Tag Archives: Writing

April 28, 2013 · 7:48 pm

Resolutions!: An Update

After last week’s disappointing showing with regard to getting back on track with my resolutions, I am happy to report that:

1. Emily and I went running this past week. Twice, even. While I can’t say it was easy, I will say that it was nowhere near as hard as I had been dreading. In fact, there were moments where I might even say that I had fun. While running. Part of that comes from the fact that I have been slowly figuring out the correct way to run. It turns out that if you don’t do something well and inefficiently, it’s not a lot of fun to do.

2. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have been writing fiction again, albeit in small amounts. What’s more exciting to me is that I’ve been thinking of new projects and ways to monetize my writing, which hasn’t happened in a while. My attitude is slowly shifting away from this prolonged laziness and shifting up into another gear. So we’re going from Park to Neutral now. Unfortunately, there are no hills near-by and this metaphor is going nowhere fast.

So I’m feeling accomplished.

Go me!

-D-

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· 7:42 pm

Time Divided

Over the last month or so, I’ve been writing more and more at a steadily increasing rate. Ya’ll haven’t seen it, since ya’ll aren’t reading my new blog (and for good reason) and you haven’t seen the fragments of the short stories I’ve been working on (once again, with good reason), but the writing is happening more.

Which means, unfortunately, that I’ve had less time to spend over here. I used to write more than the quote I set for myself. You can see a few times last year when I wrote more than ten entries per month. This year, however, you would be hard-pressed to find a week where I’d written more than my required two entries.

I can’t say that I’m entirely bummed out that writing is getting in the way of writing. I’m just letting ya’ll know that I am writing, even if I’m not writing.

-D-

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March 31, 2013 · 10:37 pm

Spoilin’ for a Fight

 

Ideally

I would like to return to a point where I would write entries like:

In Defense of Eve

Isolated Moments on a Long Road

A Noir: In Three Parts

I am a good writer. Not great. Not the best. But I have my goddamn moments. I used to rage and wail and let loose a torrent of fire about subjects that mattered to me. I could get poetical and allegorical and drop some symbolism in a paragraph filled with careless vulgarity and I would relish in it.

But I’ve bound myself up in knots and ties and subjects I won’t speak about and sticking to tired formats and language I won’t fucking use in my blog anymore.

And the more I think about it, the angrier I get and the more I want to rail against it. I’m tired of this mediocrity and blandness and triteness. It’s boring me and it’s boring you. Let’s not psychoanalyze it. Let’s just acknowledge that when the writer is bored, we’re all bored and I’m bored.

I used to write things I was proud of and now I can’t even remember the last ten blog entries.

Let that be my resolution for the rest of the year. I’m going to write about things that don’t bore me to tears and you will be entertained and I might say a bad word or two.

–D–

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· 9:20 pm

Bloggin’

With my waning, most likely, undiagnosed bronchitis on the one hand and wedding plan on the other, I haven’t had much time for blogging. I’m not asking for forgiveness, since most of you are spambots and were not offended anyway, I’m just offering up an explanation why I haven’t been able to stick to my blog schedule at all.

In truth, blogging and writing have slid so far down the list of priorities that I’m having trouble seeing them. I feel like I’ve been phoning it in the last couple of months as my job has managed to drain most of my energy in a surprising fashion.

I keep plugging away and hoping that something is going to happen, but all that’s really happening is I’m beat after work and during the weekend, I do not want to sit in front of my computer after doing that all week long. I at least have a hobby now, which I’ve maintained for a surprising amount of time, but now I want something else.

The blog has to change. The format has to change. I’m not feelin’ it and you’re not feelin’ it.

Let’s work together.

Throw some ideas up and see what we get.

-D-

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March 24, 2013 · 10:20 pm

The Magic in the World

Instead of writing my movie review, I’ve been sitting here watching episode after episode of Fool Us, a British show where various British magicians try and fool Penn and Teller with their magic tricks. It’s just forty-five minutes of magicians trying their hardest and I can’t stop watching it.

