The state of it…

Who was it that said the difference between a writer and a non-writer is that the non-writer has a lot of ideas for books, but that the writer actually gets them down on paper? That’s kinda what’s going on right now in my house. The Boy is sopping up all our attention and thought processes, and I have barely gotten any words down. Oh, there are still plenty of ideas in the old noggin! But they are biding their time until they can be written down.

With that being said, I am seriously thinking about using a digital recorder when I drive to work. I’ve hemmed and hawed about it in the past, but now may be the time. If anyone has any ideas about how to make it work, I’d appreciate your $.02 because I feel like unless I know what I have to say, it won’t come out. I’ve done some recording of notes, but not actual storytelling. Would it make sense to start my recording session with some purpose in mind? Maybe if I could just work out a story outline beforehand, then I can get in the car, fire up the recorder, and just record one scene, for instance. Is that how people use their recorder? I may have to put that question out on some writing forums and see what others do.

Also, I am trying to get some freelance gigs. I’ve subscribed to some blogs that post a digest of job boards. I would love to make some money doing what I love the most.

How are you doing? My crank is a little rusty. How have you been able to keep your writing going?

Clarkesworld

A little contest from Clarkesworld to win a free book. Clarkesworld is a very nice online SF magazine, one that seems worth tracking.
Anyways, back to the contest. I just have to post this link on my blog:http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_36/

Progress Report

Wow, it’s been a whirlwind week! We are basically opening up our house like an orange and turning it inside out. Paint and furniture everywhere but where they belong. The good news is that we got a room painted and are looking forward to more improvements. I hope the baby is happy when he comes…

Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be posting a writing progress report? Oh, yeah. I haven’t posted one of those in a long time.

Well, I’m happy to say that I did get some writing done, about 1200 words. I did it in two sessions of 20 minutes apiece. Sometimes I tend to blow off writing because…well, I don’t know. I just know that this time I just sat my butt down in the chair (a common tip in the writing world), set an alarm for 20 minutes and just wrote the whole time without stopping. Setting the alarm really helped me to focus on writing. So I plan to do it this way from now on.

As for next week, I’m sure I can find another 2 days with an extra 20 minutes in them. And that’s the essence of writing, isn’t it?

Have a great week & keep cranking!

Not again!

I’m late by about three days, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear I won a caption contest again at Inkygirl!

BlogCatalog

Win win!

I just won a caption contest over at Inkygirl.com! Her cartoon art is wonderful, and I was just tickled to see my name there also!

For those who haven’t checked out Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s website, treat yourself today. She is very writerly, and also produces a cute webcomic about writers called Will Write for Chocolate.

Writing Site Review: I Should Be Writing

Where can you go? What can you do? Where can you get advice on writing? The story is burning a hole in your soul and you want to get it out, but how? Many of us need advice about writing; we need it because we are new at the process, or are afraid of it, or unsure if what we want to write is good enough or new enough.

Enter all the writing resources on the Internet. There are tons of them. Yes, I hope this blog is one of them! But as for myself, I also enjoy so many of the others, I thought I’d bring them to you in periodic posts.

The first one, of course, is I Should Be Writing. This is the first writing podcast I found, and boy was I glad I did. 

Now, when I first logged onto this site, Mur Lafferty (the writer) called it “For wanna-be fiction writers by a wanna-be fiction writer.” But, that’s changed to “For wanna-be fiction writers by a writer who’s still learning.” That’s because in the meantime, Mur has published her works in hardcover, as well as via Podiobooks. That’s good news for all of us wanna-bes! And that’s what her message is to us: if she can do it with some creativity and honest hard work, then so can the rest of us.

Mur’s advice is down to earth and well-founded. Her struggles with developing a regular writing habit, with editing, with finding an agent, with self-publishing are all there and ready for us to listen to and benefit from. Be sure to check out her rules for writing. Also, Mur talks a lot about how the Internet has affected how writers need to approach their craft from a self-promotion perspective. She has interviewed many established writers, such as James Patrick Kelly, Cory Doctorow, Connie Willis, China Miéville, and Neil Gaiman! There are more, you just have to go and see!

And that’s my point: go, check out I Should Be Writing. Subscribe to it with whatever podcatcher makes you happy. Then come back and thank me. Go now!

Now, I’ve gotta go, because I should be cranking plot.

