Cavern of Inane Natter · Legacy archive
Today, writing feels like...
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Re: Today, writing feels like...
#41Today, writing feels like standing knee-deep in muck. The land behind me is barren. The land ahead is full of verdant life. I must slog through to get from the one to the other. -
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#42Struggling through mental treacle....
I have had ideas, made a start, contributed further but am now back in my rut... -
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#43...something I don't have time for.
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#44....a self-indulgent vice.
There is stuff I should be writing, there are difficult writing challenges I could undertake, but for the last month I have been slipping away from other responsibilities to write things that will only be meaningful to me. -
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#45On the cusp of a dreadfully busy weekend (co-hosting a Horse show saturday, and providing room for 3 guests over said weekend) sitting down with a glass of bourbon and a few quiet hours on the Citadel, writing, feels like spending time with a pretty girl. She's pretty, and she likes me, but I won't see her after this for a little bit, and while we might hold hands and flirt at the table over dinner, she won't be coming home with me tonight. -
Re: Today, writing feels like...
#46I was working at our horse show this weekend, and I was talking to one of my non-hobby friends and he is very familiar with my writing and likewise I am very familiar with his hobby, which happens to be rebuilding old generators (30s-60s, old iron) and collecting Cub Cadet tractors from the same period and older.
He was discussing how he had no spare time, between his job, working on his generators, and tractors, and doing repair work on his house. For a moment I was in full sympathy, as I frequently find myself in the same situation, with the job, taking care of the horses, cooking and cleaning, and my large assortment of writing projects. Then something hit me.
It doesn't matter.
The generators he fixes get set aside, and the same with the tractors, until they sit long along that they need to be taken apart, and cleaned and rebuilt because they've sat unused, because he's moved on to the next 'vital' project. In doing so he is chasing his own proverbial tail chasing after tasks that need to be done, but really don't, because there is no endgame. It would be different if at the end of the project, the end of the restoration, the generator was sold, or the tractor was sold, or it was put to a specific task, aka I need to fix this heavy tractor because I need it to plow/pull down trees/breath flame at the tractor pull, but it isn't.
In many ways my writing has been the same, an endless circle of projects, various things sitting in work, various settings I've had in work, Epoa, Imbria, the Cosmic Era, the World of Darkness, and the reflexive fantasy genre. The writing projects stack up, and some are finished, but at the end of the writing, at the end, as I am looking at the next project coming up, or looking back at an old piece to pull out of dust off, I haven't accomplished anything. There isn't an achieved endgame.
Nothing has been published.
But here is the thing, I don't feel defeated, I don't feel demoralized or depressed.
I feel like my eyes are open.
I am going to take a little time, step back from the projects I am working on, and reassessing my specific goals.
It is time to focus.
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Re: Today, writing feels like...
#47Introducing a publishing phase could help you a lot.
Create a blog. Use wordpress. Learn SEO *anyone can do it*
Get it out into the world, by some other means than this site. Because this site targets a very narrow audience.
I was working at our horse show this weekend, and I was talking to one of my non-hobby friends and he is very familiar with my writing and likewise I am very familiar with his hobby, which happens to be rebuilding old generators (30s-60s, old iron) and collecting Cub Cadet tractors from the same period and older.
He was discussing how he had no spare time, between his job, working on his generators, and tractors, and doing repair work on his house. For a moment I was in full sympathy, as I frequently find myself in the same situation, with the job, taking care of the horses, cooking and cleaning, and my large assortment of writing projects. Then something hit me.
It doesn't matter.
The generators he fixes get set aside, and the same with the tractors, until they sit long along that they need to be taken apart, and cleaned and rebuilt because they've sat unused, because he's moved on to the next 'vital' project. In doing so he is chasing his own proverbial tail chasing after tasks that need to be done, but really don't, because there is no endgame. It would be different if at the end of the project, the end of the restoration, the generator was sold, or the tractor was sold, or it was put to a specific task, aka I need to fix this heavy tractor because I need it to plow/pull down trees/breath flame at the tractor pull, but it isn't.
In many ways my writing has been the same, an endless circle of projects, various things sitting in work, various settings I've had in work, Epoa, Imbria, the Cosmic Era, the World of Darkness, and the reflexive fantasy genre. The writing projects stack up, and some are finished, but at the end of the writing, at the end, as I am looking at the next project coming up, or looking back at an old piece to pull out of dust off, I haven't accomplished anything. There isn't an achieved endgame.
Nothing has been published.
But here is the thing, I don't feel defeated, I don't feel demoralized or depressed.
I feel like my eyes are open.
I am going to take a little time, step back from the projects I am working on, and reassessing my specific goals.
It is time to focus.
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Re: Today, writing feels like...
#48Impossible. That will be all.
Plus, being ill for no discernable or logical reason kills off whatever grey matter was working.... -
Re: Today, writing feels like...
#49
Impossible. That will be all.
Plus, being ill for no discernable or logical reason kills off whatever grey matter was working....
