This photo is from deviantart. Sadly, I don’t remember the artist’s name. I love this guy’s tats – the one on his shoulder and the one on his belly button. I think just looking at them and him is enough make me want to turn those tats into stories. In fact, I think this guy may be what my main character’s step brother looks like.
Category: Daily
I have gone for weeks and weeks and weeks. I have not been twittering or commenting or posting anywhere online. Haven’t even been reading or writing, either! Which is more surprising (to me anyway). 😮 I don’t want to list the reasons (which involve a very familiar list of life and work and school) but lets just say I had difficulties making myself do much of anything. No, I am not depressed.
Anyway, I am writing again (but not reading yet). I think I will move to a different schedule, where Tuesday is day 1 and Monday is day 7. I might be able to post new chapters for teaser Tuesdays this way (starting next week).
Among other things, I read online today that amazon is selling more ebooks than hardcovers. I am utterly stunned.
Yes, the whole week so far has resulted in no work done on this story. I am desperately behind this week. God only knows if I will catch up. This past weekend, as expected, was a writing wash. Chores, actual washing, running errands and a bit of fun all conspired to leave with no writing time. So neither this story, nor the science fiction short is any further along and the short is due on the 30th. In my head it is done, but on paper (or rather my computer screen!) it remains unfinished.
I shall write tomorrow about how much I managed to do today. I need to type lots and very fast.
I wrote 168 words today. But that is deceptive, because I also got rid of 165 words I wrote last time. So I am ahead by only 3 words. It was a scene where she got a new dress and I realized that not did I not care about the new dress, it wasn’t necessary and only kept me from getting to the good parts that much sooner. The only good thing that came out of was that I finally met her mother. So far, her mother is as non-existent as a character can be and still be deeply embedded in the MC’s mind and heart. Makes me wonder about her.
Just in case I am wrong about how necessary this scene is, I cut and pasted it into another file. I call this new file “Princess Trash.” Princess because that’s part of the working title; Trash because it will hold stuff I don’t need. I have found over the years that instead of deleting scenes I don’t like, I should save them in a different file. Sometimes these deleted scenes come in useful. Sometimes I find I wrote them too early, and really, they make a lot more sense later on. Sometimes, with a few changes, I can use them. But mostly they just sit there.
Week 4 already. It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for so long. But no words today. I am going to see if I can’t at least get the beginning of the science fiction short done today. I need names for him, his car and his boss. Oh and a name for the story too.
183 words. Below what I should have done for today. I don’t feel like doing anymore today, but I am over my weekly goal, so it’s all good. Weekly word count is 1610. It is not a good place to end a chapter, so I think I will just continue with chapter 3 tomorrow.
I haven’t really started the science fiction short yet. The little bit of snippet I wrote the other day helped me with voice, but I don’t think the character reflecting on himself is a good place to begin. I’ve a kernel of an idea, though, and I think I am going to start with him in the garage. The thing I am worried about is whether or not I will be done by the 30th. Even if I am, I likely will not have time to rewrite or submit it for critiques. So whatever I submit will probably be a first draft and all I’ll really have time for is check spelling and make sure there are no missing words.
On the other hand, even if the story is not done in time for contest, I can still finish it, edit, rewrite and submit to other magazines.
So, 321 words. Word count sounds good and I am on track.
Except today’s stuff had a lot of dialog and I am not really good at dialog. I am afraid it may sound stilted. I feel like I am forcing words in my characters’ mouth and I don’t like this feeling. Come edit time, I think this may be one of the places that will require a full overhaul.
How do I make them sound real? I wish I knew.
No words today. So depressing. I found no time to write. The day just slipped past my fingers like water.
237 words. Not bad for today. Ended with a piece of dialogue, but it doesn’t feel right to me, so I am thinking that has to change and so the last few words don’t really count. We’ll see what I do tomorrow.
I discovered a story contest on twitter today. Here: http://crossedgenres.com/simf/contest/rules/. They want science fiction story based on some new (new as in this year!!!!) discover or innovation. I am going to try and see if I can write something. I can’t really think of any new inspiring discovery. At least, inspiring to me. If I do anything at all, it is going to be based on either biology or computers. Maybe some combo of both – nanotech with medicine. Or cybernetics. Or data mining. I read something about a scientist that managed to model a rat brain and what if someone managed to model a human brain . . . I don’t know. Maybe someone’s prosthetic suddenly got a virus? If it was a biological prosthetic instead of one involving chips . . . maybe. Or something to do with neural networks. The last submission date is June 30 so if I am going to write something, I need to figure it out fast.
Today when I was spell checking yesterday’s work, I had written rouge, like the make up, and I did not want makeup. I wanted the other word, the one that meant something like rebel, wicked, bad boy, like that. I used word-web to find synonyms and I couldn’t. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to spell the word I wanted. I could not even figure out what its synonyms were. Then it hit me – I typed in scoundrel (thinking of various romance novels Scoundrel This, Rebel that and Devil the other). Finally, in word-web’s types tab, and lo and behold, I found rogue. Thank you word-web! The only difference between rouge and rogue is that g and u are reversed. But such a difference in meaning! Really, I can just picture someone reading rouge and laughing their ass off.
Wrote a mere 180 words today. I don’t understand why I am so slow. The words just aren’t coming. I think I was a bit frustrated today by how long it took me to figure out the proper spelling for rogue.
My Great Writing Experiment 