Hatrack River Writers Workshop: 04-18-11 Did you write?

This is topic 04-18-11 Did you write? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

04-18-11 Did you write?

By reporting what is going on in your life each week, you have the opportunity to post whether you wrote or not. If you did not write, you can tell about what got in the way. Hopefully, over time, you will feel embarrassed to report that you did not write, and will open something, anything, so you can proudly report that you wrote. A little bit of writing, spread over time, can end up in a finished project.

We all know that new writing is writing. Editing is also writing, even if it is the work of someone else's Critiquing is a form of editing and counts as writing. Poetry, articles, blogging, technical writing, writing assignments, character and world development, and even E-mails as long as they pertain to writing or story, are all writing. If you have to ask if it is writing, the answer is yes. Of course, you also have the right to not count something as writing too. It is strictly up to you.

How much writing is unimportant. New writing will give an increased word count, but editing, one can get negative word count, same word count or increased word count. If you just change a word during one session, then in the next session change the word back, you are still writing and that counts. Word counts are not important, but they are a gauge one can use in general.

I had a long phone discussion with my writing partner about Waxy 3. I misunderstood what the story was. I aimed for far more plot than I needed to cover in one piece. I cut the plot apart so I can really take time to tell the story better. Between the one page I wrote on the new version and what I added to the old version, I have 1666 words accumulated. There is a different emphases and the characters changed slightly. What I am writing starts later, eliminating a lot of scenes that were interesting but not needed. I will see how this version fairs as I dig into it.
My art show took up a lot of work time on the story, as there was a lot of stuff to prepare to display.

On the story idea front, I am keeping up, was a little ahead for a short time. As it is, I have49 story ideas including what I am posting tonight in my compost pile. I had gone some time without coming up with anything, then had a couple days where I ended up with 10 story ideas!!! I love those times.

I did my art show this week. It was a lot of work to prepare for it, as I started back in January to get everything done. This weekend, I went full bore to finish up things and get everything packed for the show.
The show was several hours of getting set up, having to re-arrange it because it did not look quite right. The people coming by was nice and talking to them was fun. Sales was slim, but I made some deals and sold a few items. I got my entry fee back and a little bit more, plus a great shirt and a wonderful meal. I did better than last year.
Packing up with a whole lot of work, some stuff being dropped off at my mom's house where those pieces are stored on display, and other items came home with me, more than one trip from the truck to the door.
I will say it has been a very long time since I worked this hard. I held up quite well.
I joke that this is something that is fun to do ONCE A YEAR. while it is a joke, I tend not to do more art shows.
I now have a period to do some fun projects (they are all fun) before I start planning for Christmas.
One thing I can say about this art show. It is like a ball game. there is a lot of build up, preparation, planning and dreaming. Once the event is over, one simply has memories. On gets to plan for the next event.

As to the question of the week, I can honestly say,

YES I DID WRITE

DID YOU WRITE?

Posted by Heresy (Member # 1629) on :

Yes, I did write. I got 6.4k in, which is a little over the normal goal, but not nearly as good as I did the last couple of weeks before this one. I think I may have been pushing too hard, actually, as I spent most of the weekend not really feeling like writing. I did write anyways, but it was a push to get to my goal. I'm giving myself today, tomorrow and Wednesday off, so that I can refresh a bit. I'm still happy with the novel so far, and have just passed the 50k milestone.

-Julie T.

Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :

Yes. Still mostly revisions on BLOOD WILL TELL.

Plus two blog posts.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Still slow. I pasted that story-with-flashbacks into a new file, then cut the flashbacks...but haven't done a thing more with it, not even a look to see how it reads.

I've got an upcoming vacation, and, usually, writing shuts down as I approach that time---unless I've got something going and am in a rush to finish it beforehand. Not the case here.

*****

Further on the downside, yesterday I picked up a bounced manuscript. I'll send it out again soon as I have time to bundle it up.

Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :

5K. Not a whole lot, but I've been getting closer to The End and I find I'm taking a lot more care with what happens as the climax builds, the story arcs meet their ends and the curtain prepares to fall. And even then, 5K might be less than my average these last few months but it's still more than my usual output.

Posted by genevive42 (Member # 8714) on :

Yep-pers.

Posted by Wordcaster (Member # 9183) on :

Yes...

I was still stuck on my poetry fix last week, but by the end of the week realized I had to get a move on!

Wrote 1 chapter of my MG novel -- inching in on the half-way point.

Went to GenreCon in Sarnia. I won't post a specific topic on it, but the biggest takeaway I had was from a small publisher by the name of Chizine (CHEE-zine). They have world-wide distribution of their dark spec fic novels and it was very insightful to see how an operation such as theirs works.

I also updated my blog with a few notes from the conference and my weekly microfiction post (although this particular one was weekly and weakly done).

