Another week, another test of you resolutions. The question is, Have you written at any time this past week? If you have, you have met the minimum of what we ask for. This note is a prompt to give you something to work for, to develop good habits in writing. The good habit I am interested in, is to write each and every week, even if it is a paragraph or even a sentence. We are not interested in volume. One should open a document and write something. the hope is that by the end of the year, writing will become second nature. A little bit of writing each week will add up to a lot of pages of work.
Of course, what we write, is not important. If you think it is writing, you have our permission to announce it. Even if you don't think it is writing, you may announce it. No one will debate that NEW writing is writing. I am positive that no one will disagree about Editing being writing, especially since few of us can write perfectly the first time. Even editing someone else's work is writing. Along with editing, critiquing someone else's writing is writing. Plus, there is poetry, articles, blogging, world or character building, writing assignments, are all writing. Even E-mails can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to writing or stories. there are others that can be listed. If you want to say you wrote, whatever you did counts. No one is going to tell you it is not writing.
as for me, I did write, a little, about five hundred words. the last scene may well disappear. I just realized that on this second story, I really have no story, no plot, no real ideas for it. I wanted to show some stuff to set up other stories, but there nothing there. I will have to give it a thought, now that I see I have a problem. Until I work it out, I have other stories to work on, either to finish or to edit.
On the story idea front, I am doing all right. I am caught up with today's date. In my compost pile, including tonight's story idea, I have 38 notes. I went a week or two without coming up with anything new, and then, Ideas have been coming to me fairly quickly. I do wish I had control over when and how I come up with the concepts. Having them come fairly regularly would make a big difference. there is always that worry that I will never come up with something. then there is that worry that all I will have to work with are concepts that deservedly sink to the bottom of the pile.
This weekend was the start of my tenth year of woodworking. On January 17th, 2000, It dawned on me that my dad was in his 80s. He had tried to get me into woodcarving before this but I was not interested. On that day, I decided I did not want one of those I wish I had said, I wish I had done" kind of thing with my dad. I borrowed one of his knives, took a piece of wood and carved the top half of a little man that I am still proud of. Taking up carving was an excellent decision as a hobby in my life.
I had one of those woodworking weekends where, if I were not in a good mood, it would have been thought of as a royal pain. I broke four to six pieces in the course of the day. What I did mostly was to go onto a different project. I have had days like that where it felt like nothing was going right. This was not one of those weekends, though. the thing I am sad about, was I never finished some projects I was really hoping to get done.
To take that and turn it into a story idea, Billy seams to be a happy person. He is working with a large manufacturing team. Each item they are making is custom, all hand work and sometimes delicate. The machines they are working with are much the same. Billy walks in each day with a big smile on his face. He gets to work like the others. A piece he is working with gets out of balance and the piece is destroyed before he can turn the machine off. Others are cussing about their mistakes. he is all smiles and tells one of the guys a joke about dumb machines. On another machine, he is working when there is a loud pop and the machine shuts down violently. Two others working with him on the machine scream out using language to make a sailor blush. Billy is almost laughing. Through the whole project, this goes on. Billy is always in a good mood while others are getting more and more down as the project is falling farther behind. Billy's mood keeps growing brighter as the deadline approaches. It turns out that Billy is family with a competitor and actually has something to do with the company falling behind schedule. His happiness is from them not succeeding.
As to the question of the day, I happily can say
YES, I DID WRITE.
DID YOU WRITE?
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Yes, I did.
Mostly on revisions/rewrites/new scenes for BLOOD WILL TELL. But also on the beginning of a new one (Book Three in my Series), TROUBLED COUNCILS. I wrote about 1400 words on that.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
I finished my musical Atlantis story, though I know its going to need considerable polishing and maybe some re-arranging. Did some crits and stuff too.
Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :
Crits, a flash and started a new short story. I HAVE to get back to work on my novels.
Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :
Something new, only to realise that the plot was meandering and needs a quick shape up and a redraft. Some critiquing for the WotF group and minor editing of my entry. Plenty of reading.
Posted by Kitti (Member # 7277) on :
Rewrote a couple chapters of a WIP.
Also obsessively wrote and rewrote a blog entry. I still don't like what I have - I think I might have to throw it out and start all over again. ::Sighs::
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
I did. I am.
Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :
More work of WotF story. Now up to 9300 words. That's about 2/3 done.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I worked on my current thing, revisions of a finished story. I [re]wrote five hundred words a day except Friday (which was a busy day) and Sunday (which was unexpectedly busy). And since I had a rare extra day off on the federal holiday yesterday, I doubled up and [re]wrote a thousand words.
With a draft in front of me, I can always up the amount I put out, and, really, I probably should do so...
Posted by Foste (Member # 8892) on :
3000 or so words for my new short story "Witch Hunter".
It will probably end up having 7000 words or so.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Also...in the mail later this day, I got a MS bounced from one of the Big Three. Since that completes the sweep of them, short of finding some new market to send them to, sometime soon I'll be putting my 2009 output up on my website. (If only I could remember how...)
Posted by ScardeyDog (Member # 8707) on :
Crits on a WOTF entry, with more to do this week. I really need to get back to writing mine, but I've had a dearth of motivation lately.
Posted by simoncake (Member # 8855) on :
Did a final sweep on the first 13k (5 chapters) of my current work, A Memory Lost. (previously a short, from the darkness). Formed a good "beginning" and did some serious plot work this week so I can take it to novel length. Now I feel prepared to enter into this journey in earnest. Scary!
Simon
Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :
ScaredyDog- I wish I could get up motivation to do some crits. I am over at critters and my percent score is dropping. I am 30k into round one of rewrites on my work (Novel is currently about 80k, but I tend to be a minimalist when writing, so generally the first round of rewrites increases the length by a lot) and I am a bit obsessed with that write now. I am really falling in love with my novel though, so that is a good thing. Just keeping me from doing anything else. I did start writing a scene from my next book, but after the first few paragraphs decided I need more world building, which I am not in the mood to do.