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Author Topic: March 12, 2010 Did You Write?
rstegman
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March 12, 2010 Did You Write?

It is that time of the week again. You report about your life and how it took up all your time, or how you were able to squeeze time within your normal life for writing.
This note is really for that person who writes just a few times a year. Post here regularly even if you did not right, and you will desire to work hard just to report something here. Do it often enough and writing becomes a habit.
For the rest of us, it might shame us into not skipping a week, or squeezing out an extra few minutes to increase your word count, or even to brush off some project or idea to fill in the time when your main project is giving you fits.
"Just a little more" each week might be enough to reach "THE END."

As to what is writing, we all understand that new writing is writing. Some don't understand that editing is also writing, even if it is the work of someone else. Critiquing is also a form of editing and counts as writing. Poetry, synopsis and query letters, technical writing, articles, blogging, are all forms of writing. Bulletin board posts and E-mails can also be writing if they are very wordy and pertain to writing or story. In essence, if you have to ask if it is writing, the answer is yes.

I did make headway on my story. The word count is never as much as I had hoped. I had all day today to work on it as I am recovering from my art show yesterday. Rather than writing, I took naps. I have found the handle to get from where I am, to where I want to end. It took some doing. The basic concept I have came in an E-mail I was writing to a friend. Today when I settled down to write, the rest of it came to me. I now have to get the right flow from one point to another. I am leaving dangling bits of information here and there to be used later in the series of stories. I did write 1600 words, but I was fishing for solutions while writing them. I will see how it goes from there. there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully it is not a train coming this way......


On the story idea front, story ideas have not been flowing in fast. I have 39 story idea in my compost pile. I am posting for Wednesday tonight (14), though, so I am ahead for the moment. I was planning for not posting later this week and that meeting was canceled.


I was part of an art show this weekend. I did well, since this is not a sales oriented art show. Many of the artists are there to get leads for their regular work.
It is one of those fun things to do once a year. I did knock over one of my boxes of carvings and broke two of my large fairy carvings. I should be able to repair them fairly easy. One just has a broken wing, the other one came apart at some glue joints.

He was an artist of fantasy characters. He got an invitation to an art show that was said to be fanciful. He accepted the invitation.
When he arrived, he knew something was strange about the place but did not know what. He set up his display and soon the art show began with customers coming around.
A guy in a robe with stars around it came chanting by. Suddenly the fantasy characters came alive, scrambling around the table. Creatures of the other tables came alive and were soon scrambling around. His fairies, which were his largest carvings, lifted off their bases. and hovered in the air. "Get back down" he told them. Just then the Cherubs made by someone else came flying over and attacked. sparkles filled the air as their magic entwined. Two fairies crashed to the ground, disappearing from view. The Cherubs were driven back with the help of small pair of fire breathing dragons and a small army of leprechauns.
A bit later people started buying things from his table -- wands that needed magic added, one of the dragons, had a singed wing, was sold at a lower price, a wood pumpkin that would be perfect for a coach, all sorts of animals also was taken away -- and he got good money for them.
When the art show was done, the robed man came chanting by. The fairies appeared on the floor with their bases, broken. He checked them over. "I think I can repair both of these." he told the person in the other booth. He heard a sign of relief from the two fairies in front of him and giggles all around. They were happy he could save them. He decided he would come to this show again if he was offered the chance.


As to the question of the day

YES, I DID WRITE

DID YOU WRITE?

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Osiris
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Yep, I surpassed 3,000 word mark on the my WoTF short story. My target for the story is 6,000 words.
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rcmann
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A little, not much. Trying to catch up on crits. Finally got most of the family upheaval settled. Hopefully.
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Meredith
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Yes. Some on MAGIC'S APPRENTICE as well as some research for THE BARD'S GIFT.

Plus, some crits and two blog posts.

