All things considered. It’s been a slow week…
A slow week indeed. But at least I am starting the research, maybe I’ll have a plot hammered out before I actually start the writing.
Yup, that’s right. Henry, my cat, looked at me this morning with this look of chastizment (is that even a word?) and chattered away about how I haven’t been paying attention to him enough the last two days. Why haven’t I? Because I have been researching for my June writing project.
I’ve been sifting through old notes from 3-4 years ago. I’ve got about 20 different characters to play with as well as about 300 years of history. Now I just have to figure out exactly what the plot is going to be.
It would probably help if I could decide which character to focus on. My problem is that they are all really well put together and I want to write about them all.
I will stew on this for a few days see if I can puzzle out a plot to go around the history that I have written down. In the meantime I will pay attention to Henry.
If you ever wonder what I listen to while writing head on over to room7609 and check out my most recent post…
I always find it amazing how inspiring music can be…
Look at that! I am writing my Friday Wrap Up on Thursday evening. (I can’t seem to fix the time stamp thingy in the preferences to set it to the correct time - so it says I wrote this on Friday…)
This month over at TBNaNo the challenge for the month is to write a drabble every day. The theory is that this will keep a writer writing and/or get new writers in the habit of writing every day.
TBNaNo defines drabble as such:
A drabble is a short piece of writing, typically 1000 words or less, that can usually stand on its own. It may or may not be connected to a large story, or even a series of drabbles making up a whole. It can be a snippet of conversation, or an entire scene. It can be backstory on a character, or something completely random that you just need to get out of your head. It might be that new genre or style you’ve been wanting to try, but are doubtful you can pull off… Drabbles are your free ticket to write anything you want.
I have been thinking about this for a few days now. I haven’t exactly been writing every day (Bad Cheryl no cookie for you!) but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a ton of ideas. Ideas and thoughts that I don’t write down. (I realize that a good many story ideas are lost this way.) Sometimes I have so many ideas that my head hurts and I don’t know where to start. Then I fall into a cycle of self-doubt that freezes me and I end up not writing anything. Maybe this drabble writing could help me clear some of that doubt.
I’ve also been contemplating posting what I write this month at room7609…
A few months ago (March to be exact) one of my friends celebrated her first anniversary. As a gift representing paper her husband gave her the book No Plot? No Problem!-the unofficial book to read during Nanowrimo in November while you are plunking out 50,000 words.
She called me a few days after her anniversary and told me about it knowing that I had read it the first year I participated in Nanowrimo two years ago. We discussed the book and I asked her if she was planning on participating in November. No, she said, November would be too busy for her due to her many obligations. But she was thinking of sitting down and writing something during the month of June. Immediately I volunteered to write with her during the month. Just because it wasn’t November didn’t mean that we couldn’t write 50,000 words. If I recall correctly, Nanowrimo was originally held during the summer months anyway.
So we agreed to each write 50,000 words during the month of June. This morning I received an email from Keryyn about this years SoCNoC (Southern Cross Novel Challenge) that Kiwi Writers hosts during June. Considering that it is practically the same challenge as Nanowrimo in November it took me about 5 minutes to sign in and sign up for the challenge. Hey, I was already planning on writing during June anyway.
I’m not entirely sure at this point what I am going to working on but it is still early yet.
I think what I love most [about writing] is that feeling that you really nailed something. I rarely feel it with a whole piece, but sometimes with a line you feel that it really captured what it is that you had inside you and you got it out for a stranger to read, someone who may never love you or meet you, but he or she is going to get that experience from that line.–Andre Dubus, III
This week was a semi-productive week:
I’m not going into details about this new project, at least for now. I will say it will probably be a short story. But that is all I am going to say about it…
“Do or do not. There is no try.” - Yoda
Think about it for a moment. Let Yoda’s wisdom sink in…
I can’t actually take credit for this one. Kerryn posted this quote early last week.
I just realized that I missed last weeks Friday Wrap Up. Here are the bullet points for the last two weeks:
