Write Every Day, Day #10

[auroracloud]

The first day of my mini-break, and I think I definitely need it, I've been soooo tired today. But I managed to have a nice long walk outdoors. And I finally took out the time to take out my journal, the pen-and-paper one, which I hadn't got around to writing for quite a while, and definitely not since all this *gestures at the world* started. It took the time out of the early part of the day I would otherwise have taken for my creative writing, but that's fine, because I really needed it and it felt good. (I could, of course, count journalling as my writing for this, but I don't usually, unless I'm travelling.)

Today's Writing

I had my creative writing time in the evening, then, and now again it got taken by something I hadn't planned - and this time a different one. I just meant to set down this image/idea of a character that kept persistently floating in my mind, and the next thing I knew, I had several handwritten pages of something approaching a story/novel synopsis. But it was fun!

Tally

Day 1: alexcat, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, china_shop, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, deifire, elliet, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 3: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman

Day 4: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 5: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman

Day 6: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman

Day 7: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, luzula, nafs, sakana17, sanguinity, shadaras, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme

Day 8: auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman

Day 9: alexseanchai, auroracloud, badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, deifire, falkner, lferion, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, shadaras, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman

Day 10: auroracloud, china_shop

Let me know if I missed you on the tally, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet! You can join in or drop out any time.

Comments

[luzula]

Just 300 words today! (But also did editing on another fic.)

Total wordcount on fic: 5,600

[auroracloud]

300 words is still a nice bit of writing for a day! I was just very proud of myself for managing slightly over 300 words - admittedly it's in Finnish, so it probably corresponds to 450 or so in English. Anyway, editing also takes time, so kudos to you for managing both. :-)

[luzula]

Oh, I didn't mean to disparage anyone else's achievement! It's just that I'd written more on the previous days.

Why is it longer in English than Finnish? *curious*

[auroracloud]

I didn't take it like that, no worries. Different people have different goals and writing paces. I just meant to say that even if it's less than you wrote on another day, it's still a good amount of writing from another point of view. Sorry I wasn't clear!

Finnish doesn't have articles, mostly uses suffixes rather than prepositions (e.g. "talossa" rather than "in the house"), and uses a lot of combined words where English would use two or more words (rather like Swedish does, in fact). It tends to mean that the same content written in Finnish has fewer words than when written in English - or most European languages, really, but English is the only one I write fiction in.

[badly_knitted]

Anything that's fun is worthwhile!

Started tackling the pile of branches I cut off the hedge yesterday, should be done with that tomorrow and I might keep working on the same patch, clearing Ivy and brambles, or I might start tackling the forsythia, which is somehow level with the upstairs windows. I love it, but it grows so fast, and it roots everywhere. As always, being out in the fresh air has left me physically tired and sleepy, but the good weather won't last forever so I don't regret the time spent outside.

April 10th - 998 words. I started a piece for a challenge with a 1000 word limit, but I still have to edit it and try to lose a few words, because there's a bit I need to add if I can without going over the limit. I'm at 992 words (the other 6 were edits on another fic).

[auroracloud]

Words to live by!

Taking advantage of good weather for garden work sounds sensible! I like hearing about folks working in their gardens - my gardening skills mostly extend to keeping geraniums and some herbs alive on my balcony on the years I remember to buy them. I do fantasize about a balcony garden, though, we'll see if this year I get around to starting one.

Good luck with the challenge piece! Maximum word limits are always tough for me, because I'm likely to go long-winded when I start. But it can also be good for your writing to have some extra restrictions to make you think more carefully about your words or come up with different ways to write something.

[badly_knitted]

Gardening is very therapeutic. What I'm doing t the moment, clearing overgrowth, is practically mindless. I don't have to think, just relax and keep snipping.

You should maybe consider a couple of tomato plants. If you get a small bush variety they're really easy, just give plenty of water, and a good tomato food and you'll be enjoying home grown tomatoes all summer.

Thanks, I still have to finish it but I think I've nailed down the wording for the bit I want to add. Then it'll just be a case of editing down to the correct word count.

[sanguinity]

A mix of transcription, editing, and new writing, morning and lunch. I feel like this story is near the end, if only I could figure out how to get there... (or where it is that I'm trying to get to!)

[auroracloud]

Good luck figuring out the ending and finishing your story!

[sylvanwitch]

I think FUN is probably the best anything can be these days, so I'm tickled to hear that you had such a run of good writing, both in the morning with your journal-writing and in the evening with your creative runaway idea! :-) Yay!

I wrote first today, before grading, in an attempt to put into action what you've talked about here earlier, that is, scheduling my writing first and also writing earlier in the day. It worked well on both counts! Huzzah!

