Friday Rants and Raves - May 2

[sarillia]

Hello all! It's been another week. How has life been treating you and your writing?

This week's picture is Jean Leon Gerome's Cave Canem (Beware of Dog).

Comments

[sarillia]

I had a pretty good week. I'm not at my most productive but I'm slowly working up to that again. I've started making sure I write something every day, even if it's just a sentence. I used to do that and it helped because often I would start out planning to just dash out my sentence for the day and then I would get sucked into the story.

[inkdust]

Writing (at least) one sentence a day seems like a good strategy. I had decided to do that too until I suddenly started questioning what to work on. Even if that first sentence doesn't open the floodgates, it keeps me from letting myself ignore the writing of the story (as opposed to the thinking about it).

[sarillia]

Even if that first sentence doesn't open the floodgates, it keeps me from letting myself ignore the writing of the story (as opposed to the thinking about it).

That's a good way of putting it. I have been devoting way too much time to the daydreaming stage lately because my daydreams can't be judged. I need to spend more time actually writing, which I have been doing better with so far.

[serria]

Bad week for me this week! Had lots of time to write, even had my file open and stared at it, but couldn't get anything good out. I think I need to change locations. I've found that I write better if I'm in the library or a coffee shop - maybe home is too comfortable? All I was able to write were pieces of scenes and short conversations, which is not a good thing for me to do because it's hard for me to get a good scene if I don't do it from start to finish.

[inkdust]

I get that about working other places. I've found that I can work pretty well at home for a certain number of days, but periodically I need to go put myself somewhere else, and then ideally that resets my ability to work at home. The need to mentally separate our lives is funny.

[serria]

I think that's a good way of putting it. Brains are strange. I think switching up the environment sort of activates a part of the brain that leads to more vivid creativity. I don't know if I'm just making things up or not, but for example, I find I dream more when I sleep somewhere different - even if I've just moved my bed in my bedroom to a different spot. For writing, I suppose it can't be so different to the point of being a distraction, but whatever triggers creativity seems to become a lot more lethargic for me if I'm sitting in the same place in my house.

That could just be an excuse for being lazy, too. Who knows. :P

[inkdust]

It makes sense in terms of stimulation. You can only create so much out of nothing. Even if the people in Starbucks or wherever aren't consciously inspiring me, the outside stimulation gets the brain moving. I wouldn't say lazy at all :)

[splinteredstar]

Every now and then I get antsy and rearrange my room, and that makes my brain work again. So yeah, I totally get it.

[sarillia]

I could see home being too comfortable for writing. I don't get that way with my writing but I did get that way with schoolwork. It was always easier to get my work done somewhere else.

I hope you find a place that works for you.

[inkdust]

This week was supposedly me "taking a break," but I think it's been somewhat effective because I'm beginning to feel like working again and that utterly drained feeling has subsided. I'm just afraid of it coming back when I sit down to try again.

I did finally get myself to write a prompt just now, to get something written, and at the very end I landed on a cool bit of background for one of my main characters: "Her mother just seemed to enjoy people, and from the moment she realized that, at the age of nine, she knew that her mother would never be the person she could count on."

I think I'm also going to be starting editing on my third draft pretty soon, and I have a feeling that will make me feel better about myself.

[serria]

Nice! I like little sentences that smoothly tell the reader not only something about the character's background, but also the character's personality.

Good luck with your third draft! How many drafts do you think it'll take?

[inkdust]

If I were absolutely required to estimate a number, I'd say minimum four drafts before I might feel ready to start querying. I definitely want another round of beta readers (though this round has had questionable success in getting feedback from my busy friends) and subsequent edits. But this is my first time really getting into the editing stages, so I don't know much of anything, haha.

[sarillia]

I hope your break has done you good. They can be very helpful sometimes, which is something I need to remind myself of when I'm feeling guilty about not getting anything done.

I really like that sentence. I almost want to write something with a parent-child relationship like that myself because the story that goes with it feels really interesting.

[agilebrit]

This week I have:

Subbed three stories.

Received my author copy and payment for my Bear Story in the Far Orbit Anthology.

Started outlining my story for the Baen Fantasy Contest.

Annnd... *drumroll* Made Finalist at Writers of the Future.

[serria]

Woaah, go you! You are killing it! :D Congrats on pretty much everything.

[sarillia]

I am so jealous of your ability to get things done. I haven't finished anything since December.

Good luck with your submissions and congratulations on making finalist!

[mk10]

Awesome! :)

[perfectworry]

Every month, I count up how much I wrote. This month, I've started including handwritten work in that tally (counting the exact word counts of a few pages then averaging then rounding to the nearest easy number (and doing this for each different handwriting size, as mine fluctuates wildly)) and my total is 29,465, up from ~7,000 in March. (I didn't include handwritten work in March, but it wouldn't've bumped it up over my monthly average of ~12,000.) I just yesterday found a few more pages, bringing me up to a little over 30,000 words last month.

In April, I participated in NaPoWriMo. I haven't written poetry for years, not really, but I scribbled out (banged out on my keyboard, more like) a poem every single freaking day. (I'm bummed that I didn't hear about the April A-Z until too late, but I've got it saved for next year.) In May, I'm doing Story a Day.

… sorry this is more "how was your month" than "how was your week," but since April ended, I've been doing my monthly clean-up.

[sarillia]

I got used to looking how I did over a month too since I started writing through NaNoWriMo. You did great!

I tried doing NaPoWriMo one year but it just proved to me that poetry is really not my thing.

[splinteredstar]

This week is getting into the last bit of my internship, so I've mostly been a corpse. One more week, then half a week off, and then a month of Differential Equations. Joy.

But I've done a lot of brainstorming on my newest idea, and got inside the head of my main antagonist and found myself deeply fond of her (her motivations, eeee), and sorted out some of my framework. Because I have to have a working metaphysical and spiritual framework, which is a hell of a rabbit hole to start down.

I've got enough of a plan that I can keep drafting, but I'll have to sort a few things out soon. But I like all my characters, so, I'll go with it.

[mk10]

This week has been good for writing. I spent my time plotting out the fanfic, and now I've written two chapters! I'm trying to write something everyday (even if it's only a paragraph.)

I think having written out ideas for scenes already helps a lot. Because I've got all the good bits down, and I can work on putting it altogether like a jigsaw puzzle. Once it's finished, I think I'll find a beta.

The rest of my life hasn't been so good, but at least I'm writing again.