I have a fascination with magic shows that can best be explained by why I also love found film horror movies: I love the idea of trying to convince your audience that the world they live in is not all that it appears to be.

It’s one of those things that constantly gets ahold of me. The idea of being able to forgot for a second that there is no magic and accept what your eyes are showing you, that’s a powerful thing to me.

I keep having ideas of how to accomplish it, but it’s a little harder than just writing a story. You have to dress the stage and make sure that there are no seams where the flats don’t mesh together perfectly.

I doubt I’ll ever do it, but I do have some ideas.

One or two.

-D-

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March 13, 2013 · 8:32 pm

Starting Anew

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve decided to start a new blog and it’s been a startling experience. In the last two days, I’ve written four entries. They didn’t require soul searching or deep thinking or effort to write.
And that hasn’t been the case here for a very long time. Often, I struggle to come up with ideas or concepts to write about. That’s a big reason why you get to sit through new features every other day.
But the new bog has a single focus and a single point of conversation to start from. I know what I’m going to be writing about the moment I sit down. And while that sounds constricting, it’s actually freeing. It frees me from paralyzing choice.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be writing here twice a week, but this other blog has given me ideas about how to energize this blog.
That’s a good thing and I’m looking forward to the next few weeks.
-D-

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February 17, 2013 · 2:04 pm

Playing in Someone Else’s Playground

I’ve been working on a story to submit that takes place in an already established universe and the experience has been…interesting, to say the least.

When I’m writing for myself, it’s fairly speedy. I make up the rules for the world and away I go, only stopping because I saw something shiny on the internet. The story will be fully formed in my head and I’ll usually only change things based on the story itself.

But because I’m playing in someone else’s world, I have to abide by the rules. Which means research. Lots and lots and lots of research. Keeping in mind that I only have to write a thousand word sample, I would say that I’ve devoted a good three or four hours to just reading articles and books to make sure that what I’m writing makes sense within the confines of the world. And this is a lot for someone who never does research when they write.

I’ll write for a little bit, then wonder if I can actually do what I’ve done and then head back onto wikipedia. And then go back and erase three hundred words. It’s a jarring and jolting process, like riding in a car driven by someone who doesn’t know how to drive stick; I go forward a foot, jerk to a violent stop, roll back a few feet and start again.

But, in a way, it’s freeing. Most of the heavy lifting has been taken off of my shoulders. I can just focus on the plot and the characters without spending too much time on world building. Its a shift in priorities and a different type of writing that I’m enjoying and fits better into the time I have available.

So, maybe, in a few months I’ll be contributing to someone else’s universe and then I can take another whack at my own worlds.

-D-

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February 3, 2013 · 5:41 pm

Sample Size

I’m submitting a story to a site that does not want the whole story, that just want a five hundred word sample from the story. At first, this sounded like simplicity itself. I can write five hundred words in twenty minutes. Boom, done.
But then I really began to think about the implications. They needed to be the best five hundred words I could possibly write. in a very small amount of space, I need to sell the entire ten thousand story.
I began to review the entire the entire story based on those first five hundred words. I realized that I needed to tighten the plot and shift the focus. I re-worked the idea for everything to make sure that the sample I was sending would immediately grab the reader.
And that’s how it always should be. If the beginning of your story doesn’t grab the reader immediately, then the rest of the story is irrelevant. You can’t expect anyone to wade through a boring or uninspired beginning in the hopes that stuff will get more exciting.
And it only took a submission process to help me relearn extreme basics.

