May 02, 2011 Did You Write?

May 02, 2011 Did You Write?

Another week has arrived. I can see from some of the posts in previous weeks that some people are actually getting the effect of this note. Many of us have writing goals, some met them, others missed. The goal this note pushing for is to write something, anything, during the week. It is aimed at those of us who write once a month, or once every few months. It is also to keep the rest of us active and writing.
You know the note is coming each week and you want to report favorably about your writing, so you will open something, anything, to report that you wrote. The hope is that even if you failed, that you post about what is going on in your life.
Those who write regularly and write volumes of work are asked to post as it gives the rest of us a view of what we could be if we got off our lazy duffs and started writing.

How much we write is unimportant. One word, a paragraph, a thousand pages, does not matter here. If you are editing, your word count could go up, go down or even stay the same. I have had times where I have struggled with a section, and got almost nothing done, while other times the words flowed like a river. While high word counts are nice, they are not important.

What is writing is wide open. We all know that new writing is writing. Editing is also writing, even if it is the work of others. Critiques are also writing and count as such. Poetry, articles, technical writing, blogging, writing assignments, world and character creation, and even E-mails can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. If you have to ask if it is writing, it is. Of course, you may choose not to count many of these. It is up to you. It is better if you count them as your writing as it makes you look more productive.

As for me, Yes, I did write. I am writing my third Waxy story. It is more about the plot right now than anything. The writing itself is poor, but I think my plot will be good. When I reach the end, I will do heavy editing to make some attempt to bring it into shape, let alone up to level. It is not the story I planned it to be, but it is a good story as it is. I can always hope it will be super when I am done. As it is, I wrote THE END on this rough draft tonight at 6182 words on page 14. That was 4776 words this week. So much for crap. Now to make it good.

On the story idea front. I have, including what I am posting tonight, 43 story ideas in the compost pile. I have come up with some good ideas, but have posted them as fast as I have gotten them. the new ideas are always better than old ones for reason.
Last month. I did fairly well on the story idea front. I ended up posting 31 story ideas amounting to 30 pages, with a total of 17518 words. Many really deserved more than I did to them. They should be written into published form. Since I don't have the time, I hope someone here likes them enough to make them into something.
I work from the concept that if twenty people wrote from one of my story ideas, there would be twenty different stories that will result. That is why I never worry about any great story I post in the story ideas.
Another thing is that one might take my original concept, or might take one bit of my presentation to create a story, or it might just seed some other concept. Because of that, those who don't like to use other people's ideas, can pick bits and pieces as a jump off point of one of their works and not be borrowing from someone else's work. A good number of my story ideas is taken from songs, advertisements, or reports of stories or movies. What I end up with is not the same thing as what seeded the concept. I would expect the same for everybody else who uses these too.

Outside writing, I messed with my little metal working lathe. I attempted two ways of making a project. I need some screws with special heads. I decided I would make my own.
My first attempt which was to make it from raw bar stock, showed me my methods and concepts will work, but I forgot several steps and stopped long before I got farther than humiliating the piece of metal.
My second attempt was to take some wide head screws I found and make the head smaller and square as I needed. That worked nicely. While machining them was fun, I can save myself a lot of time by grinding the excess metal off and then using the machining to finish the job.
For wood working, I took a bowl I made in 2004 that was poorly designed. it was thick and clunky. I used a mounting system that I worked out over the past few months and re-worked it. After it is heavily sanded and finished, it will be a really nice bowl.
I started my third cannon. this one is going to my grandnephew. It is small. I made the barrel. It needs a little work but looks good. I will make the carriage for it over the next month. These care kind of fun to make.

As to the question of the week, I can say

YES, I DID WRITE!

DID YOU WRITE?