"How many countries have a July Fourth? All of them. Happy Independence day...
Another week has ended and it is time to report activities in life and in writing. By reporting, even if one does not write, one has an incentive to write something so you can give a positive report.
We all love to use word counts to report our writing, but there are a number of reasons we might not look good on our word counts. We all know of times where we have zapped a section as it was not working and rewrote it. We also know that when editing, one might actually be reducing the words rather than increasing them.
What is writing is quite open. We all know all new writing is writing. Editing, even the work of others is also writing. Critiquing is also a form of writing and counts. Poetry, technical writing, writing assignments, articles, blogging, world and character creation are all forms of writing, along with E-mails if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. If you have to ask if it is writing, the answer is yes.
I have not had the best of time writing this week. A lot of interruptions have come into play, along with a lot of overtime work. It looks good on the pay check but horrible on screen. I am playing several exciting or challenging scenes so it is going slower than expected with that. All that amounted to a pathetic amount of writing.
On the story idea front, I did pretty good for the Month of June. For the 30 story ideas I posted. I ended on page 34 with 20058 words. That is not too bad. I had a couple ideas that are really good. One I would love to write if I had the time. Others, well, they fill a space and I cannot ask more than that.
A discussion with my brother suggested a whole line of story ideas we can explore. Consider a world where all the cities are on the water or under water. Each type of city has problems and solutions we can exploit with glee. Underwater cities have to have a way to get supplies and people to the surface in some way. Questions one must ask are whether they are floating and tethered, or set right in the sea bed. How do they handle earthquakes and tsunamis. How do they handle leaks. Does part of the city break the sea surface or is it totally under water. Surface cities have to have a design for floating. are they mobile or tethered? how do they handle storms like hurricanes or tidal waves? Are the floating cities stationary with some land feature or floating around like a ship? With either type city, is the crews military like navy or astronauts or private like city utility workers. All these questions and others can give a great story as something goes wrong. Now all these questions can also be for in space too, but with different questions or solutions. What was learned in long term submarine experiments were used on the space program as it came later.
As to the question of the week, I can honestly say,
YES I DID WRITE
DID YOU WRITE?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I wrote out that short and mean little story I mentioned last time around---then got waylaid by a cold and haven't written since, other than letters or what I post here. The cold lingers...but is better...and my schedule is clearer...so I'm hopeful again.
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
I don't know yet about 2012. I did write on July 4th 2011, though.
Just finishing up revisions to BLOOD WILL TELL, mostly. Some crits and two blog posts.
Posted by Natej11 (Member # 8547) on :
Well seeing as how I have a full year to get some writing done before July 4th 2012, I'm going to go ahead and proactively say sure, I got a whole bunch of writing done. Several hundred thousand words and a few books published and now I'm living in some nice place where the beaches are gorgeous but not crowded and I sip delicious drinks while catching some rays.
Oh this week? Not so much, sad to say. Family in town and a fairly busy weekend. I did half a scene, but that's nothing to write home about.
Posted by pdblake (Member # 9218) on :
Not much. I've been proof reading and editing a fair bit though. The weather's been too nice. I've spent a lot of time in the garden.
Also been procrastinating with the idea of self publishing and playing with cover designs.
[This message has been edited by pdblake (edited July 05, 2011).]
Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :
I looked into the future, and yes I did write.
As far as this year, I did as well. Edited, plotted, submitted, and wrote.
Posted by axeminister (Member # 8991) on :
I finished up my first draft for the Redstone contest. Sadly, I'm not pleased with it at this point. I fear it may be trite, which typically isn't my major issue.
I hope to get an opinion or two on it very soon so I can decide to move forward with it, or scrap it and start over.
Axe
Posted by Crank (Member # 7354) on :
I cranked out a little over 5K worth of new words this past week.
My main focus this time around was on my upcoming WotF entry (something I've not worked on in nearly a year). I've got two potential entries, and I've still not decided which one I want to submit to Q4, so I'm currently working on both.
I spent most of the week agonizing. Actually I've spent most of the past two weeks agonizing. Then, finally, on Friday, I realized, if this story is making me agonize this much, OBVIOUSLY it is not ready to be written, it's not the story I'm supposed to be writing right now (like, I have only written a paragraph of it. In TWO WEEKS! and I just can't force it out no matter how hard I try!). So yesterday I picked another idea out of the idea bucket in my brain, and 2,000 words of that story just flew right out of me. Hopefully more will follow today!
Melanie
Posted by LDWriter2 (Member # 9148) on :
I am way behind on this, even more than usual I think.
Anyway, I did write a new story... and ripped apart an old one and turned it into two stories. Awhile back those on another critique site said one story needed more story so I added a whole side story. But after a while I decided I wanted the original so as I said I ripped out the original.
Worked some on New Mage-- got a new idea and new danger for my MC
