During the course of working on Spindle for NaNoWriMo, I wrote a sort of fairytale/flashback about one of the characters — 3000 words that just gushed out in about 90 minutes.
I like it. I liked it so much that I read it to Katherine that night at bedtime. She thought it was scary, but liked the stuff about the jelly.
Anyway, the original thing was written in separate parts, so I’m going to repost them here the same way. Think of it as serial installments.
Scribbling
I’ve long been someone who uses a keyboard almost exclusively for writing work. I can write longhand passably enough (for my own purposes at any rate), but I’ve never really seen the point, since I know I’m just going to copy anything useful over to a digital format anyway. Why do the work twice — unless you have to, as I did in London?
I’ve amended that stance somewhat.
1) I’ve discovered that I really enjoy writing longhand when I’ve got the time and no particular place to “be” with regard to writing. In other words, when I’m doing a little verbal meandering — don’t know exactly where I’m going and I just want to look around for awhile — then longhand is just the thing. It lets my brain run out ahead a bit and see what’s coming up next.
2) When I don’t know where I’m going because the path ahead is dark and unknown, then longhand is just the thing — it let’s me explore slowly and take my time as I go.
3) When there’s a big wall in the way, pen-on-paper is the tool I use to get it taken down, one brick at a time.
Eventually, I start to see where I’m going, though, and I have to set the pen down and hit the keyboard, because my longhand simply can’t keep up when whatever I’m writing is really coming through at a good (even normal) clip. If I can’t type at that point, it gets pretty frustrating and I’ll even (horrible mistake!) starting editing things out of what I’m thinking of writing just so I can get it written down without going numb from the elbow down.
So: not 100% useful, but much more than I’d once have thought .
something floating in the back of my brain
Good gods, I can’t look at another page of revisions tonight.
Continue reading “something floating in the back of my brain”
Day trip
Well, the internet doesn’t seem to want to entertain me today, so I guess I’m stuck with entertaining myself.
The following is mostly an exercise in description — a sort of literary still-life — the purpose was simply to force me to write something, because there is fuck. all. going on today worth commenting on.
Band camp? We were never in band camp…
Via ***Dave: The way we weren’t.
Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it’s something that’s never happened. Then (if you like) post this in your journal so that people can invent memories for you.
Alright, people… let’s have it.
Dangerous when Bored
So what do you do when you can’t fix the last big problem on your PC and you’ve got an afternoon to kill?
You fiddle with blog templates and write bad noir ripoffs that don’t go anywhere.
several ones
Haven’t posted a one word in awhile. Here’s a couple.
The definitive Mary Sue
What she is, what she isn’t, from Making Light.