Here is another encouragement note from my NaNo Near You form!
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 9th
(NaNo Near You)
Written on November 9th
By: Iveritov
This past week has been full of all the things that discouraged and defeated me last year. That's right, the real world demanding my time. When I have to go outside, it necessitates all sorts of preparations, such as finding and deciphering the use of pants. I never remember which finger to hold out daintily in opposition to my deathgrip on my coffee jug, or if it's considered good manners at all to do the electric slide on your interviewer's desk.
But I digress, my real point is that I'm one of those people who has never been good at holding myself to a writing schedule, and encroachments on my time allowed me to excuse myself last year.
Notice I didn't say forced. You see, there are many times when there are days you just have to scrap, and that's ok. You can make up the difference. If you don't, you are leaving a story untold, and that is unacceptable. It is unfair to both yourself and the story in question.
Yesterday was about catching up, today is about finding time, any small niche of time, to write. A half-hour in the car on the way to work with a voice recorder, that works. Waiting for a download, uh-huh. In the margins of the paper you were doodling on while quickly walking to your next class/lunch break/yoga session. Anything.
And since I want you to think about these little times, today's dare will focus on minutiae. A little question to start: "Do you ever think of your character brushing their teeth?" A lot of the time I read, I find myself wondering about the small things that really make up an individual. The routines, the small divergences from the norm, the quirks and faces in the mirror when no one else is looking. So often, I then look at the characters I'm reading, these wonderfully written, diverse, and complex beings sprung from another imagination, and for a moment, I see a construct, something not as real as it should be. Today, I dare you to write a single scene in which the greater plot fades away and a single character is approached from a new angle that focuses on small things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Bonus round/alternative dare: Conversations. Characters often speak too perfectly, too thought out for on the fly. They remember everything except when plot-convenient. The alternative dare is to write a conversation in which someone stutters, needs to pause for thought, or forgets something of little consequence that they really should have remembered.
But I digress, my real point is that I'm one of those people who has never been good at holding myself to a writing schedule, and encroachments on my time allowed me to excuse myself last year.
Notice I didn't say forced. You see, there are many times when there are days you just have to scrap, and that's ok. You can make up the difference. If you don't, you are leaving a story untold, and that is unacceptable. It is unfair to both yourself and the story in question.
Yesterday was about catching up, today is about finding time, any small niche of time, to write. A half-hour in the car on the way to work with a voice recorder, that works. Waiting for a download, uh-huh. In the margins of the paper you were doodling on while quickly walking to your next class/lunch break/yoga session. Anything.
And since I want you to think about these little times, today's dare will focus on minutiae. A little question to start: "Do you ever think of your character brushing their teeth?" A lot of the time I read, I find myself wondering about the small things that really make up an individual. The routines, the small divergences from the norm, the quirks and faces in the mirror when no one else is looking. So often, I then look at the characters I'm reading, these wonderfully written, diverse, and complex beings sprung from another imagination, and for a moment, I see a construct, something not as real as it should be. Today, I dare you to write a single scene in which the greater plot fades away and a single character is approached from a new angle that focuses on small things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Bonus round/alternative dare: Conversations. Characters often speak too perfectly, too thought out for on the fly. They remember everything except when plot-convenient. The alternative dare is to write a conversation in which someone stutters, needs to pause for thought, or forgets something of little consequence that they really should have remembered.
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