Writing Goal for the Day?

Daughter let me sleep in this morning. Maybe that helped shake up a few braincells. In any case, i finished up an old story that had been going nowhere slowly. It makes one feel good whenever that happens.

Now, if could just do something with the other couple of hundred unfinished ones. :rolleyes:

On another note, my mainstream editor was intrigued by the new story idea. That is if "Getter done!" means anything. :eek:
 
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Getting to know Miscrosoft Word 2010 is my goal this week. I received a new laptop and it's fabulously fast!
 
Getting to know Miscrosoft Word 2010 is my goal this week. I received a new laptop and it's fabulously fast!

Thats Geronimo on the right. Shit! He policed the border almost to Mexico City. He didnt like Mexicans, he was a racist!
 
Three old stories finished in one day. A new record of sorts and I'm fairly well pleased with all of them. :D
 
No writing got done, but I'm almost done working on Leet Link - yay! :D
 
Started a Lesbian story last night that feels pretty good tonally. Hope to finish it tonight. We'll see.
 
Todays contribution is in the bag.

Ordered two Elmore Leonard novels. One of them is his first effort to write crime, before it he wrote Westerns. Critics say it reads like a Detroit Western. Read more of the Higgins book, ON WRITING. He spoke about how to breathe life into stale data, and included many snippets from the writing book John O'Hara published, plus a short story O'Hara wrote about infidelity, to illustrate how different people express themselves.
 
Todays installment is done.

I didnt wanna write, wanted an excuse not to, then recognized that my blood sugars low this time of day. So I ate a couple cookies, had some coffee, and got the writing done once the sugar and caffein took effect. Keep this in mind when the words are there and the enthusiasm isnt.
 
I've got a blog post to write today, and I'll try to get some work done on a fan fiction story that I keep delaying just because I'm lazy.
 
Before I can write, I must have lunch and then talk to Verizon and figure out why I only got one phone when I ordered two...
 
Two more old stories finished. :eek:

At this rate i might catch up the backlog in 6 or 7 months. :rolleyes:
 
Got my quota done for today.

Started reading HONOR THY FATHER by Gay Talese. Its an interesting tale but I'm more interested in its engineering than its architecture. And Talese confirms some notions that popped into my skull lately.
 
I got done the first chapter of "Return of the Champion" and got the poll results back for the next chapter of "The Blue Mew" so I'm happy. Plus I got an idea for yet another story! :D
 
Facing the same dilemma I face every darn time I get half-way through a story and find that I am dissatisfied with what I've written (which happens every time I'm half way through a story).

Do I:

a) go back and fix the nagging problems (some character dynamics, the content of the entire one lit-page introductory section, etc) and only then have finish up the middle?

or

b) keep writing as if everything I've written is fine, and only go back and fix the problems once I've finished a draft of the entire damn thing?

My perfectionist nature makes me want to do the former. But then I risk getting so bogged down in these details that I'll just get frustrated and give up, and it won't really cut down on my endless rounds of edits anyway.

If I do the latter, then I risk creating even more problems for myself as I go along, since I haven't completely straightened out the early issues, leading to frustration and giving up.

Sigh.
 
Facing the same dilemma I face every darn time I get half-way through a story and find that I am dissatisfied with what I've written (which happens every time I'm half way through a story).

Do I:

a) go back and fix the nagging problems (some character dynamics, the content of the entire one lit-page introductory section, etc) and only then have finish up the middle?

or

b) keep writing as if everything I've written is fine, and only go back and fix the problems once I've finished a draft of the entire damn thing?

Wouldn't it depend a bit on whether the nagging problems would have an effect on later issues? If so, I'd go fix them b/c it would probably make writing the rest easier and I wouldn't have to worry about missing something if I go back later, if that makes sense.

But that's just me. :)
 
The power went OFF for a few minutes, woke me up, and so I got some writing done; enough to make my quota.

Earlier I read the first chapter of Elmore Leonards, FREAKY DEAKY. He says its his favorite novel of the 40-something novels he's published. The first chapter is good!

A drug lord gets a phone call from a woman who advises him to sit before she dumps some news on him. He resists but finally parks his ass in a chair and demands the news: WHATS LEFT OF YO ASS IS GONNA GO THRU THE CEILING IF YOU GET OUTTA THAT CHAIR. The bomb squad finds 10 sticks of dynamite inside the chair, and the drug lord's gotta take a shit, bad!
 
Facing the same dilemma I face every darn time I get half-way through a story and find that I am dissatisfied with what I've written (which happens every time I'm half way through a story).

Do I:

a) go back and fix the nagging problems (some character dynamics, the content of the entire one lit-page introductory section, etc) and only then have finish up the middle?

or

b) keep writing as if everything I've written is fine, and only go back and fix the problems once I've finished a draft of the entire damn thing?

My perfectionist nature makes me want to do the former. But then I risk getting so bogged down in these details that I'll just get frustrated and give up, and it won't really cut down on my endless rounds of edits anyway.

If I do the latter, then I risk creating even more problems for myself as I go along, since I haven't completely straightened out the early issues, leading to frustration and giving up.

Sigh.

I so know that experience! Here's what's worked for me - going back through the document and making notes in a different color around the problem areas. That sort of solves the problem for me - I know there's stuff to fix, I know I have a note made about where and what, and I'm free to plow on with the story.

That said, there have been times where I've scraped entire sections (sometimes pages upon pages) because it just didn't work, but I suspect that's different than what you're describing. Good luck!

Missed most of my writing goals yesterday, in part, because I reached a transition point in my plot and wasn't happy with how I was gettng from point A to point B. Instead, I ended up writing several exceptionally long letters to a dear friend - so I wrote my fingers off, just not a on a story. I'll do better today.
 
What works is an OUTLINE and brief summary of what each scene is supposed to do. If your scene aint working, go to the summary, and look at what your intention is.
 
No writing for me today, and maybe not tomorrow. Tax free weekend = new computer (whooooo!), so I have a feeling Mr. Tat will be confiscating mine as he brings the new one up to speed.


Thanks, PL&BD. I ended up choosing a middle approach: fixing only what absolutely needed to be fixed while still leaving it choppy and unsatisfying, just so I could move on and not get caught up in endless rounds of edits.

Here's what's worked for me - going back through the document and making notes in a different color around the problem areas. That sort of solves the problem for me - I know there's stuff to fix, I know I have a note made about where and what, and I'm free to plow on with the story.

lol, I have text in: black, purple, green, blue, and red, with parts highlighted in torquise, gray, green, and yellow. Before you typed this I knew I used colors, and knew what each color stood for, but had never really counted them up.

Can we say . . . this is what happens when a researcher used to coding documents takes to writing? I'll know to stop when I need a codebook. :eek:
 
Good luck, LfT. :)

I don't know. I've got library this morning, birthday party this afternoon, and our A/C isn't working. Just what we need in 90+ heat. But the A/C guys are supposed to be here today, so hopefully it gets fixed. Mr Penn thinks/hopes it may just be a reset switch that we can't get to, but also didn't want to do anything to void the warranty.
 
I got the USB sync cable for my Treo yesterday, but broke it when I tried to take it off the device. So whatever I enter into my Treo at work won't be synced to my computer until I get a cradle for it... (13 days til payday then have to wait for shipping... arg!)
 
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