In attempting to come up with something new to write here today, I realized there doesn’t seem to be much left of my present life that I haven’t already written about. In short, I’m running out of things to say.
I have this vision in my head of me and you sitting in a restaurant, eating a meal and looking around at the other couples – the young ones holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes, *gag* and the middle aged ones with kids, arguing over whether Bobby should get a new computer for his fourth birthday – and having nothing to say to one another. We’ve already talked about the weather and how bad the traffic was to get here.
Your teeth hitting the spoon every time you sip your soup is getting on my nerves.
Your memories of how sexy I was when we first met are fading even as the colour in your favourite cardigan does every time I wash it – it’s a horrible burnt orange and I’ve been secretly putting a drop of bleach in the water for about six months. I figure if it finally goes yellow you’ll stop wearing it.
Is that how things are going to end up with us, WordPress? Is it?
Come on, my dear. Let’s spice that plate of bits and bytes up, shall we? Before I have to face your dentures in a pot beside the sink in the bathroom every night.
It’s the first Friday in May. Imagine that! Depending where you are in the world, either spring is blooming or autumn is falling upon you. Regardless, it’s the fifth month of the year, so in celebration of that, I thought Friday’s Prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday may as well reflect this changeable time of year.
This week your Prompt will be ‘change’ in any form or definition of the word. Play with it, and have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post.
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: “This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-314/ ” The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
Well, I did it, on not one, but two blogs. When I started I didn’t think I’d be able to keep the fiction side of it up. I started the story of Xavier and Jupiter with the intention to make it a single short story – using just the letter A. That leads me to the first and possibly the most important thing I learned.
Someone once asked me what I wanted to do with my writing. She asked, “Do you want to be a writer of fiction? A journalist? A blogger? What do you want?” as though I had to choose just one. So I did. I said the first thing that came to my mind – I want to be a novelist. Until April 2nd I didn’t know why; I’ve only fully realized in the last 24 hours, that it’s simply what I do. Once I get a character in my head, I can’t let go. It’s why I have such a hard time with short stories – because there is always so much further I can take these people who live in my imagination than I can possibly write in, say 1,000 words. I think it’s also why, when I do write short fiction, it’s usually under 500 words. I just can’t get into it without writing a novel. And I would so much rather be writing a novel!
I probably had more fun writing what ended up being a fair sized novella completely off the top of my head every day until I hit about the letter “T” than I’ve had since NaNoWriMo. I love the challenge not knowing what will happen next until I write it.
Which brings me to the next thing I learned doing A-Z – that I find it infinitely easier to write every day when I have a prompt, even if that prompt is simply a letter of the alphabet and a theme. I shouldn’t be writing this post until May 5th when there is, by the way, a link party over at the A-Z Challenge site. But I had nothing else to write today.
The third thing the Challenge gave me, which wasn’t as much of a learning experience as it is simply a fringe benefit, is all the wonderful new blogs I found, and intend to keep following. *waves to the other A-Z’ers* I must also use this post to thank so many of my friends for coming on this journey with me. It was great, wasn’t it? I’m looking forward to all your follow-up posts!
The question, I guess, is what do I do with the things I’ve learned? I may compile my A-Z novella, polish it, and publish it. It might be a good way to get my name out there before I publish Dagmaru. I’d be happy to have any thoughts on this from those who have read it. I also know now that I need to concentrate on my novels.
As for not knowing what to write on my blog, I may seek out more prompts. If anyone has any good suggestions I’d love to hear them.
A-Z was a wonderful experience. It’s helped me to grow as a blogger and a writer. I can’t wait to do it again next year!
I was going to write about sleep today, but since seeing two other people I follow with “Zzz” for today’s title, I decided to change my mind. I hate being unoriginal. So, zed it is.
But what does it mean?
For any of my American friends who might not know, “zed” is how we Canadians, and those in the U.K. and I believe Australia and New Zealand too (please correct me if I’m wrong), pronounce the last letter of the alphabet. Here we don’t go as far as to call a zebra and zedbra, but I have an aunt in England who does. We do call a spiffed-up Camero a Zed-28 however.
What does this have to do with writing?
It’s all tied in with spelling, and the way we do things differently. “Colour” and “color” are pronounced the same, but I have a hard time keeping the “u” out of my words. You may have noticed this about me. But what is the preference when writing a novel I know I’d like to sell south of the border? I believe most Canadian authors resort to the U.S. spellings. Still, I wonder how much it throws my American friends off to see all our added letters in words?
Writer mode is something I never go out of. It’s the perpetual state of creating, of observing, and of learning. I don’t see and hear things going on around me as much as I absorb them.
This came to me one day about a month ago when I was in the grocery store. I reached the end of the aisle where there was a display of bleach on sale, and I thought to myself, I’m going to need some of that to get all the blood stains out. In reality, I don’t have a pool of blood anywhere in my house – so where did the thought come from?
