This is a place to tell about what is going on in your life. In the process, you may also tell about what is going on in your writing. the hope is that posting here will become a habit, and seeing that you did not write, or did not meet your goal, will shame you into being more diligent in your writing. Many among us will write once every couple months unless ridden to do so. By their posting here, it reminds them how little they are writing so they will open their work in progress or something new and get some words on paper to develop a habit of writing at least once a week. While writing each day would be a laudable goal, once a week is far better than once every couple months.
How much writing is unimportant. It could be one word or a whole chapter. It is more about actually opening the work. for those among us who do write regularly, one might be aiming for a word count as their goal and reports of not meeting those counts will remind them not to slack quite as much. Their reports are also great for those among us who write less, letting us know we could also do that too.
As for what is writing, we all agree new writing is writing. Editing is also writing, even if it is the work of someone else. Critiquing is editing, so it counts as writing too. Poetry, blogging, articles, writing assignments, technical writing, world and character creation, synopsis, are all forms of writing. E-mails and board posts can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. In essence, if you have to ask if it is writing, our answer is yes.
Several people recently reported that they reached THE END on their work. Fantastic. those are magical words. that is the first goal of every writer. Getting published is the second.
AS for me, I caught a cold Monday, waking in the morning with a sore throat. I was luckily this time that the cold was not a sloppy one, the most mild cold I have ever had. It did knock me off kilter a little which reduced my writing. Full weeks and busy weekends also reduced my writing activities. I am doing a READ OUT LOUD editing system at this moment. If you trip over a sentence, you know it is written wrong. I am catching as many other kinds of corrections as badly written sentences. In my first real editing session I got to page three. On my second session, I started at the beginning again and got to page four. Not good for getting this stupid thing finished. What also has happened is that I decided I need to do three scenes from another point of view, or at least show that point of view among that of the others. I also realized a couple scenes could be fixed. I might do those changes, before I resume my reading editing again. I need more time to write so I can get this thing done soon.
On the story idea front, I have, including the idea I am posting tonight, 41 story ideas in my compost pile. Not spectacular but the new ones seem to be interesting.
On the personal front, I am now in holiday mode. I am setting up to get things done. Tonight I added the very first color on my first batch of cards I am painting. In the past several years, I have painted my own cards. It started several years ago when I picked up a teddy bear stamp and was going to do stamping on the cards. Several technical issued made me realize it was faster to paint my cards than it would be to do the stamping. the first set of cards were pretty good. I skipped a year or two then decided to paint the cards again and have done so ever since. It is one thing to pour over the cards on the racks to find the right one. It is something else to actually create your own. There is more of you in them than if you just picked one off the rack. Over the years, I have had several people mention they thought the cards were commercially done. that is a pat on the back. I am still making my ornaments. I had poor production this weekend as other projects got in the way. One such project was a vase I made where the interior cut through the outside of the wood. I decided to make a tree that came up out of the mouth of the vase and put little people around the tree. the open sides became like an amphitheater. Everybody who has seen it really liked it. I had thought of something like this for several years but had the materials and opportunity to finish it up. I had another vase I was planning on carving to hide chips on the lip. I changed my mind and cut the mouth of the vase down past the chips. The vase actually looks a little better now. I had other projects going on so few ornaments were made. It was a productive weekend. what made it nice was I barely noticed I even had a cold. Today at work, I was reminded a bit more but doing well.
As to the question of the week, I can honestly say,
posted
Hmm, decided to add my post now instead of waiting a day or three like usual.
But where's Meredith? You okay?
But my life is going okay, looks like we are going to enter the digital age; our TV is going and our 20+ year old SLR camera won't open its shutter anymore. We replaced the batteries but nothing. I still think we should try another new set just to make sure. There's no hope for the TV but there might be some for the camera.
Wife and I are planning to go the coast in Jan, with our church marriage retreat, but my mother-in-law who babysits for us may not be up to it.
But I did write. A crit or two, on my Breaking Out Novel-redoing the last chapter and on my New Mage novel. I may know one reason that last is taking so long. Plus revising my next WotF story and a couple of E-mails.
New ideas including a new Christmas story idea. This one has to do with Christmas day energy-from two sources- not Christmas energy. It would be a UF story or two.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, in spite of a rather nasty cold, I did, in fact, write.
I've gotten to Chapter 20 on BLOOD IS THICKER and I feel the home stretch coming on.
Also, a couple of crits and blog posts , although the last is just about how lousy I felt. Feeling a little better now. Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yup. I kept up the pace day in, though Saturday I had to exert some literary effort in a couple of other directions (copy and art for a Christmas CD I mailed out to a few friends and relatives, a grievance statement over an incident at work.) Also I dropped working on the second draft of something else in favor of this original work: as I've been saying, it's fun to do.
My story keeps growing---it's on the verge of twenty thousand words, it's all over the place, and new incidents get written into it as they occur to me. Right now, my characters are hung over and wondering what happened between them after they got drunk---an incident in the plot that just occurred to me the day before yesterday.
Despite all this, it's still only got two characters. I suppose when I do finish it (and I know exactly how it will end), I'll let it sit for several months and then look at it fresh. What I'd like to do, if possible, is extract some of the strongest stuff and produce something, say, five thousand words long.
But I don't know if it's possible...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
No actual writing, but I'm nearly done the new outline for the second draft of Dark Mirror, my NaNo novel, which is going to be completely rewritten. I'm hoping to have that done soon (today or tomorrow), leave it alone for a few days and reread it to see if it's ready for me to start writing draft two. I'll be off for about 10 days over the holidays, so I really would like it to be ready for that, in order to make the most of the time I'll have.
Additionally, my brain seems to be exploding with more ideas and a few very insistent characters. I'm noting it all down, and working on an outline for another novel.
Oh, and a couple of posts in my own blog , which all together came to a couple thousand words. Shouldn't ignore that, really. (Dear lord, if I include that, my total words for November becomes even more staggering since I blogged all through NaNo, in addition to the mass of words I wrote)
So all in all, a busy time for me despite no new draft work. Of course, I did just finish Dark Mirror a week and a half ago, so I guess it's okay to be planning for that time rather than writing. At least it's all for future writing.
posted
Again, I didn't accomplish much in the way of a new word count. Unfortunately, I didn't accomplish much of anything else in the writing realm; I'm in the process of moving...and undergoing one or two other changes, while I'm at it. My enthusiasm for the craft is still with me, even though my attention span is understandably elsewhere. Still...instead of looking at my weekly progress chart and feeling as if I've been letting myself down, I simply remember that everything going on right now is a life experience, which, as everyone here should already know, is a potential story idea waiting to be cultivated. This experience should give me enough new material for the next 500 years.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Feeling a little better now. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
