Writing Exercise - Magical Furniture

Again, thanks to C. M. Mayo for providing a list of writing exercises. Here's today's:

January 22 "Magical Furniture"
This is a little exercise in magical realism. With realistic detail, write a scene in which your character has a conversation with a piece of furniture. Assume that the person and the piece of furiture disagree about something.

And, here we go :

Jason casually placed his laptop on the tabletop. But as he opened it, and prepared to sit a voice seemingly from nowhere spoke out.

"Hey! What the heck are you doing?"

His eyes scanned the room. He was alone, except for the boxes that had been here since he moved into the house. Odds and ends that had never found their proper place, and were exiled for their lack of usefulness to this room that he was now trying to find a use for.

"Don't you think I've got enough crap on me already?" the voice continued. "You really think I need more?"

"Excuse me," Jason replied. "Am I actually speaking to my table?"

"Oh, now he's polite? He piles stuff up on me for years, and now bothers with 'excuse me'? That's rich. Yes, as it so happens, you are talking to your table."

Jason's brow furrowed. "Sorry, I didn't think my furniture could talk."

"Did you ever bother to ask it?" the table replied sharply. "I know I've had a few words for you for years now, but I've held my piece. But this... this is the last straw. Some of this stuff needs to go."

"Well, I'd have done something ages ago if you'd told me it was a problem!" he protested.

And... time.

I think this ran a bit more smoothly than the listing exercises I did for the past two days. Of course, the subject is the load of junk I've had this poor table weighed down with for years. It feels good to turn this room into useful space. I hope it appreciates it as well. ;)

Breaking In The Writing Room

As the title of this post suggests, tonight I did my writing from within the spartan 'comfort' of my writing room.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm done in here by any stretch. The floor definitely needs a good mopping (if not an outright scrubbing.) There are still a few boxes that need to find themselves stored elsewhere, and some other detritus on the table that's serving as a desk. But I thought I'd progressed far enough that I could try to start using it for it's appointed purpose - and on that score, it's a success. I pulled one of our dining-room chairs to use until I can get something more suitable, plugged in the laptop and got started.

Granted, I got a later start than I would've liked. I tried to sit down, but I felt like I was forcing things. I took an hour's break and made some decent headway. How decent? That depends. I've been trying to write 700-1200 words a night. But my friend Caine e-mailed me a link to this blog. The basic premise of the link states that writing 500 words a day is a goal to shoot for. After all, 500 words times 365 days is over 100,000 words written in a year, which according to the blog is about the upper limit for a 'publishable' novel. But why that suggestion? Is it to keep you from burning out? Is it to try to show that a small amount of progress every day over a year can add up to a novel? I think I'm ahead of that curve on average, and I'm pretty comfortable with my output. I'm just curious, if anybody knows.

Tonight I wrote a bit over 700 words. Yesterday I might've been a little dissatisfied with that amount. But in light of Caine's e-mail, I think I'm going to try to view it a little more positively. I want to see how much I can do, but I do sometimes need to remember to keep a more positive outlook.

I left my story at a point that I think I should be pretty eager to pick back up later. So hopefully tomorrow will be a very fruitful night. For now, I think I'm going to see about taking care of some last loose ends about the house before going to bed.

Word Count:

Tonight's Word Count: 746

Total Word Count: 12,791

Writing Exercise - Filmy Fluttery

January 21 "Filmy Fluttery"
In Dreaming by the Book, a path-breaking analysis of how novelists instruct us to form images in our minds as we read, Elaine Scarry devotes an entire chapter to "rarity". I call it "filmy fluttery." Writes Scarry, "rare objects--- ghosts, filmy curtains, shadows-- move more easily than solid ones do... Filmy objects--- hair, paper, light cloth, flower petals, butterflies (petals in motion)--- continually move about in the mind almost without effort." The exercise is this: In a typical café, what might be filmy or fluttery? Simply make a list of as many objects as you can, and very briefly describe the way in which these might move.

So here we go.

• Curtains - The curtains billowed like smoke in the breeze.
• Napkins - A sudden gust of wind from the open window inspired the napkins on the table to take flight, lifting them up into the air before watching them glide back down on their own.
• Tablecloth - The light breeze carried the edges of the lacy tablecloth aloft with it, held aloft on nothing more than the slightest breath of air.
• Wind Chimes - The movement of air in the cafe, created by the door set the wind chimes in motion like a flurry of butterflies, creating a chaotic but beautiful melody.

And that's five minutes. I don't spend enough time in cafes I guess. But I can definitely see the value in thinking about it, and visualizing a more complete setting. I'm not quite used to hitting the ground running in regards to writing - that's one of the reasons I'm pursuing these exercises.

I'm about to start working for the night now. So I'll post back later.

My First Setback

About half an hour, my laptop ran into a Blue Screen Of Death, wiping out a fair chunk of progress. Save early, save often, right?

Part of me wanted to just shut down, and entertain myself for the remainder of the shift. I resisted the urge, though. I still remembered the basics of what was lost, if not all of the exact verbiage so I went about trying to replace it lest I forget.

