Yeah, I did about 3,000 words in The Lost Colony today. I’m just about caught up to the place where I was before I decided to rewrite the first chapter. About a third of that was cut and pasting from the previous part, but I did have to substantially edit it.
The funny thing is that it was a struggle to get myself settled down and actually writing, but once I did, the time flew by like nothing and so did the words. Last night, I didn’t write anything because it was late and I was very tired, and I figured that it would be better to make it up today. I figure that goals are only useful if they push you to the best possible end. They’re not there to make you feel guilty or satisfied, they’re there to get you to do something. If I get overly swamped with schoolwork, or a family death happens, or I’m in desperate need of sleep, I’m not going to make myself spit out 500 words of forced prose. Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking or saying this. (I highly recommend Mur Lafferty’s podcast, by the way.)
All day today, I had it in the back of my mind to sit down and write, but whenever I tried, I always distracted myself. It was weird. I need to get past this, but I’m not sure how. I figure it will happen naturally as I get deeper in the story. I think that writing is most enjoyable when you really believe passionately in the story itself. I think that that’s also one of the best motivators for writing. I’m sure there are others–like, for example, starvation–but when I really have a good story idea, I almost CAN’T keep from writing. This past winter, I had this awesome story idea of a bunch of guys in someone’s brain piloting him like some kind of spaceship and helping him to overcome his fears and ask a girl out on a date. I kept poring over the story in my mind until one day I just sat down for three hours–and voila! an entire rough draft came out beautifully! One major edit and a few cosmetic changes later, it actually won a writing contest. So yeah, it really helps if you’re passionate about your story!
The question is, how do you get yourself more excited about the story you’re trying to tell?
School is coming up, and I’m about to discover if I’ve got too much on my plate. 18 credit hours, advanced Arabic plus living in the Arabic house, working part time, no car (not yet–I just sold my old one), and other craziness. Despite all this, I am very much looking forward to going back to school. It will be exciting! It will also be exciting to get involved in Quark again. We’ve had some good online meetings, but only a handful of people have shown up to those (mostly just Reigheena and Aneeka). A lot of people in the writing group have graduated, so I really hope we can bring in some new blood this semester.
“how do you get yourself more excited about the story you’re trying to tell?”
Hmm, good question. Sometimes I get excited by this really cool scene that I have yet to get to, and I can’t wait to put it down. Often, I’ll be working on that cool scene mentally while I’m doing other things. Other times, after working hard on some problem areas, I get really excited when things just start finally coming together.
And sometimes, I just need to give myself a deadline, and the excitement of submitting something gets me writing, even though I have to slog through the hard parts.