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June 23. 2008 Did You Write? . This note is to give you a regular goal to aim for in your writing. the idea is to try to write SOMETHING each week so you can brag, or otherwise report, what you have done. This note is a place to brag about your accomplishments, cry about your failures, and otherwise discuss what is happening in your life. My definition as to what writing is, is loose. You basically have to decide whether it fits or not. I hold that any new writing is writing. Poetry is writing. Editing, even editing someone else's work is writing. Blogging, article writing, writing assignments, are all writing. World building, as long as you get something on paper, is writing. E-mails, as long as they are of some length, and pertain to writing, is writing.
I had a full week this week and never got to write. I had missed a day of story ideas, but was an idea ahead before the missed day. I then came up with two story ideas that flowed off the keyboard and that got me a story idea ahead, and I am still there. I was home all day Sunday, and should have been able to read, but I spent several hours talking to my writing partner and I cannot write and talk at the same time. I will say that we spend time discussing several scenes in my WAXY'S CLEAN FUN story, and she helped me clear up some questions in the plot. Today I did a sketch of a scene that was a bit questionable and E-mailed it to her. That took an hour. I will say that amounts to world building so that will count as writing since I got something "on paper" and I count world building as writing. There was some portions of E-mails involved in the story. I will say that I wrote.
On the story idea front, I still have twenty eight notes next to my keyboard. Tonight's note never went to paper. It came to mind just before I sat down so I wrote it directly. My writing partner E-mailed me some ideas this month and some of them never went to paper either. I generally write them on paper if they are not going to be posted that night. I love having a month's worth of ideas available.
For a long time, I was receiving junk mail like mad from one of my accounts. They made a change and now I get maybe three a day, rather than thirty or sixty. I was collecting the names from the junk mail for my story ideas. Over the years, I came up with my names out of my head. I probably used the same twenty or thirty names over and over again. When I started collecting the junk mail names, I suddenly had hundreds to choose from, picking names that were interesting or fit my mood at this second. that was fun. When the names coming in ended, I stopped regularly sorting and cleaning the name list. The few names I got were just added at the bottom. one thing I found was that I no longer bothered going into the sorted names. It was easier to find something interesting when they were mixed up. This weekend, I copied the unsorted names and created a new file. I then sorted the whole list and picked out the multiple postings. That list now has 3324-names in it and has reached page-78, That in and of itself is quite impressive. I might never look into that list again, though. The new list I am working with has 145 NAMES in it, and reaches PAGE 4. There is generally a good mixture of names there so that works out perfectly. With my story ideas, I try to avoid using names when possible. I have a problem with names and get confused easily. I have even scrolled to the top of the idea to find out what I named the person. Not using a name makes my job even easier, as long as I don't have more than one person doing things.
ON the woodworking front, I spent Saturday carving rather than wood turning. I have a leaf bowl I have had in process that really needed to be developed farther. I had to shape the leaves, then cut in the veins. I have seen pictures of projects like this but had never done this. This is one of those projects where you learn how not to do it. With this type of carving, It is easiest to use power. I have a strip sander with a half inch wide sanding strip, a motor that spins grinding bits called a Dremmel. I will also use a knife and hand sanding to get the effect I am after. This piece is really sloppy at the stage it is in, but I showed it to a couple people who know nothing about this kind of work and they were quite impressed with the results. My writing partner saw a picture of it and said it was delicate. I look at it and say it is really chunky. It will never be master's level of work, but it will be something that will catch people's eyes. I also had turned some roses, where I cut grooves into them to create a basic rose impression. I used the dremmel and a small grinding bit to create petal like shapes in the rings. that simple act really added to the appearance of the flowers.
I took the concept at the bottom of last week's note and turned it into a near three page story idea. I will have to give today's story concept a thought. it came out longer and better than expected.
For a story idea, consider someone who makes magical trees, trees of gold. Using magical tools, he carefully carves the sheets of gold into leaves. He works along side two other craftsmen. One makes the truck and branches, the other places the leaves on the tree. When the tree is done, they link arms with several other magic user, and they chant and dance around the tree. The tree comes alive and will live possibly forever. It will drop the leaves in the winter, and grow more golden leaves in the spring. One can gather the leaves, which are about one carrot gold and become rich. The gods which the men work for will relocate the tree and the tree is never supposed to move again. The men get back to work in making a new tree. As long as they are working there, the men will live forever. Now consider a couple workers leave and now making the trees has ended. The man continues to carve the leaves of gold, letting them stack up. No one knows what to do with all those carved leaves, other than the fact that they are perfect. the carver gets an idea. He sends someone to the mortal world to find out how to transplant a tree. It takes time but the messenger finds someone who knows how to do it. Another messenger searched the world for a tree of the right shape and kind. The tree is lifted out of the ground. the mortal and the tree is brought to the craftsman. The magic users do a magical chant around the tree, giving it some magic. Then the existing leaves are carefully removed and gold leaves are located in their place. Once the tree is covered with the golden leaves, the magic users do their chant to make it a golden tree. The tree is placed by the gods, curious to see what the tree does. Winter comes and the leaves fall off. spring will show whether the experiment will work. Winter comes. there is a lot of doubt about the survival of the tree. buds appear, then they unfurl. They look green. Just when the leaves open flat, they see the tops of the leaves are green and the undersides are gold. they are tested and proven to be golden leaves. The mortal is given immortality so he can transplant special trees selected by the messengers, so the trees can become golden trees.
I will push my luck and say YES, I DID WRITE. It is really stretching my personal definitions out of shape.
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I usually try to get a couple of hours of writing related stuff (world-building, organizing my new ideas, outlining, etc.) in when I get home from work, but a friend stopped by unexpectedly this afternoon, so it turned into an evening of drinking wine and talking. On the up side, I did come up with some nice ideas while we were talking (funny how wine can make your conversation go to really random places). Now I just have to get tham all down before I fall asleep...
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By some miraculous ebbing of power striking my very core, I have found a comfortable and productive routine. I am drafting a short story per week, and working on the foundation of my first novel. Having a bank of notes on story ideas has helped. But coming up with a system to strengthen plots, draft and edit feels like some divine gift, for which I am thankful, and I hope that it lasts. At this rate, I might call myself an author one day
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A little mean writing on my essay---which has gotten too wordy and dense for its intended purpose. I think I'll slim it down to a paragraph or two when I eventually put it to use---whenever that is.
But a couple of stories in need of final draft are calling me, and I'll probably get going on them sometime soon.
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Looking back, I wrote quite a bit more than I thought. I resurrected my old blog by posting three new entries, I did some worldbuilding work on one of my SF novels, and I also spent some quality time with my young adult novel.
But, the big accomplishment: I walked my WotF entry to the post office yesterday! That explains why I was in such a good mood all day.
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Still editing. Finally broke through on Chapter 16 that had been sitting on the back pile for so long. Of all things that hung me up, a fight scene, they never hold me up. But it was the details of the creature that needed to be brought to life, not just claws and teeth, but claws scraping on leather breastplate, and teeth getting snagged on chainmail links, and leaving a bloody gaping maw as the beast withdrew.
Chapters 17-24 went like a breeze, fast and furious to finish the week off on a good note.
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