Write Every Day, September Day #9

[auroracloud]

How come is the weekend over again? Not fair. I've been semi-productive today; I cleaned up here a bit, with the help of some podcasts to listen to (I'm so much more likely to do something practical at home if I can at least use the time to listen to a short story / some Doctor Who geek talk / an audio drama), and I even vacuumed, which I haven't done in way too long. I cooked dinner and baked rolls - though dinner was one of the easiest foods I know how to make, baked roots with Finnish squeaky cheese (apparently they call it that in the US and it's either that or the Finnish name, which I promise you can't pronounce; check the Wikipedia entry I linked). It's super yummy, especially now that local vegetables are in season, but I managed to leave the roots a bit undone... Need to fix that before I eat the rest of it. At least the rolls turned out good!

After dinner I felt totally wiped out and just sat down to watch the Classic Who serial The Enemy of the World, which by the way is utterly brilliant so far. I only saw bits of it during the Twitch marathon, because timing (I think I watched most of what I did in the morning while having breakfast before work). I was very impressed already then, so I've been looking forward into seeing the full thing. Oh, and I want Victoria's outfit in that story. I also want her outfit from the Ice Warriors & the Abominable Snowman. It's funny, 60s Who makes me want to cosplay more than any of the New Who I've seen, because nearly every companion (definitely including Jamie!) wears things I totally want to wear, too. I've never wanted to cosplay anything before, but now I keep listing all the styles and outfits from this that I want to get. And not necessarily even to cosplay, just to have something nice to wear that I know is secretly a Doctor Who reference. Should do a separate post about that.

After two episodes I had to stop it in order to work out a bit, though. My upper back and shoulders don't like me currently, I haven't exercised enough...

Okay, enough rambling. I like putting a bit of non-writing stuff into these posts and then it gets away from me, sorry! I had some writing-related thing I wanted to put to y'all, but don't remember it now.

Today's Writing

So far I've worked a tiny bit on the original scene I started yesterday, and a bit more on one of the fics I started this week. I also looked at Femslash Exchange prompts to get treat ideas, and well, I have treat ideas now. I need to remember to start the canon review for my assignment, though, darn it! I'll still try to work on something a bit before I go to bed. Trying to do all those household things has meant I haven't been properly sitting down to write, and now I ought to go to sleep soon...

Tally


Day 1: carenejeans, cornerofmadness, justmcshane, navaan, shopfront, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (9 so far)

Day 2: alexseanchai, brightandravenous, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, navaan,shopfront, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (11 so far)

Day 3: carenejeans, cornerofmadness, navaan, rosefox, shopfront, sylvanwitch, tinx_r, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (10 so far)

Day 4: alexseanchai, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, justmcshane, navaan, rosefox, shopfront, sylvanwitch, tinx_r, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (12 so far)

Day 5: alexseanchai, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, justmcshane, navaan, shopfront, sylvanwitch, tinx_r, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (11 so far)

Day 6: alexseanchai, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, shopfront, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (8 so far)

Day 7: alexseanchai, carenejeans, cornerofmadness, justmcshane, shopfront, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (9 so far)

Day 8: carenejeans, cornerofmadness, justmcshane, sylvanwitch, tinx_r, trobadora, ysilme, and me. (8 so far)

If I missed you or you wrote but didn't check in yet, let me know! And you can join in any time.

Comments

[carenejeans]

I've been calling them bubble diagrams, but that's actually something different!

What I was doing is called "clustering." You start by writing a word or a phrase in the center of a page, draw a circle around it, and sort of free-associate from there, writing new words, circling them, and drawing arrows from each circle to the new one. It comes from Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico. This blog gives a good description of it (with some prompts). I tend to use more specific words or phrases for the first circle, like a story idea or even a title. For instance, I used "creepy bookshop." From there I wrote "books" and "owner," which became branches for ideas -- is it the owner that's creepy? Or the books? Both? The building itself is cursed? etc. All of this in a word or a phrase in little circles, or bubbles, as I was thinking of them, with arrows going everywhere. 8-)

Sometimes I use them for free-association, sometimes for something more like an outline. It depends on if I'm in a idea-gathering or an organizing mood...

Isn't it funny how a familiar food you've eaten all your life suddenly bursts with possibilities? So exciting! I need to write about my recent adventures with... beans! 8-)

[auroracloud]

Thank you for the link! That does sound like a useful technique, especially when you're in the stage of planning, playing around with ideas (or characters, worldbuilding) etc. It could be worth trying with my possible-novel as well. I've done a bit of a similar thing on occasion, but it's been a bit too structured, not as conductive to free association as it could be.

Need to check out that blog as well, and maybe the book, it's always nice to run into new writing-related blogs or books!

Yes, it's fun when you suddenly realize new possibilities to food you've known all your life. Yay beans!