-D-

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January 1, 2013 · 2:59 pm

I Do Resolve

As has become a tradition, I will spend today not looking at how I goofed up last year’s resolutions, but looking at how I can improve for the following year. As I grow ever older, I’m learning more and more about myself; not just in how I need to improve, but in the best way to improve. For example:

1. This year I want to write two to three blog entries a week. Last year I resolved to write ten blog entries a month and I succeeded, though there were a few months that the last week of the month was loaded down with last minute entries. While I don’t necessarily want to increase the number of entries I write this year, I want do want to increase their regularity. Previous attempts to write on specific days failed miserably. I would get so hung up on trying to write on Monday/Wednesday/Friday that I if missed those specific days, I wouldn’t feel the need to make up the day on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday. With this new resolution, you get the same amount of content, spread out regularly through the month and, hopefully, less last minute, badly written entries.

2. I hesitate to mention writing projects. I’ve found through my own experience that announcing a writing project or a planned writing project removes all of my interest in actually carrying out the project. So secret resolutions go here.

3. I want to run, continuously, around the reservoir. In the last few weeks, I’ve fallen away from my running, but hell, this is the time to get back on old horses. It’s always better to pick a specific goal rather than a general one (I will be able to run two miles in five minutes versus I will run more), so as my first running goal I want to be able to run completely around the local reservoir without stopping. I hope, truly hope, it won’t take all year to do, but once I accomplish this goal, I can adjust accordingly and choose a new target.

4. I want to expand my cooking knowledge. I want to plan a series of recipes to make throughout the year, some difficult, some less so, but right now my recipe repertoire is a little lacking. Cooking, to me, is like magic, but, you know, real. The ability to make a good meal, a meal that people want to eat, is an ability worth having. My end goal this year is to make….bouillabaisse. Don’t ask why I chose this. Maybe because it’s French and French cooking has a certain something about it. Maybe it’s because Alton Brown talked me into it with an episode on making bouillabaisse. Maybe because it seems difficult, but doable. Whatever the reason, it’s one more goal for the year. To make bouillabaisse.

And that’s it for goals I have for the whole year. I have other things I want to do and accomplish, but they’re small projects or events or none of your business (for now). I hope there’ll be some exciting things in store for ya’ll.

In the meantime, enjoying a metric ton of beer reviews.

-D–

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December 27, 2012 · 7:07 pm

The New Year

Every year, I’ve made a habit of trying to do more things for the next year. I’ll read more books, I’ll write more stories, drink more beers. I feel that if I don’t do more, than I’ve achieved less.

What generally happens is I accomplish less and feel depressed that I didn’t hit my arbitrary goal or I’ll accomplish what I wanted, but with lesser quality and higher stress. For example, in 2011, I wanted to read 100 books. I ended up reading a lot of shorter, badder books and still feeling worn out, like I was forcing myself to do something I was supposed to be enjoying. This past year, I tried to read 125 books, fell miserably short and now I’m angry.

In 2013, I want try for more meaningful goals. I’m tired of burning myself out to do something impressive. No more themed blog months, or reading five hundred books. I’m going to pick goals that mean something to me and goals that are obtainable, but still difficult.

And I’m doing half year goals too.

It’s hard to maintain something for an entire year or to pick a goal that’s literally going to take all year. Why not make it manageable? Pick a task and then reevaluate in June.

In some ways, I think I’ve grown as a writer. This year was the first time I continued a writing project for an entire month and managed to stretch a story out for more than 20,000 words (thanks NANOWRIMO!). In terms of stories that I’ve gotten published, I’ve still managed to maintain my record of zero. I’ve also managed to keep up my goal of ten blog entries a month for the entire year (if I manage to write a bunch more entries this month).

It’s time to re-evaluate. Not just because it’s the start of a new year, but because I feel ready to level up and maybe become some sort of half-adult, instead of the quarter-adult I currently am.

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to blog about goals; what I want to accomplish this next year in terms of writing and what you can expect to buy from me and enjoy.

We’re not jumping into this, by golly. We’re taking baby steps into maturity.

So, join me as I walk into 2013 and let’s help me become a better, wealthier, writer.

-D-

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