03-08-10 Did You Write?

03-08-10 Did You Write?

It is that time of the week again. the time where I post a note in hopes that it prods you into writing. You see the note coming and you get off your duff and open your present work in process, or start something new. Any amount of work added to the project is acceptable. It does not even have to be your project.
I list the things that can be writing. be it new writing, editing even if it is someone else's work, poetry, critiquing, blogging, writing assignments, technical writing, world or character creation, even long winded E-mails about writing or story. it really comes down to what you personally decide will be writing. I have not heard any complaints about anything suggested as writing, or how much one has written. the hope is that you develop the habit of opening the project at hand and doing something each week. It would be better to work hours every day, but with life and slackers, just one time during the week will pass for us.

I have written. Last week, I zapped a whole section of a story I have in progress. I have now written fresh, and pulled in pieces of other work to replace the work I removed. it was a great improvement.
I am not sure exactly how much new I added. It could be just 600 words but I forgot to record word counts before I added something or removed it. As it is now, the story stands at page 11 with 6320 words. That will be what next week's writing will be measured by. My writing partners and I have exchanged several thousand words in working out details of the story. Little things like how someone will dress has expended a lot of words. We are character and world creating as I write and it is hard to write a detail when you have not given it a thought, and it effects later stories. It is a fun process. Over the past few weeks, I have written scenes to show my image of what someone or something looked like and my writing partners presented their suggestions based on the scenes. This week, I pulled some of those scenes into the story I am working on, which has thrown off the page and word count.

I have 40 story ideas in my compost pile, including what I post tonight. I got an idea ahead earlier in the week, then had a very late evening and did not have time to write that nights presentation, so I am still just up to date.
It is fun to have ideas flow like they do. I have suggested many times, if you get an idea, write it down. if it is on a piece of paper or in a "storage file." write down just enough to remind you of what it is. You can then forget it for a while. for me, it is usually about a paragraph, may be two for a detailed idea. When the time comes, sit down and expand it a bit more. tell what the story is about, You don't actually tell the story, just what it is about. For me, it is rare that a story idea gets onto four pages. With it expanded out like that, one can forget it completely, to dig it out when there is a need for something to write.
The key I have found, is that a story that draws completely on your creative mind, will become quite after you write what the story is about. Only a few hang on after that.
Writing what the story is about, as I suggested, also acts like an outline. it is a guide to what will happen in the story. You have a beginning, middle and end, and can note plot twists. it acts like an outline. If one chooses to go with a change in plot in your work in progress, it takes just a little time to change the quick presentation and see how the plot change effects the whole story. It is also easy to rewrite your presentation since it is short.
Even if you write something different, your quick presentation will have the key points you will want to hit. that happened when I converted my original 2 page waxy birth story into a 75 page story. the short piece had the highlights I was after. I went all over the place between the landmarks, but I did get to them eventually, creating a better piece. I know where I am going, and know how to get there, but have enough freedom to let the characters and scenery do their work.

I have to set my mind to get my woodworking ready for the art show. I am running into the problem where Other activities get into the way. I do my woodworking at my Mom's house on the weekends. We have done a whole lot of running around the past several weeks, killing my woodworking.
I withdrew my work from the Antique store. I have to go over each piece, examining it for damage and to try to improve the finish on them.
I was surprised as to how much stuff I actually had on display there. It turned out to be a whole bin of work. I need to swap out some pieces, but that is likely the amount of wood turnings I will have in my display in the art show at the end of the month. the rest of the display will be carvings.

One of my favorite types of story ideas, is to take something that is utterly silly, especially commercials, and figure out how to make it logical, normal, spin a story around it. I might see something a few dozen times before it locks into my mind as to how to use it.
Several years ago, one of the car companies advertized their START BUTTON. One way they did it was to have someone going through great effort, either diving deep under the sea, or climbing an ice cliff. they get into a special place, and there is a button. they push the button, then they are seated in a car, then they are accelerating down the road. while the commercials were popular, I turned that into a story idea. it was a little trap THEY had set. They have hidden the buttons in inaccessible places, then let it be known they existed.
What happens is that when a person hits the button, it teleports them to successive places. When the car accelerates, it is teleported to impact on a moon or on another planet. I think I had it as a weapon in a war. It kept the really adventurous genes in the population at a low level also.

As to the question of the week, I can honestly say

YES, I DID WRITE

DID YOU WRITE?