Ira Heinichen's Blog, page 295

Day 1,638: 3K Day

So, I wrote 3,000 words today. It was one long sequence of the book that I’d already written…but here we are. It’s better now. MUCH better. Like, it has my neurons firing and exploding, ‘better.’

I’m sure frustration days will pop up again a few times over the next couple months…but overall, I am feeling much better about what my role is as a professional author and how that relates to ‘output.’ Which is to say:

I just need to do the work.

As long as I put in the time and I do the work, I rea...

Day 1,637: Coco

Liz and I watched Coco tonight, the Pixar movie from last year, and it was *wonderful*. Really, really enjoyed it. It was exciting, touching, visually stunning, and signature-ly Pixar. Bravo!

Day 1,636: No Hitter

Sean Manaea, one of the A’s younger starting pitchers, threw a no-hitter tonight against the best team (and, arguably, best offense) in baseball! The Ho and I got to watch it live together. It was pretty magical.

I remember the last no-hitter I watched. It was 8 years ago on Mother’s Day, it was actually a perfect game (no hits, no walks, no errors) by Dallas Braden, and I was late to work so I could watch it until the end. I remember I was literally standing in my living room with my work cl...

Day 1,635: Short

Quick entry today!

The Ho and I had a long day of driving around LA today doing errands

Day 1,634: Finally…

Finally…a solid writing day. I wrote 1,500 *excellent* words today. This scene, this particular mechanism in my story, is *poppin*. I’m interested in it. It finally makes SENSE, and I’m digging it. It’s an asset to the story now.

I realized today that when I find myself with the inability to write, it is (almost) invariably because I don’t know what I’m writing. It’s not about me being lazy, or usually even depressed…it’s that I just don’t know what I’m writing. I haven’t figured it out deep...

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...