If you watch the above there is a scene with some android girls typing. That's me, or so my partner says.
This month I've been taking my writing seriously, for definitions of serious that means I write everyday and try and do a thousand words. On the the advice from a friend who is a professional writer, big shout out to Alec, I downloaded a programme called Scrivener. It rocks, because it makes keeping track of a story's structure a piece of cake, or a walk in the park, or just plain easy. Well, for definitions of easy where one assumes that you are the kind of writer that likes to work from a structured outline. Not all writers do, some prefer writing as guided discovery with the story flowing from the writing process.
Now if I could only write narrative as easily as I just wrote the above paragraph.
Seriously, I'm finding it quite difficult to get the tone and flow of the words down as I want the to be. Instead it's all a bit rough around the edges and at times I think my eyes are going to bleed, or my brains start dribbling out of my ears. Still it beats sitting around doing something one doesn't enjoy doing.
Anyway, enough of the bonhomie, this week I've managed 8563 words, and for the month 25,087 words in total. Approximations as Scrivenor only claims to accurate give or take ten words, or so. Go figure?
I was also reflecting on the amount of stuff I've written over the last twelve years for a game that I participate in called Contact! I just totaled up my mission reports that I wrote after each game and that alone came to 26,568 words, which doesn't include all the annual Power Point Presentations I did for the game, other reports on what we found, or requests for information I made to the plot team. I'm not going to go back and calculate all the words for the games that I wrote, but I'd guess that it doesn't fall far short of 70,000.
I don't regret any of it, but I do realize that all that time spent writing could have produced the best part of a novel, or an RPG scenario book, or even a dissertation for a degree in something.
So, as my friend Alec reminded me, blogging is writing, and I have been doing a lot of it. So now I'm going to do some more.
This month I've been taking my writing seriously, for definitions of serious that means I write everyday and try and do a thousand words. On the the advice from a friend who is a professional writer, big shout out to Alec, I downloaded a programme called Scrivener. It rocks, because it makes keeping track of a story's structure a piece of cake, or a walk in the park, or just plain easy. Well, for definitions of easy where one assumes that you are the kind of writer that likes to work from a structured outline. Not all writers do, some prefer writing as guided discovery with the story flowing from the writing process.
Now if I could only write narrative as easily as I just wrote the above paragraph.
Seriously, I'm finding it quite difficult to get the tone and flow of the words down as I want the to be. Instead it's all a bit rough around the edges and at times I think my eyes are going to bleed, or my brains start dribbling out of my ears. Still it beats sitting around doing something one doesn't enjoy doing.
Anyway, enough of the bonhomie, this week I've managed 8563 words, and for the month 25,087 words in total. Approximations as Scrivenor only claims to accurate give or take ten words, or so. Go figure?
I was also reflecting on the amount of stuff I've written over the last twelve years for a game that I participate in called Contact! I just totaled up my mission reports that I wrote after each game and that alone came to 26,568 words, which doesn't include all the annual Power Point Presentations I did for the game, other reports on what we found, or requests for information I made to the plot team. I'm not going to go back and calculate all the words for the games that I wrote, but I'd guess that it doesn't fall far short of 70,000.
I don't regret any of it, but I do realize that all that time spent writing could have produced the best part of a novel, or an RPG scenario book, or even a dissertation for a degree in something.
So, as my friend Alec reminded me, blogging is writing, and I have been doing a lot of it. So now I'm going to do some more.
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ObWritersFriend: have you done your 2,000 words today?
ReplyDelete(Also: if you do not at some point find yourself hating the book and wishing you'd never thought of it, you haven't finished writing yet.)
It's Sunday, so no.
DeleteDon't worry about roughness on the first draft. Just get the story told. Then you go back and fix.
ReplyDeleteThe first draft is about writing, not editing.
Thank you. You are absolutely right. I'm currently writing new stuff, and when I get stuck I go back and rewrite the old stuff, which then helps me write more new stuff. I'm really enjoyed the writing I did today too.
DeleteI've also been sorting through all the stuff I can find about writing on the internet and seeing what makes sense? The only thing I know to be absolutely true is that one needs to sit and write, because ultimately writing a novel requires you sitting down and writing the words in your head down.
Write, write, write, write, write.
ReplyDeleteEdit later.
Trust me, I'm an editor who writes.
;-)
P.S. Did I mention you should write?
P.P.S. You're also pretty good at it.
Thank you, I try, or is that I was told I'm trying? ;-)
Delete