procrastinating

i'm currently trying to get around to writing the next part of Deathdream.  however, since i have absolutely no idea what happens next (other than one or two vague ideas involvng cobbles and rooftops and walls...um...), i thought i'd write this instead.

i'm still trying to work out how the writing part of my brain functions.  so far, it seems to be, rather like the rest of me, fairly erratic.  i seem to go for days not feeling it, then get a quick burst of a day or so, then nothing much again for a bit.  check the posting dates and times of deahdream and you'll see what i mean.  in between, though, i seem to get these occasional flashes of what can only be described as "Other Stuff".

(hmmm...that's an awful lot of "seeming"... *editor-self raps writer-self over the knuckles with a wooden ruler that goes "byoyoyoyoyonnng"*)

take this morning, for instance.  i was suspended between waking and sleeping and, as has happened to me before when i've been in this place, the germ of a story sidled into my head.  not a very long one though.  i suppose it would more-or-less be categorised as "flash fiction" (which is, BTW, a term whose meaning i'm still only hazily familliar with...).  the weird thing was, i was actually dreaming in words.  i don't mean i was dreaming a voice telling me the story, i mean i was actually watching the words appear before my eyes, overlaid on the scene they were describing.  which, of course, didn't strike me as the slightest bit odd at the time, since i was dreaming, and these things don't. 

but it strikes me as somewhat odd now.  encouraging, but odd.  because this is kinda sorta how i read.  i see the words, but i also see the pictures...

forgive me, i'm rambling.  i'm also, as it happens, cursing myself, since i could remember every single word when i woke up.  and it seemed coherent (which, let's face it, so often isn't the case), and i didn't write it down.

damn! damn! damn!

and now, thanks to the usual distractions of a busy day (doing little but reading), most of it has disappeared back to where it came from.  i am kicking myself so hard at the moment, because i can remember the basic shape of it, but not the linguistic nuances that made it more than just words strung together. 

it's gone flat.

***

just as an aside, it occurs to me to wonder if that's where i keep my story silt, between the shores of sleeping and waking...?

nothing to see here..move along, please...

today, i find myself with a feeling that i appear to have had for most of my life.  desperate to write something, but with no idea of what to write. 

oh, the joys of blogging! 

to be able to write about nothing much if i so wish, just to assuage the desperate need to write!  at this point, i refer you to the note under the blog's title - please feel free to wander off and watch paint dry - i won't hold it against you - how do you think i feel?  i have to live in here.

when i was a kid and overtaken by this urge, i would get a picture book of fairy tales i had, and copy out the tales until the need to use paper and pen or pencil to make words was quietened for now. 
actually, now my mind is wandering off the path and wondering if i am cursed.  this thought tends to occur for many and varied reasons in my day-to-day life, but in this particular instance....a (fledgeling) writer, wants to write, in fact needs to write, but completely devoid of inspiration or the kind of mind that can pull together random elements and put them togethter in unusual and unexpected ways, and use it to tell a story to amaze/amuse/pull forth emotions/whatever.  also - a writer with nothing much to say about anything, if i'm honest. 

or maybe i'm just an inveterate chatterbox with a stationary fetish?...

hmmm....

well, anyway, like i said - less even than usual to say, but when did that ever stop me?...  the first stage of editing the WIP is finished.  i've fixed the spelling, the wonky sentences, and argued constantly with the spelling and grammar checker over whether or not a sentence is too wordy, or should/should not end on a preposition.

...by the way - WTF is a preposition anyway?!...

and hubby has read it.  this is a first, him not being someone who generally reads for pleasure.  and he says he enjoyed it, which, of course, pleases me immensely. :o)  he was also kind enough to point out one or two plot holes and inconsistencies.  these, i will file away for later.  having lived with the blasted thing for the last 5 months, i'm far too close to it and, frankly, heartily sick of the bloody thing.  it's a disappointment to me, especially after the first one.  however, i already have another couple of ideas settling into the silt for next november, so maybe i'll just leave them there, and see what occurs.  or maybe they'll make themselves into short stories between now and then. 

because i thought i might have a go at short stories next.

i know, i know - short stories are hard.  really hard.  and that's good.  i want a different challenge, and i understand short stories can be wonderful learning experiences  for an author a writer (feels weird and presumptious to refer to myself as an author - i'm just someone who wants to write).  personally, after this last one, i hope i can give myself a few lessons in cutting out the waffle.  it also means i'm gonna have to tune my brain in to the odd details of the world - the things that pique my interest.  a word, a phrase, a situation, an incongruous juxtaposition of ideas.  i'm going to have to have my writer head on most, if not all of the time.  it will be interesting to see if i can keep that little entity that sits at the back of my brain (on a three-legged stool with a pen poised over a reporter's notebook) alert, and watching.  i wonder what she'll come up with?  i also wonder if she'll notice things that i don't, and poke me as i'm writing?

gods, i hope so...

