Category: writing

Mini Art Month 08

On June 1, 2016

The final week-ish of Mini Art Month, which just happened to coincide with Hell Week at the place of employment (the annual last minute rush to get ready for Summer Reading), so I got my five hours of writing in, but it wasn’t pretty. Still, I guess I managed more art than I realized.

Monday (5/23): 603 words.

Tuesday (5/24): 608 words.

Wednesday (5/25): 509 words.

Thursday (5/26): 300 words. Did a fair bit of cutting of the story, and then added the 300 words. I usually just write fast and then edit after I’ve finished the first draft. Using the “Writing into the Dark” method, you treat the first draft as the last draft, so you edit and revise as you go. It’s a whole different way of approaching fiction writing for me.

Friday (5/27): 409 words.

Saturday (5/28): Coloring book. I needed some down time and pulled out my colored pencils and colored in a “meditation” page of a presumably Japanese temple. I will say that it was rather relaxing.

Sunday (5/29): Made peanut butter rice krispie treats. It was nice to be able to make a dessert that did not involve turning on the oven.

Monday (5/30): Planted containers of lettuce, basil, snow peas, radishes, and chives. Gardening feels like art to me — there is a creativity to it, some organization/planning, taking the time to actually do it, and then the fretting about “did I get this right?” So yeah, gardening counts as “mini art”.

Tuesday (5/31): Nada. What is it about the day after a holiday that gets the world all wound up? Did do some good work helping family, and there is certainly an art to that, but nothing that I can really point to and say, “I did that.”

Summary post to come soon. After I get my writing in for the day.

Mini Art Month 07

By Andi

On May 25, 2016

In MAM, writing

So life blew up last week and continues its blowing this week. And yet! I’m writing more new words of fiction than I have in quite some time. So yay! (Other than the chaos that is life currently.)

The catch up for last week:

Monday (5/16): Nada. I blogged and started the uphill climb that is learning to typeset manuscripts for print. Art-related, but not exactly art.

Tuesday (5/17): 358 words. Started writing a new story using Dean Wesley Smith’s “Writing Into the Dark” manner — start with a character in a setting, and no fretting about having an interesting character or fascinating setting. So I found a random name online, set her at the Oregon Coast, and started writing. I have no idea where the story is headed, but in that sense it’s like reading. It’s an exhilarating and frightening way to write, but I’m enjoying it (once I can sit my butt in the chair and start typing).

Melissa Bradley sat on a cold hard rock staring at the white caps on the incoming waves, marveling at the way the water wrapped around the behemoth of a rock standing in the ocean. The water enveloped the base of the rock then continued its forward motion towards the sandy shore.

That’s the way I should be, she thought. Adapt to what the universe hands me and keep moving forward.

Wednesday (5/18): 553 words. Started this session writing from a different (and new!) character’s POV. I really like the dog.

The Australian Shepard mix sat at his side and whined. Come on, the dog seemed to say. What are we doing just standing up here when there is all that fun sand down there?

Thursday (5/19): Nothing. Life chaos got the better of me.

Friday (5/20): 380 words. Written in 10 minutes while waiting in the car. I’ll take that.

Life in the army had drastically limited his ‘facial opportunities,’ as Kaitlyn had called it.

Leave it to a beautician to call a beard a ‘facial opportunity.’

Saturday (5/21): Zip. Spent the day recovering from helping friends move, and a chaotic week.

Sunday (5/22): Zip part 2. Took care of some life maintenance, but otherwise no art.

Mini Art Month 06

By Andi

On May 16, 2016

In MAM, writing

I’ve been doing stuff, but dang if I don’t get to posting about it. Argh. So now I’m playing catch up.

Monday (5/09): More words. (566 of ’em) for the short story.

She stumbled to the bed and felt herself falling like she was in slow motion. It seemed like forever before her body sank into the pillow top mattress. She tried to think through what was happening, what could possibly explain these sensations, when she saw him.

Tuesday (5/10): Photo. It was bizarre to see on the sidewalk, so I had to take a picture.

Memento mori

Wednesday (5/11): Baking. Made pumpkin-cheesecake bars and beer bread with Kona Brewing’s Golden Ale. Photo because I have to show ’em:

Pumpkin cheesecake bars
beer bread

Thursday (5/1): More words (700) and finished the story. Had to review Dean Wesley Smith’s excellent Writing into the Dark book to get my mojo running again, but totally worth it.

At least her death meant something, she mused.

Friday (5/13): Photo.

Early, but gorgeous roses.

Saturday (5/14): Did some work on the novel revision course, but no real, or even tangential, art.

Sunday (5/15): Baking. Made a new recipe for French bread (need to not include the sugar next time), as well as some white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies and dark chocolate-macadamia nut cookies.

Bad photo, but decent bread.

