July 2016 Motivation Thread

Still working on my anthology story, very, very slowly. I can find about an hour every day to work on it, sometimes two, although very little gets done in that time; I'm constantly making little adjustments here and there to the pacing of it, trying to figure out how to get it under 10,000 words and still be a story.

I might have to do a word count tonight, see how much wiggle room I have and figure out what scenes need to be added and what can be cut. Hopefully I won't have to make the difficult decision of setting the current story aside and trying to write something new in the next two months. . .

But, I haven't missed a day of writing in two months, and that's a victory in of itself. I'm really truly afraid to miss a day, because then it'll be easier to miss another, and another. Then I'll just stop entirely and never want to start again.
 
I have had a bad week. I wrote the first day of vacation and it didn't go well and now I haven't touched my story since.

I am looking at huge rewrites/edits for my anthology story, and I think after that I am going to do the same with a 10k story that I wrote two years ago. I am going to hammer the crap out of them until the writing is on par with stories that I like from various markets.

I think that is all I will probably accomplish between now and the end of the year.
 
SteveW said:
I think that is all I will probably accomplish between now and the end of the year.
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I know it seems like you are not making headway, but I'm sure all the struggling will improve your writing. I know I had (and still do) go through a lot just to get a story out. I re-wrote my map story three times - completely. I think the only thing that stayed the same between the three distinct versions was the beginning. I think it is mostly a mental hurdle to overcome, to just chop chop and write something different. It is hard, but once you allow yourself to "kill your darlings", your story can grow up into what it wants to be. Hopefully. :)
 
@SteveW, @JonLaidlow, and I had a productive (I hope) time on WriteClub yesterday afternoon. I finished my second review for this month (I think it was a goal of mine to write two reviews - so - woohoo! done!) and I sent off a story to a market. I also went through some of my older stories and they didn't seem that bad to me. Not good, but not terrible either.

But, it did get me thinking about my newly re-discovered novel from last year turned epic epic novel that I want to write this year. Should I really embark on such an ambitious task (four POVs, each in first person) when I really don't know what I'm doing? Shouldn't I just stick with short stories, as I keep telling myself over and over, until I know what I'm doing? But my stories ideas are usually bigger than short stories can handle...thus I go back to novels...

Ug. Writer angst.

I have all day today to write, so I'll go do that...just not sure what I'm gonna write. Still, should be a good day. :)
 
As I've said many times I think you have to write what you want to write, what you enjoy reading....whether that be flash, short stories, novels or poetry. Some of course move between them easily. All writing is just arranging words into sentences that paint images, trigger emotions, invoke questions and identification in the reader. The difference in the types/length are in the scope of the work as a whole but not totally. Even short poems can be or universal scope and novel can cover even a simple idea.

Bottom line, write what you want, work and edit relentlessly to create your vision.
Therein you will be fulfilled.
 
@N. E. White, I don't know if anyone knows just what we are doing with our stories. I think that's part of the whole reason why we write. To figure out what happens or how it happens. Once we know that, well, then we know what we're doing. And figuring it out is half the fun. At least, it's half the fun for me.

I still haven't written since last week, and I'm feeling like doing something brand new, so take my words as you will...
 
RedMage said:
I still haven't written since last week, and I'm feeling like doing something brand new, so take my words as you will...
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I went with writing my epic. It's coming along, though I am second guessing the whole first person thing (where did I come up with that?!). But for now, as you said, I'm having fun writing it and that's the important bit. Thanks for your encouragement! :)
 
RedMage said:
@N. E. White, I don't know if anyone knows just what we are doing with our stories. I think that's part of the whole reason why we write. To figure out what happens or how it happens. Once we know that, well, then we know what we're doing. And figuring it out is half the fun. At least, it's half the fun for me.

I still haven't written since last week, and I'm feeling like doing something brand new, so take my words as you will...
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True for many, not all. :)
 
N. E. White said:
I went with writing my epic. It's coming along, though I am second guessing the whole first person thing (where did I come up with that?!). But for now, as you said, I'm having fun writing it and that's the important bit. Thanks for your encouragement! :)
Click to expand...

I'm still considering doing exactly that with one of my (barely started) novel ideas....

Go for it!
 
N. E. White said:
I went with writing my epic. It's coming along, though I am second guessing the whole first person thing (where did I come up with that?!). But for now, as you said, I'm having fun writing it and that's the important bit. Thanks for your encouragement! :)
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All all this talk has got me thinking about working on my longer/novel-length piece that has been sitting.....not getting much else done anyway (someone please kick my muse in the butt!) so might as well pull it out and work on it a bit. :)
 
Here's some motivation for you all - Samuel R. Delany interview in the Paris Review.

"....
INTERVIEWER

At Temple University, where you currently teach, you place a lot of importance on the individual sentence.

DELANY

Yes. It goes back to the notion that what happens in the mind of the reader when the reader moves his or her eye from word to word on the page—that’s what a story actually is. What the language calls up in your mind can also make you think in a rich and vivid manner. How it makes you think about what it evokes, including its place in the world—that’s particularly important. And how it makes you think about it must be supported by certain discourses. If those discursive models are rich enough, they inculcate the sophisticated idea of discourse itself that I’m striving for. For forty years, that has been and remains my project.
..."
 
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You've all been very, very busy! Nice work! :)

I've been at a complete standstill for a week due to houseguests, but at least have mentally solved a couple of plot points (well, I think I have!). Ready to get back to work tomorrow... Today I spent most of my free time between laundry, catching up on all things internet, and trying to rewrite the blurb for my novel. And bleurgh, why are those things so hard to do? :p
 
Did a half dozen pages this weekend as the plot on my WIP is moving forward again. Got to introduce the "Blue Goose" locomotive that was mentioned throughout "Tracks" (a really cool baby blue streamlined Hudson). It's great watching a secondary character from the previous novel having their back story get filled in, including a stormy relationship they never mentioned.

It's nice to see folks picking up on novels. Yeah, a slog, but a worthy slog just the same.
 
Blue highlights are for sections that I need to rewrite. I just had to highlight almost an entire page. What's scarier? A lot of the rewrites are for point form scenes that need to be actually written. (This story is going to be much longer than I originally thought....much longer)
 
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