Tag: First Draft

A Word Is A Word, And It Counts

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

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Yep, that’s what I tell myself. A word is a word, no matter if it’s one of one or one of thousands. And it counts the same, so if you’re tight on time and you just jot down that first word of a chapter, paragraph or conversation, it’s one more word than you’ve had before, and it counts, baby. It counts.

This little pick-me-up speech comes courtesy of a recent busy schedule, but busy in a good way. A little more contracted work meant more time devoted to that work, which happened to require a little more research this go around coupled with a client requested change on the morning of my deadline, but hey, all good, right?

Sure, except for making any real progress in my personal, creative, fun type of writing. And I missed it, big time. So that’s when I decided to just do microbursts of writing in short little drive-by type of sessions, running through the office, opening up my laptop and typing a sentence or three or five, then closing up and going back to regularly scheduled duties and responsibilities.

And it wasn’t bad. It began to feel more like a game or a contest, which obviously I would win no matter what because hey, it was a game with myself, and I made the rules up, which for the record is the best type of game to be in, amirite?

But it worked, in a sort of flash fiction way where all the passages are related and depend on each other. I’ve enjoyed being in previous writing exercises that had a number of writers involved, each creating a one hundred word passage in a story, then passing it on to the next writer to continue the story with their hundred-word passage, then passing it along to the next, and so forth. All passages must be related and continue the story from where the previous writer had left off. It’s a very cool and fun exercise and can be timed if you like, turning it into a writing version of improv.

The best thing is, not only does it count, it adds up. Those short little microbursts of writing can add up to significant words by the end of the day, elevating your WIP with dedicated ideas and thoughts that can be filled in and expanded on later, you know, when you do get the time to sit your butt in that chair and do what we all want to do-write more.

Happy Writing

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Don’t Discount Those Non-Writing Achievements And Successes

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

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Word counts. Chapters. Scenes. We all have our way of measuring our progress, don’t we?

And then, when we miserably fail to reach our goal on a particular day… and we will… we label ourselves losers, failing yet again, and never wanting to chicken-peck that terrible old keyboard again.

Go ahead and feel sorry for yourself if you must, giving yourself one hundred percent of the blame for your day’s lack of goal attainment. But can you also, for one moment, give yourself credit for the other things that you DID get done, you know, those things that may have prevented you from attaining your word counts and writing goals?

Things that life or family or friends or work threw your way in the waning moments of your day that just couldn’t be pushed off? Emergencies that had to be dealt with? Helping others that are at the farther end of their rope than you are?

You get my drift?

Non-writing goals, man. Non-writing goals. Don’t discount them. In fact, you should celebrate them. Reaching a goal, no matter what part of your life they pertain to should be cause for celebration, but you never see a decorated cake for that, now do you?

No, you don’t, and it’s too bad because whenever you reach a goal, you make yourself a better person in one way or another. Achievements give us confidence, yet we tend to dwell on the negative, because, let’s face it, us writer folk can be a sorry bunch at times, so consumed with our personal writing success that we fail to recognize all the good that we’re doing otherwise. It’s a thing, I’m sure, and if anyone wants to get into the psychological aspects, have at it.

But we know that reaching goals makes us all the warm and fuzzy inside, which generally leads to a more pleasant disposition on the outside.

A more pleasant disposition will lead to better relationships, more satisfaction in your current situation, and less moping around thinking “Why me” and “What if”. It’s the whole power of positive thinking angle with a conscious choice to be happy.

Didn’t get your word count in today? So what.

A chapter short? Big Deal.

But DO tell me more about what you DID get done today. I bet it was awesome!

 

#HappyWriting

 

Regaining Writing Momentum After The Holi-daze

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

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So that big push in November for writing more, especially if you participated in NaNoWriMo, led to a giant “sigh” in December, flowing right into the holidays, after which we skated into the new year.

Before you knew it, you might not have written anything constructive for a couple of weeks.

Sound familiar?

I myself felt like I was treading water, and I can’t swim!

The creative writing part of me just kind of remained stuck in the mud, not moving backward, but certainly not moving forward either.

So how do I jumpstart myself out of this little funk? 

It happened to be a combination of things, the first of which was putting the behind back into the chair. If I wasn’t writing, I was reading. I read fiction by authors I enjoy and nonfiction works on the craft of writing. I read blogs and comments on writing techniques. I attended our local writing guild’s workshop.

And then I read my own work.

