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04-20-09 Did You Write? . Hear-Ye, Hear-Ye! Time for each to make an announcement. DID YOU WRITE THIS WEEK? This is a place to brag about your accomplishment, cry about your failures, and otherwise tell about what is going on in your life. I only ask if you wrote this week, as not all of use have loads of time to write. I generally have one day a week to do any serious writing, and not always have that day. I assume that if we all try to write even once a week, we can accomplish a lot over a year. Develop it into a habit and we can really produce over time. What, one can call writing, is really up to you. In our group, we consider a number of things as acceptable writing, even though they are not considered writing by all. We all agree that any new writing, is writing. One cannot question that. Since we all do not write perfectly the first time (some of us even the tenth time), EDITING is writing, even if it is someone else's work. Technical writing, article writing, writing assignments, are all writing. Poetry writing. World or character building is writing, if one gets something onto paper. E-mails can also be writing, if they are very wordy, and pertain to writing. There are others, and not all of use agree to which is writing, one way, or the other. It is really up to you what YOU consider writing.
No, I did not write. I had the opportunity, such as when I polished off a whole pot of flavored coffee, slept half an hour, and was awake for four hours. I did write a long note about generational interstellar travel and how that is a gold mine of stories. While that might be writing, I personally don't count it. I really only count my actual stories as writing.
Tonight I will be a day behind on my story ideas, but can make that up with no problems later this week. Recovering from staying up late killed choice writing times for both catching up and actual writing. I had some good days of getting new ideas. but then had to use a lot of my existing ideas too. At this moment, I have 42 story ideas in my working Compost pile. I am never really happy unless it is growing, rather than being used up.
I went to the wood turning club meeting last week. I had a piece that was said by one of our experts to be among the best I have done. I took it to the club meeting and set it in the instant gallery. The instant gallery is where you set your pieces out to be viewed and examined by the members. Later in the meeting, we have a show-and-tell, where we explain what it is and what we did. My luck this week was that we had dozens of pieces on display that made my piece look a bit forlorn. I have learned, or actually relearned, something during that meeting. There is detailed quality of a work, and overall impression of the work. Those are not the same thing. One guy carved roses into three of his old vases. They were extremely impressive. I, as a carver, was impressed by the effect. They had an overall impression of being high quality. I then went over and examined them up close. The actual carving of the roses were not all that good. It needed a lot of work to really improve them. That is the detail quality of the work. That was when I remembered examining carved furniture and boxes where from a distance, they are ornate and high quality, but when you examine them close, you can see a little slop. Because of the work in the whole piece, that slop is unnoticeable except to another carver or are comparing similar features in a whole piece. To put this into use for writing, The over all impression would be a really good book, excellent story put together well. The detail quality would be the actual wording of the work. Some writing is written where just the words is a pleasure to read, where a passage where little happens, is written where no word is wasted, gives full impression of the scene. That is detail writing effect. Nearly all of what I read are stories where the story itself flows smoothly, characters follow the logic of their nature, the incidents build on each other, and the whole thing is entertaining. What I read is where the overall impression is of a high quality. If you sit down and analyze the writing, or sit and read a passage, one might find it quite lacking. The impression is good, though.
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Yes. Working mostly on my synopsis and (hopefully) final polishing on the first chapters of Book One. Mostly, now, I'm trimming some fat, rather than adding anything. When I do add, it's usually only a sentence or two. But making the decision to call that finished (or nearly) has helped. Ideas are starting to germinate on what the revision to Book Two needs--and, just maybe--what's wrong with Book Three that kept me from making any progress there. That's a good thing. Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
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I did not write this weekend at all. On the other hand, I decided to set aside my current novel. It has been around for well over a decade. Right now I do not have passion for it, which was a difficult thing to admit. Some day I may come back to it but I don't feel it is the story I should be writing at this time.
So, for the last week or so I have been seeking ideas for a new novel project. This has been a big struggle. I came up with a few ideas that may work but none of them really sparked a passion within me. However, another idea I came up with, about an hour ago, does spark an interest in me. I will begin working on that new project.
In conclusion, no, I did not write this week but I hope to change that soon as I begin to work on the outline for this new novel project.
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Got about 6K done on a WIP. I've also started braingstorming/outlining during my commute, instead of reading the paper - amazing what a difference it makes in my productivity! Now if only I could get my mind to switch gears and focus on work....
Posts: 715 | Registered: Nov 2007
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Been working fairly steady on my current project, which is just the first chapter (or maybe the first part, depending on what length it comes in on)...once I finish that, I'll work on an outline for the rest of it. Overall, lengthwise, about twenty-five-hundred words.
I've been locked into the idea of five hundred words a day, at least on the days when I actually do some writing, for some years now. But this Sunday, I had considerable free time, and decided to push on to a thousand word total---and found I had trouble pushing it past five hundred. I wound up taking a break and coming back for another five hundred an hour or so later.
This may give me problems somewhere down the line...
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I'm not sure you can consider what I've been producing these last several weeks as writing, but at least these latest efforts qualify as promoting my goals of becoming a better writer, so I'm counting them.
The other day, one of my personal favorite SF short stories came back with a rejection slip. Bummer, to be sure, but one of the editors took the time to write a sentence or two about her thoughts on what she felt worked and what didn't. This was gold to me. I might not have agreed with everything she said, but the fact that she showed signs of caring about my product and my abilities gave me a shot of encouragement-flavored adrenaline that has driven me to delve deeper into this story than when I first wrote it. So, in case this new task keeps me from getting back this way next week, know that my response would have read: "Yes, I wrote."
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