The experiment is to set and enforce a deadline for myself, and to let my writing loose in the outside world (well, the internet world). I want to get into the habit of writing fiction everyday. And I want to get into the habit of feeling as though my writing is acceptable for public consumption. It will be rough and unedited, but it will be out there for you to read. I’ve read many rarely updated webcomics, so I recognize that this could easily fail, but I’d like to give it a shot. I also know it’s unlikely this will spread very far, but again, willing to try.
I was thinking about worse case scenarios, and honestly, I think the worst case is that I don’t go through with this and nothing changes. Setting forth with the experiment mindset really makes me feel much better about the whole concept. The point is discovery, so even if I find out I’m really awful at this, it’ll hurt, but hopefully that will lead me to something better.
Today’s post is not part of the experiment per se. It is for working out the guidelines for this experiment. Goals, rules, etc. So, in the wonderful glory of the classic bulleted list, let’s see what I can come up with.
- This is only for the weekdays (for now).
- I will set a deadline for the evening, by which I will post what I’ve written that day.
- The deadline will be at 8: after I generally stop working so I don’t have to rush to finish it up, but not too late, lest I start to believe I can post after the evening activities.
- There will always be something to post.
- If I do not have an acceptable amount of work by the deadline, I will post what I have, along with a piece of the novel I’ve been working on as a fallback. (I don’t want this to be something that feels okay to do, but I also want to make sure I post everyday, and this seems like the lesser transgression against this experiment.)
- If I have been working on the novel, I will post the next part of that story, rather than skipping ahead.
- I may not finish the stories I write.
- I will likely have multiple stories going on at once.
- Some of them will undoubtedly be awful. That’s fine.
- I will try to work on stories people tell me they enjoy and/or give me feedback on.
- I want to keep a list of all the stories, especially those that go past the first day of writing.
- Unless I am dreadfully sick or there is a true emergency, days off will be indicated at least a week ahead of time.
Oh, and about the novel I’ve been working on, the first few posts of this blog are from that if you’d like to take a look. I am planning to repost then when the time comes, so you could even compare them if for some reason you get the urge to do so. (And if you do, please tell me what you think!)
Suggestion.
ReplyDeleteAlways be working on the novel. And keep a battery of filler writings. If you get ahead on the novel, great, don't post EVERYthing you wrote that day, just post a logical chunk.
If you end up behind and out of novel space, that's fine, post from your battery. And look at it like resources, if you run out completely you're hosed. You "lose". That should give you the amount of gravity you need.
However, I know you don't write in a sequential order, so if you reach a point in the story you haven't filled in, you'll need something to handle that, because a reader is going to go "hunh" if you skip ahead 5 years, then back. Unless you Want to do that as part of the story, and it makes sense.
Oh, yeah, I'm always working on the novel. It just doesn't so much involve writing at the moment. :-p >_>
ReplyDelete