Did you write? 06-29-2009 . This is a note to get the slackers of the community, such as myself, to try to write at least once a week. This prompt is designed that each week, you know it is coming. You want to report on what you did this week. You realize that you have not written, so you will get to work, write, and then report that you actually accomplished something this week. Of course, if life gets in the way, I hope you report that too. There is always a question of what is writing. Any new writing is, of course, Writing. The biggest question we get is whether Editing is writing. Well, few, if any of us, can write perfectly in our first draft. Because of that EDITING IS WRITING. Poetry, article writing, blogging, writing assignments are also writing. World or character building, as long as something goes on paper, is also writing. E-mails can also be writing if they are extremely wordy and pertaining to writing. What you accept as writing or what you might excuse as writing, is really up to you.
As for me, I can "proudly" say, No, I did not write. I have spent my time catching up on my story ideas. I left on vacation with only four story ideas posted. I posted idea number 5 on the twenty second. It is now the 29th, and I tonight I am posting idea number 17th tonight. Not to bad. I figure I will catch up the thirteen ideas I am behind, by the end of next month. Unless things go bad, that should not be hard. I have done it many times before. I found I missed some ideas when I reported that I had 43 ideas on notes last week. I have come up with a lot of ideas since so now, including the idea I am posting tonight, is 51 ideas. It is fun to write so many ideas, and it is also fun to come up with new ones. A couple were given to me by a friend when her mind got wild. Experience has shown that it does not matter what form the ideas were given to me, they end up being rewritten. It is sometimes easier than to cut and paste what works in their form, into my style. I would post another idea tonight, but I felt I had to post this note.
My vacation was to visit my writing partner up north. She sent me her vacation notes as to what happened. I then noted up the notes I had as to what happened. We both found out that even with our notes, we totally forgot a whole lot of stuff. We have to combine our notes now, since we use them as the basis for the waxy Dragon stories we want to write about our vacation.
I have four wood piles for my woodworking. One is my large wood pile. these are usually small logs. Another is wood pieces, which are neatly packed in a bin. Another is some quality wood on shelves in a shed. The last is what I call my stick pile. This weekend, I chose to take all the wood out of my stick pile and see what I had, what condition they were in, and get rid of what has since become junk. This stick piles has full length boards, and branches I rescued over the years. One type of tree we have here in Florida is the Norfolk Island Pine. These were imported from Australia. They are tall pines that have branches in a ring around the trunk, a section without branches, then another ring around the trunk, all the way up the tree. The branches don't get too big. When hurricane Wilma hit, I got my hands on some "large" branches which were about two fingers in diameter. I carved a whole bunch of figures called Pixies, in the wood, leaving the bark on. Years of being in the weather, the bugs decided they loved the bark and some of the wood beneath the bark. Last year, I removed the bark and placed the branches back in the stack. This weekend, I carefully examined the wood. The wood does not rot or does not rot easily. All the branches were sound. Since I had too much wood already, I chose to cut the most bug eaten ones up, and throw them away. The others I kept. I tell about how a woodworker can see what is inside the wood, and simply removes the excess wood to come up with what is inside it. IN a couple of my stories, I tell about how Elfin parents hide their presents inside trees, the only place the children cannot find them. When the time is right, they take the presents out of the trees. During that time, the tree forms a pattern around the present that remains after the present is removed. Woodworkers look into the tree and see the pattern and that is what they are after when they look into the wood and see what it wants to be. I would say that I looked into the branches I was tossing and the patterns hidden inside were not worth keeping.
AS to the question of the day, I say NO, I DID NOT WRITE.
DID YOU WRITE?
Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :
Actually, surprisingly I did.
I was inspired by Tolkien's Silmarillian to write a similar type of story, where the world is still new and in many places untouched by the "gods". I thought it was really cool, Tolkien's concept of a god who sends his angels out to build a world, then puts his own children (the elves and men), on it at a later time, in a way which leaves the Valar and Maiar surprised to discover them.
Even more so that men came long after elves, and when they did the Enemy found them first and was already working on them, so many were fearful or evil when the elves found them.
I've read a lot of fantasy that pays homage to the Lord of the Rings and its style, but almost nothing similar to the Silmarillion or his other works, so I thought it would be fun to write something like that.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
I did. Mostly on the novella, The Music Box, instead of on the novel Dreamer's Rose. But I did write.