I wonder about this a lot. The characters, plots and scenarios manifest in my mind in so many different ways. Whereas most of my fictional dilemmas are solved when I’m completely relaxed, such as when I’m in the shower and not having to concentrate too much on what I’m doing, my initial ideas often appear when I’m trying to do something else. Possibly it’s the part of me that worries, what if? It’s those moments when I’m frantically looking for something to write on, or searching for a place to pull over so I can write a note on my phone so I don’t forget.
I feel kind of blessed that I have this seemingly infinite source of thoughts and ideas coming to me. I think maybe everyone does, to some degree. Whether one puts them to use is what makes the difference between one who creates and one who lives on other’s creations – not that there’s anything wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld. We all do it.
So which is it do you think? I ask all creators: artists, photographers, musicians, and writers of fiction, blogs and poetry, is there something in the ether which those of us who create are in touch with? Or is it something that comes from inside, that we’re simply more in tune with than other people?
Hey there! Welcome once again to the Friday Prompt in anticipation for tomorrow’s big event: Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Why is it a big event? Because everyone is going to join in this week! Even YOU! Are you ready? Too bad! You’ve got to wait until tomorrow! Haha.
This week I’d like to see what you can do with a question. Ask one in the first sentence or two of your post and then answer it… or not. It’s up to you.
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post.
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: “This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-2614/ ” The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Good Friday and present you with this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. According to Wikipedia, “Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in thought and lack of punctuation.” While you might want to hang on to your punctuation, (you can even add more if you’d like) the great part of this literary form is not having to stick to the subject or, like with an essay, come to a conclusion on your initial statement. Just go with the flow!
This week, the prompt is “Just.” Take whichever definition of the word you’d like to and run with it.
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: “This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1914/” The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
Do you ever wonder how much you’re giving away of yourself when you write? Details of a writer’s psyche must show through, since all we really have to draw from are our experiences and our emotions. Our backgrounds: our genetics, our nature and how we were nurtured as children make up who we are, and are inherent in everything we do. Whether a writer of fiction, personal accounts, poetry… what creates our literary “voices” is our individuality.
I worry–not as much now as I used to–how much personal information I’m putting out there, whether intentionally or not. I worry that my kids will read what I write and be embarrassed or scarred – who wants to read their mother’s love scenes after all? How do they know how much of it comes from my imagination and how much from experience? I certainly won’t hand my own mother my novel and say, here, enjoy it. But then she judges me more harshly than anyone on the planet.
Of course, not everything we write comes from experience. I often say that if Stephen King did, he’d long be imprisoned. It’s not as though he goes around killing people, or feels the pain of being hit by a car. … oh wait, never mind. I watched a Youtube video the other day, in which he spoke to a room full of students about his process in writing, among other things. He said that one of the questions he is asked most often is what his childhood was like – what kind of trauma he went through in order to write the things he does. He said there was absolutely nothing… but if there was, he wouldn’t tell.
For myself, I went through an obsession with death after my father passed away suddenly. Not surprising since I was only fourteen years old. Is it why I write horror on occasion? I’m not sure. It was certainly the only traumatic thing I went through as a child. Yet paternal abandonment, in whatever form, shows up in every major work I’ve written to date. It took four novels before I realised it.
This is what I am open about. What about the stuff I’d rather not be? I ask again: do you ever wonder how much of yourself you’re giving away when you write? Is there anyone in your life you’d rather never read your work – or are you careful just in case they do?
This is Linda, coming to you today from a moment in time where all I want to do is rest. That’s life. And that’s what this blog, and the theme of this challenge is all about here on “Life In Progress” – life and how writing fits naturally into it. So that’s the “life” part of today’s topic. Now for the writing part.
The experts suggest that when an author writes a novel, he or she should let it rest. Depending on who the expert is will depend on the time frame of the resting period, but most say at least a month. Why is this a good idea?
We get attached to our words. We read them after they are first written wearing rose-coloured glasses, and it’s not until we’ve stopped reading them for a while and then go back to them that we realise how dirty those glasses were. I wrote my first novel, Trixie in a Box, during 2004’s NaNoWriMo. The manuscript has been sitting under my bed, communing with dust bunnies ever since. I took it out last year, thinking it might be a good idea to polish it and e-publish it ahead of my epic The Great Dagmaru, on which I’m currently working. However, three paragraphs into Trixie I was struck hard by how awful it is and it quickly rejoined the dust bunnies. I still believe in the story, but the prose is of fanfic quality – which makes sense since that’s what I was writing a lot of at the time.
Nine years is a long time to allow a manuscript to sit; I’m not recommending it. But to let your work sit for, say, as long as it takes to successfully complete a grammar course isn’t a bad idea. Failing that, the simple practice of daily writing can help significantly, as can reading the works of a good author. I can’t emphasize enough that it must be a GOOD author – someone you aspire to be just like. I tend to pick up the habits and to an extent, the style, of whomever I am reading, whether it’s E.L. James or Stephen King, the former of which is a scarier prospect than the latter.
I know how tempting it is when a story is finished to just publish it – I do it here on WordPress all the time. But for something I want to be remembered for, I’m going to take all the time it needs (not I need) to get it right.
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