It is that time again. This is when you report about your life, and, in the process, and more importantly, whether you have written during the week. This note works on shame, where when you report that you did not write, you will feel shame and try hard to correct that, by writing the next week.
How much writing does not matter. we use word count to show our activities, but it is not the only count. One could have negative word counts, such as removing a section that did not work, or editing, or aiming for a lower word count to fit into a publication requirement.
What is writing also does not matter. Any new writing counts. Also, editing is writing, especially since we seldom write perfectly the first time. Editing of someone else's work counts as writing, along with critiquing. Poetry, technical writing, blogging, writing assignments, world and character development, and even E-mails can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. Of course, If you have to ask if it is writing, it is.
As for me, I sent Waxy 3 to my writing partner to see if the plot is acceptable so I started on Waxy 4. I am basically plotting out the story, more detail than a story idea but less detail than the real writing. It is a story I have tried several times and they had not been as good as I had hoped. I will use parts of them in this version but some will be new also. Starting from scratch, I've written 5 pages and 1956 words. Not a lot, but I had several late days this week where I lost some of my normal writing times. What I have might be pretty good. I will see.
ON the story Idea front, I finished last month with 31 total story ideas for a 31 day month, and that covered 38 pages with 23077 words. That is not bad. I do have a preference for more words and more pages, but that had to go to be able to write.
On the compost pile, I have 42 story ideas in the stack. I had one idea that I tried three versions and could not figure out how to make it appropriate for posting, so I lost that one. I never did write it down, which happens sometimes, I go directly to the keyboard, skipping the paper. If I can get a different handle, I might try it again.
On the woodworking front, I had some cut-offs of plywood laying around. Mom has a children's wheel borrow that is just the right size to fit through the spaces of her garden paths. The plastic bin has been breaking over the past few years that she had it. Some by accident, then later because of plastic decay. My brother had replaced the wood handles with bent metal handles to allow it to be used without having to bend over so far. This weekend, I took the plywood and measured carefully, and cut them. I made a new bin out of plywood and attached it to the wheel borrow frame. Really the only thing that is original with it is the wheel and axle, everything else has been replaced. I planned to have my brother put the box on the frame but he did not show up so I had to do the work. MY plywood box is ugly. and if I did not reinforce it, it would have come apart on the first use. I am definitely not a finished carpenter. All I can say is that it is made and it works. I don't admit to any other crimes.... I will say that my mom was happy to see it fixed.
I picture the above used where you have a "drudge" worker who's job is supposed to be just cleaning and light maintenance of the equipment and yard. A part breaks on a piece of equipment. It is not critical. Not being able to get the others to come and fix it properly, he gathers some trash and makes the broken part so the equipment can be used. His work is horrible but at least it works. A bit later, another piece of equipment receives damage. He cobbles together a repair, not using any technique that a professional would ever use, but gets the repair done and uses the tool. Each time, he tries to get the experts in and then fixes it so he can continue working. One after the other, the equipment is damaged or breaks. His repairs sometimes does more damage, than the original failure, but it is the only way he can do it and it does work. After a period of years(?), the experts finally arrive. they look at his handy work and complain to high heaven about the damage he did. He asks them what they were doing when he asked for help. their answer was that they did not feel his needs were worthy of stopping their work. He points to his repairs and tells them that they can now suffer from their decision of not helping him by fixing his damage. They find that his repairs are there to stay and are surprised at how bad the original material was. They punish him by teaching him how to do repairs a bit more "gracefully" in spite not having the right tools or materials.
posted
Thursday, Sunday, and today I managed---the usual five hundred revised words, which puts me within striking range of the end of the story, which will then clear my slate of second draft revisions.
I was starting to worry about getting other ideas, but last week in a dream I had one that struck me as pretty interesting, and then last night I had another one. So, shortly, I'll take up something original, at long last.
Finished my first pass through SEVEN STARS. Did some revisions on both BLOOD WILL TELL and DREAMER'S ROSE. Revised one short story and started revisions on my WotF entry.
Hmm. I see a pattern here--revisions. Well, it'll be that way mostly until July.
posted
yeah. A really good week for me. Got a lot of planning and organizing done. Then the weekend came and the writing came again. As of today finished my 3rd short story in 3 weeks, so real happy there. Posts: 1168 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
I had last week off [I love taking off from work]!
Wrote 9000 words of a novellete, with, I suspect, ~3000 more to go. It is KABBALIST story (this one with mummies!) that predates the novel, but with many of the same characters that I have come to know so well. This was quite fun.
Also rewrote and submitted THE PRICE OF MEMORY to an anthology.
DYING IN THE LIGHT was published on-line and in-print (and I submitted the mp3 audio of the story yesterday; my voice this time).
Had a good week.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
[This message has been edited by History (edited June 06, 2011).]
posted
Slacked off a lot compared to the last few weeks, less than 10k words in all. Figure it's about time to start looking for publishers for my next submission.
posted
Weird. I cranked out about 4K new words, I made some editing progress on my YA series, and I even posted a new Bloggathah entry, yet I still get the sense that I didn't accomplish much. We'll see if I feel the same way this time, next week.
My story is very close to being finished, I will keep it even though it's not the story I really wanted to write. This is one is somewhere around 6,000 words and takes place over weeks and I wanted one that way shorter and over one night. So I will do that one too.
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