I added 598 words to Bond/Q and have come to a Declaration of Feelings. ;-)

[auroracloud]

Fun is definitely a quality to be treasured when it's available! :-)

Glad both of those approaches served you well, at least on these occasions. Also yay Declaration of Feelings, it is a Very Important Thing.

[nafs]

I did... stuff? Tweaked the beginning and end of the scene I wanted to work on so it blends in to the stuff around it. Then I moved to the other POV and stared at it a lot.

I desperately wish I had paper and ink for my printer right now because I think having things in front of me on paper that I could move around might be very helpful. I added some words and moved things around a little and technically what I was working on is a complete scene but I am fairly sure it's missing content that needs to be there before I move forward. I have older versions of the same thing and laying everything next to each other might help? But, barring that I think maybe I just gotta sleep on it.

[nafs]

Apparently by sleep on it I meant "get an idea while brushing my teeth, take the notebook to bed with me and write three pages of notes on what's missing in that scene and how the next four or five need to fit together". So I've ended my day a lot less frustrated than I was.

[auroracloud]

I can't tell you how many ideas I've had while brushing my teeth. I've no idea what about that activity makes it such an idea generator. It's as good as a shower! (And showers are good.) Come to think of it, maybe I should just take to brushing my teeth several times a day if it helps writing? Uh, I digress. But I'm glad you had such a productive end to the day, even if things were hard going earlier!

[sierranovembr]

I know it's a typo, but the "Days 1-47under the cut" seems appropriate, because that week certainly could have lasted 47 days by my reckoning.

Work writing this morning, got a section nicely smoothed out of my bullet points. Hoping for fun writing later this evening.

[auroracloud]

Meep, I thought I'd fixed that typo, but I guess I only fixed it in one post rather than in the template I've got in a text file so I don't need to copy from an old entry. But I know what you mean, some weeks are absolutely like that!

Glad the work writing worked out smoothly - good luck with the fun writing!

[china_shop]

Day 11: Only a paragraph or so, but I wrote today -- and I might manage more later. :-)

[auroracloud]

It's still writing! And it's a paragraph more than you had yesterday, so yay!

[cornerofmadness]

glad your break helped.

I didn't have much time to write today but I got 845 words on two projects and got one posted.

[auroracloud]

Well, that sounds quite productive for a day in which you didn't have much time to write! Well done! :-)

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks

[yasaman]

Day 10: 1,073 words today! 1,000 of those words on this bit of fun fluff rather than my plotty WIP, but oh well.

[auroracloud]

Excellent! I continue to approve of fluff! And hey, some words on plotty WIP are already more than no words. :-)

[lferion]

Day 10 - Another instadrabble. Spent a pleasurable time on the phone with a friend, throwing story ideas back and forth.

[auroracloud]

Excellent! That sounds like a lovely way to both be connected to your friends and do creative things!

[alexseanchai]

realized that one chapter was two chapters and fiddled with the document accordingly, including finding title and epigraph

[auroracloud]

That's one step forward with story structure! And I find titles so hard to come up with, so kudos on that! (It's why my chapters never have titles, since it's hard enough for me to come up with story titles. But I love chapter titles in other people's work.)

[alexseanchai]

it's easier to find chapter titles when I've already decided on the titling theme. like, it's dangerous to go alone (take me, I'll be your player two), titles from the lyrics of "Pinball Wizard". (and possibly other game-related songs, I haven't found any I like enough yet.)

[falkner]

No words from me today, but I randomly re-read some old stuff I wrote in 2012 while I was trying to organize my old WIP files, and I was hit by how engaging my own old writing was. I've been in a slump for a while now, but seeing how much fun I clearly used to have writing put me in a really good and motivated mood!

[auroracloud]

Ooh, I love it when something like that happens! It's really an awesome feeling to read something you've written before and realize it's good! Hope you can make use of the motivation, I have faith in you!

[carenejeans]

Day 10: La, la, la, nonfiction project. And another alibi sentence -- which may actually be the first line to a story. I thought of a line to follow it today. I might try that weird thing I was doing before, writing a story an alibi sentence a day. 8-)

Yay for having fun writing!

[auroracloud]

Yay for lines and follow-up lines! I'm sure writing a story with alibi sentences can totally be done!

[caprices]

I've been following this but couldn't check in because I haven't written anything! But I managed to write two letters and got them into the mail and everything. So, not particularly long-form, but a start!

[auroracloud]

Hi and welcome! And ooh, letters! I've been meaning to get back to letter-writing because I used to love it so much and I still love writing by hand, and I really miss letter-writing. I've been hoping this stay-at-home situation would inspire me to write letters, but that hasn't happened yet. So yay for writing letters and getting them to the mail and all! I'm sure the recipients will love to get them!

(I even have an icon just for this topic, which I too rarely get to use.)