After doing some running around and accomplishing very little, I got to work here. Started to “get to know my protagonist” as more than a cardboard cutout. 15 minutes ended very quickly, but I had another pile to tackle.
I certainly sound different than I did yesterday.
I didn’t post anything here yesterday. I hate to in it, but I dropped the ball. It was day one (again) of the “30 Day, 15 Minutes a Day” writing challenge.
My only justification is that I could tell that it wasn’t working, but it took me a while to figure out WHY. It simply wasn’t a story. It was a series of loosely-connected events without a focus.
Things that seemed to help me figure what needed to happen included:
These are not exactly steps. I tend to do all of these at the same time, thoroughly confusing myself in the meantime.
On the other hand, I did turn in the book review for my church’s newsletter.
I admit it, I did not write much today. Pieces of related stories are popping up into my head. They seem to me in the same setting, so I drew maps and doodled ideas.
I’m wondering if that’s useful or a procrastination tactic… Probably both?
I was highly unproductive today. I really had trouble focusing. I spent 15 minutes rereading, finally. Maybe I SHOULD have taken yesterday off.
I forgot. I’m supposed to take one day a week off, but I didn’t. It was only 15 minutes…
I formatted the story for submission in Microsoft Word. As I checked to make sure that it “looked right,” I found myself removing bits that did not enhance the story. I also added some bits. I want to thoroughly edit again tomorrow.
I didn’t ADD words to the story. I carefully looked for mistakes. It wasn’t 15 minutes, but 45. It just takes me longer to see what needs correcting than it takes to put something down.
I am counting it, regardless.
I didn’t intend to add those 200-some-odd words today. I only intended to read the story through and put in missing or misspelled words. I shaped the story a little bit more. TOMORROW I will simply proofread and not add.
I think that most of these will be keepers. Maybe.
Over at FICTION UNIVERSITY, Janice Hardy had a guest post by Shanna Swendson. It showed up on the blog on May 25, but I just saw it.
While I thought I had thoroughly considered this question before, I had only given a few seconds attention to this. This only led to a couple of sentence fragments that didn’t lead anywhere. At best, I had given a token effort and received exactly what that effort merited.
ONE KEY QUESTION TO ASK BEFORE YOU START WRITING invited me to reconsider both the question and the answers.
I realized that an abbreviated form of this would also be useful for short story writing. These tidbits deserve respect, too. Knowing the “WHY” can help me reshape the how into something exquisite.
I also realized that it is never too late to take this step. When I get stuck, I could return to it… If I have it already done. If not, it is a perfect exercise to pull me back into the story and the delight I envisioned.
Nifty tool! I can’t wait to use it.