Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't have anything special to say about this day that I didn't say one year ago.  So I am just going to link to that post and say, "read this!"

2974

That's how many words I wrote today, in one story, which basically means that book I of SK is done, except for the edits.  I have reached the end.  I was thinking that I was going to stop before I reached the dream sequence, and think it over, but then I just pressed on ahead and wrote it, off the top of my head, no planning, figuring the momentum would serve better.  And I think it did.  It had the quality I had wanted, where the images slowly over took and I didn't actually know which ones represented which event, but somehow the whole arc of the dream made it's own kind of musical sense.  I expect I will not need to be making very many changes to it. 

I felt good.  I just sat down and basically just started putting one word in front of the other, until it was done.  It had all been there, somehow, I had just had to actually write it.  Well, that and do some research on the folklore concerning trees, but mostly, just write the thing.  And now the first draft is done, and I can begin editing in earnest. 

Well, not right now.  I think I am going to rest on my triumph for a while. 

Arthur Gets Lost

Screw it.  Here's the story I was talking about in the last post, after the jump.  Remember, it's five years old.  If you read it, tell me what you think of it in comments.

Report: Nothing to report

No writing yesterday. Just didn't feel like it, for a web of reasons too tied up to really get into. Some vague dissatisfaction haunts me, I think.

I was planning on posting a short story I had written long ago, just to put some more of my work up on the internet. I was amazed to see that it had last been modified in 2005. God, have I really been chipping away at this for that long? I read through it though, to check for spelling mistakes and such, and found that I really didn't like the story anymore. It seemed cloy somehow, like it thought to much of itself, or was trying to hard to impress. I feel it didn't really represent something that I wanted to present in anyway, even as an artifact. I made me wonder how much of the rest of my stories I don't feel proud. How much crap is floating around on my hard drives?

On the other hand, it was nice to have some sign that I am improving. After all, if it was as good as I was when I was 22, they last five years would have been kind of a waste, right?

But it is kind of frustrating that I don't have anything recent to post, which I would really like to, but everything, and I mean everything, is still in a state of flux, and just not fit to print, so to speak. I'm still world-building the world the stories are all set in, and the stories keep shifting under my feet. Then there's the sections that need to be expanded, because it turns out the way I wrote it before isn't complete, or doesn't fit the beat.

interupted

Closing shifts are the worst thing in the world in terms of writing. Usually, when I write, I write in burst of two to three hours, then either cool off and go back at it, or call it a day. I can write well into the night if I am on a roll. So theoretically, having two or three hours should be plenty of time to get in a writing shift.

But on closing shift days, I just can't do it. I have done it a couple of times in the past, and just when I am in the middle of something I have had to get ready to go. And when I get back to what I was working on, I can't remember where I was going. In fact, after that, it takes even longer to get back into the the swing of things, because, since I like what I was working on, I have to wait to "remember" what I wanted to come next in order to proceed. It's like how getting woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle actually leaves you feeling more tired than completing it, even if you actually get less sleep. So, I am so afraid to write, even though I want to write, that I basically just have to take a mulligan on the whole day. It sucks.

I kind of can't wait to go to work so I can get back and start writing.