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07-07-08 Did You Write? . This is the day to brag about your accomplishments, cry about your failures, or otherwise discuss what is happening in your life. The object of this string is to give you a weekly goal to aim for. The idea is to try to write something SOMETIME in the week, and then report it. Writing, is of course, anything new you wrote. It is also any editing, even if it is someone else's. It is poetry, articles, writing assignments, blogging (which I would call articles). It can be world building as long as something goes on paper. It could even be E-mails, as long as it is a lot of words and pertains to writing. If you wrote any time this week, tell us about it. It does not have to be just today.
I proudly say that I did write. I am not proud at how much I wrote, just that I did write. On my Waxy story, I first had to correct a scene, fairly minor addition and change, then dug into the next section. Unlike most of the Waxy dragon stories, which tend to end around ten pages, this one has a number of different scenes with the activities in them, so it is going to be longer than normal. One problem is that I normally write in MS NOTEPAD, that comes with Windows. My computer is windows 98. I maxed out Notepad at ten pages. I cannot add to the story while in notepad. Anyway, I added about five hundred words, mostly telling the action, rather than showing it, and nearly finished the scene that way. I will likely double the scene length when I write it next. Anyway, I am now at page 10 with 6157 words. It bothers me that I cannot spend more time writing, but something would have to give, like work, or sleep, or my story ideas. I am not sure which I can live with.
On the story idea front, I have kept up for the moth so far, posting seven story ideas since I last wrote here. I still have 26 story ideas in my compost pile. I did dig into the stack some this week, but then came up with five story ideas over the weekend, a couple I already wrote. There is one I am looking at and really want to write, but might hold off until I know I can handle it correctly. The idea is a seeing eye dog, but the blind guy sees through the eyes of the dog. I can handle this as magic, or technology. I love the "taste" of the story and am excited about it.
On the woodworking front, I have made great headway on getting some projects close to being finished. I have a bowl that looks like a swirl of leaves. I needed to do some grinding in the inside to correct a correction I made. It helped. I have already had a couple people say wow about that. I mainly have to sand and varnish the piece, and that is going to be a major project. Each little valley between the veins have to be sanded carefully with each grade of sandpaper. I also made the handle and hinge arrangement for the beer stein I am making. I started making one handle and realized I made it too small for my hand to hold it. I then went with a larger piece of wood, and forgot to remove some excess I had. the handle is really big now. I had a choice of making a new handle, I really don't have time for that, cutting this handle shorter and gluing it back on. I chose the grain direction for maximum strength so that would defeat the design. My last choice would be to carve the handle and pretend it is the way it is supposed to be. I am carving the handle. I decided that someone is "treed, driven up a tree by something. My first thought was for it to be a bear, but I was not sure how to carve a bear properly and did not want to do something that would be a serious mistake. Instead, I am going to have him driven up the tree by some bunny rabbits. I have one started and will carve more next weekend. It is already looking pretty good.
For a story idea, you have someone who is not well skilled, doing serious work. His advantage is that he is imaginative. Each project he does, he does not know how to make it the way it is supposed to be, but he can figure out how to make it work, and look like it was supposed to be that way. This could be for assembling complex machinery. The motor is supposed to be a turbine powered engine to spin a wheel, but does not quite understand the concept, so he makes an engine like a Wankle Rotary Engine. It does the job. One could invent a new type of system to do that and describe it with our most modern methods, such as using hydraulics rather than mechanical, or pure electrical motors or something else. His understanding of machinery is not as advanced, but he understands how to convert one motion into another. He also has a feel for making things look good, so when he is done, it might be nothing like what the design really said it would be, but it looks like it belongs. One idea is that he is supposed to build amusement rides and the information he receives tells what is supposed to happen, but now how it is to happen, assuming the most modern technology will do the work. He builds it using old technology. when they come to open and use the amusements, the design is so interesting that the looks is as much fun as the rides themselves. While the officials chew him out for his construction, the ones the amusements are for, are so overflowing with praise at the machines he built.
So as to the question of the day, Yes I did write this past week.
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I finished my first Horror short story, as well as a fantasy flash this week. I am working on my Lakota story and trying to get my WOTF draft in shape. But my crowning achievement was the First thirteen challenge Posts: 1888 | Registered: Jan 2008
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Two SF short stories went out the door last week.
The young adult novel is close to being finished. I verbally ran through the last chapter from start to finish during my morning commute. At traffic lights, I caught myself holding my digital recorder up to my ear, as if attempting to convince my fellow commuters I'm not really crazy, but am in fact talking on my cell phone. The process of talking out the story led me to see a few solutions to trouble spots that were grinding the story to a halt...in particuloar, those overly annoying transitions between one key event and another. I also came up wqith an entirely new scene that stands a good chance of being the best part of the entire chapter.
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A couple of days I scraped enough time to write up some of the revised draft of my latest. It's easier the second time around---the first draft is right in front of you, and you're just copying it again, deciding as you go what to change 'round or where to put in new bits of business. (It's harder on the next go-'round---editing and cutting.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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After spending most of the week worldbuilding on a fantasy WIP, I had this nagging feeling that I really needed to give one of my characters a bigger introduction... So, I went back and re-outlined some sections and rearranged some storylines. I think that will give her a little more interaction with the MCs. I also had some fun writing short backstories for some of the characters (I was inspired by postings elsewhere to write some short pieces to help flesh-out their personalities.) The last forty eight hours, however, have been completely unproductive, so I'm thinking I will go to the gym for a couple of hours and try to clear the cloud in my brain.
Posts: 57 | Registered: Jun 2008
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Happily, I met my goals for the week. I’m starting out with low standards so I won’t feel guilty preparing for my move across country and going about regular weekly activities.
For one WIP (that’s Work In Progress, right?), I wrote seven pages and some backstory. For another WIP, I also wrote seven pages and two and a half pages of outline. Both WIP’s will be novels. Online, I posted about 500 words about how I celebrated Independence Day.
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I'm bouncing between two novels - one an ongoing project of epic proportions, the other barely begun - and sadly I don't seem to have enough time to devote to both. This week it was the Monster's turn. Most of what I've done has been editing, but I managed to write a page or two of fresh material.
The rest has been worldbuilding and conlanging. I've finally nailed the noun system of an archaic language spoken by the ancestors of my characters, which seems to work. Now I need to work out what to do with the adjectives. Maybe I'll get rid of them altogether and see how the Shakespeares and Wordsworths of my world like it.
I've also had an idea, but have done very little with it for now - I'm throwing it around in my head to see if it's worth putting the time and effort in. It's a nifty gimmick, but I'm not sure how much plot I can squeeze out of it.
So yeah, I did write - more than I have done for a while, but still nowhere near as much as I'd like. Time is a priceless thing.
[This message has been edited by marchpane (edited July 08, 2008).]
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The process of talking out the story led me to see a few solutions to trouble spots that were grinding the story to a halt...in particuloar, those overly annoying transitions between one key event and another. I also came up wqith an entirely new scene that stands a good chance of being the best part of the entire chapter.
