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December 21, 2009 Did You Write? . Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Thus ist thee proclamation of the week. It is time to announce how much writing you did over the past week. If you write regularly, excellent. If you do not write regularly, I hope you are using this regular note to prompt you into sitting down and writing something, anything, so you can proudly report that you did write. What day you choose to set your week by, Monday night, like when this note is posted, or Friday, when you finally get around to posting on this note, It does not matter, as long as you write. Until recently when I have had some exciting projects o work on and life had not gotten totally in my way, I struggled to get anything on paper, let alone write regularly. This note is to give you a regular reminder that you need to sit down and open a project. We never say anything about how little you write. I have not felt myself a failure to have added just a sentence to a project. I did that two different days this week to my work in progress. It is something and that much less that has to be written in the next session.
I often list things that I consider writing. IN essence, you have to decide whether it is writing. We give you permission to stretch the rules. Work related, class related writing is quite acceptable. So is blogging. It does not even have to be story related, though that would be nice. The act of applying words to a page, aids in later placing stories to a page. Writing is writing. Many comments over time have been about not working on something new. Few of us write perfectly the first time, so editing, even if it is someone else's work or critiquing the work of others. Seeing ways to improve a work aids in your own skills. I consider E-mail writing, as long as it is wordy and pertains to story or writing, to be writing. In my lists, I am essentially giving you permission to choose your definition and stick to it.
As for me, I can proudly say I am writing. Life has limited my writing time, but I did work on my Second waxy story. I dislike what I have, but I figure I will edit it into shape later. As it is, I added two pages to the story and two thousand words. What I have needs work and details, but I am about to get into what the story is really about. I have not worked out the details of what is coming up, but I am getting a better picture of what will happen. The key is to show where Waxy learns of a place she will visit often in later stories. It introduces other characters so she will know of them, if not know them well, later.
ON the story idea front, I am one idea behind right now. I have in my compost pile, 39 story ideas including what I am posting tonight. A lot of them are good and usable, but some require more time to write them, or I don'[t quite have the handle on making them work. Tonight's story idea had no handle, but I decided it needed to be written. The handle and the plot that explained the idea, came out of the keyboard, developing as I went. My concept of what was going to happen, appeared maybe a scene or two ahead of what was happening. I started writing my story ideas in December 1997. At first, they were not an idea a day, but it became so after just a short number of months. I simply was posting some ideas I had no use for, that I did not have the time to develop. I posted them in hopes that someone else might decide it was useful and develop them into something publishable. It is one thing to simply write a paragraph to explain an idea. What I have done is to spin a story around the concept to show how the concept might be used. I tend to start with a detailed explanation of the science, the situation, the world, so an author knows what I am basing the concept on, and then get into the situation. the expectation is that the author would slip the information into the work as the reader expects, not have the data burst at the start. My story ideas tend to be telling what a novel would be about, a synopsis kind of thing. I have, though, and more lately, written pieces that are nearly complete short stories. They simply had to be edited to be made complete. The thing I love most about the story ideas is that I get to take a brilliant concept, start something new, finish it and forget about it, all within one session. Those are the best parts of writing. I avoid the hard work in between those steps.
The Christmas holiday is here. Because I am short on cash, and have done so anyway, I am making a number of my gifts. Right now, I am in the process of painting my own Christmas cards. These are not the best I have done over the years, but there is a bit of pride in being able to say "I made these." I also made a hobby horse for a grand nephew. I am in the last stages of painting it. I make Christmas ornaments out of wood, I carve th em, and will be giving some of them as presents. They tend to be items that can be on the shelf all year long. I do have some purchased gifts, but not very many and not of any real value. I also have picked out some items I have had in my household that I know certain people will absolutely love to have. I have had to fix those items up so they are like new. These projects are why I have not had time to write.
To make the above into a story idea, He is poor. He has some wealthy relatives and there is a gift exchange every year among them. they let him know he would be invited to attend. Bring gifts. He has spent the year among them and has seen their interests. When he is told he is invited to the party, He looks in his wallet and realizes that all the money he will make till then, will not buy one of the presents they would expect. He does do crafts and has several hobbies. He goes to his workshop and gets an idea of something one person wants, so he makes that. He finds something in his house that he knows someone else would like, and fixes it up. He then buys something cheep and modifies it to make it a bit more personalized. One person at a time, he accumulates the presents he is to give. He arrives at the party with his presents. They are already passing theirs out. No one looks impressed or really happy with what they are getting, simply being polite. He starts handing out his stuff, handing a little girl a wooden doll he made. It can be positioned in any pose and has a couple simple outfits it can wear. The little girl gasps at such a wonderful present. He passes out an old pot to the cook of the family and she is giddy. She had not seen a pot like that since she was a kid. When all the presents are exchanged, everybody is proud of what they have, from the millionaire down to the little toddler. His presents were the very best, and he spent almost nothing to provide them.