.

mind's wandering again...

today, i typed approximately 2,750 words. that's about 5 days' worth.  not bad.  happy with this.  tomorrow, i may see if i can repeat the feat, and make it 5,000.  odd how easy it is when i ignore the siren call of twitter, innit?...  also, at a running total of 32,00 words, i finally got round to backing it up on a memory stick.  show's you what i feel about this one, when compared to the last one, which i backed up every time i wrote any more.  or maybe i now trust my slightly shaky and delicate laptop not to do something catastrophic?  personally, i think it's probably the former.  not that there isn't some (to me, at least) good stuff in the new one (i'm particularly fond of the clowns - they are what started this one, after all), but ...  Oh, i dunno.  i think there are at least some of my treaders (hah! all ten of 'em!) who may be disappointed having read the first one.  and the first third REALLY needs a kick up the arse.  but that is a problem for later.  right now, i'm actually quite enjoying the story.  i may even post a little of it here, if i get around to it - and if i think anyone else may want to read it.

(*re-reads what has just written* hmmm...three sets of brackets in the first paragraph. i may get told off for that...)

now i have a headache, possibly from typing, but more likely from how much i smoke when i'm typing (or writing, for that matter).  bad girl, squeaky!  :(  really, at my age, you'd think i would know better.  especially since my mum glories in the story of the time when i was at a neighbour's house party and, at four years old,  proudly and vehemently told a lady who had just produced a cigarette "If you smoke, you'll die!"
i was that sort of kid.
the lady in question apparrently said "Well, that's told ME." and returned the cigarette to its packet.  history is silent on whether she took my four-year-old's advice to heart.  probably not, though.

so, unless we acquire another judge, it seems i won the competition.  this makes me happy, of course it does.  but it feels a bit weird, too.  like i'm an impostor, or something.  like somebody's going to sneak up behind me and whip the mask off and expose me for being one with a writing well the depth of a puddle.  i guess i'm reasonably good at describing scenes.  i certainly enjoy it, a lot, and i had the most marvellous fun with the competition.  but it's the finding of the stories, and the stringing together of them, and the dialogue (*groan* the dialogue! i'm sooo bad at it, and i *hate* having to write it!).  i keep expecting the well to suddenly run dry and to be left on the bottom, flopping and gasping like a dying fish, whilst the slime of centuries drips around me.  and as for doing something original, or telling it in an original way - forget it!  i am too forgetful (or lazy, more likely) for proper plotting, multiple storylines, or the gradual reveal.  too instinctive.  no sense of structure.  i just write, and see where my pen takes me.  sometimes this is good - someties bad.  often indifferent.  but i do kind of enjoy writing that way, too - seeing where the story will lead me.  it's almost like the reading of another person's novel.  i just wander down the path, going "Oooo!" at any wonders i'm shown along the way.  when i was writing this one, for instance, i got an image in my head of how i write.  i will share it with you, dear reader, and hope it makes some sort of sense:

imagine a windy day.  there is a girl, standing on a bright and grassy hillside.  for some reason, she has long, dark hair, a slender, willowy build, and beautiful, creamy skin.  in her hands, she holds a long, long strip of red chiffon, a couple of feet wide.  she is holding this chiffon by the corners of one end, and it is the unwritten story.  it is fluttering and weaving sinuously in the wind.  as i  write the story, the words i put onto the page gradually appear on the edges of the chiffon as stones the colour of the sky, weighing it to the ground along its length.  the end of the chiffon continues to dance in the wind, but the story as it is written, it gradually lays down a red path on the hillside, and the dancing portion becomes less and less until i finally write "The End".

and now, The Most Wonderful Woman In The World has arrived with her two adorable lurchers, so i must stop.