I did some writing!
I pulled my head out of the arse sized void of procrastination, doubt and confusion.
I wrote 1000 words that are best described as existing somewhere between the beginning of a first draft and the beginning of an outline. My story is based on my kick-ass dragon dream that I mentioned a few posts back.
It was a few random different elements that got me to actually put finger to keyboard.
1) Rex Pickett the author of Sideways, which was also an Oscar nominated film, randomly started following me on twitter. He wrote a blog post about being ripped off by the publishing industry, I in turn sent him a tweet telling him how I thought it sucked that he'd had such a bad experience. (I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this post.) He wrote back thanking me and then made a joke I didn't understand further underlining his experience. (That reminds me I have to go back and look at his tweet, i'm sure i'm capable of getting the joke, I just may have to use a dictionary that's all.) I mistook this as rapport and wrote back to him asking how he approached writing his first novel. Was he a make it up as he went along kind of guy? Was he a meticulous planner? I was looking for a nugget of inspiration that would set me off on my journey to greatness.
He ignored my follow up tweet. However not long after that he started posting writing tips as part of his twitter stream. I only started following him because he'd been following me so I don't know how long he's been doing that for, but some of his advice rang true to me. His biggest gripe it seems is with the Robert Mckee's, and by extension the Christopher Voglers of the writing world. He seems to really hate writing guru's. He's all about people finding their own stories inside themselves. Also he's a big believer in having a main character being vividly alive inside the writer when they write. I haven't yet absorbed that bit of advice. The important thing is his tweets got me believing that there is a story in me somewhere that can come out naturally.
2) Vague memories of Stephen Kings book On Writing kept swimming around in the back of my thoughts. I mentioned this previously, but to recap the main bits of advice I remember are that King is a big believer in writing without stopping too much to worry about things like grammar and research when trying to punch out a first draft. His main advice was read a whole hell of a lot and write 2000 words a day at least. I've been trying my best to read more lately, as you can see from the right-side of my blog i'm dividing my time between four books at the moment. Four books you say? Maybe I do have ADHD? An online test I took said I showed possible signs. Hook me up with some Ritalin.
3) I kept reading tweets of random writing advice about the importance of having a first draft out of the way. An idea started to form in my mind that I should just try to power through a first draft, even if it turns out to be more outline that story. Think less, do more.
4) November is novel writing month. People all over the world are currently committing themselves to, and falling short of, a goal to write 1700 words a day through November so that they have a novella to work with at the end of the month. Sprint, sprint, and sprint is the message.
I'm not entering the November challenge, but i'm trying to capture some of it's spirit, even though a few posts back I mentioned this sort of thing is not for me. I think at this point everything and anything both is and is not for me. Is that clear?
5) I started following this non-famous but published (possibly self-published) author on twitter called kendall Grey. At least I think that's her name. I'll look it up at the end of the post because i'm all about commitment to detail. She kept making posts about her daily sprinting sessions through a draft of some romance or supernatural romance thing that she's writing.
Write quickly, make shit up on the spot, and just improvise. This is my newest mantra.
Rex Pickett's website;
http://rexpickett.com/
What do you know, Kendall Grey has her own website too. I've never looked at it but she describes herself as an Urban Fantasy Author, which sounds pretty cool to me.
http://www.kendallgrey.com/
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