I read my wip, from the start to where I left off, which consequently left me hanging without any type of closure to the story, because well, there was no ending written for this story, now was there?

No, there wasn’t, and you know what? There is only one person that can write that ending, and that’s the one sitting in my chair. So there’s your motivation. You are the only one that can write your story, and write it well.

So get that behind in the chair, at home or at one of your favorite inspiring locations, plug into your favorite music to create with (just please tell me it’s not that creative mood channel on Spotify-please, please) and start writing. Anything. Anything at all. Just write. And you’ll get back into that groove that you had started before being interrupted by those pesky holi-daze.

Good writing!

 

Keep Your WIP Moving With Secrets And Motivation

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

 

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Keeping plot, action, and dialogue fresh can be a challenge. but Sol Stein can help you with that.

Who is Sol Stein, you ask?

He’s the writer of a great book on craft techniques and strategies, both fiction and nonfiction, and beyond. It’s titled, Stein On Writing. And why wouldn’t it be?

He suggests to spice up your drama, dialogue and plot, maybe give each participant a unique secret, kind of a whisper in their ear. Something that relates to the story, yet only is known by the person speaking. It may be a motive for a particular action, a desire for a specific result, a reason for having a lively conversation in the first place, etc. Provide something unique to each person that only they know to fuel their actions, motive and personal stance within your WIP. And no two characters get the same information at the same time. Intriguing for sure.

But it makes total sense, doesn’t it?

I mean, isn’t that what happens in real life? We take the bits and pieces of available information that specifically pertains to us and use that as our motivation in our conversations and dealings with people. Now, whether any of that information is accurate is a totally different story, but nonetheless, it affects us in everything we think and do.

From his book, Sol Stein says:

“That’s what happens in life. Each of us enters into a conversation with another person with a script that is different from the other person’s script. The frequent result is disagreement and conflict–disagreeable in life and invaluable in writing, for conflict is the ingredient that makes action dramatic. When we get involved with other people, the chances of a clash are present even with people we love because we do not have the same scripts in our heads. And the tension is even greater when we are involved with an antagonist.”

So there ya go, the secret to keeping your dialogue and plot action-oriented and full of drama.

Just like we want it to be.

 

#AmWriting

 

 

Seasons Change, And So Do I…

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

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Well, here we are, back at that dreaded daylight savings time, or maybe a better name would be the daylight shifting time. Apparently it’s not enough that the sunlight naturally dwindles a bit each day now, because we feel theneed to manipulate our clocks to better match the lighting patterns of the sun.

Shouldn’t we at least get to vote on this?

It really doesn’t matter, I suppose, because I can’t really do anything about it. I just accept the fact that I will, through no fault of my own, lose an hour of my preferred daylight time while some others may benefit from the change.

But does it affect you? More specifically, do your writing habits change with daylight savings time? With the seasons in general?

It does for me, I know that. Being someone that loves to be outside, including being able to sit out there and so some writing, you betcha it changes things. It brings me inside, of course, but it does so without the benefit of natural light. There I sit, darkness the backdrop out of the window, soft light glowing at the desk, and it puts me in a different mood. A wintertime, sluggish, less aware mood. If I liked locking myself in a room to write, I would love this time of year, because that’s what I feel. It’s more of a job than an activity, and it’s harder to get up and get outside to stretch the bones and mental processing.

But here we are, and theres nothing to do but sit my posterior down and put words to paper, whether hot or cold, sunny or darkened.

And you know what? Even if it does feel like more of a job during this time of year, what a wonderful and fulfilling job it is.

Happy writing to you all!

 

Hey! Who Is Gonna Take Care Of That Fictional Dog You Just Put Into Your Story?

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

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It was an easy decision at the time.

I’ll add a cute dog in my fiction. Who doesn’t like dogs, right? It’ll be a great secondary-type character to add to the story, one that will pal around and help show the emotions, attitudes and thoughts of my characters.

A dog will coexist perfectly with the characters, their personalities, where they live, how they live, and so on. It’ll be that little extra that adds another layer of reality to my story.

But then another reality hit me, and while looking around, I shouted, mostly to myself, “Hey! Who the heck is gonna take care of this thing?”

The more I started thinking and writing, the more I realized that I had to account for this fictitious, yet needy canine companion. The characters have to consider the dog when they do things, when they go places, and the length of their absences. It’s going to be there in the evening and overnight. It’s going to be hungry in the morning, and well, it will have to go outside and do it’s thing, which means somebody has to clean up after it does that thing.

