Friday Rants and Raves - May 30

[sarillia]

Hello everyone! It's another Friday. How is the writing going? Anything to celebrate? Anything you need to vent about? Let's hear it!

This week's picture is by Zdzisław Beksiński. He is another favorite of mine and I definitely recommend looking into his work if you're like me and enjoy fantasy and surrealist art.

Comments

[sarillia]

I'm feeling very motivated lately.

I set a goal of 5,000 words for today. I've written a thousand so far and I'm making good progress on a short story I've been working on for a while. I would love to finish it today and that might actually be possible. Then I could spend the next day or two revising and finally send it off to beta readers so I can start getting experience with getting feedback. I've been writing for years but I have almost no experience with responding to critiques so I'm nervous and excited to see how that goes.

I also picked out a pen name the other day after making my last post. I've set up several accounts under that name, including a Wordpress blog.

I have another goal for myself too. I want to start subbing a story by the time I go to my next psychiatrist appointment next month. Getting to talk to him about meeting a goal is always a great incentive for me. I always feel good about talking to people who have seen me at my worst about how well things are going.

[ljwrites]

I've just submitted a short story to On the Premises. (Thanks to agilebrit for info on the contest.) I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted to write about, which is ironic given that the premise was difficult decisions. :) I rushed my entry too much to do the best job I could and submitted it literally at the last minute, but just completing the process gives me a huge sense of accomplishment--and trepidation.

It's scary because submitting original fiction is new ground for me; I have quite a bit of experience with writing fanfic and getting reviewed, but never showed original fiction to anyone beyond a few acquaintances. I had almost forgotten how much effort can go into creating original characters and building a world. It's sobering how much heavy lifting there is to do when I start from scratch. This is new ground for me, both scary and exhilarating.

Meanwhile, short story submissions also look like a good way to develop and maybe get the word out about my planned novel. As I get the research done and flesh out the characters and story, I plan to write shorter stories in the setting and try sending them out. I'm also considering doing NaNoWriMo in August or so to bang out the first draft of the novel. No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, recommended by sarillia, is doing a good job of selling the idea to me.

[splinteredstar]

I'm half way through an intense summer math class, so writing is unfortunately on the back burner right now. (several days have consisted of going to class and then coming back and doing differential equations for eight hours. With occasional video game breaks so that I don't stab my textbook.)

Nevertheless, I have, mostly for the sake of my own sanity, carved out some time. It took me a bit to get back in the swing of things and figure out how words worked again, but I've started drafting out some fanfiction. And I think I've worked out one of the fiddly bits in my current original project - it was one of those "crap, who knows what and what does he think about it" moments where I had to backtrack.

So the short version, I'm kind of a corpse, but one that is slowly making its way back to life.

[caecilia]

I promised someone rather important I'd write something for a rather important thing and I've been so anxious about it that I can't write anything more than rambly journal entries about my dreams and I feel really guilty and bad about it, actually.

(Also the image isn't loading? Looks like the site doesn't like you hotlinking.)