Monday, October 02, 2006
Writing Day
It's Monday and, as such, this is my typical set-aside writing day. This is when I have a large(r) block of time in which to work on short stories and essays. If you talk to most writers, they will say that they are always writing. 'Tis true for me. My writing brain never shuts off. There are story ideas everywhere, plus I'm constantly working out the plots and characters for stuff I've started. I take notes continually. I use cheapy ten-cent school notebooks to record my ideas. Right now, I'm working out of three of them. One is for Filter & Splice ideas, one is a catch-all notebook, and one is for a series of linked short stories I'm writing.
Because I typically have to wait until Mondays to flesh things out, sometimes it's hard to get in the groove of writing. To warm up, I have a journal I keep on my computer. Normally, I vomit out all the whiny stuff, or talk about what I'm currently writing. After a page or so, I'm ready to write. Today, I'm using my blog as my warm-up. When I write in my computer journal, I take a print-out of the current day's entry. Then, if my computer crashes (God forbid!), I have a hard copy. I'm tempted to print out my blog for the same reason.
One of the nice things about my computer journal is that I can see how long it's taken me to write a story because I tend to record when I start a story and when I finish it. The story I'm currently working on was started back in April. It's been a tough one to finish because over the summer my writing got interrupted by warm-weather activities. I'm trying to work my way back into the head of my main character. While I am the character's creator, the character is also distinct from me, so it's not that easy to tap into her psychology once I've let it go. That's the goal for today.
Because I typically have to wait until Mondays to flesh things out, sometimes it's hard to get in the groove of writing. To warm up, I have a journal I keep on my computer. Normally, I vomit out all the whiny stuff, or talk about what I'm currently writing. After a page or so, I'm ready to write. Today, I'm using my blog as my warm-up. When I write in my computer journal, I take a print-out of the current day's entry. Then, if my computer crashes (God forbid!), I have a hard copy. I'm tempted to print out my blog for the same reason.
One of the nice things about my computer journal is that I can see how long it's taken me to write a story because I tend to record when I start a story and when I finish it. The story I'm currently working on was started back in April. It's been a tough one to finish because over the summer my writing got interrupted by warm-weather activities. I'm trying to work my way back into the head of my main character. While I am the character's creator, the character is also distinct from me, so it's not that easy to tap into her psychology once I've let it go. That's the goal for today.
Labels: blog, journal, story, summer, writing
