Work in Progress (13/04/08)

Posted on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 in Work in Progress Tags: , , ,
This entry is part 16 of 20 in the series Work in Progress

So, we’re thirteen days into April, and although one of my challenges has been going fine, the others haven’t.

The plan to finish, edit and submit a short story for competition has been completely wiped from the board. Once again, procrastination has struck and I failed to finish the story in time despite having a good sense of it in my head. I just couldn’t get it down on paper (screen). And when it got to just a few days before the submission was due, I decided to give up - I like to put new-written fiction aside for a while before I go back and edit it, and there just wasn’t going to be time. Bugger.

On the other hand, I’ve successfully been writing a poem a day for National Poetry Writing Month! Some of them are better than others (as judged by the readers of the forum I’m posting them on as well as by myself) but on the whole I’m happy with being able to come up with something every day. I haven’t even had to resort to the The Writer’s Block yet for inspiration, although I’m sure I’ll need to before the end of the month.

I’ll be posting at least one of my poems here in the next few days, but if you want to see what I’ve churned out so far this month, they’re here.

There’s a problem with writing a poem a day though. My poems don’t tend to be more than about 100 words long, and that’s not great for the word count! However, I had a prose idea in a dream the other night and wrote nearly a thousand words for that, and I churned some out for Sunday Scribblings today as well which I’m pleased about even if they could do with a lot more polish. I’m also trying to decide which of my abandoned novels to pick up and finish - actually, that’s where you, my readers, can be of use to me.

This is a list of the projects which have been set aside. I’m open to working on any of them (in fact, I’d prefer to have at least two on the go so I can swap between them to keep me fresh). Pick some for me! All of them need new outlines done; the ‘plotted’ is mostly in my head so far.

  1. My unfinished NaNoWriMo 2003 novel (untitled) - fantasy, about 20% written and 80% plotted
  2. My unfinished NaNoWriMo 2007 novel (The Knights of Orcana) - young adult sci fi, about 60% written and 80% plotted
  3. The first of a fantasy series based on my 2005 & 2006 NaNoWriMo novels (The Chosen) - about 40% written and 80% plotted
  4. The modern romance thing I started writing a couple of months ago (Love Like Loathing) - about 10% written and 70% plotted
  5. The film-noir-ish who-knows-what that came to me a dream the other night (untitled)- about 1% written and 20% plotted

 Comments and suggestions are very welcome (as always).

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6 Responses to 'Work in Progress (13/04/08)'

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  1. no imageFrancis Scudellari (Who am I?) said,

    on April 13th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    My selfish choices as a reader would be 1 & 3. I’ve always had bad luck with dream-induced ideas. They never seem to have the same appeal to my waking mind, but that may be because my sleeping mind is much more easily impressed :). I think a poem a day is a great achievement … I’m off to take a peak at them now.

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  2. no imageKen Armstrong (Who am I?) said,

    on April 13th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

    Hi Claire!!

    My strong feeling on this would be that you should identify the one you feel most enthusiastic about writing… and then write that.

    This works well for me - if I have energy for something it usually greatly benefits the work.

    all the best

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  3. no imageKen Armstrong (Who am I?) said,

    on April 13th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    *that* was a joke BTW.

    I promise!!

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  4. no imageCatherine (Who am I?) said,

    on April 13th, 2008 at 11:17 pm

    *thumps Ken*

    Francis - actually, my ‘Chosen’ set of stories were partly inspired by a dream too! The material from the dream only forms a little part of the whole though; there’s a lot else going on. (Thankfully.)

    And Ken - the problem is that I feel reasonably enthusiastic about all of them, having done some re-reading lately! Well, of 1, 2 and 3 anyway. 4 is ongoing in my head; 5 is so recent that I still have a lot of interest in it.
    Which is why I need help deciding. :)

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  5. no imageTam (Who am I?) said,

    on April 13th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

    I’d say, go for #2 as it’s the one nearest comlpetion.

    A friend of mine (an nice chap, a little odd, but that’s a good thing) introduced me to the concept of a ‘done list’

    It’s kinda like a ‘to do list’ but starts with a blank page.
    Every time you do something, instead of crossing it off the list, you write it down onto the list.

    You start with a couple of easy things, and the act of writing them down and seeing the list grow makes you feel good about your productivity. You want to add more to the list.

    Rather than looking at a list of stuff you haven’t done and feeling bad about it (and consequently unproductive), you look at a list of stuff you have achieved, and feel good about it (and hopefully, productive)

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  6. no imagePlotDog (Who am I?) said,

    on April 15th, 2008 at 1:23 am

    As much as my reader friends say they are amazed when I just sit down in front of them and spill story words on the page, I am amazed by how people can do a poem that does not sound like my 9 year old wrote it.

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