This is topic Did You Write? October 06, 2008 in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.


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Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
 
Did You Write? October 06, 2008
.
This is a place to brag about your writing successes, cry about your failures, and otherwise tell about what is going on in your life. This note gives you a simple goal to attain; Getting something written by the time you have to post to this note. It could be as simple as the quote from the famous writer "I wrote one word today, but it was the right, word." or it could be thousands of words and complete stories.
Of course, what is called writing, is up to you. I give suggestions of what could be writing and leave it up to you to decide what it is that you did. I consider any new writing, as writing, of course. Editing, even if it is someone else's work. Poetry is also writing, along with articles, blogging, writing assignments and even world building, as long as one gets something on paper. Even E-mails can be considered writing, as long as it is a lot of words and pertaining to writing.

I am working on two stories at the same time. One is part of the Waxy Dragon Vacation series. I am now up to page seven on that story, I think I was on page four last week. That is not bad. my writing partner and I have spent some time kibitzing on things to include on what I am writing, which is why it is not written out more than the half way point I am at now. Ideas are flowing like mad.
I am on page eight of the rewrite of the original waxy dragon story. It was originally only two pages with 1277 words. It is now on page eight and has 4919 words. I used about two paragraphs of the original story, rewriting everything else. even that has been heavily edited. Because I am designing the "adult" of the story, I am taking a lot of time to flesh him out. He will be a sort of there in most of the rest of the stories, but we decided that we need to know who he is. Talk about a moving target. He is changing as I am writing both these stories. The story is about where the original story ended, but now we decided that this is about the half way point. I have to feed in a bunch of our ideas into what I already have so it will be many pages longer at this same point in the story when done.

On the story idea front, I finished the month of September on Page 75 with 47,839 words for the 42 story ideas I wrote. I am fully caught up for the year and can take this month a bit easier, spending more time on real writing.
Many of the story ideas last month were written with a lot less detail than I like, but it was necessary to get caught up. They are a whole lot of fun to write, though. Where else can I have the excitement of a new idea, the enthusiasm of starting a new story, and the satisfaction of finishing a story, all in one evening, and then able to do it again the next day. Even the story ideas I don't like are fun to write.

In woodworking, some of my wood (branches and tree trunks) are in a pile out in the weather. Some wood does not handle such weather well. Bugs love them and, being full of water, they rot easily. Other woods crack badly as they dry. I got a bunch of wood I liked, but learned that it checks and cracks really bad as it dries out. I dug into my wood pile and removed several pieces of that wood, that I knew was too cracked up for its size to be useable. Some of the rest I cut in half to see how the cracking went. This wood has the bothersome habit of cracking and checking from the very center, and the cracks stop just below the surface. When you start working with the wood, you suddenly cut into the checks and find the wood is not useable. I lopped off a piece from a very large piece of wood. It had the checks and cracks in the very center. I decided to use it anyway. I cut the chunk in half length ways, and then cut one of the halves up into usable pieces, letting the saw follow the length-way cracks. This is a strong wood, so this works out perfectly. The rest of that large piece of wood will likely be cut up the same way. The pieces are big enough for many projects I use.
I had thought of this for a long time, but only now had the gumption to do it. Getting rid of some of my junk wood gave me an additional benefit. I ran across some choice wood deeper in the pile I could not see. I could have used many of these pieces previously but did not know I had them.

One way to use this in a story, is a jewelry maker who has lots of stock. In the main box of jewels used for cheep jewelry, he finds there is what amounts to cracked glass on top. He has to work on other projects as he seems to think that is all the useable stuff of that size. One day, he decides to pick through the bin, getting rid of the unusable junk. He starts tossing the really bad pieces. He gets some that can be cut for use, others that are useable as they are, and a few that are in good condition. I figure he polishes a small area on them to represent the cutting of the wood I did.
Once he gets a bunch of the cheep jewels out, he runs across some higher quality jewels deeper down, pieces he really needed.
I am thinking he makes good luck charms and other magical jewelry. The garbage jewels could not hold magic of any kind. He finds lower down some jewels of a type that can make small, but powerful items.



As to the question of the week,
Yes, I did write.

Did you write?






 
Posted by kathyton (Member # 7780) on :
 
My big writing news is winning the amateur short story contest at my local science fiction/fantasy convention (Archon in St Louis) this past week-end!

Hatrack workshopped the story earlier this year, so here's a shout out to anne.pinchard, merlion emrys, psnede, and anyone else (my record keeping is terrible) who helped critique "A Way Out."
I appreciate the input.

Last week-end I went away on a writing retreat with some people from my in-person writing group and got a lot of good work done.



 


Posted by tempest (Member # 8242) on :
 
wow! kathyton congrats! that sounds so exciting!

yes i wrote today.

i wanted to write a simple short story out of an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a while.
i wrote what might be the first 13, then from there ive just wrote on different aspects of my MC, things from his past, etc.
it has taken on a life of its own and i find i have alot written, but nothing linear. the plot is still hazy, unformed. the first 13 may end up in the middle or somewhere else. i think today i pinpointed what i want to get across, but my simple short story is no longer simple, short and hasnt become a story yet.
i want to take a needle and thread and sew all these parts together, but they wont let me. am i going about this all wrong?
i feel im trying to reign in thundering horses with dental floss.

well, anyway i did write today.
 


Posted by Crank (Member # 7354) on :
 

I finished "Exhaust" (SF short), and sent it out for the first time.

I accomplished quite a bit on my latest SF short story. I'm still working on a title for it; it'll be a Latin translation, and my Latin ranks right up there with my ability to fly, so this might take a while.

The sparks of inspiration I've been getting on behalf of my SF novel have been enough to make me want to put in my two week notice so I can stay home and finish it.

Overall, another good week for writing.

S!
S!...C!


 


Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
 
I did. My WIP Novel is up to 35,500 words.
 
Posted by Inkwell (Member # 1944) on :
 
quote:
Did you write?

Actually, I did.

My co-writer and I managed to add 4,000 words to the outline for our fantasy trilogy (which is coming along nicely...we expect to have the first book written by the end of November). Plus, I completed the fourth revision of a screenplay I've been working on (that's being made into an eight minute independent short film...hopefully principle photography will wrap by the end of November) [I'm seeing a trend here....] Plus, I added a few hundred words to my attributed, non-profit project (which is more of a collaborative anthology than anything else...and entirely for my personal enjoyment, as a writing exercise).

A weird assortment, says I.


Inkwell
------------------
"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited October 07, 2008).]
 


Posted by TheOnceandFutureMe on :
 
I only wrote a little. I redid a chapter in my novel, and wrote a 600 word chapter.
 
Posted by sjsampson (Member # 8075) on :
 
Yep.
 
Posted by marchpane (Member # 8021) on :
 
Plenty. Also got a crit for my last chapter which I found very useful. I'm happy
 


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