Comments on: Fractured skull, concussion, cracked ribs, and strangulation marks

By: HannaBelle

HannaBelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:07 +0000

Thanks for the comments, y’all.

Now that I am learning more about productive writing. Though I like the baxic story for Bx2, and Bx1, I will let them rest and let my muse work them for a while. My Muse is still trying to find her voice, though she loves her props, the color yellow, like a yellow blue jay, a pink boa and various hats.

“Garrett’s Confession” has been with me for YEARS and I got a good clear sentence for it, as well as another one for a sister project about the main character. It might be just a chapter and it might be a separate story.

This weekend, or at lunch today, I plan to see how many scenes I can conjure up for it, then starting writing, making my cake on Sunday.

By: HannaBelle

HannaBelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:53:36 +0000

I have a similiar problem. When I was not working, morning writing worked best for me, I get so tired through the day. Now that I am working, I have not made the time yet but the job is new and I am still finding the rhythm of it — and me.

I love the analogy, like making cake. I figure I am still gathering my ingredients.

I have made time at work a couple of times, over lunch, and decided this morning to write early morning on the mornings I don’t walk/run. Weekends might have to figure prominently in cake making/writing.

By: HannaBelle

HannaBelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:50:11 +0000

Excellent, three short scenes to go!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:48:24 +0000

563 for me. (Loving the TalysMana story! Reading along with a pro’s first draft is pretty effing cool.)

By: red_dot

red_dot — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:19:38 +0000

No words, added some outline to a chapter. Research…watched spacewalk on ISS live today for 6 hours. still at 29k and holding. If I could just get past ch8 fun writing is ahead.

By: Gabby

Gabby — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:34:48 +0000

1067 words today and a twist that has me shocked. I’m taking Pencil Neck/Holly’s advice and just letting my character twist in the wind. Holey,moley, I am blown away. I toyed with rewriting it so she wouldn’t make the mistake in public for people to see but then I said, what the heck, I’m going to leave it. Boy, oh boy, things are not looking good for her. And how she’s going to get out of it? I have no idea. I am shocked, worried and excited all at the same time. And my supporting characters totally surprised me today by their reactions. That was really fun (after it got going). It just came alive like… “no you can’t get away with everything, MC. Some things you’re actually going to regret. ” My reader side (that has been concerned for a little while) is breathing a sigh of relief that MC is finally facing a real, potentially very bad consequence for her thoughtless (she thought harmless, normal) decision.

[eek... being a writer is very nerve-wracking]

By: Gabby

Gabby — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:51:34 +0000

It’s cool the way you handled this. Your character is still on the path but you didn’t make it easy on her. It’s nice to see the before and after–I learned something for my own WIP. thanks!

By: DasteRoad

DasteRoad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:24:15 +0000

Of course you know your own situation better than me, Hannabelle, but speaking from my own experience, it might be a good idea to just let your Bx2 project rest for a little while, at least until you realize what you really want to do with it. I’m doing this with an old, badly-wrecked project of mine, and even if I’m not ready yet to go back to it, working on another, unrelated project in the meanwhile is giving me a much-needed breath of fresh air, and helping me to see and understand the old project’s flaws much better. And my muse never stopped pinging me with ideas about it

By: DasteRoad

DasteRoad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:18:43 +0000

Gosh, how I know that feeling.

The Sentence exercise is one the things that led me to understand exactly why my old, huge and overgrown fantasy project series, Infinity, was wrecked for good: I had crammed too many ideas, too many characters, too many stories (heck, even too many *worlds* for that matter!) in the same place. I was trying to make Infinity the monument to every idea I’d ever had, to quote Holly’s article on revision (http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/one-pass-revision.html). And in doing so, I killed them all: because if you cram too much stuff in the same place, soon you’re going to be out of fresh air.

By: DasteRoad

DasteRoad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:05:58 +0000

Heheh well, I hope working out and eating come back very soon into your daily schedule! Especially eating… it has a tendency to be vitally important

Thanks for the understanding… I’ve always been a night writer, but I’ve found this changes a lot during the year for me. In the summer, for instance, I can easily get up as early as 6:30 AM, thus allowing for myself around one hour of writing time before going to work. In the middle-cold season, it’s much harder for me to get up early, so I go back to nightly habits – until the Evil Day Job super-weariness and crankiness kicks in, that is, exactly like now.

Today I wrote bits and pieces during breaks and lunch at work, and just a little bit after dinner, and it seems to be working: I was already over 500 when I got back home from work without even realizing it!

I think I’ll stick to this strategy for now and see how it goes. Good luck to you too!