Ira Heinichen's Blog, page 289

Day 1,633: My Teacher

Breakthrough!

Oh, Lordy…I finally had a good breakthrough day today. Finally! Finally.

I had a one-on-one about a month ago with an author far more advanced than I, and one of my takeaways from that conversation was that there should be a separation between editing/outlining/brainstorming and actual writing. Based on my own assessment of my creative habits, I decided that I should try a schedule where my writing happened in the evenings, and my outlining/brainstorming happened in the morning....

Day 1,632: Hope For Tomorrow

So, the book has run aground these past two days, which is so, soooo frustrating…but there is a difference, folks. There truly is…I’m putting in the time. I really am. I did a lot of free-writing today, trying to wrap my brain around why I was frozen, why this certain sequence is just not working.

I can’t say I found any solutions today, but I did read about a technique that I’m going to try tomorrow to get there.

Sorry, just had to go write down some ideas for a minute.

It’s late. It’s time...

Day 1,631: Brain Storm

I spent all of my time, almost, brainstorming today for a set of scenes that are just not quite working yet. They’re still fuzzy, and fuzzy translates as LAZY on the page. I *did* put in my time, however, and I wrote 250 actual new words once the opening to the scene occurred to me as I was taking a shower.

Huzzah!

I did two writing sessions today, and a lot of just letting the questions swirling in my head simmer. I watched some of Empire Strikes Back, and that really helped me. I took walks...

Day 1,630: Star Wars Despecialized

Do you remember the Star Wars boxed set of VHS tapes? The ones we grew up watching, with all the frayed edges of the cardboard, and the making-of documentary that would play before the first movie (I think?).

Those were the movies of my childhood. For my family, we’d rent them from the library, so they came in plastic cases, but really what they’d done is just cut those cardboard VHS boxes down so they’d fit inside the hard plastic ones. My family didn’t own the original trilogy of Star Wars...

Day 1,629: Dirty Money

Not sure what to call the entry tonight…

It was a weird Saturday. I kind of went through the paces today. I’m not sure why…but I did. The writing was still good. I did get it done. 800 words. Good words, too. The scene is working. It solved a plot problem I thought I had, but now that I’ve arrived at it, it’s not. It totally makes sense.

I watched the Warriors own the Spurs. This is a good first-round matchup for them. Perhaps even the best they could have hoped for, actually, because of how...

Day 1,628: Rough Week

It was a rough week writing-wise…but it ended on an upswing, folks.

If any of my beta readers are reading this entry tonight, you folks are my saviors. You forced me to push past my malaise this week, and crank out pages for you. It took me almost all day, but I hit just shy of 2,000 words, which is kind of my unofficial daily goal, and from last week’s writing, had just enough to warrant sending an email to the group for reading.

Praise be.

The Ho is out of town for the next few days, which...

Day 1,627: Routine

You know, 2018 is the year of setting up my “routine.” It really is. Because my “routine” is what’s going to get me the words written that I want to write. It’s the BREAK in that routine that hurts me production-wise.

How do I fix that?

I really do best when focusing on one thing at a time. That’s always been where I’ve done the most work, and the best work. Hence clearing out other projects over the past year+. I’m not there yet…I still have TG1T stuff…but I can put that off for a while. I r...

Day 1,626: The Undiscovered Country

Josh and I podcasted tonight. We watched the sixth movie in the Trek franchise (sixth! So many movies!)…and it was good. Really good. I’ve always enjoyed it, and it was really, really cool to sit next to Josh and watch him experience it, too. I think he was surprised, actually, with how good it was. It kind of bowled him over, blew his mind.

It IS rather amazing to watch those first six movies, the films we get with the old crew all together, and see how many of them are solid, and even great...

Day #1,625: Ten Days Off!

Okay…so, somehow, a few weeks ago, I repeated an entire TEN NUMBER OF DAYS…it was from day 1,569 back to day 1,560, I think. And a missed and repeated day mixed in there, too, that offset each other. Sigh. I have failed you, dear reader. And, mostly, I have failed days 1,614 through 1,624. But, we move forward! We don’t look back and fix past mistakes!

Day 1,613: Go see it…

A Quiet Place.

Go see it…

I am pretty exhausted