I started writing a little earlier tonight, which is what I need to do. And while I may not have as many words saved as I wrote, I still crossed the 12,000 word mark. Tonight's writing involved trying to figure out an argument that basically splits up my protagonists with some bad feelings. (My main protagonist will help to discover she's a better leader than she gives herself credit for by pulling them back together - or at least I think that's what's going to happen.) I'm not sure how well that works, or if it feels contrived - but I do think that the group needs a little internal strife, and they've been getting along a little too well. If I'm letting you read for me, let me know what you think about it (when you get to that point), since that's one thing I'm unsure of.

Here's tonight's word count:

Tonight's Word Count: 726

Total Word Count: 12,045

Writing Exercise - 10 Places, 10 Smells

Taking a nod from Stefanie Howerton, I'm going to start working on some writing exercises. I think that, aside from helping my skills as a writer, they might also help me get more in the mindset that helps me get my writing done. Since I'm going to have a little more to do on my working nights during the hours that I feel like I get my best writing done, the quicker I can get started writing on a given night, the better off I'll be.

They're laid out by day to form a year's worth of exercises by date. I'll be boring and pick the one for today. (That'd be January 20th at this point, now that it's after midnight.) And of course, it bears mentioning that the exercise comes from C. M. Mayo's website, so my thanks for that resource.

January 20 "Childrens' Birthday Party: Surprise"

Make a list of all the things you would associate with a childrens birthday party. Try to get in smells, tastes, textures, sounds, colors, and of course, silly games and toys. Nearing the end of the five minutes, circle the items that surprised you in some way.

Clowns, Cake, Mothers, Trampoline, Grass, Blue Sky, Clouds, Sunlight, children, presents, picnic table, hot dogs, hamburgers, gift-bags, movies, tablecloths, kazoos, magicians, pizza, video games, toys, fence, swimming pool, cameras, Fathers, ice cream, candy, breeze, cooking meat, laughter, shouting, headaches, tummy aches, music, sugar

None of it really surprises me, though for most of the five minutes, I found myself thinking of actual objects. I caught myself towards the end and started throwing in some less tangible things. I suppose I could claim that headaches surprise me, but I'd imagine that for any parents involved it might be the only thing possible with a bunch of kids running around on a sugar high, whooping and yelling - and the inevitable stomach aches that come from eating too much candy.

With that as a warm up, time to look at my story, and pick up from last night's work.

Challenges

For those who don't know, I'm currently working as a nighttime security guard, and I do some of my writing at work. In the middle of the night it's a way for me to keep myself awake, pass the time and try to do something productive.

Of course, this means that sometimes the demands of my job will interfere with my actual work, if you can understand that distinction.

We've had a bit of a cold spell lately, so part of my job was put on hold. (Between 10pm and 4am, another guard and I are supposed to take turns keeping an eye on the parking lot to discourage vandals and thieves.) With the temperatures gradually increasing, that part of my job was reinstated tonight. So I'm going to need to find a comfortable way to write around the fact that every other hour I'm supposed to be outside - away from my laptop. Tonight, I cheated a bit. But I need to get used to writing in smaller increments so that it doesn't interrupt me too badly. (And I also need to start more quickly to make the best use of my time.)

That said, I had another decent night. In all honesty, I think it was my most productive night so far, but I think I can do better if I didn't putter around quite so much. :) Anyhow, here's the word count for the night:

Tonight's Word Count: 1301

Total Word Count: 11319

A Milestone

I passed a milestone tonight - I've written over 10,000 words for this story.

The length of this story is something I'm uncertain of. I think I have the major plot beats laid out, but that doesn't tell me how long it'll actually take to tell the story. The benchmark I'm using is the 50,000 word barrier used to determine success in NaNoWriMo - but that's largely because I'm not sure what else to use, or what length to shoot for. I'm certainly interested in hearing anybody else's guidelines or suggestions in that regard.

Right now, I'm just planning to follow the story as far as I can track it. It's already gone through changes since I first tried to figure it all out. And some of my favorite bits to write were bits of character work that helped me (and will hopefully help a reader) to get under my characters' skins - and those weren't planned. I'm trying to put them in as it occurs to me that they might fit.

Tonight was a rough start, though. The three day weekend here in South Carolina means that the 'inmates' were up and about longer than normal on a Sunday. That, in turn, meant that I was a little nervous about trying to sit down and write until a little later. But I'm not going to complain - it was a reasonably productive night. Any night over 1,000 words is still a pretty decent one for me.

Taking a nod from a new acquaintance on the internet, I might try to perform a few writing exercises. My impression is that they only take 5 minutes. Aside from helping me to hone my verbal skills, they might help put me in a better state of mind for writing later in the night. I'm planning to give it a try with my next shift. Those will be posted here.

Here's tonight's word count:

Tonight's Word Count: 1054

Total Word Count: 10018

Regarding the Writing Room, I'm hoping to finish cleanup Wednesday or Thursday. Then all I should need is a chair.