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01-21-07 Did You Write? . It is that time of the week again. I look at these notes as an excuse to force myself to write. I know I am going to have to write something in this note so I use that as an excuse to force myself to write. It does not always work. I then have to bare my shame to the world about how I failed to reach my potential in my life works. I also post it to give the rest of you an opportunity to brag about your accomplishments or cry about your failures, and otherwise tell about your life.
AS to the question of the week, I hang my head in shame, kick the dirt a little, and say "I'm Sorry..." I then lift my head and grin excitedly. "I do have an excuse if you want to hear it!" An online friend of mine went to the hospital for heart surgery. My writing partner was a close friend and was helping him get his life together due to previous heart problems and a move to her state. I talked to her on the phone several times when we were not sure he would live. It is impossible for me to talk and write at the same time. I also had club meeting and was away from the computer till well past my bed time. I got well behind on my story ideas. I ended up having to write a whole bunch of story ideas during the weekend, when I normally do my real writing. I wrote two story ideas tonight and am finally fully caught up. My writing partner and I did exchange some thoughts on my latest Waxy Dragon story that I am working on. She knows the characters and the story almost better than I do and has given me some guiding thoughts about how problems might be handled. In all, I cannot say that I wrote this week. There was a time where I could write quite often.
As mentioned, I am caught up for the month on my story ideas with the two story ideas I am posting today. Hopefully, I might be able to get ahead this month and post more than thirty one ideas. Someone asked elsewhere about what to do with ideas one cannot use right now. Many said they tend to forget them if it is not strong enough. I found that writing SOMETHING about them helps a lot. Now not all ideas are as good as others. A couple years ago, one board had been hacked and it lost nearly all the notes. What I did was to copy my story ideas from one board I posted on, to replace the lost notes. I had to go to the beginning of the note, then scroll down and copy the rest of the note on one board, and then post it on the other. I would read the beginning paragraph of most notes, and then read the end paragraph of the note. I found that at least two of the ideas each month were such that I would read the entire thing. I consider that a good measurement of the rate of quality in ideas written out. Two out of thirty. Now I do have a whole stack of papers with story ideas noted on them that may never see the light of day. That also shows you that not all ideas you come up with are worth expanding to remind you of the full concept. One thing about my story ideas is that they are a great escape for an unbridled imagination. I have found that many really powerful concepts become quite once they are written out. I used that many a time when I was working on serious pieces to keep me on course. That powerful idea would show up and I would note it down in some detail. I could then return to my work in progress in peace. When I was done, I could dig out the strongest of the ideas and write them. For years, I had dug into my posted story ideas for things to work on next. The hardest part was reading through the lists of stuff to find the gems. in the past couple years, all my serious writing has involved Waxy Dragon. I have not needed to dig into my story ideas for quite a while.
I worked on a chicken bowl and a duck bowl this weekend. I attached the heads and tail and am now trying to get scratches out of the bowl, getting the whole thing to a fine finish before I paint the heads and tail. I am invited to a local art show every year and learned this weekend that they changed the date of the show again. When I started, sharing a table with my dad, the show was in June Then they changed it to April. Now it is in Mid March. I have most of the stuff I plan to show already made. What this changes is what new items I might be able to make for the show. I have a month less to get ready. I have a number of works that need refinishing. I have a few pieces that need to be repaired. I will have to forgo making some specialized pieces I was considering. I also have to rush some items I already started. Just another change of plans. Luckily, I was aiming for getting read for this show in the first place. I usually would start a month before the show, but this time planned from the start of the year for.
For a story idea, you might have an inventor, or craftsman who is working towards a specific event. He then learns the event date has changed. The inventor might decide the invention (computer program) is not going to have all the options she planned for it to have so she uses what she has to come up with a good product and plan for improvement in the future. A craftsman might be making magical items to sell at the fair to magicians. the fair date is changed so the craftsman has to decide to not make some spectacular items and go for salable items already in stock or in process. A manufacturer is making materials needed for the evacuation of the planet. He is refining materials so that they can be processed efficiently in flight. He is also making machinery for the processing of the materials. The date of the launch is moved up. He decides to just make the parts for the machinery and assemble them in flight. Those parts can be re-used for other machinery or be reprocessed like other materials if needed.
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I did! I wrote another 5,000 words of back story for my character, and started a tentative new first chapter. Will this one be The Opening? We'll see... I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I had something brilliant and I hustled to my computer and typed away... of course, in the garish light of day, I reread what I'd written and thought, meh.
On a different note, sorry to hear about your friend rstegman.
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited January 21, 2008).]
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With school work starting to pile up, I have not been able to write as much last. Still I am up to 21 days of writing something, but I only wrote about 2k words last week. I hope that I can do better in the next week. I have to make a short story for school, so I will be putting my WIP on hold and starting on the new project.
[This message has been edited by gobi13x (edited January 21, 2008).]
posted
Yes. I researched and started a story last Wednesday, got about 400 words into it, and I wrote a 1,150 word flash yesterday.
I still haven't picked back up on my novel, but I think that I'm still trying to get my feet underneath me. Somehow, I'm not sure I could stand to have to write it 2 or 3 times...
posted
Yes, I wrote. I did about 6,000 words of my WoTF story.
I've got a whole lost of stuff I want to do,including writing new stuff, re-writing old stuff and editing. How do you prioritize which is most important; I'm having a hard time knowing which piece of work I should working on and when.
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I might not've written either way, but for the past week and a fraction, I've been too sick to write or even go online and come here. "Heavy cold" might describe it, but I can't remember ever being so sick before. I missed a lot of work...went one day, found I couldn't stay standing up, came home after an hour and change...
With that indignity came another. Not three hours after I called in sick the first day, I heard a gurgling in my toilet. Naturally I thought it was doing its usual gurgling (these modern-day low-flush valves give me nothing but grief), and so I went up and lifted up the lid.
So out of the bowl jumps a small rat. I chased it around, but it went to cover in the junk that's piled up in my bedroom. I only saw it one more time, when it tried to chew up the rug and get out under my bedroom door. Far as I can tell, it's still in there.
The main effect was that, for a half hour, I was operating on the adrenaline rush...then for the next twenty-four hours I could barely move off the couch in my living room where I took rest...I've had to expend what little energy I've had after that just cleaning out some of the junk in my bedroom (I threw away two big bags of old socks and underwear)...and I spent the first part of the week resting on the aforesaid couch, and the latter on a very uncomfortable fold-up bed at my parents's house.
So I'm still completely wiped out, and don't even know when I'll get back to writing...
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I dedicated most of this past week to web development and design work for both me and a few of my long-time customers, and it's looking as if this week will be more of the same.
Still...I managed to tighten up my young adult novel to the point where I no longer cringe when I call up the file.
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Yeah, in a way. Since we've decided that writing in the question presented could be anything from reading (researching) to actually typing new words on a WIP, I did. I spent time yesterday reading what my co-author has written, making notations, and dropping her a line with my thoughts. And of course, I have been writing (typing new words on my WIP), but had to get my bearings on the other half.
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posted
Yes. Not much, and only the one day (yesterday), but I did write for the first time in nearly three weeks. We'll see if I can keep it up.
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