Posted by A.Windt (Member # 8687) on :
I wrote 1059 words today, so I hit my mark (1000 words a day). I only take 1 day off, otherwise I write.
Posted by Heresy (Member # 1629) on :
Yeah, I did write. Amazingly, I've been writing pretty steadily for the last month and a half or so, I just keep forgetting to post in these threads.
My WIP just has a code name right now, as I haven't thought of any clever title yet. I'm just calling it Elemental, so I have something to put on the folder with my notes and drafts in it. But I've been writing about 2-3k a week on it, rarely taking a day off, but not pushing myself to write more than I'm ready to write on it. It's kind of a new technique for me, combining well with my new writing toy, my ipod touch. So far, it's working well, as I said, though we'll see how that goes. I've found I'm good at starting projects, rarely finish them though. In writing, I either share too early and get discouraged because it's not perfect right away (stupid, I know, but I am a perfectionist) or I get to a point that I don't know how to proceed through and stop, lose momentum and never come back to it. Right now, I'm just writing through the first draft, not rereading unless I need to confirm a detail, and giving myself permission to be less than perfect in the pursuit of that elusive finished first draft. After that, we'll see what I think. My friends are annoyed with me, though. They want to read what I've done and I won't let them yet.
Right now, I'm a bit over 20k, so there's still a long way to go, but I think it's got potential, so I'm going to keep going.
Posted by SchamMan89 (Member # 5562) on :
I wrote. In the past 3 weeks, I have written 22,000 words. Needless to say, I'm pleased with my pace so far.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
A washout, this week. Most of my free time was devoted to a new TV set---first getting, then waiting, then playing with---and other days proved less-than-free with time.
However, today, June 30th, is the official anniversary of the start of my writing career (I kept careful notes at the time and still have them), and I always celebrate by doing a little writing at some point. I will---not right now, but later.
Posted by Lyrajean (Member # 7664) on :
Yes, I did! I must have added 10-15 pages to my WIP.
It helps that its exam time and me being the assitant teacher I have next to nothing to do, so I bring my laptop and write. I love this job, getting paid to sit and write my novel all day!
Posted by AWSullivan (Member # 8059) on :
I wrote! Woohoo!
According to my writing log (http://writertool.anthonysullivan.net/dashboard.aspx?u=1) I put 5345 words to the page this past week. I believe that is a personal best.
~Anthony
Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :
Yes I did. Not as much as I intended, and hoped, but maybe enough to get steady again.
Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :
Yep.
Flash + a new short for WotF + all the support for Midsommer Madness.
Posted by keithjgrant (Member # 8678) on :
I did! For the first time in at least two years. Most of my time went into planning what I think will be a novella, and writing a few throwaway scenes just to get the brain juices flowing, but I did get the first few pages hammered out tonight.
Posted by WBSchmidt (Member # 8533) on :
I was finally able to write a bit tonight, the first time for several days. We were out of town this weekend so I did not have as much time to write as I normally would. It's a start at least.
--William
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Addendum: I squeezed out about five hundred words, right at the end of my day yesterday---and didn't much enjoy the process. I've reached an impasse in this story, I think. Besides, an old story, half-completed, plotted from beginning-to-end, is occupying my mind all of a sudden. Maybe sometime in the next few days, I'll dig that out, work on it some more, then polish it and send it out...
("...next few days..." More likely months of effort...)
Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :
I wrote tons of stuff this past week... now I just need to find all the bits of paper I scribbled on and compile it all!
Posted by Doug Bradshaw (Member # 8559) on :
I finished my first draft of my first book and now I'm a bit lost. It was so simple to have a word count goal every day and to just work forward until the story was finished.
Now I have this rough draft and I'm hesitating to attack it. I'm tempted to just write short stories for awhile and let it cool off.
But yes, I wrote by making notes on the draft and making a map of the terrain involved.
Anyway, I'm starting to worry that a second draft might be much more difficult than a first one.
Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :
Congrats Doug. I agree - having some time to cool off seems quite beneficial. I can rarely return to a just-completed work and give it the honest eye it needs in revision.
I'm not writing so much as planning at present; I want my project plotted by the end of the month.