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

Yes, I did.

Some on my short story, forget the title but something about helping out. But I'm redoing the opening. It just didn't have what I wanted for someone being "born". And today I realized the first sentence wasn't enough. I had "him" being dizzy but I think there would be more than just that. And today I had the idea of doing a whole book about this character. Of course the action would be all in or very close to one place since he can't move but that would make it challenging and hopefully a bit different from the other UF novels. Of course to really make it different I should rearrange the plot too but not sure rearrange it how. Have the bad guy win? But that not really much of a mix up. Oh well, that is for later if I do it at all.

I worked on New Mage but not much.

Worked on revision of Bright Lights...about half way through.

And I added to ""Storm Born". I decided to lengthen the time my MC fights the werewolf. Not sure if readers will feel cheated over it though he still survives.

I did a blog post or two http://musingsofle.blogspot.com

I think only half a crit this week.

Various posts here and on a couple of blogs.

I think that's it.

But its not... had to do a special Easter or Resurrection Day post for my blog. Spent some time trying to find certain songs to list so it took longer than expected.

[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited April 19, 2011).]

Posted by pdblake (Member # 9218) on :

Only a couple of K this week. Work is pretty busy all of a sudden and I'm on holiday in a few days so my writing will be a bit sporadic for a couple of weeks.

Posted by Crank (Member # 7354) on :

I didn't exactly reach my goal of 600 new words per day (last week was, simply put, too weird for normal events), but twice I uncorked over a thousand, so I'm not allowing myself to feel as if I flunked. I also spent some time editing the first story in my new YA series.

No new Bloggathah entries, but I did add a few other blog links, and I spent quite a bit of time building my custom writer's admin section (early results have made my job so much easier).

S!
S!

Posted by mrmeadors (Member # 6378) on :

I edited a short story, and wrote a couple blog entries, and just now opened a file with a novel in it that I had started a few years ago, and planned on working on now for a little while. Heh, it's really, really bad. I think I'll have better luck if I just started over from scratch. Which is a job for another time...

Guess I will be thinking of ideas for my next short over the course of this next week.

Posted by akeenedesign (Member # 7816) on :

No

Stupid graphic design career, getting in the way of what I REALLY want to be doing. I did get promoted, though, so I guess that's good, even if it's not related to writing, haha.

Posted by Owasm (Member # 8501) on :

After a hiatus, I'm writing some original stories again. For my last two WotF entries, I expanded on older shorter stories. It feels good, but it's been tough to get back up to my normal speed.

Did a flash, started a brand new story and doubled the size of a shorter story in order to submit.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

akeen... don't you have to do some type of writing for your "Stupid graphic design career". Most probably not fiction, but still writing. Of course you could do a story about someone doing a futuristic or fantasy graphic design. The fantasy one could be humorous, using magical devices or or middle age type of tables etc...

Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :

yeah, I did, I am trying like hell to fight my way back into a full rythm but not quite there, getting there though.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

Good, Tiergan. You're doing a good job building up your writing.

Posted by akeenedesign (Member # 7816) on :

quote:
akeen... don't you have to do some type of writing for your "Stupid graphic design career". Most probably not fiction, but still writing. Of course you could do a story about someone doing a futuristic or fantasy graphic design. The fantasy one could be humorous, using magical devices or or middle age type of tables etc...

So I was all ready to come back with "nope, I really really didn't write at all"... when I remembered that instead of working on my current novel, I wrote an account of the vacation that I took the weekend before last, for a friend that wasn't able to come.

That "vacation story" was 4,000 words long. Dur! I can't even remember when I write, these days!

I guess if we're counting ANY writing, I'll have to include my guilty pleasure writing... which is answering questions on Yahoo Answers. I just did a quick copy/paste word count and turns out I wrote 4,800 words worth of answers last week. I'm a TAD obsessive about Y!Answers...

So I just went from 0 words to 8,800 words, lol. None of them were on my novel, but I guess I'll take it.

Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :

akeenedesign

As I understand it that is good for here. Now if you were on the Novel group thread that would be different.

But no blog, no crits?

But on the Novel thread you can list your goals for the next week. I usually forget that part but there's one you can list.

Posted by akeenedesign (Member # 7816) on :

quote:
Of course you could do a story about someone doing a futuristic or fantasy graphic design. The fantasy one could be humorous, using magical devices or or middle age type of tables etc...

I actually did write something like this a few years ago, lol! It was about a designer who made realistic fantasy landscapes and creatures that you could load into your home's windows to make it seem like you lived in a fantasy world.

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum11/HTML/002958.html

Haha, it was one of my first pieces.

Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :

Write? Well yes, unfortunately. I've been slogging through revisions on my WIP and adding scenes in places. But mostly I've just smashed through like 200 pages of revising in the last few days. Ugh I hate it so very, very much.