Jul. 14th, 2003
write write write
Jul. 14th, 2003 09:07 pmGah. Busy busy. Discovered last Monday that the first draft of the first story for class was due Thursday afternoon, instead of, say, over the weekend like I'd been expecting. Bad timing. Monday I spent all day either in the car or at BMG. Tuesday was class, then work, then talking to E for a few hours, then crash. Wednesday was much like Tuesday, only without the work. At around seven I sat down and started writing. Threw out a couple of false starts, and eventually got started on something with some promise. Then I went to bed.
Thursday I wrote for seven hours, with a half-hour break for lunch and maybe a half-hour scattered in there for other goofing off. (Plus probably an hour of lying on the bed or pacing; I count this as writing time on the grounds that I actually was trying to plot while doing it.)
I determined that I can write all day at about 300 words per hour if I don't mind being utterly beat afterwards. This does not really bode well for any sort of potential career stringing words together in an entertaining/edifying fashion. Or maybe I'm just out of shape; need to start a workout, get those writing muscles toned up.
As for the story: it's crap. My excuse for this is that I wrote the entire bloody thing in under twenty-four hours, from initial "I'm writing these phrases one after the other to see what comes out" to final email submission (an hour late, at that). There's a decent story buried in there somewhere, I think; with another day like Thursday I could probably turn it into something I wouldn't be ashamed to have other people read. The prose isn't bad and there's a couple of cute style tricks I pulled, but the main point of the story is the mental state of one of the characters and how said state changes, and neither the mental state nor the changes are shown very well at all. (In my defence I didn't realise that was the main point of the story until the last hour and a half, at which point I still had most of the last scene to write.)
The pseudoscience is also crap, but that can be improved upon pretty easily. I hope.
So yeah. I was pretty burned out on writing by the time I sent the story in at six in the evening. Sat around and played Disciples for a few hours because it involved working a different part of my brain. Ate dinner, thinking "Man, that sucked. Seven hours of writing. And if I plan on doing this for a living I'll have to do that pretty much every day." The thought of attempting to put any kind of thoughts on paper/screen caused actual physical revulsion.
Then I crawled into bed and had not one, not two, but THREE LJ entries/personal notes writing themselves in my brain (and colliding with each other, which was less than useful). Clearly it wasn't nearly as scarring an experience as I thought at the time. I suppose I'm stuck with this whole writer idea, at least until something better comes along.
Thursday I wrote for seven hours, with a half-hour break for lunch and maybe a half-hour scattered in there for other goofing off. (Plus probably an hour of lying on the bed or pacing; I count this as writing time on the grounds that I actually was trying to plot while doing it.)
I determined that I can write all day at about 300 words per hour if I don't mind being utterly beat afterwards. This does not really bode well for any sort of potential career stringing words together in an entertaining/edifying fashion. Or maybe I'm just out of shape; need to start a workout, get those writing muscles toned up.
As for the story: it's crap. My excuse for this is that I wrote the entire bloody thing in under twenty-four hours, from initial "I'm writing these phrases one after the other to see what comes out" to final email submission (an hour late, at that). There's a decent story buried in there somewhere, I think; with another day like Thursday I could probably turn it into something I wouldn't be ashamed to have other people read. The prose isn't bad and there's a couple of cute style tricks I pulled, but the main point of the story is the mental state of one of the characters and how said state changes, and neither the mental state nor the changes are shown very well at all. (In my defence I didn't realise that was the main point of the story until the last hour and a half, at which point I still had most of the last scene to write.)
The pseudoscience is also crap, but that can be improved upon pretty easily. I hope.
So yeah. I was pretty burned out on writing by the time I sent the story in at six in the evening. Sat around and played Disciples for a few hours because it involved working a different part of my brain. Ate dinner, thinking "Man, that sucked. Seven hours of writing. And if I plan on doing this for a living I'll have to do that pretty much every day." The thought of attempting to put any kind of thoughts on paper/screen caused actual physical revulsion.
Then I crawled into bed and had not one, not two, but THREE LJ entries/personal notes writing themselves in my brain (and colliding with each other, which was less than useful). Clearly it wasn't nearly as scarring an experience as I thought at the time. I suppose I'm stuck with this whole writer idea, at least until something better comes along.
In which I learn that I do /not/ suck.
Jul. 14th, 2003 10:47 pmHowever crapulent my story for class may be, it isn't Dragonlance.
See, we have to read two stories a day, and workshop them the next day.
I am currently reading someone's Dragonlance story. It started out with a dwarf. My initial reaction was "Oh, it's generic fantasy." It then mentioned Qualinesti. "Oh, it's generic fantasy that's stealing names from Dragonlance."
Then a kender showed up.
I am going to have to come up with something nice to say about this story.
Um. The actual plot portion isn't horrible. He could probably chop out most of the first forty percent, excise Dragonlance, rewrite what's left so that the prose is at least entertaining, and have a decent, vaguely creepy fantasy story. He'll get lots of good feedback.
See, we have to read two stories a day, and workshop them the next day.
I am currently reading someone's Dragonlance story. It started out with a dwarf. My initial reaction was "Oh, it's generic fantasy." It then mentioned Qualinesti. "Oh, it's generic fantasy that's stealing names from Dragonlance."
Then a kender showed up.
I am going to have to come up with something nice to say about this story.
Um. The actual plot portion isn't horrible. He could probably chop out most of the first forty percent, excise Dragonlance, rewrite what's left so that the prose is at least entertaining, and have a decent, vaguely creepy fantasy story. He'll get lots of good feedback.