Boo!, caught you napping. You were not expecting for the week to go by this fast? Sorry. It sneaks up on all of us sometimes. By reporting whatever happens in your week here, every week, you end up with an incentive to report that you actually worked on some writing project. Seeing this note coming you will rush over and open some project, old or new, and get some words down, or remove some words, depending on what you are doing. Then you can report here that you actually wrote, even if you removed a word and put it back in.
As to what is writing, that is up to you. We all agree that any new writing is writing. We tend to forget that editing is also writing, even if the object is to reduce the word count. Editing someone else's work and also Critiquing someone else's work counts as writing. So is poetry, technical writing, blogging, writing assignments, newsletters, world or character creation, and even E-mails can be writing if they are very wordy and pertain to story or writing. If you have to ask, the answer is yes, it is writing.
I decided my Waxy Dragon story is done for now. I fired it off to my co-writer to see her opinion of it. She already said there is some editing points to do on it. I am mainly asking about the story and the world rules since we write in the same world. This week I removed 512 words. The work is still too big but I do not know how to cut it down more. I am about to start on my third story. I already have the beginning thought of and will write it like one of my story ideas to get a whole story plotted out. I will know whether it is going to be a 50,000 word story or a 10,000 word story before I get into real writing. there is stuff I want to include, but don't know if I will get it all in. I need action, not a sweet travelogue I wrote originally for this third story. I found out that the publisher lost my first story with some computer crashes so I sent it back out today. He now has a editor specific for the publication it will be in (he was the editor at when I sent it).
On the story idea front, I have 50 story ideas in my compost stack. I have gotten just a little less ideas than days I have posted. While I am keeping up, It feels like a slow period where I am not inundated with new ideas.
I made good headway in getting ready for the art show coming next month. I have several pieces that are looking like they might be close to being finished. I assembled the carriage for the cannon I am making and assembled one of the fairy scenes, but may make some changes. I also got a key figure, a king frog, carved for another fairy scene. I will now finish the fairy and build her scene also. I have a lot of detail stuff to do on everything, but it looks like I am on schedule. If anything is not complete for the show, well, that is all right. I have a lot more stuff available than I have table space anyway.
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The week started well, and the (third) revision of the story seemed to flow well, but social obligations took up my time, and I got nothing done on Friday, Sunday, and (so far) today.
Tomorrow is crowded in the morning but I hope the afternoon will be freed up.
Other than that, writing seems to be going fine. The ideas are there. Just the other day I thought up a rationalization for flesh-eating zombies...me, I've gotta have it if I'm going to write about them...now all I have to do is come up with a story to go with the rationalization...
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A handful of critiques. Also a little over 9K new words written, bringing the wip up to 92k.
I have a lot of 'passive' chapters in my outline, often along the lines "X says to A to Y, which influences plot thread Z, and then they discover shocking news B." Pitched this way it's more boring than writing a thesis on practical narcolepsy. There's only so much walkie-talkie scenes I can write, so I'm finding the start of each chapter very time consuming as I try and turn these vague plot directions into scenes with action. A couple came out quite well I think, but there's more than a few that will probably earn a complete rewrite some months down the track... sigh.
[This message has been edited by BenM (edited March 07, 2011).]
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Yes, finally, yes. I haven't been around much in the last year or so, mostly because I haven't been writing. This place sometimes makes me feel guilty about the fairly giant stack of ideas, notes and fragments I have for stories. But I do lurk from time to time, trying to not forget about writing entirely. I was doing that when the Am I Serious? Are you? thread got posted. I read it and felt both energized and like I got a good swift kick in the butt.
For years, I've been one of those people, you know, who says they're a writer but doesn't write much, doesn't finish almost anything, that kind of thing. That thread made me sit back and re-evaluate what I want and whether I was willing to do what it took to get there. I'm happy to say that the result was a resounding "Yes I am". I went back to one of three novels I have in progress (Did I mention I have trouble sticking with stuff?) and gutted it. I mean totally gutted it. I started Elemental a couple of years ago and had the best of intentions, but no ending. I've now discovered that if I don't have that, I end up with a good beginning that meanders to nowhere in the middle and ends up on my pile of unfinished work with everything else. I have an ending for Elemental now, and even a path through the middle. I had to change a lot of ideas, and I realized things about some of my characters and my world that I didn't know. It's all for the best, but cutting approximately 29,000 words out of a manuscript that was 35,000 to start with is painful, and I'm just glad I haven't felt demoralized by how far I have to go just to get back to that, let alone to finish the book.
On the good news side, I finished that cutting on Saturday morning, and jumped right back into writing (with some editing on what was left to smooth in the new ideas). I wrote steadily into Sunday and can say that the manuscript is back up to 11k. Still a ways to go, but 4k for the first weekend back at writing is definitely an achievement in my mind. Here's hoping I see the end of this project. I'm trying to remind myself that I can't get published if I don't finish anything.
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I wrote . I've been going through this weird existential crisis for the past few months (2010 was an extremely rough year for my family), but I finally feel like I am coming out of it, knowing who I am.
I heavily revised one short story and am hoping to send it on its merry way at the end of the week after I get a bit of feedback. I also am completely rewriting another short story after having an epiphany about it--I may enter this one into WOTF if it works out. All in all, a pretty productive week!
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Past week: 1000+ text messages. Some about writing. Finished a chapter. Started a new short story (if I finish it quickly I'll send it to WoTF)
Posts: 36 | Registered: Feb 2011
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Noticed that it's "2-07-11," and not "3-07-11"...I know February is a short month, but it's over now...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Got in some good writing on "New Mage On The Block " and revising "Bright Lights And Chaos" both Sunday. Did a little of each on Saturday too .
Still working on revising that short story. Come to think of it I don't really have a name for it. It's a space opera where the MC is a discouraged vet whose seen too many friends sacrifice their lives in ways that didn't work out. But he is put in a situation where he has to act. He's the only one who knows how to stop the enemy and he's in the right position even it's taking a large chance. I changed the story line half way through the story so when I went back I had to add things and take out things for the new paradigm.
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Addendum: I pushed through to the end of the third draft of my story this morning...with any luck, I hope to have it revised and printed out and dropped into the mail by the weekend...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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(gulp) No, no I did not. <hangs head> I meant to go back over my Tyger-Lili outline and flesh it out a bit more, but I kept putting it off and then (poof!) the week was over.
I'm doing much better this week, but I'll save that for the next query.
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. I've been going through this weird existential crisis for the past few months (2010 was an extremely rough year for my family), but I finally feel like I am coming out of it, knowing who I am.
