Watermarks

I needed a little more background material, so I had to spend some more time gathering information tonight. After I had a better visual, I was able to dive right into the story. Wrote nearly 600 words on the story so far. A little skeletal at the moment, but I will fill in some of those missing details tomorrow and on my next draft of the story. Enjoying the ride so far. Now, it’s time to go pay bills…yee-hah!

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Okay, I pulled some strange words out of the random list of words. The most interesting was gleaning. Did some research on that one and some other words until I found a connection in my brain between them for an open anthology. It piqued my interest quite a bit. I wrote out a rough high concept. My first step in writing a story is always in my head and poking around for information that sparks something in my imagination. My second step is to figure out the story and who’s supposed to tell the story. I work through these while I type out a sort of letter to myself. I give myself permission to type whatever comes to my brain as I work through what I see as the story. My third step is to let that possibility blossom in my brain for a bit, the story I proposed. Sometimes, that’s exactly the story I tell and sometimes it’s something completely different, but most of the time, it falls somewhere along a gradient between the two. My fifth step is to write the story.

At the moment, my working title is Haint Black and Blue. We’ll see where this one goes, but I’m already excited to write this one. Going to let it build some emotion and momentum and begin the storytelling tomorrow. Can’t wait!

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Did another draft on this story tonight. Got it printed and in an envelope. It’ll go out tomorrow. Had one come back today, so I got that one back in an envelope ready to mail tomorrow too. That gives me a whopping 6 stories and a novel partial out atm. I hope to get a second novel out this week, if all goes well.

Batting around ideas for the next story. Nothing firm yet, just some shadowy ideas and some random words I generated. : P

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Finished the first draft of this one. Will give it another once over tomorrow and get it out the door. It came in at about 4400 words. This is a VERY dark story. Will have to see what my first reader says. I have some questions about parts of the story. After that’s done will continue working on a last pass on my other novel and hopefully I’ll get it sent out this week too. Gotta come up with a new title though. bleh. I hate titles. Still haven’t finalized the title on this last story yet. It may change to After Image. We’ll see.

Watched The Blindside last night. It was really good!

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Okay, I slacked off last night and didn’t write. Was tired after a stressful work week and needed to unwind. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through this story. At nearly 3100 words. I stopped writing at a critical point in the story too, so picking this up tomorrow will be cake. Still on track to finish it tomorrow. I’m guessing it’ll be about 5k when I’m done and there may be a title change. We’ll see.

I have another novel that I want to get out the door this week. Just need to smooth out the synopsis and give the whole thing a quick read over.

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Man, I swear — this story is like herding cats…

Thought I was all set, had direction and new notes, blah, blah, blah — 700+ words in and realized I still wasn’t in the right place. So I tossed all but the first two paragraphs and started over again. And *this time* I think I’ve got it. I’m up to 1500 words now. And I’ve got two POVs going in it. I feel like the story is actually moving now. Hopefully I’ll have a draft done by Saturday. I hope I can pull this one off. Hope it doesn’t suck when I get to the end. If it does, I’ll toss the draft and start over. After all, it’s just a short story.

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Wow, I was all set to sit down and write. Read through the new notes and was about to continue where I left off when suddenly I saw a completely different angle to this story. And I realized that the two paragraphs I wrote last night had been the end of the story, not the beginning. So I had to figure out how to get to that end. And I started writing new notes, all excited about the new turn. When I got to the story’s climax, I felt that awful feeling that I’d painted myself into a corner. But writer brain knew I’d find the right path to the story because the second line I’d typed last night was the piece I needed to get myself out of the corner. So it’s all there now. I just have to write it.

I’m only about 3 pages into the story and I think this one will be a long one. I’ve never written something like this story before, so getting there is going to be a challenge. But if I do this right, this story’s gonna rock.

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Yeah, I changed the theme again.  Couldn’t help myself.  Warning, this may happen a lot. : )

Okay, so I sat down to write tonight and read over my notes…then I started rearranging icons and folders and such.  Yeah, I was avoiding this story.  So I took a few moments to figure out why.  And the answer came to me instantly.  The idea was the first thing I thought of and it felt safe and convenient.  So I scrapped that idea.  I won’t learn anything if I tell that same old story or use that same old subject, etc. etc.  Besides, if it was my first thought, then probably a dozen other people had the same idea and just maybe they’ll tell it better than I will.  Or maybe not.  Maybe mine will be the best damned safe story ever?  Most likely, it will just fall somewhere in the mediocre middle.  Now, if I thought I had a new twist on it, sure, I’d run with it.  But in this case, no.

So, I dug a little deeper for something else.  Working title is: The Nightmare Artist.  I’m only a paragraph or two into the story and my character is a polar opposite of me.  Should be an interesting trip. : )

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Nothing jumped out at me as a random object this week, so I went to a random word generator and generated five words.  And they were:  trip, acid, path, reminder, portraying….

Wow…thought that grouping was kind of cool. : )  So, I googled the words, looking up their definitions and looking at oddball links and stuff until I hit on something that my brain liked.  So I’m chewing on an idea for which I wrote a very sketchy high concept.  Going to let it bounce around in my head tonight and see what comes out tomorrow.

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Finished my final pass through the story and got it ready to mail.  It will go out tomorrow.  Go Boilers!!!

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