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A little. I'm still working on getting files transferred and updated. But I did do some revisions on both BLOOD WILL TELL and THE IGNORED PROPHECY, thanks to chapter exchanges.
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I would have gotten so much more writing done on Saturday, had I not spent so much time playing 4WD Maniac in the snow.
I paid for it on Sunday, though, when it was time for me to dig out all those who didn't have a 4WD vehicle.
Other than that...
Yeah, I wrote. Most of my efforts were on my Challenge with Character(s) and WotF entries, but I snuck in a few sentences for my mainstream novel. Oh...and I've pulled one of my TBD-esque SF short stories off the shelf and started buling up its order of events...I forgot how much I liked that story.
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I came to a type of epiphany this last week after feeling burned out all year. Well, maybe that's overstating it. But it was definitely a realisation about how to balance my writing with other life concerns.
Once upon a time I was hardcore about everything. After work (behind a computer) I went home and pursued my hobbies (behind a computer) like there was no tomorrow. I was seeking my fortune and the ideal that those interests would make me money some day. They paid off in some ways, but in all of that I never learned how to slow down.
Now, quite some years later, the attitudes trained in those early days of my career bear themselves out with a general malaise of dissatisfaction: I make a great living doing what I do, I can afford a decent lifestyle, house, and to support a dependent spouse and children. But the job, the hours behind a PC, as well as looking after very young children, takes its toll in energy. I just can't seem to be able to recreate the energy for the sort of hardcore can't-stop creativity I found in my younger years.
So my realisation was this: That's okay. Yep, it really is. Because the behaviour of my youth in 'seeking my fortune', let's say, no longer applies. So maybe it's time for me to wake up and realise that in many respects I have that 'fortune' now. Maybe it's not a pot of gold after all, but a life worth living. And maybe I need to spend more time enjoying that life I have now rather than desperately seeking some nebulous future fulfillment.
Of course, it's one thing to realise something intellectually and quite another to believe it if one has spent one's life acting another way.
So I'm trying not to feel guilty if I don't write some words of fiction every day. Yes, Robert Heinlein, I know Writers Write. But hey, I'm writing every day in some form anyway. And as I do keep writing, I'll only get better at it, which will make writing both easier and more enjoyable.
Still, I wrote some this week. A 2,000 word story slapped together on Thursday; critiqued a short story; went through the story I'd like to polish for the next WotF group; finished reading another novel (that's 34 so far this year).
And with an eleven day holiday from work coming up shortly, and a brand new airconditioner (yay no more writing when it's 33C indoors) maybe I'll feel like adding a few more words of fiction to my end of year tally before Dec 31.
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I've stuck with the guilt thing mentions above---it's a great motivator for practice, whatever you happen to be practicing at.
However, I didn't write this week, having, as I said last week, deliberately put writing aside to concentrate on Christmas preparations. I've got all my gifts (unless I see something really boffo in the stores today), but I also have to do my shopping for preparing our traditional Christmas spaghetti on Christmas Eve.
And Christmas Eve itself involves being up from eight PM the night before for work, getting home, then staying up and awake as late as nine PM for all the prep work, eating, and gift giving and getting. Difficult to handle---I fall asleep in my comfy chair if I'm up much after three or four. (I may try a nap in the middle of all this.)
After that, once I've rested up from the ordeal, say, by Saturday, I might be able to turn to writing once again.
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I finished off my WotF entry. I wrote a flash. Threw something into Crank's character challenge. Worked on my Panix novel rewrite (rewriting isn't fun like developing the first draft) and did some critiques.
I'm thinking hard about my goals for next year, my first full year of writing. Perhaps that might be a good topic to bring up next week.
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Boffo, fab, gear, neato, fine-and-dandy...chances are, the next time I need to come up with a more expressive word for good, I'll think of something else.
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When I saw "boffo", I thought of Kermit the Frog in Muppets Take Manhattan. And now I'm thinking about how I haven't watched A Muppet's Christmas Carol this season...
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I've made a little progress here and there on "The Open Hand" but I keep getting called into work several hours early.
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i write usually every day a little bit, just depends on what i have going. taking a creative writing class spring semester, so i'll be writing for it.
robert- the boffo was cool, it reminded me of the other day when i was watching the dvd of Michael McIntyre when he said that the posh people could say almost anything in place of drunk, such as "I was absolutely pajamad." funny stuff
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