Reading, writing, arithmetic
May. 21st, 2018 08:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseTo continue from last night's post: after years of admiring, I finally broke down and purchased a Kindle Oasis; not only are the ergonomics, faster processor, and higher-density screen meaningful upgrades over my several-years-old Paperwhite, it's waterproof for bath time! I have proceeded to name it Champagne Supernova. (There's a bit of Big Data I'd love to have: how many people have registered their Oases with Amazon under the name "Wonderwall".)
Project Keepon Reading is proceeding in fits and starts. It's weird to realize that something I usually think of as a pleasurable activity actually takes a certain amount of mental focus; usually it's low enough that I don't even notice it, but between home-buying and the Giant Writing Project of Doom, my mental spoons have been almost entirely spoken for lately. I'll open a book, read a couple of pages, and realize I don't remember any of it because my brain is entirely elsewhere. The time I usually spend listening to audiobooks is almost entirely taken up by music and character-playlist-making, both to keep up enthusiasm for writing and because it helps keep me from obsessing over budgets and HOA documents and closing procedures. I haven't even sat down at the piano in a week. I'm hoping that once home-buying and moving are done with (a week and a half to closing, two and a half until we start moving in), that'll return some mental spoons, but for now I think I'm more focused on what's directly in front of me.
As to the GWPoD, I spent a couple of weeks on the outlining/character sketches/scrapbooking phase, then realized I was putting off the actual writing part; perfectionism strikes again! I think writing (and re-writing, and re-re-writing) the slashfic that sparked this whole thing was a good preparatory experience. For so much of my life I've felt like my writing was a failure if it didn't come out perfectly (or near enough to only need minor edits) on the first go, so of course I had to have everything envisioned perfectly in my head before I could even start putting words down. No wonder I only ever wrote short stories. I'm at 4600 words now, almost all of which are likely to be cut, and I'm actually okay with that. I've been taking a cue from Chuck Wendig and thinking of my words as building material. (Using Scrivener helps with this, since each scene is a separate document with attached notes that can be moved around at will.) Once I have enough bricks to start building a structure, then I can worry about things like arc and theme and tone; maybe the final structure will look way different than I'm envisioning it now, and that's okay.
I've never tried writing this way before, and it's oddly freeing, even if I do occasionally freak out about how much time and effort I'm 'wasting'. We'll see how it goes long-term...some part of me is curious as to whether I'll still be this enthusiastic about it in a couple of months, or whether my enthusiasm is a coping mechanism to deal with the house-buying stress.
Project Keepon Reading is proceeding in fits and starts. It's weird to realize that something I usually think of as a pleasurable activity actually takes a certain amount of mental focus; usually it's low enough that I don't even notice it, but between home-buying and the Giant Writing Project of Doom, my mental spoons have been almost entirely spoken for lately. I'll open a book, read a couple of pages, and realize I don't remember any of it because my brain is entirely elsewhere. The time I usually spend listening to audiobooks is almost entirely taken up by music and character-playlist-making, both to keep up enthusiasm for writing and because it helps keep me from obsessing over budgets and HOA documents and closing procedures. I haven't even sat down at the piano in a week. I'm hoping that once home-buying and moving are done with (a week and a half to closing, two and a half until we start moving in), that'll return some mental spoons, but for now I think I'm more focused on what's directly in front of me.
As to the GWPoD, I spent a couple of weeks on the outlining/character sketches/scrapbooking phase, then realized I was putting off the actual writing part; perfectionism strikes again! I think writing (and re-writing, and re-re-writing) the slashfic that sparked this whole thing was a good preparatory experience. For so much of my life I've felt like my writing was a failure if it didn't come out perfectly (or near enough to only need minor edits) on the first go, so of course I had to have everything envisioned perfectly in my head before I could even start putting words down. No wonder I only ever wrote short stories. I'm at 4600 words now, almost all of which are likely to be cut, and I'm actually okay with that. I've been taking a cue from Chuck Wendig and thinking of my words as building material. (Using Scrivener helps with this, since each scene is a separate document with attached notes that can be moved around at will.) Once I have enough bricks to start building a structure, then I can worry about things like arc and theme and tone; maybe the final structure will look way different than I'm envisioning it now, and that's okay.
I've never tried writing this way before, and it's oddly freeing, even if I do occasionally freak out about how much time and effort I'm 'wasting'. We'll see how it goes long-term...some part of me is curious as to whether I'll still be this enthusiastic about it in a couple of months, or whether my enthusiasm is a coping mechanism to deal with the house-buying stress.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-21 03:52 pm (UTC)I've run into this problem occasionally.
Wishing you luck, and whatever outcome is most satisfying, on your writing.