Eccentric Flower talk:200911/4:30

Thomas:

First - fortunately I have forgotten ALL of my own the around 4 am poems, save a random snippet of "fridge humming busily in dark"

Second - I dreamed about you tonight. You were not rude to anyone in my dream, but very scared. And I would guess at least 10 years younger, if not more.

-- 11:43, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Mrissa:

Once you have written a novel, what then? Then the novel exists. There it is, existing.

If this is not enough motivation to write a novel, then I agree you probably oughtn't.

-- 13:04, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Nonelvis:

although give Amazon a few more years and who knows what will happen

Oh, you mean like Amazon Payments? You can also publish e-books through Lulu.com.

-- 14:43, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Mrissa, that is the crux. For me its mere existence is not enough motivation to write a novel - I thought it was once, but that was a long time ago - and therefore, as you say, I probably oughtn't.

And there the matter would stand, except I have something in common with real writers: The urge to write something that never nevernever subsides. Thus sometimes I have to placate this monster ... and sometimes, I wonder, is throwing an average of a thousand words a day (since adulthood) at it just to shut it the hell up really a good use of my time? Which use of my time stinks less?

-- 15:37, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

It'll put me in a weird category all alone when I say that, when I saw 4:30, I immediately thought you were going shopping on Black Friday. All I've heard lately is about stores opening at 4 a.m. I sit here at noon, not having ventured into the fray, as yet, but planning to.

I'm currently reading The Salmon of Doubt, a collection of essays from the computer of Douglas Adams. Each is a gorgeous, stand-alone vignette, and I doubt that many are over 1,000 words long. They were, in many cases, newspaper columns, but I believe your journal entries are columns of a sort. This use of time does not stink. You obviously have "something to say" and you do it masterfully. That's justification enough for 1,000 words per day.

-- 17:15, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Oh no, Bunny, I would sooner piss in someone's holy water than observe Black Friday sacraments. The whole consumer extravaganza gives me hives.

-- 17:21, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Jette:

This is the problem I'm facing with Holidailies. I am no longer interested in "let's write something every day, no matter how sucky it is." I'm more interested in "Here's a motivation for you to write a little more than usual, and to give us something enjoyable." If I get my favorite bloggers writing 5 posts in a month for Holidailies, that's more fun for me than reading a knitting blogger who posts 30 times about yarn and socks, or an old-school journaller who now posts nothing but TV recaps (or worse yet, movie reviews, heh).

How to draw quality rather than quantity out of people? Good question.

I don't want to write a novel that I can't sell, either, so I'm totally in your corner on this one. Although I think if people want to participate in a project to get a novel written and feel good about themselves, more power to them.

But the biggest problem I have with my writing right now is that I can't muster interest in "do it for yourself." And yes, I do consider it a problem. I would like to write something that isn't a movie review and am pretty much stuck, and I think it's definitely because I'm in a work-for-pay mode, and am less inclined to write in a style that I'm less good at.

-- 21:24, 27 November 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

About Black Friday... I go out among the throngs because it gives me pleasure to watch the many manifestations of the season, good or bad. Except today, there were no throngs. At Bed, Bath & Beyond there were more sales staff than customers. It was after 5 p.m., though. I hope there was more traffic early in the morning. Judging by previous years, it's going to be a lean season, retail-wise.

Okay, I know all about what the season implies and should be. But I believe it is what you make it. I get a kick out of trying to find interesting gifts for my friends and family. I like the colors, the lights, even the cheesy music. Today, I accidentally left a parcel beside a display of shirts at Macy's. Uh oh. Time to test Karma. I finally found the display, and there was my white bag, just where I left it. The season wins again. And so do I.

-- 02:52, 28 November 2009 (GMT)

Thomas:

Jette, it seems to me that the idea of the regular writing challenges is to reach the good parts eventually. To get into the habit of writing and so reach the sweet inspiration under the crust of stale mundanity.

I must say, though, that for me the inspiration usually reacts to resolution of not to write anything, as the well is dry and it is only dry and poisonous dust that comes up anyway.

-- 06:54, 28 November 2009 (GMT)

ProfRobert:

I'm not a novelist or even a writer of any kind of fiction, so I'm talking out my ass here (even more than usual), but I suspect that the "novel month" idea is to get people to focus on the activity. Being a novelist doesn't come with deadlines, and for me, work that doesn't have to be handed in is work that doesn't have to be done. I do know, as a professional writer and teacher of writing, that writing is like a muscle -- it gets flabby if you don't exercise it. Getting people to generate X-thousand words a day may produce 25X-thousand words of crap, but I suspect that by the time they get to Day 26 or more, there may be something worthwile that emanates.

None of that goes to the question of whether you should write. My answer to that is simple for me, though obviously not for you: Do it if you enjoy it (or will lead to enjoyment, such as the receipt of many dollars); don't do it if not. Another of my many philosophies is that if you're not enjoying something, there needs to be a really, really good reason to keep doing it. Selfishly, of course, I hope you do continue to write about anything that interests you. With a couple of exceptions (e.g., on-line gaming minutiae), I find it interesting, including the fiction -- Moving Parts is, to me, better than most of the short stories I see these days (though admittedly most of them are of the plotless, litfic New Yorker type of thing that I think we both despise). I think the Ring stories are also pretty good. Space-as-Western is a common-enough theme, but those are more a Space-as-Deadwood, excpet with likeable characters. But you are not my performing monkey, so selfishness aside, it's entirely up to you.

-- 18:28, 28 November 2009 (GMT)