You know the drill by now...
May. 21st, 2009 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI'm pleased with my progress on the current story--more than 1500 words today. Still, I wonder if I ought to be shooting for more words per day. Perhaps. It bears thinking about.
The writing went well, I think, because I tried to make it fun. Instead of thinking about story questions and scene questions and where it was going, I just wrote the scenes out as they occurred to me. I'll worry about those things later. But that kind of "seat of the pants" writing isn't going to work in the long run if I don't have a sufficient grasp of the skills involved. I definitely need to spend some time concentrating on those things, sharpening my skills in those areas. Once that's done, I can let my subconscious guide me.
Which thought reminds of the late hypnotherapist Milton Erickson. When asked once by psychologists studying his success how he knew what to say to patients to achieve the phenomenal results he so often did, said "You just let your subconscious guide you." As the psychologists remarked afterward, "that's great advice if you have Milton Erickson's subconscious." Most of us don't, of course.
Think of it as playing scales, like a musician. I think I'll try to plot attention-grabbing openings, and also try to plot out some scenes with explicit conflicts (scene questions), just for the practice. This will have to be, of course, in addition to my daily writing goals.
But right now--time for bed. I'm exhausted.
Words Written Today: 1,576
Words Written YTD (since May 1): 17,486
Streak (500+ words/day): 11 Days
Stories in Circulation: 4
Stories Rejected: 1
Stories Accepted: 0
The writing went well, I think, because I tried to make it fun. Instead of thinking about story questions and scene questions and where it was going, I just wrote the scenes out as they occurred to me. I'll worry about those things later. But that kind of "seat of the pants" writing isn't going to work in the long run if I don't have a sufficient grasp of the skills involved. I definitely need to spend some time concentrating on those things, sharpening my skills in those areas. Once that's done, I can let my subconscious guide me.
Which thought reminds of the late hypnotherapist Milton Erickson. When asked once by psychologists studying his success how he knew what to say to patients to achieve the phenomenal results he so often did, said "You just let your subconscious guide you." As the psychologists remarked afterward, "that's great advice if you have Milton Erickson's subconscious." Most of us don't, of course.
Think of it as playing scales, like a musician. I think I'll try to plot attention-grabbing openings, and also try to plot out some scenes with explicit conflicts (scene questions), just for the practice. This will have to be, of course, in addition to my daily writing goals.
But right now--time for bed. I'm exhausted.
Words Written Today: 1,576
Words Written YTD (since May 1): 17,486
Streak (500+ words/day): 11 Days
Stories in Circulation: 4
Stories Rejected: 1
Stories Accepted: 0
