Words: 240
Total words: 1263
Neat things: Telling lies to small children (aka "foreshadowing").
Hey look, it's the Incredible Shrinking Story. I started writing with the expectation that it would clock in at around 5000 words. Then I worked out more details and it started looking more like maybe 3500. Now? I've lopped off the first scene (folded the relevant bits into the second), and with what I've got I'll be shocked to see it over 2000. Which is okay, I guess, except for how I no longer have space to futz around trying to fit in character description and semi-relevant background and all that.
Stephen Donaldson gets a lot of crap for not being able to write, but I've always liked his short stories. In the introduction to his first collection he said something like "Novels are easy, you just sort of throw words at the reader and if half of them stick it works. With a short story you have fewer words so you have to carefully place them behind the reader's ear or in her pockets."
I seem to be collecting different types of writer's block. I let the story sit for a week or two, thinking I needed some distance and mental processing time to work out how the ending should go. Turns out I knew all along how the ending goes, I just don't want to write it. I don't think I can pull it off.
Still don't, but that's something where just pushing on through will actually work. One more evening, two at most, and I'll have a draft.
(Shorter pieces are just as much mental effort and anguish as longer ones. This strikes me as deeply unfair.)
Total words: 1263
Neat things: Telling lies to small children (aka "foreshadowing").
Hey look, it's the Incredible Shrinking Story. I started writing with the expectation that it would clock in at around 5000 words. Then I worked out more details and it started looking more like maybe 3500. Now? I've lopped off the first scene (folded the relevant bits into the second), and with what I've got I'll be shocked to see it over 2000. Which is okay, I guess, except for how I no longer have space to futz around trying to fit in character description and semi-relevant background and all that.
Stephen Donaldson gets a lot of crap for not being able to write, but I've always liked his short stories. In the introduction to his first collection he said something like "Novels are easy, you just sort of throw words at the reader and if half of them stick it works. With a short story you have fewer words so you have to carefully place them behind the reader's ear or in her pockets."
I seem to be collecting different types of writer's block. I let the story sit for a week or two, thinking I needed some distance and mental processing time to work out how the ending should go. Turns out I knew all along how the ending goes, I just don't want to write it. I don't think I can pull it off.
Still don't, but that's something where just pushing on through will actually work. One more evening, two at most, and I'll have a draft.
(Shorter pieces are just as much mental effort and anguish as longer ones. This strikes me as deeply unfair.)