The Project List part 2

So, you have a Project List? That long-and-getting-longer list of half ideas and semi-stories? I just finished mine this week. Then I had to find where I had put it before I wrote it out again. Now it’s in my notebook, the ubiquitous capture tool. (Now, why wasn’t my notebook handy like it’s supposed to be?)

The list is 11 items long. Each list item has the designation S (short story), N (novel), or SN (short story or novel, potential for both). It is in no particular order and in no way shows how far along each item is toward completion.

Behind each cryptic list item is a well of energy. At least, that’s how I’m looking at it. Some items have a lot of energy behind them. Some seem more sluggish. These latter ones maybe will not last long on this list; some day they may return to the chaotic abyss of random ideas that are my notebook entries.

It’s the former items I’m most interested in. The ones with a lot of energy in the well. One of them is a completed story. Others have a lot of energy because they have real plots and need to be written. Others catch my imagination enough that I am enthusiastic about developing them.

What am I going to do? Well, I have already started. The finished short story is the one I’ve posted about before. It has the most energy and so gets first attention. After identifying the project I’m going to work on, I will determine the next logical action that will advance the project toward completion. This is what Dave Allen (of Getting Things Done fame) calls the next step. For this story, the next step (because I have already edited it on paper) is to key the changes into the electronic copy. That is DONE as of my lunch break at work yesterday. The next step is to submit the manuscript to the Critters workshop for critiquing. That was also DONE yesterday, after a little formatting for use in the workshop. The next step now is to wait until it works its way through the queue. This project suddenly drops in energy, there is not much I can do with it right now. So, I move on to the next project with the highest energy.

In this case, it is another short story. On Wednesday, the direction this story should take came to me in a little flash of insight, and so I am jazzed to get going on it. The next step is to take the insight and write out a short outline. I’m not good at writing outlines, but I feel the need for one now. 

It feels good to have a next thing to do. And since I am not trying to grasp the project globally I am not very overwhelmed. Writing a short outline is a small thing, so it’s something I can do without problem. Once that is DONE I will figure out what the next step is after that. And I suggest that the Project List/next step method could be a good way to approach cranking out a plot. I’m somewhat new at this, so what you’re reading is an up-to-the-minute report of what I am trying so I can focus on writing. If something else works for you, please feel free to comment below. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, keep cranking plot!

A fine use of my time

So, what have I been up to this a.m.?

After sending my Princess off with a good breakfast and lunch, I sat down to my short story and began keying in the changes to it I had been making on paper. After about 15 minutes, I’m halfway done. After the changes are done, I’m going to upload it to Critters and wait for some feedback. It goes into a queue and waits its turn. Critters feeds its critiquers a handful of stories each week, and so understandably it takes a while to get around to yours. After it’s uploaded, I’ll go to work on the next quickest job on my Project List.

A good use of my time today so far!

The Project List

Once your ubiquitous capture tool is in place, some of the ideas will coalesce into something bigger. Whatever you call these somethings, some of them are the nucleus of a story. What do you do with them?

The coalescing may take some time. Don’t force it. This is the point where some subconscious gear cranking happens. The ideas are just ideas right now, but your story making center in the brain is now free to tinker.

Now is a good time to make a list. If you’re like me, you already have a few unfinished short stories or books. Put those on the list! Don’t write down a lot of details, just the title if you have one, or a phrase that sums up the story. Some of these ideas are not fully realized, but instead are only half stories, missing that certain something that makes it a whole story. On this list will go the ideas percolating out of your ubiquitous capture tool, the ur-stories.

This is your Project List. This is the list you want to work from, taking one at a time and focusing on it until it is done. For example, my short story is the current WIP (Work In Process). As I’ve noted in the last progress report, I’ve decided to finish the few changes on it and submit it to the Critters workshop. By the end of the week, I hope to have that bad boy uploaded and in the Critter queue. Then I move on to the next project. My short story is not  done, but it is at a point where I am waiting on someone else to act, in this case Critters. What will be the next project? Not necessarily the one at the top of the list. But probably the one that will need the least amount of work, another short story that is half written and waiting for my attention.

If you find that you work better with a list, give this a try and let me know if you like it. However, we’re not done with the List. It’s a good start. In my next post, I’ll talk about what to do with each of those items on your Project List.

(BTW, sorry this post is late! I try to have them come out at the same time each time, but I’m running into my first real blogging challenge: the schedule. I try to have a few posts scheduled ahead of time, but I’ve allowed myself to fall behind a little. I’ll try not to let this happen again without reason. Keep cranking!)