Dragon Journal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonjournal) wrote2011-01-08 09:53 pm
dragonjournal) wrote2011-01-08 09:53 pm
Entry tags:
hmm. Pretentious post? Possibly.
This post, actually, started out in my head as a 'Why I do NaNoWriMo' post. However, I was talking with a friend over IMs, and realized I don't, really, need to get into why I do NaNoWriMo. Mostly, because it boiled down to just a few words:
Because I want to.
Perhaps not the most adult answer, but the most honest one.
However, I thought that I'd answer a question that my friend asked me:
"Why do challenges all year long? Isn't NaNo enough?"
Well, I'm going to answer the latter question first: No, NaNo isn't enough. See; although the franticness of November includes NaNo and Thanksgiving, it isn't enough to keep me going all year long.
So, this past year, I experimented with giving myself guidelines and a schedule to keep. Some of that schedule got skewed along the way (this past summer I didn't have nearly as much writing time as I thought) but all in all, I worked a lot better with the schedule, than I did without.
It's also why my personal journal ends up being more of a 'what needs to be done today' list than an actual journal. Although today I tl;dr-ed all over the place.
Yes, I make lists. If I don't, nothing gets done. No, seriously, nothing gets done. I look down and it's 10am. I look up and it's 3.30 and all I've managed to get done is lose horribly at spider solitaire a lot.
Frankly, that's not a skill that I should flaunt.
The lists keep me on track. But, here's the thing: Even lists aren't enough to keep me motivated. So, I look around for things to keep my brain moving and keep me from getting bored with what I have to do to improve my writing.
That is where my competitive streak comes in. See, I cannot let other people 'beat' me. I cannot roll over and let them 'win' at anything, even if it's something so silly as creating something that I neither have the skill nor the patience to create.
I join challenges to keep me going. I join challenges so that I can point to something and say "I beat that!" I'm sure this points to something psychological or something, but I just use it as a motivational tool.
There are some other pretty hefty reasons, but those are personal and this is a writing blog. Back to the writing:
Challenges keep me from stagnating and playing so much spider solitaire that I explode my computer out of sheer frustration. That means that at the end of the week/month/day/whatever, I have something to point to and say... "I did that."
Now, to give updates on my various challenges:
1. Creative Every Day: I'm working on some knitting, I've begun another small cross stitch, and I keep writing. I'm actually feeling more creative, now that there's a challenge to be. I keep looking for ways to work in creativity into the day. Some days it's harder than others. Now the individual projects:
- Cross stitch: I started a small butterfly today, for a change of pace from the wolf I've been doing. I'll probably finish it up tomorrow and then go back to the wolf. If nothing else, it's nice to see something completed, even though the wolf is a lot more complete than it was even a month ago.
- Knitting: I don't know what it'll be, or even if it'll be wearable. I'm not really sure I care. So far, there's less than ten rows, but I'm okay with that. It's starting to look like it's growing every time I put a new row on it. So, that's something, right?
- Writing: I'm still working on character descriptions for the new original story. Keep in mind, I still don't even have a plot. But who needs plot when there's characters to have fun with. It's a plague that I often have to work around in my writing.
- Other things: I did something new for dinner the other night. I'm slowly looking at maybe drawing or something just because. I don't know yet. Maybe I'll buy some supplies and see about jewelry making. Probably not, though, because that requires some fine work that my hands just aren't suited to.
2. 750 Words: I did miss one day this month just for flaking, but other than that, all that character profiling has helped me work on getting the minimum for this every day. So will actually plotting out how things should go.
3. Get Your Words Out: Again, character descriptions are being used for this. Luckily, I can do that. So will the plot, if I ever get around to that.
4.![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
origfic_bingo: I haven't worked on my card yet, but I'm really hoping to soon. I want to get the character descriptions done, before I do. I tend to blow through them, and not do whatever else I'm supposed to be doing. However, I have my five prompts chosen and I'm attempting to poke my brain into using them. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure how well they'll come across.
So, this entry has become very long and pretty much a big ego stroke for me. However, I believe creators - be it in writing, cooking, fabric crafts or anything else - have the need to stroke their own egos every once in a while.
I know several writers who do it. They do it unashamedly. I'm trying to follow their good examples. Now, if I could just get something published? Then, you'd really see some ego stroking!
