Camp Nano – Finally back on traack

Apr28

Yay, I’ve been lax about these posts.

So, First Line since the last time I posted was:
 <span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:
Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA”>“Good.”  The doctor dispensed a handful of pills into a bottle.  

Last line of last night:

Real life doesn’t work that way. But she was no longer sure that this was real life.

I wrote 3084 words yesterday, 0 words Saturday, 3,644 words Friday, and 627 words Thursday. 

I am now at a total of 35,009 words –  just under 5K to go, which is an average of 1,664 words for today, tomorrow, and Wednesday.  I can totally do this!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/707533.html. You can comment here or there.

Seems to be the season for it – writing and brain chemistry issues

Apr25

  So, completely ignoring for the moment the argument that you should "write every day, write no matter what," because I find that advice  to be good only if your goal is simply to put words on paper…

What happens when your brain chemistry won’t let you write?

(The writer in my attic just posted a blog about this too; it’s going around.)

I have, over the past years – I think since 2008 is a good marker – gotten relatively good at having an "off" day and moving on the next day.  It’s part of why I don’t believe/follow the "write every day" advice, because sometimes it’s just not a writing day. 

Sometimes you want to go out and play outside, for instance.  

And some days the brainweasels are just too much and you stare at the screen, totally unmotivated, and, if you’re me, end up curling up and watching TV mindlessly until you sleep. 

Normally, if I have a bad month, I have a bad month, and I pick up again the next month.  Writing is still a part-time thing for me, after all; it’s not the thing paying the bills yet. So I can afford to slack off. 

This month….  This month I’m doing Camp Nano, and so I have an external accountability I don’t normally have (At least not since I stopped writing Addergoole episodes the day before I posted them).  And I don’t have the oomph.  Or, rather, there have been a lot of days of not having the oomph.

I’m not sure, yet, what to do about it.  Write when I can, I suppose, and write as well and as much as I can when it’s there. 

Do you have tricks for getting yourself around the bad-brain-chemistry times?  

 Or tricks for getting yourself back on the horse, as it were?

 

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/707299.html. You can comment here or there.

Camp Nano April 2014 – Back on the Horse

Apr24

 So, I decided to give in to my urge and start on Addergoole: Book Two, because Episodes just wasn’t working. 

First line of yesterday: 

Previously in Addergoole:

The lift sank slowly into the barn floor, carrying the SUV with it.

Last line of Yesterday:

“I, ah, I’m glad you approve.”  Were adults supposed to act like this?

1866 words written, not up to need-to-catch-up goal but so much better than I’d been doing.
Bring me up to 27,654, for a daily average of 1202 (I could weight that for skip days if I wanted)

To get to 40K by the end of the month, I need to write an average of 1764 words a day, or 2469 words/weekday.

Here goes~

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/706970.html. You can comment here or there.

#campnanowrimo – burnout and options

Apr22

I’m just not feeling Episodes, the  camp nano project I’ve been working on – I mean, I was having fun with it, I think I’ll have fun with it again, but right now? No.  Not at all.

Options include:

* Keep trucking on it. (ick)
* Write "and other projects" and count all wordcount in April toward my 40K goal (Seems like cheating)
* call it a split month, as I’ve done before, and do 15K words on Addergoole: Book two complete rewrite (this is the one I’m leaning towards). 

Thoughts?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/706378.html. You can comment here or there.

And on the next day… a short story of beginnings

Apr18

I asked for prompts to the theme of genesis. This is [personal profile] alexseanchai‘s result.

“In the beginning of the gods’ creation of the heavens and the earth…” Heressa’s voice was quiet as she read, dropping lower with every word. The children fell quiet, too, until the soft slip of her voice and the crackling of the fire were the only sounds. “The world was ice and steel, empty of life.”

She made the globe with her hands, the shape of the ribs of the world. “And onto the ice and the steel, the gods brought earth, and from the earth, they brought plants, and from the plants, they brought animals.”

“And when the animals and plants had run all over the globe, the gods brought down humans made from the gods’ bone and the gods’ spit, and then they left. And here we have lived, humans on the world of steel, ever since.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/706123.html. You can comment here or there.

Catty, a drabble of Tir na Cali

Apr18

I asked for three prompts; this is [personal profile] kailing‘s

“Can I be catty at you for a moment?”

“You may, of course, be anything you want to be, Mistress.” Adam had learned. It had taken him a while, but he had learned that lesson very, very well.

“Yeah, but can I be really, really, snarky?”

“You own me, Mistress. We’re alone together. You may be anything you want to be.” Somewhere on the small of Adam’s back, an old ache reminded him of lessons learned.

She flopped down on her bed. “Without you judging me?”

“Mistress, it is not my position to judge you.” Adam took a breath, still wondering where the trap was. “You own me.”

“I know.” His new, teenaged Mistress huffed playfully at him. “But what does that mean?“

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/705649.html. You can comment here or there.

Splash, a ficlet of Fae Apoc

Apr18

I asked for three prompts; this is cluudle‘s

Splash.

The water enveloped her like a blanket, took her in. It was dark, murky under here, the seaweed and the strange plant life obscuring the view.

She didn’t need to see. She knew the way. Her hand brushed over a rock, making sure it had not moved. Her feet found the ground and she searched for the rope that lay just under the sand and gravel.

She tugged on the rope three times in careful rhythm, then bounce-walked a few steps,. The Working held; it always did. She murmured the next one in her bubble of air.

Everyone who’d survived the apocalypse had their own way of hiding out.

This was hers.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/705408.html. You can comment here or there.

Gone Fishing, a ficlet of Rin/Girey

Apr18

I asked for three prompts; this is [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s.

“This is not.” Girey frowned at the long pole and the thin braided line. “This is not how fishing is done.”

Rin stretched her legs out over the small lake. “It’s not ocean fishing. Don’t you have lakes in Bithrain?”

“Of course we have – well, a couple. But we fish the ocean.”

Rin baited her hook and tossed her line in again. “So do we. But we also fish the lakes.”

“With a little hook and a little line? What can you catch with that?” Girey nevertheless imitated her movements. “With a worm?”

“Ooh, I’ve got a bite.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/705166.html. You can comment here or there.