###

So the good news is that I took my own advice and established some priorities and set some limits. Seems to have helped.

Mini Art Month 05

By Andi

On May 10, 2016

In MAM, writing

Yesterday I got 566 words in on the new story. I’m not sure where it’s going, but I liked this bit:

A car passed by, its booming bass music pounding so hard that she felt it press on her chest with the beating of her own heart.

Boom boom boom boom.

The booming kept coming.

Boom
boom
boom
boom.

Mini Art Month 03

By Andi

On May 5, 2016

In MAM, writing

For May the Forth (be with you), I put together a Star Wars display at work. It felt “art-y” to me, and took a bit of creativity and research, so I am counting it as my Mini Art for the day:

Two of my loves combined: Star Wars and samurai

Writing-wise, I electronically inputted what I have so far for a new urban fantasy story. Not terribly creative work, but necessary since at some point I have to get scribbled words in a beat-up notebook into electronic form.

Mini Art Month 02

By Andi

On May 4, 2016

In MAM, writing

I finally finished the short story I’ve been working on since, oh, March. (Did I mention that April didn’t exist this year? WHOOSH it went out the window . . .)

So a last line from the first draft*:

“No mice,” she said with a smile.

###

*It is “Mini Art Month,” so one line is just fine. Although I did write 641 words total yesterday to finish the story.

**The bowing and walking is meant in jest, since it’s not a great line and it’s only the first draft.

Stomach, or brain, upset

By Andi

On February 17, 2016

In writing

I finally finished the short story I’ve been struggling with, and I’m relieved and frustrated. Relieved because I finished it and found an ending. Frustrated because I don’t like the ending, and it has me wondering if I just naturally lean to grim/dark stories.

That’s what has my brain upset: my gut says the ending is right, but my heart says “Really? Is this all you can write? Grim/dark stuff?”

I read existential ~~crap~~ literature in college and I couldn’t stand it. Yes, life can certainly suck, and seem like it has no point, but I don’t want to read that, especially for pleasure. So if I keep finding myself writing grim/dark stories when I don’t like them, what does that say about me?

Then I think about people like Stephen King who write dark stories, and yet seem to be decent not-dark people.

I just have to remind myself that it’s just a first draft, that it’s not definitive, that I can change it. Make it better, make it the way I want it to be. Lighter, happier, more joyful.

That would take some work and a lot of rewriting.

Or I can keep the ending and make the most of its darkness (give it some meaning, and not just leave it as is with existential nonsense), and then write a new story that is lighter. Essentially shelve it and move on.

This is assuming that I can actually write a lighter tale. <sigh>

Writing in the Margins of Life

By Andi

On February 9, 2016

In writing

I’ve been working on a short story for the past week. Granted, it has not been at the top of my priority list (things like “dinner” and “sleep” have been higher up), but I told myself* that I would write one sentence minimum a day. Usually, I start with one sentence, and then before I know it I have two, and then a paragraph, and then sometimes pages.

Lately, it’s been one sentence. A day.

It’s a strange thing to watch a story evolve so slowly. It’s almost like it’s in slow motion, or Wachowski brother Bullet Time. It seems ridiculous — one sentence? How is this progress?

But it is.

I had an image in my head that started the story, but nothing else.** No protagonist, antagonist, conflict. You know — the things you need for a story. In the past, I either knew them from the get go, or they came about as I wrote. This time, as much as I tried to force it***, the pieces wouldn’t come together.

So one sentence a day.

For some reason, the slow pace has given my mind space to ponder the story, and each sentence is one step closer to fulfilling that story. What story? I have no idea. But it’s starting to get interesting.

With just five sentences in four days. James Joyce would be so proud.****

I guess I am, too. I worried that I had screwed up, that I was doing this whole writing thing wrong (AGAIN!), that my creativity was shot, and that it was All Over. (Cue the Drama Queen scene chewing.)

Then again, maybe not. Maybe by not forcing it, by giving it some space to breathe, maybe that was what was needed to open up, to relax and find the story.

All of this in less than five minutes a day. Scribbling a line as I waited for a webpage to load, or between composing emails, or before running off to the bathroom (talk about deadlines!).

Find the margins of your life, and write that one sentence, draw that one line, compose that one hook. The results may not come fast, but it’s still more than you had. You’ll be closer to the finished piece, and maybe inspiration will find you as you give your art the space to breathe.

***

* Well, vowed, actually, since I discovered that I start going a little crazy if I don’t write fiction every day, even the tiniest bit.

**I had a title, courtesy of a flash fiction challenge by Chuck Wendig, and then eventually an image.

***By “force it” I mean sit with an open notebook and brainstorm. By “brainstorm” I mean beat my Muse with a writing stick yelling, “Tell me what to do with this story or the writer gets it!” Erm.

****Most likely, James Joyce would have his hat blown back by my writing speed.