My make believe dog is beginning to be just as time-consuming as the real thing, so now I’m wondering if its even a good thing to do, meaning adding a fictional dog to your story. Will there be fictional slobber in my shoes? Will there be fictional chew marks on our fictional furniture? Do I have to spend a couple of hours to find a fictional vet for my fictional dog? Just who is going to take care of this dog? And for crying out loud, what is his name?

As I turned away from writing this, I thought about that old cardboard box graveyard of old, dead Tamagotchis, GigaPets, and Nanos that we once had, way back when, and I feel a sudden, irrational fear and anxiety that my fictional, yet unnamed dog may suffer a similar fate, caused by inattention or just plain forgetfulness later in my manuscript.

Should I adopt this dog, even in a fictional world?

These decisions about getting pets are tough, even in a make-believe world.

Finding The Time To Write Usually Means Making The Time To Write

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

 

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Sure, we all have the same amount of hours in the day. That’s been the retort when complaining about not finding time in the day to get some quality, uninterrupted writing done. But everyone has their own individual priorities that have to be completed, based on work, family, or even health situations.

So I always roll my eyes when I hear about that go-getter that writes a sentence at traffic lights, jots down a few ideas that they’ll get back to in the next book while bouncing around on the metro, comes up with another hundred words while waiting for the barricade to rise at the parking garage, and then successfully finishes that integral  paragraph while waiting for the elevator.

I mean, can they be a legitimate writer?

By all accounts, at least from what we’ve seen on the internet, those statements just can’t be true, because we know that real writers act like now, don’t we? Being the cerebral sort, we writers, according to social media, obviously need a pre-writing routine to even think about getting words down. We have to endlessly organize and reposition things on our desk. We need to have just the right coffee cup, with just the right saying on it, in just the right spot on our desk. We have to arrange our favorite pens in just the right order, even if we write exclusively on our computers or laptops.

All the legitimate writers start their day by browsing through the wonderful and inspirational quotes from other writers and stare longingly at rustic cabins in the snow or sexy little shacks on pristine beaches so that we may have glorious words flow like spring water from our wonderful creative minds out through our fingers that are sparking along a keyboard or traveling side to side through a leather bound journal.

And last, but not least, how the heck can we be writing if we haven’t even proclaimed to the world by way of social media that #AmWriting?

So I ask you, how can we believe these stories of spontaneous yet connected words being written during the awkward pauses of life’s moments to be true?

How is one supposed to find the time to passionately pursue their writing?

The only way that I know, and it works pretty well, is to put your sitter-downer in the chair and start pecking on the keyboard or scribbling on a legal pad. I do like to always have a pen and some sort of paper with me to jot down thoughts and ideas, even unrelated to my current work, because as soon as I think I’ll remember it later, it’s gone, and trust me, it’s just as hard to make out those ink smudged words when they are written on your sweaty palms.

To find the time, you have to make the time. (Somewhat inspirational quote)

PS  I wrote this short blog, sentence by sentence, while gargling mouthwash, waiting for the dog to hack up whatever is stuck in his throat, and pausing to pick up the paper off of the front lawn, because #amwriting.

That’s It, Write It Down

On By gldlubalaLeave a comment

One thing that I have learned over the years is that it can be pretty dang hard, if not impossible, to edit something that’s not yet actually written.

Yeah, brilliant, I know, but for many years I wrote, trying to edit at the same time. And while typically driving me to drink, that process really…slowed…down…my…writing. I’ve heard the old idea over and over, “Just get the words written. Get that first draft down, and worry about editing later”.

Well, you know what? That’s true. True as can be. Start writing the words, even if you have to make up some new ones to finish the article, feature, chapter, or book. Because you can’t edit what isn’t finished.

I’m not saying it’s easy. No sirree! I’ve fought the urge to go back and rewrite some things in this little passage already. I have to constantly tell myself that I can do it later, after everything is written. It’s a mindset that I have to continually focus on. The first draft is just that, a first draft. Don’t expect perfection. Don’t expect a polished piece of prose that rolls off the tongue. Do expect to edit and polish later, at a more appropriate time.

More importantly, in a novel scenario, I know that no matter how many times I edit that first chapter, and no matter how perfect it is, it means nothing without all of those subsequent chapters. So I better get those down so I can edit those, don’t you think?

Let’s get after it!