This is a place to brag about your accomplishments, cry about your failures and otherwise tell about what is going on in your life. This note is first intended to embarrass me into getting off my useless duff and get to writing so I will not drag the society down into the pits of oblivion. As you can see by our present economy, I am not writing, so our society is drifting into the wastelands of eternity. I consider writing as, writing new works, editing even if it is someone else's work, Poetry, articles, very long E-mails as long as they cover some bit about writing, blogging, world building as long as you get something on paper, and just about anything you consider writing.....
My big excuse for not writing this week has been time. Saturday night, I left the house at seven in the morning and got back at eleven at night, then got up at four in the morning. which is my normal wake up time. I missed writing a woodworking diary entry and Saturday's story idea, so I got them written, then laid down and napped before going on with the rest of my day away from the computer. That nap and a later nap really has not helped as much as I would have hoped. My writing partner and I did pin down some details in my world I am working with on my Waxy story. More will be pinned down when I finish writing it and she makes changes she feels are necessary. While I created the world, she understands some features of it better than I do. It is that old rule thing. I wrote about thirty of the stories without really giving thought to the fine details of the rules the world operates under. A lot of the rest were written with just enough understanding to get the stories written. There will be wholesale editing of these short stories when I am done, but for now, I am just getting adventures on paper. In essence, I am doing a rough draft of a series of novels, by writing a long series of short stories. The problem right now is that I am not writing.
This month's 31 story ideas came out to be 54 pages long for a total of 33,478 words. I've had some story ideas that were not up to snuff this month, but I do the best I can. I have always had a serious problem with endings in my stories. I spent a summer just writing four page stories just to learn how to do endings. after a couple dozen stories, I had only one within the four page limit, but I did learn how to get to an ending. I still have a problem with endings. I see it all the time in my story ideas. I get to the point where the real action ends, then have not concept on how to tie things up. I keep forgetting that I can simply stop once the "story" is over. My tying the piece up stretches it out more than needed.
I had a so-so weekend on the woodworking front. Last week, I started making a vase and was finishing it on Saturday. I just had to flatten the bottom on the inside and touch up some ridges on the inside of the vase. The wood was spinning fast I was scraping the inside of the vase to remove the excess wood. The end started wobbling. I then saw a brown line appear in the side of the vase. I shut the lathe down. I had cut through the side above the base. I took pictures of the vase to show my mistake. I removed the top part, setting it to the side, and made a cup of the bottom. Not spectacular, but it was something. I made some more pencil heads. These are carved heads that one glues to the end of a pencil. The heads are really supposed to be face carving practice, but I mainly make the pencil heads as an end product. I don't try as hard as I should at doing the heads with proper techniques. Some of my newest pencil heads have beards hanging down. Looks interesting. I made some new turning tools. I made the handles and then glued allen wrenches in them. I will grind the allen wrenches to a cutting edge. I've wanted to make some of my own tools. I may choose to replace the handles I made as they were of the wrong wood. will see.
I am taming a cat we call Beggar. When he was a kitten, he would beg food, forcing mom's favorite cat to back away from the food. Beggar has had the "ally cat" personality. I have been about the only one who could pet him. We would give him food and he would let me pet him about six times then make me back off. I would pet him again once he had his face in the food. There was only so much he would allow of that. Back in October, I started the practice of giving him just a few grains of food and petting him. I would give him a bit more food and pet him again. I would do this ten, twelve times a day when I was there. It took him a bit but he found he liked being petted. Now, he actually will let me pet him when he does not have his face buried in the food. He does have to have the food there, but many times, he is more interested in my attention than eating. I had never considered being able to do this with him. Compared to where he was, he has become a nice cat. Compared to a really domesticated cat, he is still a grinch. I would do a whole lot better if I was there to do this every day, rather than only on weekends. What I am after is to see if I can make him a lap cat without having to wear battle armor.