Because I want to.
Perhaps not the most adult answer, but the most honest one.
However, I thought that I'd answer a question that my friend asked me:
"Why do challenges all year long? Isn't NaNo enough?"
Well, I'm going to answer the latter question first: No, NaNo isn't enough. See; although the franticness of November includes NaNo and Thanksgiving, it isn't enough to keep me going all year long.
So, this past year, I experimented with giving myself guidelines and a schedule to keep. Some of that schedule got skewed along the way (this past summer I didn't have nearly as much writing time as I thought) but all in all, I worked a lot better with the schedule, than I did without.
It's also why my personal journal ends up being more of a 'what needs to be done today' list than an actual journal. Although today I tl;dr-ed all over the place.
Yes, I make lists. If I don't, nothing gets done. No, seriously, nothing gets done. I look down and it's 10am. I look up and it's 3.30 and all I've managed to get done is lose horribly at spider solitaire a lot.
Frankly, that's not a skill that I should flaunt.
The lists keep me on track. But, here's the thing: Even lists aren't enough to keep me motivated. So, I look around for things to keep my brain moving and keep me from getting bored with what I have to do to improve my writing.
That is where my competitive streak comes in. See, I cannot let other people 'beat' me. I cannot roll over and let them 'win' at anything, even if it's something so silly as creating something that I neither have the skill nor the patience to create.
I join challenges to keep me going. I join challenges so that I can point to something and say "I beat that!" I'm sure this points to something psychological or something, but I just use it as a motivational tool.
There are some other pretty hefty reasons, but those are personal and this is a writing blog. Back to the writing:
Challenges keep me from stagnating and playing so much spider solitaire that I explode my computer out of sheer frustration. That means that at the end of the week/month/day/whatever, I have something to point to and say... "I did that."
Now, to give updates on my various challenges:
1. Creative Every Day: I'm working on some knitting, I've begun another small cross stitch, and I keep writing. I'm actually feeling more creative, now that there's a challenge to be. I keep looking for ways to work in creativity into the day. Some days it's harder than others. Now the individual projects:
- Cross stitch: I started a small butterfly today, for a change of pace from the wolf I've been doing. I'll probably finish it up tomorrow and then go back to the wolf. If nothing else, it's nice to see something completed, even though the wolf is a lot more complete than it was even a month ago.
- Knitting: I don't know what it'll be, or even if it'll be wearable. I'm not really sure I care. So far, there's less than ten rows, but I'm okay with that. It's starting to look like it's growing every time I put a new row on it. So, that's something, right?
- Writing: I'm still working on character descriptions for the new original story. Keep in mind, I still don't even have a plot. But who needs plot when there's characters to have fun with. It's a plague that I often have to work around in my writing.
- Other things: I did something new for dinner the other night. I'm slowly looking at maybe drawing or something just because. I don't know yet. Maybe I'll buy some supplies and see about jewelry making. Probably not, though, because that requires some fine work that my hands just aren't suited to.
2. 750 Words: I did miss one day this month just for flaking, but other than that, all that character profiling has helped me work on getting the minimum for this every day. So will actually plotting out how things should go.
3. Get Your Words Out: Again, character descriptions are being used for this. Luckily, I can do that. So will the plot, if I ever get around to that.
4.
origfic_bingo: I haven't worked on my card yet, but I'm really hoping to soon. I want to get the character descriptions done, before I do. I tend to blow through them, and not do whatever else I'm supposed to be doing. However, I have my five prompts chosen and I'm attempting to poke my brain into using them. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure how well they'll come across.So, this entry has become very long and pretty much a big ego stroke for me. However, I believe creators - be it in writing, cooking, fabric crafts or anything else - have the need to stroke their own egos every once in a while.
I know several writers who do it. They do it unashamedly. I'm trying to follow their good examples. Now, if I could just get something published? Then, you'd really see some ego stroking!
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You write well, and you've talked for a long time about wanting to be published. What is there to doubt????
Just do it.
By summer you could be holding a book in your hands with one of your stories in it.
You could so nail this. But if you really don't want to do it, I won't say another word.
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I don't know a thing about dragons, if that's what you end up writing, but if you need a second pair of eyes or something, you know where to find me.
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That's awesome.
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(Not that I listen to my own advice here, of course.)
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You got this.