Did You Write? 08-09-10

Lee and Nancy have not been around here for a while. They are working hard on a new publishing project and are writing like mad.
You can read a bit about it here
http://www.thefreechoice.info/2010/07/pro-se-productions-premieres.html
I am aiming my writing to this publication but have a ways to go on it. I also work so that kills a lot of writing time.



Did You Write? 08-09-10
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In an effort to help myself, and many others to write with more regularity, I post this prompt. While many will write every day without the prompt, many of us are lucky to write more than a few weeks a year. This note is a prompt to get those kinds of people to write each week, hopefully to become a habit. Some habits are worth developing.
We all agree that new writing is writing. Editing is also writing, even if it is someone else's work or one is critiquing the work. Poetry, writing assignments, technical writing, blogging, article writing, world and character development are all writing. Even E-mails can be writing, if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing.
We are not concerned with how much one writes. When writing new, one loves to get production, but if one is editing, especially for publication, one's word count might actually go down, on purpose.

As for me, I had sent my work in progress to my writing partner. I had cut a 25,000 word story down to 15,000. My writing partner said it was choppy and needed a different ending.
I decided to try a different tact. I took the best version of my edits (When I completed a pass, I would save it as a file with the date in the name so I had different versions to dig into if needed). I lopped off the whole beginning that my writing partner said slowed the story down and have worked from there. That lopped off six thousand words right there. I started close to my target. I have gone over the story, changing scenes and sentences as I had learned during my previous edit attempt. I have added two hundred words to the piece, going the wrong way, but I am improving the piece. Once I finish this pass, fixing the piece, I can then cut out some of the fluff and bring it down to where it needs to be.
I am at a point where a major change in the story has to happen to get the ending I am after. I have the basic concept to the change, but have to work out some little details to make it plausible and interesting.

On the story idea front, including the one I am posting tonight, I still have 53 ideas in my compost pile. My story ideas are staying short, just getting onto page two for most of them. I used to have a lot of pride in them being as long as possible, but I don't have time to write like that and still write on my work in progress.
I have given up some on line time used to post story ideas. I will write them, and then post them the next day. I learned that my on line time eats into writing time. it takes just a little longer to post two or three notes as it does to post one.
I still get those ideas that I just have to write and now, but have dug into older ideas more recently.

I got my truck back last week and it is so nice to be able to move around on my own. I am about to the end of that period where you listen for every noise, feel any change in how it runs, sniff for smell in case something else is going on. It is doing well. Last week I mentioned about the idea of whether you could survive in any of your stories. I can now say absolutely not. I clocked the total distance I walked last weekend when I walked part way home from work. Humiliating! At most, it was two and a half miles. I thought I had walked over three. I could never live in a place where walking was the only mode of transportation.

On the wood working front, I have a demonstration in wood turning to do next week. I had a wonderful practice session this weekend where nothing really went right. I had one practice come within a short time of being finished, but two others barely got started when I had failures.
People involved in knitting and crochet talk about how yarn somehow appears in their baskets at the stores, or they leap into their hands. This weekend, I went to pick up a board I needed for my demonstration. A four by four board leaped out of the rack and started hitting me. the only way I could keep it from hitting me was to hold it down on the cart with the board I was after. It calmed down only after I paid for both boards. then I was stuck bringing it home.

To use that as story idea, consider a maker of magic items. there is a magic around him that is supposed to catch his attention to stuff that will be useful in the varied magical items he needs. The spell was not quite made right and he cannot turn the spell off, and cannot change it either. The spell does not want to be ignored in the suggestions and it looks at things he might need years from now, for anything he might use, even if it will go bad long before he can get to it.
He walks through a story and objects literally fly off the shelf into his basket. larger, heavier objects will tap him to get his attention. In some cases, the tapping will become abuse if he ignores them hard enough.
He walks into a hardware store and knows he needs some heavy boards, but wants to save his money until he needs it as he may have to use the money for some thing else first. he grabs the board he needs right now, and a large beam lifts up and starts hitting him. It is floating in the air as it bangs on him. it hurts to block it. He finally catches it and pins it down on his cart. He knows that burying it in a stack of the same kind of board, will simply be an invitation for another board to rise up and attack him.
He holds the board down, figuring he can let it go near the cash register. Each time he lets off the weight, it starts to rise. It also tries to bang his hands against the other board or against the metal of the cart.
He ends up buying it, even though he cannot really afford it. His spell defeated him again.

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

YES, I WROTE.

DID YOU WRITE?