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Did You Write March 03, 2008 . It is that time of the week again. The goal is simple, to write something during the week and report how you did. There is the hope that this note will embarrass one into writing, to realize the deadline is coming up, to sit down and get to typing at least enough to report. Of course, shame and humiliation is not always enough to cease being a drain on society. I have to report that I did not write this week. I have millions of excuses. None of them are acceptable but that is the way it is. I am still getting over the illness. I am a whole lot better. Less itching. I do miss some sleep, so I have to catch up on sleep some other time. My excuse this week is my scheduled writing time was taken up with a good nap.
ON the story idea front, I did 29 story ideas for 29 days. I wrote a total of 50 single spaced pages totaling 30,766 words. If this was all one piece of work, I would be doing well. as it is, even the best of them are really bad. some of the worst ones are just good enough to count as a story idea. I am still even for the year. With the story ideas, I have three stacks of to-be-posted idea notes. One stack won't likely ever be written. The other stack, which I think I have dug into three times this year, is good notes to choose from. My third stack is brand new ideas which I pick from first. At this second, I have eight ideas sitting, waiting to be posted. Mid last month, I think it was, I ran out of them and have added to them since.
I collect interesting names from junk mail. So far, I have 3146 names, each on a single line which amounts to 74 pages. The E-mails usually have a first and last name. I split them so these are all single names. If I need a whole name, I can just pick and choose between them. I will go several days, adding individual names at the end of the file (I write in NOTEPAD and these are text files). Then when I decide I have enough and several minutes, I pull it into my word processor. I change the case to first letter upper case, and then I do a sort. Finally, I scroll through the many pages, looking for doubles and delete one. It is taking longer and longer to scroll through the names. It is also getting harder and harder to avoid doubles when I am copying the names from the E-mail headers.
I am preparing to be part of an art show. It will be Sunday the 16th. I am finishing up some new projects, and picking through my stock to see what should be displayed and what does not need to be displayed. I have narrowed my turnings by quite a bit. I had four boxes of turnings and have picked out one box of them. I also have what is on my shelves in my home. that likely will be two or possibly three boxes. Not all of them will be on display, but I have them anyway. I am at the starting stage of going through my small carvings to see what I want to have on display. I am thinking of a theme for the display, but not completely. I will be displaying all my larger carvings also. I have limited table space so even when I pick out what I want with me, I will still not be able to show all of it off. This weekend, I finished assembling my last fairy carving. She is sitting on a mushroom with her legs to the side and holding herself up with one hand. I used a three inch tall figurine to get the body shape right while my fairy, if she stood, would be about twelve inches tall. My fairy is sitting on a large mushroom that is one piece with the base. I have several mushrooms of other woods around her mushroom and they have worm holes in them. One has real worm holes, while the others were drilled in. The worm she is holding has a hat and a face so it is cute, rather than yucky like my mom was thinking when I suggested doing a worm for the fairy to hold. This fairy gives me six total fairies I have done over the past years. not bad. someone at a local fair asked me to carve the Viking tree of life. I carved it and went to the fair again this weekend. He was in another part of the state. I will go there next weekend to see if he is there. If he is not, I will give them my card and other contact information. I had finished the tree, including painting, on Saturday. It showed me how not to carve a tree. Now I have to figure out how to carve one properly. I cheated in several ways. I used black paint to hide some interior slop, and then painted the trunk brown, then the whole thing dark green, then highlighted the high spots with a couple other greens. The paint covered many design errors. One can see the block shape I used when I made it, but it is not horrible. At the stage things are at right now, Anything new I make will not likely be in my art show. I do have a piece of wood on the lathe that I started making another bird bowl out of. I am making it mainly to have something to make, and to use up some of the ample wood I have.
AS to the question of the day, I must admit that NO, I did not write.
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Well I did it. Three submissions this week. I knocked the dust off those stories and polished them. Something that I have been meaning to do for several weeks. That leaves ten on my pile, plus several competitions that I am working on. I had a very productive week, today I read alot and wrote a little. Spent a lot of time in the garden also, which does alot for my creative process.
Posts: 1888 | Registered: Jan 2008
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I worked on the third vampire novel in my Void City setting, and a non-vampire book for the same setting. I also made a few notes for changes to my Epic fantasy novel to help it seem a bit more... current.
--Jeremy
(8 days and counting)
[This message has been edited by JFLewis (edited March 04, 2008).]
I didn't make use of my spare time on Saturday and Sunday (I fell asleep in my spare Sunday time), but, as it happened, Sunday evening I woke up with a dream that was the germ of an idea. I chewed on it a little while trying to sleep...chewed on it some more at work on the night shift...then settled down and wrote something about eight in the morning...worked on it a little in the evening...then worked on it some more right before I came here.
A thousand words of outline...five hundred words of the first scene...and more to go. There's a lot of work to be done---for one thing, I have a big hole in the middle where the plot resolution is supposed to go---but I know how it begins, how it continues, and how it ends. Besides, it's the first thing in months I've worked on. I'll keep at it, maybe later today...
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Finished OUTCASTER IV retitled "Ghosts of the Void" Not going to try to write a story this week. We're going on a carribean cruise, leaving Friday for Galveston Ship leaves Saturday returns Wednesday morning.
Going snorkeling in some cenotes and an underground river. Paddling a clear kayak over some reefs. Eating till I burst. Sunning on deck with the new Iain Banks novel. The good life.
So this week and next my mind's going to be off elsewhere, but not out in SF-land.
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Be sure to watch for dolphins playing in Galveston harbor, arriki. I saw them when I went on a Carribean cruise and they were way cool.
You have my permission to start a topic on your trip when you get back. Call it something like "Travel Experiences for Writing" or somesuch, and we'll see if other people can be encouraged to share their experiences, too.
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I was told today the reason the dolphins follow the cruise ships is that the leftover food on board is ground up and dispensed into the ocean for them. No fools, those dolphins. They get paid to play around for the tourists.
Posts: 1580 | Registered: Dec 2005
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I've seen dolphins in city canals less than a mile from where I'm typing this...why they go this far from the sea is a mystery to me...
I had to backtrack some on what I've started writing this week---it went well, but I feel the need to make an immediate change to conceal certain information from the reader. I'll post that elsewhere as a technical writing puzzle...but I don't anticipate any trouble...
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Not much, but yes. I've seen these "did you write' posts from time to time. Other than checking our productivity is there a purpose/significance to them? are the dates important?
Posts: 340 | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kinda. Semi-creative college stuff, mostly. Life has quickly become...how do you say?...NUTS.
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
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