These last couple of days, I’ve been writing in the morning\/midday, and it’s been a lot more productive than waiting to do it as the last thing.\u00a0 I think that if I could get into a routine of doing it early in the morning, maybe before classes, it could be really good.\u00a0 The way I have my schedule next semester, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing.\u00a0 And, if I end up writing on the side of a regular job, that’s probably what I’ll end up doing after college as well–getting my fiction writing in each day before I go to work.\u00a0 I’ve heard that it works very well for some people.<\/p>\n
The story is definitely progressing nicely.\u00a0 However, I think I may start turning to some short stories in the near future.\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n
First of all (and some of you, I know, will laugh at this), I’m a little bit worried about getting too far into this novel before the beginning of winter semester.\u00a0 You see, for English 318 in the winter, we’re going to all start writing novels, but I’m hoping to get away with working on the one I’ve already got going.\u00a0 That becomes kind of hard, though, when I’m already 45,000+ words into mine, and everyone else is at the beginning.\u00a0 And I want to at least finish the rough draft of this one before I start another.\u00a0 So, either I go too far and have to start something new for the class, or…well, I just put it on the back burner for a while.\u00a0 Maybe I’m just stressing about it too much–after all, Sanderson seems like a pretty cool guy–but I dunno.\u00a0 Laugh if you want–it’s what I’m good for. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Second, I want to get a couple of short stories published in the not too distant future, and if I want to do that, I’d better write a few more.\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons for this.\u00a0 First, I want to prove that I can do it, both to myself and to my parents.\u00a0 It would be really awesome to sell something and see it in print \/ hear it in a podcast.\u00a0 It would help me feel a little bit more self-validated and encouraged to write more seriously–to feel like I can actually get the ball rolling on this writing dream that I have.\u00a0 And second, it would help validate what I’m doing to my parents.\u00a0 Rightly or not, they feel that I’m stretching myself thin, and want me to focus on the things that I’m passionate about and see if I can make a practical living off of it.\u00a0 I’m passionate about writing, but I don’t plan on doing that as a primary vocation, and I haven’t gotten published yet (although I have made some money off of it–$200 last year with the Mayhew contest!).\u00a0 If I can sell a few short stories, hopefully it will prove that I can actually do something legitimate with this writing thing that I have going.<\/p>\n
Now, talking about this reminds me of what I’m reading in this book of L’Engle quotations, about how one of the ways the world marginalizes the truths found in fiction is by saying that writing isn’t a “real job.” And I don’t feel like my parents are doing that.\u00a0 It’s just…financial independence and providing for a family is also very important.\u00a0 I don’t think that they’re telling me not to be a writer–just to evaluate how important are the things I’m doing, and cut out the things that aren’t important.<\/p>\n
But the thing is, writing is very important to me.\u00a0 It always has been.\u00a0 I was wondering the other day if I could ever get to a point in my life where I stop writing fiction altogether.\u00a0 And I have to say that I don’t think that that’s possible.\u00a0 When I came back from my mission, I found myself with a completely empty schedule–a life without anything to really keep me busy.\u00a0 And it took me only a week or two to jump into creative writing again–and in 8 months I had a 69,000 word novel.\u00a0 And after the winter semester, when I again found myself with a mostly open schedule, a number of ideas came together to compel me to write the short story The Clearest Vision<\/em>.\u00a0 Then, while I was in school again, I wasn’t doing too much writing at all, but this idea came to me so strongly that I felt overwhelmingly compelled to write it down.\u00a0 And so I gave birth to another story (ok, the giving birth analogy is kind of weird, but it’s kind of…true…).<\/p>\n What I’m finding nowadays is that ideas are constantly developing in my head, sometimes quickly, most of the time very slowly, always on a subconscious level if not on a conscious level, and that when a number of them get to a critical point, I feel overwhelmingly compelled to write.\u00a0 Before that happens, I can go about my life doing whatever, not even thinking about writing the story, but when it gets to that point, it just has to come out.\u00a0 It’s just the way my mind works.\u00a0 And for that reason alone, I don’t think that I could ever become an un-writer.<\/p>\n The key is to embrace this condition that sets me apart and use it–not only to serve myself, but, according to L’Engle, to “serve the work” as well.\u00a0 Because some of these ideas could probably help to bring people to truths that they didn’t have before, and to see and experience life-changing things.\u00a0 So I want to embrace this, and get good at it.\u00a0 I don’t want to write just to sell something, or to entertain, but to tell stories as good as the ones that have profoundly impacted me and my life.\u00a0 I hope I can do it.<\/p>\n So, that’s what the vision is.\u00a0 And the way to do it is to stop waiting until the idea absolutely must come out, and to try and work with it while it’s developing.\u00a0 Writing is hard work, not just flashes of inspiration and word sprints that turn into golden stories.\u00a0 If I’m going to make this writing thing work, I’ve got to learn how to write regularly, submit my work and get it published, and work with my ideas before they get to that really pregnant stage.\u00a0 And so I’m probably going to work on a couple of short stories in the near future.<\/p>\n This post is getting pretty long, so I’d better wrap it up, but the next post will have some of the short story ideas I’d like to work with.\u00a0 And also, when I get a chance, I’d like to write some reviews of some of the books I read recently, like Mistborn<\/em>, Princess of Mars, <\/em>and 2001: A Space Odyssey <\/em>(a piece of really hard sci fi, but a d*** good book!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These last couple of days, I’ve been writing in the morning\/midday, and it’s been a lot more productive than waiting to do it as the last thing.\u00a0 I think that if I could get into a routine of doing it early in the morning, maybe before classes, it could be really good.\u00a0 The way I… Continue reading 1,500+ words in two days and some thoughts on practical issues<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[8,4,599],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-writing-in-general","tag-the-lost-colony","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}