Write Every Day: 06 August 02019

[silveradept]

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-in post for 06 August 02019.

I'm sure I had a story for today. It probably had to do with using your own life experiences to write detail and flavor and life into your stories. I haven't read any Toni Morrison, but from the way that social media reacted to the news of her death today, I suspect a great many more people have and what they read helped to change their lives.

Truthfully, though, I'm mostly feeling salt. Because small and petty things will get to you much more easily than the big things that you can't actually do anything about individually, unless someone hands you a lever and points where the fulcrum is. If I were a scorekeeper, that would probably let me go off tit-for-tat on that person, but it wouldn't actually be productive to do it, nor would it induce any sort of change in them. So instead, here I am, in the middle of the Great Salt Flat, trying to evoke a completely different mood for a piece that I'm trying to write.

I did make a few paragraph's worth of progress on that assignment, anyway, so there's words. And it's not due for a while, so I don't have to feel like I have to make great strides and such. As it is, it was close to the necessary wordcount where I hit a point that might be a stopping space, but there's probably one more scene that needs doing to get it over wordcount and to show the other part of the relationship that I haven't been paying attention to. It won't make things better, or even understandable, but it will make them more complete.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 1: alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 2: alexcat, alexseanchai, athaia, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 3: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, talkingtothesky, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 4: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, sanguinity, shopfront, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 5: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, magnetic_pole, silveradept, shopfront, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

People who have checked in with writing on Day 6: alexseanchai, auroracloud, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, silveradept, sonia, sylvanwitch, yasaman, ysilme.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Words happened? Not many words. Plotting butterfly dreams is going to suck and I would rather be working on something I already have thousands of words written for, but no, what's playing in my head is variations of bits from the last fourth of butterfly dreams.

[silveradept]

Fragments of stories are sometimes the things that need to get out the most. Hopefully, when they're done, they'll let you work on something else.

[china_shop]

Good luck with the evocation of non-salty moods!

7th: Edited and posted my first ficlet for 15kisses, and wrote 616 words on my second. (It doesn't need to be this long, but apparently politics is happening? Idek.)

[silveradept]

Sometimes the stories are what they decide to be, gently guided by whatever we have in mind. They usually turn out well, though.

[auroracloud]

I listened to one episode of a history podcast that gave me at least three new story ideas, so I wrote down those ideas and what I had on them; and I did a bit of poking and planning of the novel. I meant to write more, but it just didn't happen. Oh well.

[silveradept]

Yay for new ideas and writing them out.

[ysilme]

*hugs and sympathies* But there were words for you, and that's not nothing.
To be honest, I don't think there's a reason to be sad or disappointed or whatever if it's small things getting to us, and not so much the big things. It's the small and petty things that make our life, that are the basis, if you will, and so it's perfectly natural that they have a much bigger impact on us. I can relate to your feelings for I felt the same when I was much younger, but over time, this has changed: experience has told me that it's bothering about the small and petty things that shows you how people truly are, and also what makes people change, and, on a more personal level, are often enough also the things that ignite change in yourself. Big things might contribute to that, but I honestly believe that this will only have a lasting effect when one or several small things in somebody's life also point towards that change.

Thank you for adding me in on the days I missed! I wrote a couple of alibi sentences again on the 5th, and got finally back into proper editing on the 6th as well as writing a decent chunk of nonfic, resulting in a bit over 1,5k for the day.

[silveradept]

Yay for writing.

And thank you for the help on figuring out why the small things are the ones that aggravate us. And show us what people are really like.

[carenejeans]

I sympathize with your being stuck in The Great Salt Flat. It's hard enough to get into a good writing mood without it being wrecked by someone being annoying!

Today I added about 530 words to an essay I'm working on. It's not as hard as the one I just finished. Yet, anyway. ;-)

[silveradept]

Yay for more essay writing. I like a good essay, both to read and to write.

[chanter1944]

Only 50-something words, due to being out with visiting relatives for part of the evening, but they were important, because the character who officially turned up the other day got a fleshed-out entry snippet.

[silveradept]

Oh, yay, adding volume and body to a character! I'm sure they appreciate the extra dimensionality.

[sylvanwitch]

I've read and taught Toni Morrison, and her work is a testament to the power of language to effect change. Sometimes, however, as you note, words don't want to cooperate for us, and at other times, spending them would only mean a waste, since, as you say, the ground they're falling on is infertile or not ready to receive them. I hope that you feel better today and that the words cooperate with you.

I fiddled a little more with the flashfic from the other day and edited another chapter and a half of the ambush project.

[silveradept]

Yay for words. I think they'll be more cooperative once I have a better idea of what I want them to portray.

[lferion]

I wrote a haiku for Fan Flashworks and posted it. Got feedback on the other fan flashworks piece, and it probably needs another hundred words or so, but I don't know what they are yet.

Got 100 words on the reverse bang, which establish a useful point. I have no commitments this evening, so hopefully I will manage a few more.

[silveradept]

Small writing chunks are still writing, and it's kind of nice to get full works out of small amounts of writing.

[lferion]

It is nice.

By the way, I don't see my name on Day 5? I checked in :-)

[silveradept]

That's been fixed.

[lferion]

Thank you muchly!

And thank you for doing the whole checkin thing!

[yasaman]

A belated check in, since I fell asleep early last night: 507 words for me yesterday! Inching sloooowly towards getting this section finished.

[silveradept]

Yay, progress, even if it seems like the snails are moving faster than we are.

[cornerofmadness]

I do use life experience in my work, especially my travels. Plenty of my stories feature places I've been. I also have a crap ton of geeks and ghost hunters in my stories.

I finished my intoabar story with 1168 words.

[silveradept]

Yay, completion is such a nice feeling. I find that I tend to be referential with things, trying not to let them carry important parts of a story, but to be nice things to pop up when someone notices.

Like when an offhand name in one of the "Yours, G. Miles" series turns out to be the name of the person who would go on to be Pope John Paul II.

[cornerofmadness]

Completion makes me happy. Now to complete my wipbigbang where I'm definitely struggling.

Oh that's cool

[silveradept]

Here's hoping for a breakthrough on the bang.

[cornerofmadness]

thanks. It's more of a time crunch than a block thankfully

[sonia]

Continuing with adding notes for aspects of the article. It's interesting to actually type into the file every day at the beginning of the month. I usually take what feels like a well-deserved break from thinking about articles and come back to it after mid-month.

I'm reading Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, which I recommend to all writers. It's got great information on the details of copy editing, in an amusing style laced with occasional jabs at the current White House occupant.

[silveradept]

Different habits sometimes make for a different product.

I've heard both good and less good things about the book, so I'm glad to know it's working for you.

[magnetic_pole]

Argh, sorry, belated check in for the 6th. Two paragraphs written.

Hope things were a bit easier today! M.

[silveradept]

A little, yes. Thanks for checking in.