InarticulateBabbler
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Yep. I wrote. Gave my word that I'd write this story, and I don't give my word out lightly. So, unless God takes me, I'll be working on this until it's done.

Also, I have to get my WOTF entry finished. I have to do a bit of research on a few minor details, but I should be able to clean it up sifficiently. I hope I get to it in time.


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annepin
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Argh, no I didn't write. I completely fell out of the saddle, and got trampled by the horse, to boot.

But I just have to pick up and keep on truckin', right? So this coming week, I will work on the outline of one of my book ideas, rewrite a story, and rewrite the first chapter of my magnum opus.


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JeanneT
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It was a rare week in which I did no NEW writing. I re-edited 18 chapters of my novel to get it off to a publisher and that was more than enough angst for one week.
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MrsBrown
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Finally! Edited/wrote almost 500 words last night. Its really hard to maintain momentum... back at it!
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darklight
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I tried to write. Got about 8,000 words then the laptop decides it can't handle more than one job at a time, and since I need two word docs open to write this story - the original and the edited story, I could do no more. I'm around twenty thousand words behind where I wanted to be at this stage.
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TaleSpinner
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That's one heck of a lazy laptop, darklight. Mine's lost half its memory, but it still handles several docs and dictionaries and a web browser concurrently, albeit a tad slowly.

I revised one short story and drafted a new one this last week, most productive, probably 4500 words in total. I surprised myself. Now that those are cooking nicely I can return to Time Healer, which I dread because it's more difficult ...

Cheers,
Pat


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debhoag
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I don't like trying to switch between windows to edit a story. I usually print out a hard copy and write all the editorial changes on it by hand, then open up the file and make the changes off the paper. My edit hardcopy usually contains all the changes I have determined I want to make - a compilation of all the crits I got. It's the only way I can bring them all together in one doc. What does everyone else do?
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Robert Nowall
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That's close to what I do. I print out and then rewrite in a different file---sometimes two or three times more. I think it helps me reconsider every sentence I've written.
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I am destiny
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I put my story away but am writing the query and synopsis. Having a hard time keeping the synopsis short. I will have to liposuction the heck out of it when it is done... sigh.
But yes I wtote, not story but I wrote.
~D

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franc li
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I didn't get to write on Thursday, I think it was. Yesterday I learned my latest submission was not a winner. Though I guess just by submitting, I was a winner! [/so special]

So as I was saying elsewhere, what now? I'm still working on my latest (Scriptural epic fiction). I have to get a couple more indispensable scenes in place, rework the early scenes that are now contradictory, do some in-fill, and maybe I can start getting some crits.


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meg.stout
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Wrote this week - I'm reminded of the trailer for the Mr. Bean movie, where Mr. Bean (on a bike) is drafting a car, and with that velocity he is able to whip past a group of racing bicyclists.

So I'm still whizzing forward in the draft of Boot Camp. Submitted something for that Writer's Digest contest - very liberating to know that I'm in a pot with hundreds of others, so there's no shame if I'm not 'selected.'

Wrote up the first few pages of a new take on my novel. Two funny occurrences during the critique...

1) "Is your MC uneducated? Unless you want to convey something specific about his level of education, use lie and lay appropriately in this passage." Um. Not trying to convey anything. Apparently I don't know how to use the words lie/lay.

2) "This people are the parents of dead children, letting a young child wander unsupervised along a riverbank..."


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