Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

Being offline a little this week (I’m now officially over my limit for Verizon) you’d think I would have had more time to write. Sadly, thanks to the shortened summer semester I had no time. I did get a little writing done but more on that later.
I’ve started the 21 days of meditation as I mentioned earlier. So what does that have to do with writing? Day two was something I think has a lot of applications to writing. It was about putting one thought, one word into your mind and letting your brain twist it about and make connections (the word was strawberry in the case of the meditation). It’s the old word association game.

Think about how successful most prompt communities are, ditto open calls for anthologies. You’re given a word or a line of song/poetry/text and whole stories bloom. I think this is a neat way of poking the muse. I’ve been something for years, a rather unsuccessful attempt at directed dreaming. I take where I’m snagged in a story and think about that as I try to go to sleep, hoping for inspiration. The downside of that is my mind gets worked up and I can’t fall to sleep.

So with this adapted meditation, the writer would try out something like this. Get comfortable (yes, no sitting in a cramped lotus for us. Hell stretch out on the bed if you want), either opt for silence or put on some music you think would fit the story you’re trying to inspire. Take several deep breaths and allow yourself to relax. Fix the sore spot of the story in your mind and just let it flow. You might be surprised where it takes you.
Granted the more I do this, the more I realize I really do need to shift these to my pro writing journal. I’d have to MAKE one (not the erotica one but one for my non-erotica pen name which I need to settle on). I might even make this journal here and beg a dreamwidth invite so I can just mirror it in two spots. If I have to market all my own stuff anymore under the guise of an ‘author’s platform’ I might as well do it right.

In spite of my work load this week, I did get 1400 words written of original fiction.

Machiavellian Moon – well I printed out ch 11, that’s a start

Total for the year –

56246 / 175000 words. 32% done!

Riding with strangers –

36560 / 60000 words. 61% done!

Beneath the Torn Sky –

58410 / 85000 words. 69% done!

Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron -

79127 / 85000 words. 93% done! (might have to up the word count on this one)

Saiyuki bigbang -

1008 / 15000 words. 7% done!

FMA Bigbang – I have 7400K that’s been printed. Yes I’m completely redoing this, a rewrite from page one on up but I guess I’ll need about 22000 to use this one. I think that’s more than doable. I may or may not slip one of the fire and ice ed/winry stories into this (not counting it toward that 22K). it was meant to be part of it but it may just remain outside of it as a side story.