. In an attempt to keep myself writing, and to get others to write with ANY type of regularity, I post this note each week. the hope is that you will see this note coming each and every week and write something, anything, so you can brag that you accomplished something. Of course, life will get in the way of writing, I hope you admit you did not write, and also tell about what is happening in your life. To face having to admit publically that you did not write, might prompt you to correct for the next week. The amount one writes is not what is important. The fact that you write, period, even if it is a few dozen words, is what is important. Trying to get past writer's block or to develop a good habit is the key.
There are questions as to what is writing. I have suggestions based on what was asked if it was writing. Not all of us agree it is writing, but it is more that you think it is writing, is what counts. WE all agree that new writing is writing. That is beyond question. Editing, though, is also writing. I write more by editing, than by my actual writing. Poetry is also writing. Blogging, article writing, writing assignments are also writing. World and character creation is also writing, as long as something gets onto paper (though you may decide that designing it in your head from beginning to end before writing counts. It is up to you). E-mails can also be writing, as long as they are very wordy and pertain to the story or about writing. Others may also count if you believe it might be writing. We are not critical about one's definition.
This past week, I worked on my Waxy Dragon birth story. It is coming along nicely and is exciting to write. I think one key is that I am only allowing myself to write about an hour each day, first thing. I found it has to be written first, before anything else, or time expands to lose my writing time on the story. An hour also seams to be long enough to get into what I am doing, but not long enough to finish it. What happens for me is that I cannot wait for the next session. I want to continue what I am doing. I am not writing too much each time, but I am whittling away the story. This week I added 4,392 words and 7 pages. I am in a fun section of the story and it is flowing fast. This is fun writing. I am at page 54 f the 51 pages of the story. Some sections above where I am working will disappear as they are being bypassed entirely or done differently. I won't know until I get to them. I will say that at this moment, I am disappointed about having to stop each day. That is fun writing.
I have been getting some good story ideas lately. I have 42 story ideas in my compost stack, including what I am posting tonight. some of the new ones are fun. Last month I did fairly good. For the30 days of the month, I posted 30 story ideas. I landed on Page 53, with a total of 32,017 words. Some I struggled to write, but most came freely. This month I am already a story idea behind. One good week will catch me up. Catching up is sometimes a battle between writing on Waxy or writing another story idea. Free time to write will come up a bit later in the week.
I am improving my computer system. I got my printer working again. me and printers don't get along at all. I got some learning books for some programs and some other equipment. I picked up a couple clean keyboards at a yard sale and will retire three, possibly four old keyboards. Last week I picked up a big monitor at a yard sale and this week I donated two more of my spare monitors to a thrift shop I frequent, and buy books from. The retired keyboards will be taken to the thrift shop next month. I have a permanent model railroad layout in a spare bedroom. I started emptying all the stuff stored in the room last week and got half that stuff out. I have more to drag out of the room. My intention is to get the model railroading ready for use within about a month or two. Much of the stuff I am taking out of the room will be put back in, but I will sort through the stuff and toss some, yard sale some, sell some and the rest will be sorted so I can find it when I need it, if I remember I have it and can remember where it is and get to it. The stuff going back in will likely take months as it has to be fitted in between life and writing. I will say that I fund and lost a dozen things I forgot I had or never knew I had.
For a possible story idea, you have someone who seams to have the best operation money can buy. It turns out that it is built up of stuff other people tossed out as being useless. He keeps adding to what he has. He cobbles equipment together. He is a programmer so he will write programs so that hundreds of slow computers work in series and in parallel to act like something much bigger and more powerful. He is always hunting for components to improve, expand or replace pieces that are failing or never worked well at all. My thought is that he has a computer system that develops a form of artificial intelligence and posts did you write notes on bulletin boards as if it were a real person......
As to the question of the day, I can say with pride, YES, I DID WRITE!!!
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Yes, writing now actually. Well, or transcribing anyway, since this story has decided to go off on its own tangent on me.
Posts: 2626 | Registered: Apr 2008
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I finished the first draft of my bacon horror story and I'm feeling pretty good about it. One more go through and I'll be sending it to my volunteer readers.
I did a little work on my NaNo characters. And I critiqued a story for a fellow Hatracker.
I've also been trying to prioritize my writing projects. Besides the bacon story I have The Gambler's Knife that needs a partial rewrite and my novel character story vignette that needs some work. This is all along with trying to prepare for NaNo. I think I will try and finish the two smaller projects before November so I can have more stories in circulation while NaNo is consuming my life. It might mean a little more 'winging it' for NaNo but that's what it's all about, isn't it?
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Yes, I did. I've been working on another revision to The Shaman's Curse, I revised the query letter, and I've actually started back to work on Dreamer's Rose. I'm also playing around with a novelette I did a while ago. No one thing is making huge progress. But that's alright, too. For now.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
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Working on cutting that alien story down to just under 17,000 words for this quarter's WOTF
note to extrinsic and everyone who helped/commented on the topic - action internalization reaction (or however I phrased it here) - that's helped so very much as I go through the story. I can see a little more clearly where to cut, what to cut and how to order the descriptions of what happens using the motivation-reaction units we discussed
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited October 05, 2009).]
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Working on revisions, so no clue how much I wrote, but I know I wrote something because the story is starting to look... well, half decent! :-)
Posts: 715 | Registered: Nov 2007
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I might have technically written at some point during the last week, but my sister was visiting town so that had a tendency to scoop up any free time. I did make some decisions about the structure of my work in progress.
[This message has been edited by Tricia V (edited October 07, 2009).]
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