wordwhacker

I went through my "Holy Crap I Need To Write This Down Right Now" book of ideas recently. It's almost full. I've carried this thing around with me for at least a year now, probably closer to a year and a half. The book is showing the wear, too - I'll be glad to move to a new one so I don't have to lug it around and risk destroying it.

Anyway, since ideas aren't much good unless they're mined and refined, I picked out a bunch of story seeds that I want to work on over the next four months. So I'll never have an excuse not to remember what they are, I'll post them here, and hopefully they'll be cryptic enough to also be amusing. Don't worry - I know what I mean^*.

• Letters from camp
  
• Teen Suicide
  
• Sympathy for Chad
  
• Sam's 100th Birthday
  
• Angel hangin' in Hell
  
• Someone Else's Dreams
  
• Time Capsule
  
• Under Stood
  
• Trees for the dead
  
• Dead kid on the bus
  
• Winter is the best time for burglary
  
• Dog, camp, death
  
• Life is Pain
  
• Chris + Amy
  
• Accidental Math genius
  
• Cass + the Space Race
  
• Dating a Liar

There's a lot more in there, but those are the ones that are fleshed out enough that I don't have an excuse not to write them, already, or at least flesh them out considerably. 17 ideas, and about the same number weeks until school starts up again. Factoring in the editing I need to do (and a possible romance novel - the_bookshelves? We still doin' that?), I think it's do-able. (I'm gonna MAKE it do-able.)


* Though there's the odd entry in there that I don't recognize. Like this one: "Remember the profile tracing exercise." Uh. WTF?

"Finish. The difference between being a writer and being a person of talent is the discipline it takes to apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair and finish. Don't talk about doing it. Do it. Finish."

-- E.L. Konigsburg, as quoted on the Critique Circle main page.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I want to finish things. That's part of the reason I've been hesitant to start anything new lately... well, that and a general sense of "not knowing what I want to write." I'm starting into a period of uncertainty. I get these from time to time - I start questioning my skills, reprimanding myself for not reading enough or researching markets enough.

I'm torn between wanting to pick a specific market or direction or even a single magazine, do some research and WRITE for it... or just casting all thoughts of publication to the wind and focusing on reading and writing without worrying about saleability. Both are appealing. (Hmm. Maybe I should go Route 2 and use the ensuing rejection letters to propel me into "write for my own sake" mode. ;-)

Something I'm proud of is that I have written absolutely EVERY DAY since mid-December. Sometimes it was no more than a sentence... sometimes it was an entire essay or letter. But words, prose, has come out of me in one form or another every single day.

I went to a writing workshop tonight. Extremely interesting, extremely fun - we did a 10 minute writing activity, and I got lots of great comments (and laughs) about the story snippit I wrote. As a result I've talked myself into sending one of my stories to the writer in residence at the University, which she will give me feedback about on Friday. Eek! So, uh, for any of you who have read my writing, is there any particular story (or part thereof) that you'd suggest I send her? It shouldn't be too long, around 2,000 words max.


This is the story snippit I wrote, which I have dictated in Mp3 format here. The prompt: a story about a man and a woman fighting over a piece of jewellery.


( Oh No You Don't - vignette, 200 words )

The story I've been working on for the past few weeks is done! And it has a new title, too: You in the Mirror.
It's about 4,700 words long. And I would be extremely pleased if you'd read it. Any comments at all would be great.

I hope to do a lot of reading and critiquing over the next week, so if you've written something that you'd like me to read and comment on, let me know, m'kay?

So I said to myself earlier today, I said, "Cass? You need to update your writing journal." Apparently I said it louder than I thought, because the_bookshelves promptly updated. Neat. Has my cerebral cortex gone wireless? Man, I've gotta invest in a firewall or somethin'. I'm probably all spyware infested already.

First, a week after the fact: ( The Writing Workshop )

So if any of the writers on my friends list need any info about publishing, hit me up. I probably have a pamphlet and/or a website for it.

In other writing news, I've been working on a story lately and having a ball. I'm almost writing it twice at once - I started it longhand, and am still in the process of penning it. But I've gone back and started typing what I've written so far, adding and culling things as I go. I'm enjoying the process a lot. What I write longhand feels chunky and soupy, cluttered but raw and right out of my head. Then I put it on the screen. Just seeing it typed in nice, clean characters in black on a white background is making the story come alive again, clearer and more defined, and is making the editing process feel a lot more involved and lively than it has when I've typed my first draft. I'm going to have to do this more often.

It's due for crimsonata on Friday, so I'll post it here then, assuming I'm done. I'm pretty sure I will be. That is, if I stop making LJ posts and get back to actually writing. *cough*

SO! How about you folks, my lackadaisical readers / fellow writers? What projects are you working on / putting off? Any new and interesting ideas bite you on the butt lately? I've had a few, but I really want to concentrate on this one and get it out of the way. I want to actually finish some things this year. (Other than school papers, anyway.)

This would be fun. I'd have to miss a day of classes - by which I mean, two: Psych and History. And getting there might be a problem, seeing as how it's in Fredericton, where I most decidedly do not live. But if I can swing it, I think I'm going to go for it. (I basically have two options: A local writer might be going, and if so, I could get a lift up and back with her in exchange for gas money. If she can't go, I might be able to go the day before and stay overnight with my aunt and cousin - but that's a bit of a stretch.)

At any rate, it's an opportunity that doesn't come around all that often in these here parts.

I've been doing a little writing every day, even if it's only been a line or two. I don't think I've missed a day yet. I've been craving an actual project, though - I had mostly been doing little journal entries for one of my characters, which are fun, but are running a little thin these days. So I've been doing some outlining over the past couple of days, and I'm working on the following things:

- a short-story for crimsonata, in which the main character has to be revealed at the end as having been pretending to be something they're not. The outline is just about done; I'm-a see if I can convince myself to work on actually writing it tonight.

- ( a 'two minute' romance story for the local radio station. )

I also need to start reading/critiquing more short stories, but that's a worry for another day.

50,334 / 50,000 (100.7%)

Yes, that's right, I just wrote over 8,500 words in one night. Are they good? Oh, hell no. This is probably the roughest draft I've ever created of ANYTHING, ever. But I got it all down, even ended the story, though I wound up summing up a lot. I don't care. I have lots of author's notes the whole way through with ideas for how to re-write. This thing is a goldmine that I will eventually turn into a finished draft. But it is 50K long, and a complete story from start to finish, and I am a whole two or three days ahead of the game.

I am free, FREE! (... to do work on school projects. Crap.)

Now I'm going to go collapse.

In conclusion: cousins I WIN. Thank you, and goodnight.

32,824 / 50,000 (65.6%)

2,500 ish words tonight. Not too shabby. I'd write more (I had kinda wanted to get at least 3K written today), but it's getting late and I need to study for two midterms tomorrow. Which I've been doing intermittently as the night has progressed, but meh. Can't hurt to be prepared. (So says the keener.) School 1, NaNo 0. (Oh yeah, sure, as if that's the score.)

Okay. I have some reading to do for school tonight, and some cooking to do (I am out of chilli. Say what?!) I also want to get as many words written as humanly possible, without losing sleep.

So here's the plan:

I cook... and write... at the same time.

Shocking, I know. But it can be done. Especially with chilli, which has a long and generally boring simmering period. Now all I have to do is... uh.... get off my butt and do it.

I shall update at midnight-ish with my final wordcount, which had dang-well better be at least 30K.