Did you write? 08-08-11

Did you write? 08-08-11

There are those among us who write once every few months. There are those among us who might write a couple times a month. This note is to entice these would-be writers to write more often.
The idea is that everybody report here about what is going on in your lives, and, in the process, report whether you wrote or not. Each week you report here and did not write, guilt and shame is supposed to set in so that you will resolve to write the next week. Each week you can report that you wrote, is a feather in your cap.
Regular writing, even if it is just a few words, eventually adds up to a lot of words, and a regular habit.

While we use word or page counts to show how much you wrote, these statistics are not the only measurement one can use. One might remove an entire section because it is not working. If one is editing, one might be out to reduce the word count to fit a given market. Some of us have specific word counts per week or per day to aim for and are deflated when we miss that count. I feel that if you wrote one word during the week, you have done something.

As to what is writing, We all agree that new writing is writing. Editing, though is also writing, even if it is the work of others. Critiquing is also a form of editing and therefore writing.
Poetry, blogging, technical writing, articles, writing assignments, world and character creation are also writing. E-mails can also be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. Of course, many of us might not agree with some of these but here, you have permission to count them as writing. Essentially, if you have to ask if counts as writing, the answer is always yes.

I am keeping up with the new month on my story ideas. I am not getting many story ideas to pile onto my compost pile. I have 34 ideas, including what I am posting tonight, in the compost pile. I would rather have 94 ideas there with half being excellent, but the ideas are not coming along at a spectacular rate.
In reality, I am not doing bad. I am getting enough ideas for the week. I am just not getting a lot of extra ideas. I had 32 story ideas last week and 34 this week. I come up with ideas at about that rate most of the year. It is those days where three or four ideas appear that make it really fun. those are the days that I actually gain on the compost pile.

I am not doing too great on my waxy story. I am in a section where dialogue is the main thing and I am not great at that. I added four pages of it and only 1368 words. disappointing. Life is keeping me from writing more.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a passage for a super hero story. A few more scenes are pounding at my head so I may dig into it for a bit for a little change. The super hero is an enemy combatant out for revenge and information from the mob. The mob will eventually lead the super hero to the politicians who are the cause of the war between the two countries. I like this super hero as there is no qualms about collateral damage, torture, and other "niceties". The police is happy that the mob is being taken out, but not the way it is happening.
I doubt this will go anywhere, but it does have a fun factor involved.

This Saturday, I emptied and re-stacked everything in the work-shed so more stuff can be stored in there should a hurricane come this summer. Sunday, I removed stuff piled on the work bench and re-stacked it, sorted, cleaning everything. with that stuff consolidated, at least in theory, it will make it a bit easier to gather it up to put things away if needed.
In this process, I found a number of things I did not know was there. One thing I sort of saw Saturday, became of use Sunday when my brother brought a different brand of it.

A month or so ago, I had finished a teddy bear dress in Crochet and did not like the results. It was a big yellow panel. I decided to redo the panel. After several design changes, I got to the end and it looked like it was for a pregnant teddy bear. I made a design change to hide the effect and make it look much better. I have finally decided it is forever done. I am not going to do anything else with it. It is done!!
I had finished the body of a bag I was crocheting and am now started on the straps. I made some wooden buttons for this and am running some designs through my mind as I work. One will involve woodworking besides the buttons.

For a story idea about the above, the company empties warehouses and piles them in storage. The plan is to eventually hall th is stuff off the planet when it is finally abandoned. They have been doing this for years. They are running out of room in storage.
He is charged with going through the warehouses, sorting everything and stacking them so they can have more room, and also find stuff they can make use of.
The first thing he does is go through the storage bay and finds several that are not near full. He will use those to start his work. Going through them, he puts like things in each one. papers, documents and such supplies in one, tools, appliances, equipment in another, general supplies in one, and so on. As he tackles a new warehouse, he tries to get that stuff in his first bays. After a couple, he finds he needs to separate plastic supplies from metal supplies. then he sorts appliances from machinery. He marks on the bays what is in them.
He could just put more of the same in other bays when they fill up, but instead he sorts them more It is more work on making sure stuff goes where it belongs, but it is easier to find stuff. the crews come in and ask for something, he gets the stuff for them quickly.
by the time he has done half the bays, he has freed up several more bays. The supplies keep coming in and he continues to sort them.
Eventually, they find they have to leave before they planned to as the reason for abandoning the planet is ahead of schedule.
He has the officials read the writing on the bays and decide what is more valuable to keep and what is worthless enough to leave behind. They make their decisions and fill available space on the ships with what is of value. While only half the bays are sorted, they cannot take any more anyway.
the planet is abandoned but the process was well worth the effort. Because of the brilliance of his work, he is compensated well for getting them the value of the cargo that they did.


As to the question of the day

I can honestly say

YES, I DID WRITE


DID YOU WRITE?