Consider one is dealing with a tiger like animal with a bad attitude. The beast gets into a pen to eat. While it is there, you reach through the bars and give it a few strokes. It twists to get you at first. As time goes on, the reactions are slower, you are able to pet it a few more times. When its face is in the food, you have a whole lot more access to it. Because you pick off any parasites you find, it gets to hold its temper as you clean it. Eventually, you get to spend a lot of time petting it all over, even daring to stoke its head. Then the time comes where you end up in the enclosure the beast is in. It could be that there was a change in leadership and you were loyal to the one who was in charge and they are purging the rolls of anybody who had the previous loyalty. Or, it could be that you slip and fall into the enclosure. you find yourself at eye level with the beast. You then notice that they are not feeding the bast in the feeding enclosure, but instead filling a "dish" through a hose along the wall of the enclosure. You back up so the food is between you and it. The beast is not sure about this opportunity. It sniffs the dish, takes a bit, then turns around the dish, pinning you against the wall. You start to pet it, picking parasites off. It starts herding you to its favorite places to tend to it. A couple times, it licks you, most likely to decide if you might be food. You spend a few weeks in the enclosure, even eating the beast's food. Finally you are called to the wall and allowed in though a maintenance door. you show you are fully willing to give an oath of loyalty to the new leader in exchange of not being put in the enclosure again.
As to the question of the day I did not write this week.
posted
I critiqued several stories. I wrote out three ideas for novels (unless that was last week). I decided which novel to start writing, adapted it, and have been reading extensively about thermodynamics and string theory to make it plausible (as plausible as you can be when dealing with string theory).
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Yes, I squared my WotF entry away at 1:00am (sent it out on time), and started dubbing around on one of the older ones.
Posts: 3687 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I completed the outline for my next novel, and started the very first chapter (even if it's more of a prelude than an actual chapter). I'll take progress wherever I can find it.
Posts: 487 | Registered: Mar 2008
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Yay, I did, I did! It's been way way too long; a whole month, in fact, of not writing. And my did I miss it! It feels like flexing muscles after you've been in a cast or something.
I've been tinkering with a story for about a week now. My problem is that I lose confidence in my self. It happens with every story. Halfway through I become convinced what I'm writing must be the most doggone awful series of words that's ever been strung together. Somehow I manage to push through. But my goal is to write one piece, just one, where I don't second guess myself but I write exactly as I want, exactly as I envision it, without censoring myself.
Anyway, it's been a glorious, wonderful week, though I haven't written all that much. The joy I feel reinforces the feeling that this writing thing is here to stay.
[This message has been edited by annepin (edited March 31, 2008).]
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I didn't do much writing this week. I edited, read,and critted til my eyes bled this week. WOTF is in a envelope on some plane, train, or automobile right now, so I can write again this week. Lot's of stories in various forms of dissaray. I hope they inspire me in the same order as their deadlines are arranged.
Posts: 1888 | Registered: Jan 2008
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I started another new story now for six of my twelve week push. I'm six hundred words into the story, as yet untitled. I'll finish it sometime this week and be half through with this self-challenge of mine. Go me!
Posts: 1580 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Hi, everyone. I didn't write today, because I had very little access to a computer, and when I did I had other tasks. I don't do well with pen and paper, LOL.
Feel free to send me stories to critique.. I'm going to be active on these boards now, and I have plenty of time to print and read.
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I had a pretty productive week---five hundred words a day, every day except Wednesday---all this despite a crowded week. And exhaustion. And lack of sleep. And celebrating my birthday that same Wednesday. (I'm forty-seven.)
I've noticed something in my writing just this last week, though it's been happening for two-plus years now. Used to be, I had trouble getting anything much above the short story level. Five thousand words seemed the upper limit, save in rare things. Ten thousand words was a rare achievment. Finishing something at novel length was once-in-a-blue-moon.
But the past two years, everything I've finished has been much longer. The thing I'm working on passed twelve thousand words and doesn't look to be stopping short of twice that. The last thing I submitted anywhere came in at twenty thousand words. And my half-finished-in-rough-draft-but-suspended-in-limbo novel stopped at one hundred thousand words. Even the things I abandoned seemed not-so-short...even unfinished they reach for five-digits-in-word-count. Used to be, five thousand and it was done...now I'm just revving up...
Am I happy about this? Well, yes and no...I like the length and the development...but I'm not sure I like the length of time it takes to finish these things...
(I think I'll get back to my unfinished novel after I finish this current work, unless something new gets in the way...)
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Well my Muse has been quite chatty this week, so i ended up writing 15 pages about the world in my WIP and thats so unlike me! I'm so proud of my lazy self.
Posts: 12 | Registered: Mar 2008
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I finished the first two pages of a short story--and didn't delete them, empty the trash they went to, and then bury the CPU in the dead of night with a stake through its heart. A modest accomplishment, but I'm celebrating.
Posts: 44 | Registered: Mar 2008
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