Thursday, December 29th
Dec. 29th, 2011 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinTHE DAILY REPORT
So, today I wrote a short story. ~3,500 words. I'll be including it in the next newsletter, and then sometime in January I'll be putting it up for sale.
I frequently have ideas for short stories that I don't do anything with, because the hardest part of writing something is often to get started. With a serial or novel you don't have to do that all the time (there will be multiple "starts" in it but a lot of time you're just carrying something forward). Every time you write a short story you're starting anew. And with a longer work you have time to build up speed and figure out what you're doing. A short story has to be... well, just done. It doesn't play to my strengths.
(These facts are why so many of my short-short stories are more like vignettes, like the middle part of something larger or else they're what I call a telling... you know, a paragraph or three that says "Once upon a time, things happened, the end.")
But I've been doing this writing-on-a-timer thing lately that's really great for "shut up and write" style writing. I've experimented with timers before. I think it was Anna Paradox who got me started with writing on a timer. But the thing is, I've never found a timer that worked for me as much as the stopwatch app I downloaded for my phone did. I can't lose it. It's reliable. I can turn the screen off and ignore it until it beeps, which is important because otherwise I'm watching the timer. It just works.
I've been using the write-on-a-timer thing to finish Tales of MU and keep up with FIM (which I have failed to do this week, due to unforeseen my house is full of people. Call it a holiday hiatus, it'll be back on January 3rd.) Today was the first time I thought to use it for a random idea that popped into my head. I'm going to start doing it more often.
I still only have four short stories for sale, and that's a serious missed opportunity... one of the best ways to promote a work is to have lots of other ones. Because what do people do when they find a book or story they like? Look for more by the same author.
STATE OF THE ME
Physically okay. Mentally a little frazzled. Next week will be better.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
Sort of like The Prestige but in a fantasy setting and with real, non-Bowie-powered magic. It helped inform the story I wrote, which also took some of its shape from the original conceit of Dangerous Instrumentality, though the stories are not otherwise related.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Already achieved.
So, today I wrote a short story. ~3,500 words. I'll be including it in the next newsletter, and then sometime in January I'll be putting it up for sale.
I frequently have ideas for short stories that I don't do anything with, because the hardest part of writing something is often to get started. With a serial or novel you don't have to do that all the time (there will be multiple "starts" in it but a lot of time you're just carrying something forward). Every time you write a short story you're starting anew. And with a longer work you have time to build up speed and figure out what you're doing. A short story has to be... well, just done. It doesn't play to my strengths.
(These facts are why so many of my short-short stories are more like vignettes, like the middle part of something larger or else they're what I call a telling... you know, a paragraph or three that says "Once upon a time, things happened, the end.")
But I've been doing this writing-on-a-timer thing lately that's really great for "shut up and write" style writing. I've experimented with timers before. I think it was Anna Paradox who got me started with writing on a timer. But the thing is, I've never found a timer that worked for me as much as the stopwatch app I downloaded for my phone did. I can't lose it. It's reliable. I can turn the screen off and ignore it until it beeps, which is important because otherwise I'm watching the timer. It just works.
I've been using the write-on-a-timer thing to finish Tales of MU and keep up with FIM (which I have failed to do this week, due to unforeseen my house is full of people. Call it a holiday hiatus, it'll be back on January 3rd.) Today was the first time I thought to use it for a random idea that popped into my head. I'm going to start doing it more often.
I still only have four short stories for sale, and that's a serious missed opportunity... one of the best ways to promote a work is to have lots of other ones. Because what do people do when they find a book or story they like? Look for more by the same author.
STATE OF THE ME
Physically okay. Mentally a little frazzled. Next week will be better.
DREAMS FROM LAST NIGHT
Sort of like The Prestige but in a fantasy setting and with real, non-Bowie-powered magic. It helped inform the story I wrote, which also took some of its shape from the original conceit of Dangerous Instrumentality, though the stories are not otherwise related.
PLANS FOR TODAY
Already achieved.