A Writer's Haven

I finally figured out how to export my posts from WordPress into Word.  It’s not pretty, it’s certainly not clean, but the words are there, and that’s the important part.  Downloaded them by year.

I noticed that I started 800 Words as my junk drawer for writing.  Now I write for the two people who read it.  I know they like when I use their characters, and I only hope I do them justice.  (I suppose I do, otherwise they wouldn’t keep playing with me, I guess.)  But I opened up the second or third entry into 800 Words and read it.

And I was amazed.  No way; seriously, I wrote this shit?  There must be more nuggets in there somewhere.

The writing that is play seems to be a lot of fun.  I’m using Take Ten for Writers, which gives me ten minutes a day to write – the same amount of time that What’s-Her-Name from Writing Down the Bones wants me to write, minimally, per day.  That’s about a page in my composition book.

Hell, I can do that.

800 Words is just over a page and a half.  I can usually squeeze that out, too, though it takes me an hour.  Not because I type slow, but because I’m often keeping the end in mind and letting myself meander to get there.  Depending, of course, on whether I need to pad to hit my word count.

Stuff I’m working on:

Mal and Knight’s story over in Tumblr, starting from the beginning.  This one’s going to be a novel, though I would love a graphic novel if I could find an artist around here.  Craig’s List gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Daily writing in my composition book, the notebook at work, the notebook downstairs at the kitchen table, the notebook in the bathroom – you laugh.  Oh, shit, I need one in bed.  Taking care of that tonight!

Coming up with ideas for RP in Champions.  

Coming up with storylines for the characters I’m keeping and want to write more about.  Firefighter?  This means you.  Cybermancer?  You got fans because you’re hot so they want to know more about you.

And on it goes.

Reading:

Dead Iron by Davon (something-or-other).  Still following my (alleged) misogynistic tendencies of not reading a fantasy book by a female author because they can’t write male heroes worth a damn, I have found out that some males cannot write female heroines worth a damn, either.  Not sure yet about this guy because his heroine hasn’t been on-screen long enough for me to make a decision.  If the main male protagonist and this girl get together, I’m going to throw the book across the room in disgust.

Amazing what an extension cord can do for your life.

My bed is on the opposite side of the room where the electric plug is.  The light I have in the room doesn’t light up near my bed.  So you would put a light near the bed, right?

Except there’s no plug.  Well, now, with an extension cord, there is!  Let there be light to read by!

So now I don’t have to rely on Kindle to read the books I have.  And boy, do I have a ton.

For fiction this time around, I am reading Infinity, by Sherilyn Kenyon.  It’s kind of like my book, but my main character’s gay.  And my book is told from a first person, not third person limited.  My character also is the victim,  not the bully.  Okay, so it’s not like my book.

For writing, I am reading a book about shame, about how it’s different from guilt.  I am changing the end of my book, because guilt and remorse are things that Grim does not feel toward the end of the book.  He’s changed – from the bullied to the bully.  And bullies don’t feel shame, guilt, or remorse about what they do to people.

Whether that unhappy ending sells is another story.  I have an agent I’m going to send a query letter to.  At the moment, I’m polishing up the query and plan on sending it out as soon as it’s critiqued.  Which hopefully will be next month.

I sat down and figured out how many hours I write a week.

12.

You know how many hours I game?

About 60.

Gaming is mindless.  Writing can be work.  Sometimes it’s fun.  Sometimes, when I sit here thinking, “What character wants to talk today?”,  I have a total mind-blank.  I have about 30 characters that I can pick from.  Thirty distinct, separate characters with great backstory, but no wants.  That’s what drives a character.  As George Carlin says about sinning, “You gotta wanna.”

A few of the characters I have do have wants.  But not 30 of them.

I will have to cut down my gaming and get into the writing a little more.  If I can balance it, then I think I can be productive.  And that’s my resolution: to be productive.