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The Week Mostly Past
Jul. 2nd, 2009 11:45 pmI've written about 6,600 words since Monday. Not nearly as much as I'd hoped, and most of it in a sort of "just get some words down on paper" fashion. Nothing that looks like the seed of a finished story at this point.
I feel rather like a centipede trying to watch itself walk. Over the last couple of months I wrote a number of stories, but the last couple of weeks...not so much. Part of it was being sick for a while. But this week it's purely a matter of flailing around trying to write differently. I've been reading and trying to follow the prescriptions in various books on writing--plotting and story design and whatnot.
And I've been getting nowhere fast. My lovely and talented wife suggested that I get back to my previous approach since that seems to have been working for me. I think she's right. I still want to try to put more deliberation into my writing, but I think I should also just keep on with what I was doing. While I haven't sold anything yet, at least I was producing stuff to send out. The last couple of weeks I haven't even done that.
Maybe I'll do better if I simply write the way I did before and then try to impose some story structure on what results. (And at least one of the books on writing suggests doing just that. Write, write about whatever interests you--and then go back and ruthlessly edit the result later so it conforms to the strictures of story instead of being just an incident or a character study or what have you.)
So there's that. I do still believe I could profit greatly from learning to put more focus on plotting--scenes and sequels, character goals, conflict and disasters (or victory in the end). So I will continue to work on that. But I need to get back to writing and finishing things on a regular basis.
The thought of which fills me with dread as that obnoxious voice in the back of my brain tells me I can't do this, that I will run out of ideas for stories, things to say, etc. It's full of crap, of course. But sometimes it's hard to remember that when I'm stuck spinning my wheels. Grrrr. Back to the grindstone for me.
Words WrittenToday since Monday: 6,616
Words Written YTD (since May 1): 77,500
Stores in Circulation: 8
Rejections: 4
Stories Accepted: 0
I feel rather like a centipede trying to watch itself walk. Over the last couple of months I wrote a number of stories, but the last couple of weeks...not so much. Part of it was being sick for a while. But this week it's purely a matter of flailing around trying to write differently. I've been reading and trying to follow the prescriptions in various books on writing--plotting and story design and whatnot.
And I've been getting nowhere fast. My lovely and talented wife suggested that I get back to my previous approach since that seems to have been working for me. I think she's right. I still want to try to put more deliberation into my writing, but I think I should also just keep on with what I was doing. While I haven't sold anything yet, at least I was producing stuff to send out. The last couple of weeks I haven't even done that.
Maybe I'll do better if I simply write the way I did before and then try to impose some story structure on what results. (And at least one of the books on writing suggests doing just that. Write, write about whatever interests you--and then go back and ruthlessly edit the result later so it conforms to the strictures of story instead of being just an incident or a character study or what have you.)
So there's that. I do still believe I could profit greatly from learning to put more focus on plotting--scenes and sequels, character goals, conflict and disasters (or victory in the end). So I will continue to work on that. But I need to get back to writing and finishing things on a regular basis.
The thought of which fills me with dread as that obnoxious voice in the back of my brain tells me I can't do this, that I will run out of ideas for stories, things to say, etc. It's full of crap, of course. But sometimes it's hard to remember that when I'm stuck spinning my wheels. Grrrr. Back to the grindstone for me.
Words Written
Words Written YTD (since May 1): 77,500
Stores in Circulation: 8
Rejections: 4
Stories Accepted: 0