Ramblings

A Page A Day

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So my writer’s group has made a pact to write a page a day for the entire month of June. When we came up with the idea I was fully on board and gung ho about it. I reassured the others it wouldn’t be difficult, you just had to make time. Well it’s day three and I’m finally writing. Silly me, I forgot how often life gets in the way, and how lazy I can be.

Tonight I have three pages. So it’s like I wrote a page a day. Shhh, don’t tell, I won’t if you don’t.

Anyways, I’m excited about this challenge, I like the excuse of having to write. I haven’t been feeling super motivated lately and this is a good kick in the butt. I plan to continue writing everyday, if I put it off again I know it will be several days and then I’ll have to find even more time to write many pages.

Also having a writers group is awesome. A) nice to talk to fellow writers, no one else understands the pain like one who feels it to. B) fun to hear other peoples writing in progress and discuss the challenges and triumphs. C) its best for accountability, we have to bring something to read to the group which means we have to write.

It’s getting rather late as I write this, so I’m gonna end it with this. If you’re a writer join a group if you can, some quick googling will surely give you positive results (it did for me) and join the page a day club. Get you’re writing friends to do it with you, or just do it for yourself to see if you can. You’ll be surprised at the result.

Novelling: Finding Time (there never is any)

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I recently started a new job, finally I’m on a real career path (in the gaming industry). Unfortunately for my writing this means I have even less time to not write, woohoo. It’s been a couple weeks and every day I feel inspired to get something down, and everyday I put it off until ‘I’m in the write mood’. For some reason I’m feeling punny. Anyways I wake up and make breakfast sit around and relax, maybe watch youtube, maybe read a bit, but never write. It’s the worst. The reason I tell myself is I don’t want to get started and get really into it only to have to leave to head to work. Most definitely a thing I’m sure.

During work I am simply to busy to get any time to even think about writing.

On my way home I think about it though, all the new stuff to get down, character’s to fill out and new plot points or scenes to do. Then I get home. Make dinner is first, then discuss the days events with my significant other, then maybe relax a bit and watch tv, or go rock climbing, or go for a run, or watch a new movie, or go to DnD or… You get it, right? There’s always something, plus when someone is around it’s impossible to write! Anyone else feel this way?

So now it’s 10:30 at night, I sit down at my computer, crack my knuckles and promplty watch at least one more episode of a show. One that my significant other doesn’t like. All of a sudden it’s midnight and I’m too tired to start writing. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

I wish I had advice for this problem, if I had solved it I would tell you. If it isn’t clear I haven’t. I will let you know though if I do come across one. I have a feeling it will be a combination of suck it up (as in stop making excuses) and… nope that’s it, just the first one.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

Novelling: Dreaded Edits

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Technically this doesn’t have to do directly with my current novel in progress, forwarning. On this fine afternoon I was discussing writing with some fellow wordsmiths and we decided to compare short stories. I found one I had written a few years ago but was still relatively proud of and showed it off. Immediately I got feedback and felt an urge I hadn’t really ever felt. I wanted to edit.

I have always dreaded the edit, in my earlier writing days I hated the process. I never wanted to sit down with something I had finished and re-write the bloody thing, I was done with it. I wanted to move on to the next thing. Or, I thought it was good enough, no need to go over it again. Such a naive, stupid thing to think. As I grew older I realized the editing process was important, my first drafts (no matter if it was fiction or non-fiction) were never even nearly perfect. A great deal of editing was always, always, always required. Often though I would spend hours writing and then feel sick of the piece, I never wanted to go back and have to re-do it all over again. So I often put it off until I forgot about the piece.

Then today happened. I took out an old piece that I had actually edited around the time of writing it, even letting others look at it, and eventually posting it on this blog. I let some writers take a look and they had some suggestions. I read through it again, I noticed so many things that I wanted to change. I turned on the change tracker in word and set to work. It took several hours to go through, line by line, meticulously examining and re-examining each sentence and word and comma.

Finally after an hour or two passed I was finished. I read through it again. It was so clearly better. I hadn’t reduced the word count by much if at all but it was smoother, the flow better realized. I felt proud and reposted it to the group. The feedback was even better.

This experience showed me not only is editing not as terrible as I had so foolishly believed but it also is important for your writing. In order to improve we need to see the mistakes we make and realize they are mistakes, they need to fixed or worked on. I used to constantly use the word seem, everything in my writing used to seem a certain way to the viewpoint characters. I never noticed it much before, until this meticulous line edit. Now I avoid using that word at all costs, unless absolutely necessary.

Editing is good and absolutely necessary to become a better writer. Don’t be afraid of it, like I foolishly was.

The Small Victories

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Daily Prompt: Write about anything you’d like, but make sure the post includes this sentence:“I thought we’d never come back from that one.”

I look into her eyes and whisper, “I thought we’d never come back from that one.” She kisses me.

We make it back to the dilapidated apartment building we call home. The world has fallen apart, but at least we are together and alive. Scrounging survivors like us are everywhere and meeting others is always risky and unpredictable. Many of us have not come back at all. Each day we survive is a victory.

 

 

Undone

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Daily Prompt: If you could un-invent something, what would it be? Why? Are there potential repercussions, or a possible alternative?

I thought about this long and hard. Going through all the things I could think of, but so much of it is useful or has been in some way a progression our species. I thought about guns and weapons, the internet and our obsessions, religion and God. But all of it feels necessary with it’s absence something would be created to replace it. I was stumped.

Then money popped into my head.

It's All About The Dollars!

It’s All About The Dollars!

Humans are inherently greedy. It makes sense, at least from an evolutionary stand point. However money has allowed us to count are greed. We can literally count how much we are worth to the world. We have become obsessed with money and value and accumulation. We always want more, more money, more things, more something. Nothing is enough, there is always something better.

That kind of thinking isn’t all bad, we need to think that way to progress, to be better. But maybe if money wasn’t around we wouldn’t be so obsessed with things and the accumulation of wealth. Maybe we would think more about our intrinsic value, our value to the world. How much we know, or can do, or have done. Art and creativity might be more highly valued instead of stuff.

I realize that the world would be vastly different without money, and in all likelihood we would replace it with some sort of alternative because things have to cost something. Who knows maybe we might eventually reach a point in our society where money is cast aside, where wealth is thought of differently. Maybe our greed will shift to the pursuit of happiness instead of the pursuit of accumulating the means to buy happiness.