This is when you must write, even if you end up throwing things away. It's all about going full speed ahead against that bastard who lives in all our heads and tells us writing well is out of our collective grasp. -
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#50Steel doors opening, at least a crack, letting loose that old prisoner. Hello again, creativity. I've missed ye. -
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#51It feels like I'll continue to procrastinate, for a while longer, maybe. -
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#52Today, writing feels like this. Actually, it's felt like this for probably a week now.
http://nutrafin.deviantart.com/art/Choose-only-one-460672944 -
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#53Impossibly impossible. Even in the RP's. I think I migh need a weeks respite from everything to recharge my batteries :D -
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#54 -
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#55My schedule has been hectic and stressful, and it has really sapped my creative urge, my muse is unconscious.
Lots of things going on at work, we are shifting production, and are in the process of getting a really really big client, and I've gotten a promotion to supervisor and I've got two more weeks before I am going to be going solo on it. There have also been some health issues, aka t-boning a car while riding my bike. Left hand has three knuckles that still probably fractured, so that takes a lot of enthusiasm out of potential writing.
So today writing feels like something other people do, and something that I used to do.
Once this all settles down, it should be fine and I'll get creative again.
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#56Not much has changed, I am still running under a pretty heavy load, and I have had a few health issues the last few weeks. It's nothing serious or life threatening, just draining. I was feeling really down, to tell the truth.
But one of those list of bullet points that float around the internet was posted to my Facebook page, a list of writing tips from one of the writers I personally respect, one Mr. Stephen King. Most of it was stuff I already knew, but there was something that stuck out, a writing tip I'd not encountered before, or if I had, that seed fell on the sidewalk and not the soil.
You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”
Longer than that and it gets stale, and you end up a tourist trapped in it.
So I started writing
Then another writer I follow on Facebook (Jon Acuff) posted a little update about just setting a mundane time, for an hour, and writing. It's a little thing, coinciding with an article I read about things you didn't know Google could do, like, wait for it, set a timer.
These things have all rolled into one another. I set the Google timer, and I start writing. I don't write for an hour at a time, instead it's 15 to 20 minutes at a time. I will sometimes run 2-3 of these blocks together, other times I break it up. I still have other things I have to do, but it's given me more focus on my writing, and made me realize how to better spend time at the computer. Less time on Facebook, less time reading random articles and looking at photo websites.
I am writing now, some here, but the vast majority is on my novel.
I have stayed up late working on the story, and I have woken up in the middle of night, and I've gotten up early to work on it. I am aiming to have the first draft complete, cult of done, by either Halloween or my birthday (about a week later).
I'm writing this bitch, and it's going to get done.
:poet: -
Re: Today, writing feels like...
#57Awesome! Write that puppy! -
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#58
You have three months. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”
Longer than that and it gets stale, and you end up a tourist trapped in it.
So I started writing
Then another writer I follow on Facebook (Jon Acuff) posted a little update about just setting a mundane time, for an hour, and writing. It's a little thing, coinciding with an article I read about things you didn't know Google could do, like, wait for it, set a timer.
These things have all rolled into one another. I set the Google timer, and I start writing. I don't write for an hour at a time, instead it's 15 to 20 minutes at a time. I will sometimes run 2-3 of these blocks together, other times I break it up. I still have other things I have to do, but it's given me more focus on my writing, and made me realize how to better spend time at the computer. Less time on Facebook, less time reading random articles and looking at photo websites.
Makes me think of the Pomodoro technique where you basically work in 25 minute chunks, taking 5 minute breaks in between. I use it now and then to get myself back on track when I'm overwhelmed by all the crap at work. Haven't had much luck using it for writing, but that's because my muse is a whiny little bitch...
I really like the bit about keeping a draft down to 3 months. I can see the wisdom in it. -
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#59I think that three month rule certainly applies to submissions here as well.
I have 3 each just over that limit and have no clue where I was heading with them, or what to do now.
Another trio for the delete button methinks? -
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#60I don't think so. No need to destroy an idea just because gumption/time is not in the offing in some arbitrary time period. Life is Life. Strolen's is for fun.
A novel is a different beast I think.
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#61... like trying to search for a lost thought or a word that's on the tip of my tongue. I used to know how to do this. -
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#62I've completed the first section of my novel, which I aimed to complete by the end of August, by my reckoning that's 28 hours away. I finished 4 'chapters' for the first arc in 113 pages over 67,200 words.
I feel very much accomplished, and feel like taking the rest of the Labor day weekend off, and starting fresh on the middle section next week. -
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#63Congratz!
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#64Dude, that is way awesome! Keep chuggin' away! -
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#65...Like that moment when you see the storm of creativity bubbling over the horizon, and you know you won't be able to capture it all, express it all, but you'll sure as hell try your damnedest. -
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#66Woke up at 4:30 this morning and had to get up, start the next word document for section 2 of the book, pasting my guideline notes into it (which I delete as I go through them in the course of the story) started the page count at 3, and after a short writing session, I added another two pages to it. It's rather slow going at this point because I break my writing down into three general categories, dialog, action, and movement in the backfield. The first two are easy, people talking, and people doing things. The last one is the hard part because that is where things transition, info dumps try to happen, and the story changes course. Right now, the change between the first section and the second is the largest 'course correction' for the MC, and it takes the most to make it happen. -
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#67...like looking into an empty hole and remembering that there used to be a whole city there. -
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#68NanoWrimo and this thread seem to go hand in hand, complementing each other :P