My daughter has been sleeping for an hour and fifteen minutes, and I have written 230words so far today. That's almost half of what I need for my 500 word goal, which I'm attempting to work my way up to doing again.
Crud, she just woke up. More on this later.
A thought occurred to me as I played with my four month old daughter today. Being a writer is a lot like being a child sometimes. There are days that frustrate you and nothing seems to make sense or go your way, and there are days where the sheer exploration of life, of learning and discovering as you go, is simply exhilirating. I have recently experienced both types of days in the short story I am currently writing. On the bad days, I often feel as if some piece of a puzzle is missing, and it confuses me. I keep staring at a sentence or a paragraph, trying to figure out a way to make it work, and worrying why there's just something about it that seems so out of place that I can't go on. It's almost like an instinct--I know something about it isn't working, but I have to unravel what it is.
Sometimes solving that problem is as simple as rewording the sentence, or crossing it out to write a new one. Other times, I have to delete the offending sentence or paragraph entirely before my writing brain turns on again, so to speak, and the wheels in my mind start churning the story toward my next goal.
As a writer, I know I will have many "bad" days. I have even gone through blocks of time, sometimes months, where I felt myself in stasis, unable to move with a project no matter how I tried. Sometimes even working on another project didn't help, because I was simply in a very ugly slump for varying reasons.
But on the good days, it's like the words are curling straight out of my pen's ink onto the page, or like they're printing themselves on the computer screen. Words, imagery, dialogue...they're all a jungle gym or a slide that I can build, explore, and play on. And it only takes one good day to make up for a lifetime of bad ones. That's why I keep writing; I know that eventually a good day will come again.
...between fantasy and horror, at this point in my short story. I'm writing the first battle scene, and after some struggle, I need my main character to kill one of the cows in a way that sort of shows just how much power she has and what kind of person she really is. I have several ideas, some more gruesome than the others. I'm afraid of making it too gruesome or macabre in places, lest my story be recategorized to horror instead of fantasy in the short story contest I'll enter this in. I don't want to become known as a horror writer, because that's not what I consider myself. I don't write horror, I write fantasy.
However, given how many people will enter the contest, the chances of my story winning are low, given the odds. I could then try and market the story as a dark fantasy if I so chose.
I always wonder, though: what is the difference between dark fantasy and horror per se? The line looks awfully blurry sometimes.
How does one battle a vampire?
No, really. How? Sure, there are lots of ways to defeat a vampire, which I could rattle off in a jiffy, but how does one battle a vampire? This is an interesting thing to explore as I work on my story, for it includes at least a couple of fight scenes between my main character and the vampires. My goal is to portray it in such a way that my character doesn't just blow them all away, so to speak, and be done with it (though believe me, she would love to). She has power, and yet, she isn't a god. But she is a force to be reckoned with, and not just because she's a necromancer. I want to have something of a struggle, after all, or what's the point?
If it were regular vampires, perhaps I wouldn't be quite so stumped, because I'm more familiar with how a human vampire would move and attack, possibly. But how does a vampire cow? There must be differences, and yet...what are they? How can I realistically portay them? How does it affect these battles?
It's a lot of food for thought, but I'm slowly writing my first fight anyway. Likely, it will come together better in the editing, as most of my battle scenes do.
On another note, check out this post on one of my favorite blogs. She makes a good point about letting a story simmer from time to time. If we don't do that as writers, we run the risk of really mucking up a good story with too much editing or extra fluff. Sometimes a story just needs to be what it is.
Enjoy the new layout. I finally found something free that I think looks really nice. After months of searching for something with ink splatters, I found this layout today by accident. Amazing how things go sometimes. Eventually, I'd like to create my own layout, but I have neither the time nor the proper tools lately, so this will more than suffice in the meantime.
I would really like to finish my short story soon. Yet I have been unable to manage more than a paragraph or two the last couple of nights, after my daughter goes to sleep "for the night." There are so many other things to do: cook, do dishes, shower, do yoga, etc. It's the only time of day that I have much time to accomplish anything. But I feel like I have to choose between several different activities every night, and since the family needs to eat and I desperately have to be clean or I get grumpy, writing doesn't always make the cut.
But now, as my daughter slumbers in her swing for a late afternoon nap, I have some extra time on hand to enjoy a cup of tea and think about how in the world I can find more time for everything. Or at least more time for writing, if possible. This made me wonder: how do different writers manage their time? Do many of you organize blocks of writing time into a strict schedule, or are you more casual about it? What are some techniques that you writers who are also parents use?
This subject has me thinking ahead to Nanowrimo in November, and I'm wondering how I can possibly finish and win it this year if things stay as they are now. I need a better system. I've considered keeping my notebook nearby as I play with my daughter throughout the day, and jotting things down here or there. Of course, this runs the risk of being interrupted a lot and losing some great stuff. It also gives me pause because I don't want it to become a habit. I don't want to be one of those mothers that is always focused on something else and never present in the moment with her kids.
I have a lot to think about.
Frustrated with my lack of motivation (and thus lack of writing progress), I IMed my friend Echo online tonight, and within minutes of talking about writing with her, I was writing again. Of course, this lasted for, oh, maybe 10-15 minutes before my daughter woke up and started crying for food.
So life goes.
But I got a little more writing done. A few paragraphs, at least. Yay me!
Posts
All Comments