I spent a good deal of my writing time formatting "Heart of Oak" for Smashwords. I still have to do Amazon. [Smile]

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Crank
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Yes. Mostly on the Metzgerhund Retreat series. I did some research for my supposed next WotF entry, wrote a lyric or two, performed a few crits, and have apparently forgotten the password to my own blog. [Big Grin]
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Robert Nowall
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Spent more time on my fanfic effort...which is moving along fast enough that I'm squeezing it into days where I'm generally too busy to write. Every day in the last week except Friday.
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pdblake
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Yes, I wrote about 20k last week. Nothing at the weekend though as my daughter set fire to the house and the dog went missing. Things got a little too busy.
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Heresy
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Still no actual draft, but some more work on The Nine. Perhaps I'll be able to get this one written in April. We'll have to see about that. I also got almost all of the way through the first pass through editing Possession. Also, a few notes on a couple of other ideas, and a couple of blog posts.

-Julie

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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quote:
Originally posted by pdblake:
Yes, I wrote about 20k last week. Nothing at the weekend though as my daughter set fire to the house and the dog went missing. Things got a little too busy.

Wow, pdblake! Talk about "grist for the writing mill." I hope the damage didn't make the house unlivable. Since only the dog went missing, I can hope that means everyone else was okay, including your daughter?
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pdblake
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Just a lot of smoke, some lost curtains, scorched clothes and school shoe, and one very contrite (and terrified) daughter who will never play with a cigarette lighter again.

Thankfully my eldest daughter had her wits about her and was close to a bucket.

The dog was fine. She turned up at the local vets the next day (thank God for microchipping).

No injuries though, that's the main thing.

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MattLeo
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Yep. I've been slow returning crits recently because I finished a rough draft of *The Keystone* in the middle of the week and that's been consuming all my free time for the last month. It weighed in at 157K, almost 20% over my goal of 130K but I've knocked it down to 145K since then.

I currently expect to get it down to well under 140K without much difficulty, but I'm setting it aside for a few days so I can plow through the mountain of critiques I owe people.

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angel011
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pdblake, wow. I'm glad there were no serious injuries.

As for writing, just a blog post.

Spending all day translating someone's else's work makes it difficult to stare at the screen some more and write something of your own.

Excuses, excuses, I know.

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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Well, as I said, pdblake, you've certainly got an experience to use someday in a story. What a relief everyone is all right.
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Meredith
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Whew! Close call, pdblake. Good thing everything turned out all right.
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Josephine Kait
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I'll second that wow, pdblake, glad everybody's okay!

As for writing, I have been working on my Winged Girl story, and finished an exchange crit.

So this week I get to answer, "yes." [Smile]

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MattLeo
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pdblake -- I was in your daughter's shoes when I was about four. I saw on a science TV show that you could put out a fire with a blanket, and so I conducted an experiment in which I lit successively larger fires on my bed and put them out with my cotton bedspread.

When I reached the natural termination point for the experiment I had flames leaping up from my bed to higher than I could reach. Reasoning that the problem wasn't with the flames per se but the fuel (my bedspread), I trotted into the bathroom and returned with an 8 oz glass of water (this was, fortunately, before 2.5 oz Dixie Cups).

Years later, when I was an MIT student, I had a work-study job as an electro-mechanical tech in the Plasma Fusion Center. I was a stickler for keeping the work area clean and orderly, wearing safety equipment, proper ventilation, etc. I also insisted that first aid kits be installed within quick reach in every experimental bay, and if someone broke a mercury thermometer I was there in an instant with the box of sulfur powder.

One of the the other students asked me why I was such a Mr. Lab Safety. "Experience," I replied.

I won't tell you about what I did to the cat when I was five, other than to say that (1) it was the fault of another science TV show, (2) I wasn't trying to hurt it, and (3) the cat recovered *fully*, although it didn't like me after that.

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pdblake
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I'm sure there's a story in there somewhere:)

Is it is we now have new smoke alarms (we had them already but got some better ones, and extra ones) and a couple of fire extinguishers on the way.

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Tiergan
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Yes I did. My best week of writing in a year, possibly longer. Wrote everyday, although 1 day, it didnt save [Frown] Made some changes in my routine and tried to write in the morning instead of evening. Worked great for the writing, but evening so burnt I dont want to exercise. Oh well I still got a couple months to Speedo season anyway.
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Owasm
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Not too much writing, but I did manage a flash and went through about 300 pages of rewrites/edits.
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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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quote:
Originally posted by MattLeo:
I won't tell you about what I did to the cat....

Thank you.
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