Posting Less, Writing Better

Over the past year, I've written every day, posted something most of those days and looked at what it means to me.  Essentially, writing every day is a discipline and a goal that I've reached as of the beginning of the year.

Now, looking back on the year or more of daily discipline, I've noticed a few important things.  One of them is that there are some major steps to producing a publishable work.  Obviously, the prime step of sitting down and writing out an idea comes first.  Then comes the next step or steps you must take to refine work, edit and hone ideas.  That's something that has not been given enough attention in the past, and it's showing up as an annoying problem, in my mind anyway.

Some ideas or subjects are pretty quick to develop, and I'm satisfied with what ends up on the "page" here. Others I would have liked to have taken a lot more time with, and of course I still can go back and rework them.  This leads me to the next step now, which is that for the most part, I will be posting less often and developing ideas and themes to a fuller extent so that they seem more complete to me.  I want to take more time to delve into that creative space and see what can come of it.  After that, I will submit finished work for publication and see what happens.

Most, if not all, creative thinking requires a warm-up period when the mind is set to work on a task and needs to be let loose and wriggle around a bit before really hitting its stride and feeling good.  Athletes and other folks call it "the flow."  You know it when you feel it.  After some warm-up time, you feel less hesitant and more energized.  At the same time, you're less aware of the immediate surroundings and distractions that may pop up.

It's that feeling of flow that I have had not found enough time to reach.  By imposing the daily post goal, I've often rushed to use time and get something posted, whether I really was fully satisfied or not.  On the other hand, it does take me less time to write out what I want to than it used to.  The daily discipline has been excellent in that regard.

So, I will write daily but only post every other day or so.  If I hit a stretch of time when I can write for a longer period of time during the day, I may post something here more frequently, but the goal will now be for quality instead of quantity.  I hope that makes sense.

Thanks for reading, subscribing and passing my posts forward to friends.  I know quite a few people are subscribing and checking in regularly, which is cool.  I appreciate you having you as a reader, wherever you are.  Anytime you want to respond, you can do so by posting a comment or emailing me at bottaroc@gmail.com  .

Who Cares?

Who cares?

That's what I'm asking myself as I work on a short story these days.

It's a question that you have to ask, but I've noticed if you ask it too soon or to harshly, you kill your own magic.  Imagination is everything, but the freedom to let it fly as far as it needs to before you start hauling it down for repairs is even more key, I believe.  Self-censorship too early on makes for a crash landing.  

There are a lot of aspects of storytelling that you should never really notice if you're reading or listening.  If you're lucky, you are pulled into a story as if by some magnet.  You cling to the scenery desperately as the story winds to a close and never want to leave that new landscape behind.  You really care about what happens, you understand deeply,  and your own imagination carries the story far beyond its original pages.  It all really matters.

When I was in seventh grade, our English teacher read us a story for about 15 minutes at the end of each class.  The bell would ring, she'd have finished her reading and we would exit the room.  Once, there was a suspenseful story in which the main character was facing certain death, and all of us were on the edge of our seats, spellbound.  The bell rang.  She looked up, and we all urged her, "Keep going!  Don't stop!"  We were all late for our next class, but nothing was more important than hearing what happened next.  It was the coolest thing.  No Star Trek transporter ever did a more effective job moving 30 kids to another world.

As I write my story, I feel really glad I am not God.  No disrespect intended, but it's crazy enough keeping track of one ordinary character.  Imagine seven billion of them swarming everywhere.  What a headache.  Sometimes, my character just sits there no matter what I do, and other times he is going to town, moving like mad, and I can barely keep up with him.  Who knows why.  I'm letting him roam for now.  Later, I'll net him, examine him and see what needs trimming.  I'll find out who cares, and hopefully it will be me.

So, there was this man, a successful man with a broken heart ...

Short Story Writing Class Begins

With only moments left to write, I can only say I've signed up for an online short-story writing course.  The sign-up process was designed by the devil himself in the guise of an IT department whose sense of evil humor is entirely wicked and evil.  I managed somehow, but it took TWO HOURS!!!!  (head hitting desk)

Well, with that agony behind me, I can wax philosophic and say:  You never stop learning, and when you can learn from someone who is much farther along the road you intend to travel, your choice is obvious.

I'll be taking some of the writings I've posted on my blog and developing them into short stories, learning about story structure, sentence structure, word choice, setting, plot - all that stuff.  I hope I learn what a verb is, too.  It's been a long time since I took a class in writing (seems like centuries).  I'm putting on the student hat again and setting off on a little journey.  I hope you'll see some good changes and improvements in my writing here.  Comments and feedback are always welcome as well as new readers/followers.  I'm amazed to find that people are taking time out of their busy days to read my work, and very humbled by it.  Thanks everyone!