September 14, 2009, Did you Write?
Over the past weeks, I have seen many of you have finished a piece. Congratulations. Many of you have also thanked me for this note. I thank you very much. I post this whether it is read or not, though It is more fun when I know someone reads it.
Having a regular goal to aim for seams to help many of us. It helps me some when I am at the edge of writing or not writing. When there is no way to write, or I have a lot of time to write, it won't matter.
AS to writing, Any new writing is writing, Editing and rewriting is even more writing than the original creation. I am not a Robert Heinlein, who Isaac Asimov said, could write it perfect the first time. Isaac had to rewrite it once to get it right. For me, fifty or a hundred times might get it there, or might be heading the wrong way long before I get it good enough.
Poetry, article writing, writing assignments, blogging, are also writing, as are Character or world building if something gets on paper. E-mails can also be writing, if it is very wordy and pertains to writing or story.
Please note that these are suggestions. Not everybody will accept all this list of things as writing, and there might be others that you can justify as writing that has not been listed.
As for me, I had sent a section of my Waxy dragon story to my writing partner and she gave me some fantastic suggestions as additions to the story. I had already processed in rearranging some fo the scenes and adding more. I went back and made changes based on her suggestions and I think it really snapped the story together. I think I have averaged an hour a night on this, which is not really much, but it does get things going well. I took the story, with heavy rewriting, zapping and adding, from page 34 to page 38. That ends up almost 3000 words added to it. This is my best writing to date.
One problem I have, is that I just want to tell about the action. I seldom give scenery, details, build the world around what is happening, show the character, or give motivation. I am spending the time, pulling it out of me by the teeth, to get the story to fill out the way it is supposed to be. It is kind of exciting. I have always been more interested in getting to the end and get it over with so I can go to the next project.
With the Waxy dragon story series, there are many holes, stories that need to be written between the stories I already have written, to answer some questions suggested but not shown. This rewriting has added many new solutions to the missing stories, and makes for a bit more excitement in rewriting the series, which will eventually be done. I have about sixty stories right now, but if I follow the plans I have, there will be over two hundred stories when done. These, hopefully, end up being children stories, each short story is both stand alone, but also part of a series. Some might be combined into a novel form too, depending on the stories and the publishing results, if it ever gets to that point.
They are a fun project to write and it is an enjoyable universe to play in.
I am doing all right on the story ideas. I had to dig into the compost pile this week for posts, but got four concepts to add to it yesterday and today. This brings me back up to 38 story concepts in my compost pile, including today's post. I am one idea behind for the month, and because I have a turning club meeting Thursday, I will fall two story ideas behind by Friday unless I get caught up.
The turning club meeting means I have to get one of my projects to a presentable level before the meeting, and I am still excited about working on the Waxy story, so It will likely wait until the weekend to get caught up and ahead.
My story ideas and older Waxy dragon stories are at
http://www.xprodigy.net/board/index.php go to WRITER'S ROOST. or go directly to
http://www.xprodigy.net/board/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=32e09475b74d990042e79cb73108c5a1 The waxy dragon stories are in the oldest pages posted, and work their way out from there.
I went to a orchid show this weekend. It was at a botanical garden. I love the variations of the foliage the gardens had. But when we got to the tents with the orchids, I drooled over the blasts of color that was available. I have my favorite colors, and tones of colors, but there was something for just about everyone. There was also different shapes and sizes to entice different people.
I remember hearing someone from a poorly developed area of America where she said that during Christmas, they would take Cigar wrappers and other shiny and colorful things and put them on their Christmas tree. During the winter, anything with color and shine was a pleasure form what they normally saw.
I also remember reading that the early American settlers painted everything wood. Now days, we strip the paint off everything so we can see the wood. The difference in times was back then, they wanted to see color because wood was everywhere. Now we want to see wood because color is everywhere.
To put this into a story idea, The people live in a place where all there is, is a dark stone or metal. The furniture is even made of stone or metal. They do have fabrics, but it is a natural grey color and they have no way to dye the cloth.
Their plants are either straw colored or green, nothing that "flowers" unless it is white.
Once a year, a starchy fruit that is the main basis of their diet goes into flower. There are several variety of trees, and they have male and female trees. The flowers come out in a bright blast of color in the morning and the color changes during the day. They flower for about a week and then the color is gone.
The day the trees flower becomes a special holiday for the people. They gather the flowers that fall to the ground and bring them inside and decorate their homes with them. Wilted, dried up, the flowers are nothing like what they saw when they were fresh, but it is the most color the people see. Because the plants are their main food source, they don't harvest very many fresh flowers.
The flowers are sometimes stitched together into quilt like sheets and hung on the wall for a month, before they fall apart and have to be tossed.
When the trees bloom, it has become a religious holiday, they get to see the eye blowing color and also it signals that their main source of food will produce another year.
One of their most serious punishment is that they are forbidden to see the trees in flower, nor are they allowed to see the cloths made from the blossoms. Since it is one week a year, it is as serious punishment. The rest of their year, they see only greys, greens and browns.
As to the question of the week,
Yes I did write!!!
Did you write?
1 comment:
Yes I did write, but not as much as last week. I had a busier week with lots of food to put up. We are still getting a lot out of the garden, as you can see by the posts farther down the blog. Anyway I did add a bit to the Lazlo story, wrote a couple of blog posts, numerous ideas were exchanged in emails, and I wrote an angry poem that went on and on (and never got posted). Once I get past harvest time, writing will come easier.
Haven't done much crocheting this past week, but that's because my evenings were eaten up with kitchen projects. By the time I was done, I just wanted to sit down and do nothing.
I'll have some details on what I am up to in another blog post.
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