Did You Write? 01-12-09 . I noticed it is colder, darker, the weather is miserable. I must apologize for causing these horrible conditions this week. I did not write and we all suffer for that. In your case, you get the horrible weather. Had I written, everything would have been sunny and beautiful. This is the penalty of dragging the universe down by not writing during the week. The object of this note is to entice you, and myself, to write, sometime, during the week. The idea is that if you strive to write each week, you will, hopefully, develop that into a habit. Remember, not all habits are bad. As usual, I have my definitions of what is writing. You can choose your own definition if it is not in my list. My list is just a suggestion in case you did not realize what you were doing is writing. Anything new that is written, is writing, of course. Anything you edit, even if it is not yours, is writing. I consider poetry as writing. Articles and blogging is also writing, along with Writing assignments. World building is also writing as long as you get something on paper. E-mails, can be writing, if they are very wordy and pertain to writing. As mentioned, there are others, but you have to justify it in your minds.
I am one story idea ahead for the month right now. That will change later this week when I go for a meeting and not be able to post. I have had a period where ideas are coming fast. I now have 47 story ideas in my compost stack. I had 39 story ideas in that stack when I started the month. I have posted 12 story ideas since I did that last count at the beginning of the year. That is not bad. I love the days where I empty my pockets and find three or four story ideas I have come up with during the day. It is an excitement that makes up for going several days without an idea and worry sets in. It is periods like this that allows me to have accumulated a total of 253 story ideas between my three stacks of compost piles (170 will never see light, 36 that are post later, and 47 of post immediately) after posting for ten years.
On the physical front, I now have my orthotics and they have made a bit difference in my feet. The orthotics is a hard plastic insole designed to correct how your are positioned to the ground. I've worn them for nearly a week and have seen a big difference in my feet. Most of the aches and pains are disappearing, though I do have to deal with the possibility of blisters where the pressure is on my arch. Callouses will develop in those places and no longer be a problem. That is minor compared to what I dealt with, without them. My finger has more motion than it had before the surgery. I have developed a bit more dexterity. It won't be normal, but it has made a big difference.
I finished the carving on a baby dragon carving I started early last year. It is a complex caving. I have the tendency to stop any time I feel like I might make a mistake and pick it up some other day. I do this with many complex carvings I work on. it is better to stretch it out rather than mess up royally. I have started on the painting process It is to be a rainbow stripped dragon and that will take some doing on painting where the brush has difficulty in reaching. This carving is based on a wax candle I have. It is not the same, but it is passably close. It is cute. It will be on display at the art shows when done, and will be priced high enough that it will never sell, or make it worth my while...
As to the question of the day, I must, to my shame, admit, NO, I DID NOT WRITE.
Did you write?
Posted by Meredith (Member # 8368) on :
Well, your influence doesn't reach this far. It's sunny and HOT here. But, then, I did write. Revisions and reorganizing material so I can move on with Book Two, mostly. But it still counts.
Posted by Tiergan (Member # 7852) on :
Yes. It was good week again for me. I wrote every night with the exception of last night, to night will be hard as well. Sorry, I am a huge 24 fan.
Lets see, sent a query package out for my novel KNIGHTS VALOR, and wrote 4,000 words on a new short, I hope to finish 1st draft tonight about 5,000. It was a little slower than normal, becuase for some reason I couldnt get myself to write with my laptop. Everytime I sat down with the computer, mind blank. So for 4 nights I wrote in the spiral notebook, then had to transfer it to the computer on saturday, seems to flow better from my mind that way sometimes. But it does mean the process is a little slower, well, twice as slow to be exact.
But yes, I did write.
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
Yes, and I still am. As usual. I write something everyday, and now that I have full-time for a while, I intend to utilize it.
Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :
Does staring at a page for hours and changing two or three sentences a dozen times count? Then yes, but with qualifications.
Posted by satate (Member # 8082) on :
I wrote, but if writing makes it hot I'm going to stop. Arizona need less heat, not more.
I should have written more, but I think that I'll probably say that every week regardless of how much I write.
Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :
I completed another 4000 words on my novel project, then lost the entire file. 8600 words vanished into the either. I was using WriteItNow, but shall abandon that program for good!
I also got a tentative start on a short story project, only a few hundred words though.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Nah. Still resting my creative batteries before revising a story.
However, at the end of the week, I remembered I had another story I was working on last summer, that I wrote to the end and then started to add new scenes---then abandoned before finishing.
If I hadn't'a had a busy end of week---yesterday, for instance, I was tied up counting ballots in a union election runoff---I'd'a worked on it by now---but I have some upcoming free time. I can finish that (or at least work on it) and then get back to my other story revision.
Or so I hope...
Posted by Cheyne (Member # 7710) on :
Yes. I am still marvelling at the boost my failed attempt at NaNoWriMo gave to my current project. I had stalled in my writing and had gone from writing absolutely every day to some days to once in a while. I challenged myself to do NaNo and only managed about 15k of the hoped for 50k. But the attempt reestablished the habit of writing everyday (even when I didn't feel like it). So, yes, I am happy to say that I wrote on the twelfth and the eleventh and the tenth and the...
Posted by aspirit (Member # 7974) on :
It's sunny and cool here, and I wrote. Most of my attention went to revising a fantasy short story and drafting future blog posts. I told myself I'm brainstorming fixes for Odal's Story, but really, I'm avoiding work on that novel.
Dee, that's hard. Did you have printed copies of that novel?
Posted by steffenwolf (Member # 8250) on :
It's -17 here (at least it was when I got to the office this morning). rstegman, I hadn't realized the cold was directly caused by your inactivity in writing. Do you happen to not write a lot between the months of October and March, particularly in January and February?
For once I did not really write. I'm stuck in between projects at the moment. I've had a couple false starts but nothing that really got my brain boiling.
Posted by Gan (Member # 8405) on :
Dee, what program do you use? I want to make sure I'm not using the same one...
As far as writing goes, yes I did in fact do so. Probably 4000 words worth of my novel, though a good ~1500 I've thrown out already.
On top of that, I've written quite a few critiques. Fun stuff.
I got a new program this past week called yWriter, and its really made the writing process easier for me. It lets me separate novels (Or whatever) into chapters, and scenes. This was an awesome help, as I'm no longer afraid to start writing scenes later in the chapter, or book.
I definitely recommend trying it if you're looking for a new program. Its' free, which is a great bonus for poor students like myself.
Posted by sjsampson (Member # 8075) on :
I did. I'm still working on a short story. I need to get more writing done during the week, though. I seem to be doing it all on the weekends.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I thought I'd add that the "another story" I mentioned, when I looked more closely at it, seems too disordered to be much use to me now that it's sat awhile and I've lost touch with where I was in it. Rejected scenes side by side with replacements, some scenes still unwritten...
Not that it's a loss...I think I'll print it out, then write out a nice, smooth draft with what I've got. But maybe after I go back to work on that first story I was gonna revise...
Posted by dee_boncci (Member # 2733) on :
Gan,
I was using Write-It-Now version 4. I have no idea what I did, and tried many things to replicate the problem with a "dummy" file, but no luck. It actually appeared to be a handy program until that mishap.
I've experimented with yWriter and had no problems.
The good news is that I was going to have to redraft the beginning anyway, and maybe redoing it fresh will turn out better.
Posted by steffenwolf (Member # 8250) on :
rstegman, would you mind elaborating on what you mean by story ideas? I get the impression you've set a goal for yourself to a story idea at regular intervals? Is that just a 1 or 2 sentence situation that could be expanded to a story?
Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
steffenwolf
I take those one or two sentance ideas and show how they can be used in a story. Go to http://www.xprodigy.net/board/index.php and scroll down to WRITER'S ROOST, and then you will see subject lines like January 2009 Writing Ideas. Those are the story ideas I do. If you scroll down the page of notes, you will see more of them, one each month, each having an idea a day at least,
Go to the very beginning of the forum and you will see my Waxy Dragon stories and they get mixed in with other subject matter as you come towards modern times.
I post these on other boards, but I like this board most so I point the traffic there.