Writing Wednesday - Too Busy

So I've made distressingly little progress on my snowflake. Like, about 2 hours' work in a week. Granted, I did a LITTLE more thinking in my head on top of that, but still. That's IT??? Still on Step 3 (quick telling of the story from each major characters' POV). But I'm planning to go through what I wrote on Step 3 one more time and then move on to Step 4 (expanding the paragraph summary you wrote of your novel into 5 paragraphs).

While I don't like writing down plans, I DO like thinking about problems, and I haven't even been doing much of that lately. I think most of the problem is my own human nature, to get caught up in distractions. I taught Children's Church last Sunday and the lesson was on Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). The lesson itself was about putting God first (something I'm not particularly good at). And that made me think the lesson was to do MORE for God--spend more time reading the Bible, praying, etc. Which is a good thing, of course. But in this day and age I do wonder if Satan loves to see us so caught up on Facebook, in Internet rabbit holes, etc., that both our quiet time with God, and our quiet time to think, all get pushed by the wayside. Statistically I've read that we have MORE leisure time today than any generation before us. (I'm not sure that's entirely true; farmers would be completely busy during the harvest and planting, but when the snow came there wouldn't be that much to do. But most women, excepting the ones who had a ton of servants, probably do have a lot more time to themselves. Every time I get annoyed at having to do a load of laundry, I imagine how angry my great-grandmothers would probably be to know their descendant was whining about having to move clothes from the washer to the dryer....

I do think just sitting down and THINKING was a lot more fun before I became a grown-up, and also before the Internet. I still remember when I was on the school bus or even sometimes in class, I'd daydream adventures that I could later write down. (Too bad many of those would qualify as Rescue Rangers fanfiction and thus could never be salable!)

Then in high school I'd sketch on the top margins of my notes and by college the sketches had even turned into comics. (Speaking of which, I was just thinking of that very comic lately...maybe someday I'll turn it into a novel. Hmmm.)

Anyway, now between my busy job (and there's always work I can be doing there) and the millions of rabbit holes that are the Internet (and the wonderful people who populate it), I just haven't been taking as much time to be creative. I think I need to try to carve out more time to just sit and think and listen. Easier said than done, but I'd better try.

Why Write?

Progress report - I'm still getting a chapter of Endwood up for critique weekly, so that's good. I think I'm about 3 chapters from the end. I'm really excited to put this novel behind me for a while! Also returned a couple critiques in the past 7 days.

My question today is: Why write? God gave me a passion for writing, I believe, as I've been interested since I was a small child. I drew comic books and wrote stories when I was about 11 or 12, and have been writing ever since. If you count NaNoWriMo, I've completed drafts of about 5 novels, plus a co-written novel and one that I stopped at 50,000 words after NaNo but will rewrite someday. At any rate, I adore entertaining people with imagined characters and worlds. For someone who can't memorize, writing is a great way to do it.

OK, so why write novels? I just haven't gotten the hang of writing short stories--I like to have more time to play with characters. And in a perfect world, I know every novel would be as polished as a short story, but in the real world, every word has to count in a short story, whereas novels have a bit more wiggle room. I'd like to try it sometime, though.

I actually love writing comic books, but I'm not a very good artist and don't enjoy drawing enough to become a much better artist. I've toyed with having artists draw my scripts, but that kind of collaboration can be difficult to pull off, in that both parties must be very motivated. I've heard that it usually comes down to the artist "encouraging" the artist to work, and I'm not so good at that.

I wrote a script for a play once (I took a playwriting class in college instead of advanced fiction writing...more on that another day!), and it was enjoyable. But I feel like doing a play would be so draining for someone who loves ideas but can have trouble interacting with people for long, long stretches.

I think it'd be kind of cool to write for TV, but I'm not sure I'd want to write other people's characters, and I know I don't want to move to LA.

I know if you write a movie screenplay and Hollywood makes it, odds are VERY poor that your vision will end up on the screen. I think that would be hard to deal with, no matter how excellent the money can be.

And I prefer imagined worlds to the real ones, so that's why I prefer to write fiction. Did I leave out any possibilities you can think of?

But when it comes down to it, I love to write, and it's just something I do. Even in the lunchroom at work, I prefer to just sit down with a pencil and paper and work on my novel. It's one of the things I enjoy most in the world, and I believe God likes me to do it.

Do you write? If so, why? If not, why not?

Next Wednesday I'll continue this thread with, why write for publication?

Progress Report

So I figured I'd at least write progress reports on Wednesday. The last seven days weren't great--I got some writing done on "Flight from Endwood," but not as much as I wanted. I also critiqued a co-worker's short story. (It's amazing how some people you'd never have expected at first have amazing creativity and talent!)

I also got something printed on Lulu.com so that's pretty cool. Hopefully it will arrive soon!

I would love to have Endwood finished by the end of the year, but if I manage that, it will definitely be a God thing. It's a very, very complicated novel (it will need a total rewrite which I won't tackle until I'm a much better writer). I've also got several chapters to critique from one author, and several other chapters from another.

I'd better get to work!