Thursday, April 26, 2012
Taking A Leap
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Reaching Limits
Monday, April 9, 2012
Pressure, Pressure, Give Me More Pressure
What is it about deadlines and due dates that make the writerly part of my brain function like it’s supposed to? For example, when I was in school writing was always about seeing how far I could push the deadline.
I knew I had papers due weeks in advance sometimes, yet, I always worked better when I waited until the last moment. Yes, it meant staying up most of the night. Yes, it meant stress. Yes, it meant driving myself to the brink of sanity and clawing my way back over the edge. But, something about that worked for me.
So, as I sit here rotting on the east coast. (Sorry to any east coast readers, however, I’m just a west coast, coffee on every corner, rainy night’s kind of girl.) I find myself struggling. I think part of the struggle is an utter lack of deadlines.
I know, I can hear you now. “Make your own deadlines.” That sounds great, but it doesn’t work. Not even a little. It just makes me feel worse, because it doesn’t add the pressure, no one but me will know that I’ve missed it, and then I just get to feel guilty and wonder why it didn’t help.
I haven’t found a good solution to this problem; I don’t think there is one until real deadlines come into play. So instead, the goal is to, just do as much work, as possible each day. Write, write, and write some more.
However, this time, my writing for the week is focused on outlining. I’ve never fully outlined any project I’ve worked on. I’ve balked at the whole outlining process from the time I was old enough to learn about it, but for once I’m going to sit down and outline the whole project from start to finish. Chapter by chapter, then scene by scene. Perhaps knowing where I’m going will in fact help me get there.
Monday, April 2, 2012
I may have, perhaps, plausibly even, been avoiding this blog for a while, because it makes me feel guilty about not producing fiction.
Well, I’m over that, and I’m starting to write what I love again. However, in ways and times that I didn’t know, I would.
I’ve not been avoiding my keyboard during the break from fiction writing, instead, I’ve probably written ten or fifteen books worth of content on this and that, for different projects. So yes, I’ve been writing for a living, just not the type of writing I want to do forever. I’m not quitting my freelancing gig, I mean come on, I am paid to write…and until the fun writing starts to pay, that’s what I plan to keep doing. That being said, I’m going to stop neglecting my poor blog. I’m also going to stop putting my fiction on the back burner and letting everything else take over. The theme for me for April is going to be finding balance. Ha, in a world that is so off kilter that should be fun right?
I’ve learned a lot, some good some bad, some things that make me question everything I read on the internet, but I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve learned that I can write over twenty thousand words in a day if I want.
At that rate, I could go above the Nanowrimo goal in three days. Yeah, I said three days. Insane. I know.
Now the test comes, can I apply everything I’ve learned, the rate at which I write, to fiction? No, probably not.
I wish. It would make life so much easier if I could just churn out content, turn off the inner editor, and accept that this is the story my characters are trying to tell. Naw, that’d be too darn easy.
So I’ve come to believe that as a writer, I’m destined to fight with myself on a constant basis. More importantly, I’ve come to realize that I’m okay with that, and that in some ways that’s probably what makes my fiction interesting. So for now, I’m getting started again, and accepting that it’s a frustrating, challenging process, and trying to force myself to just work through it.