Last night was productive. I worked a little on a shared world (otherwise known as fan fiction) story last night. These are of course stories that are not meant for general public consumption, but they give me a great place to experiment. Lately the experiments have been a two part attack. Not just on the quality of my writing, but the way I actually write.

First, I’m attacking this without a net. That’s not usually like me. I tend to outline to a fault. Second, I’m paying a little closer attention to the prosody and flow of the words as I write. This is normally something I do after the fact. My third of fourth pass over the manuscript is normally a prose revision. I want to see just how close I can get to right the first time. Another thing I’m focusing on is speed. I am an incredibly slow writer. I’m a relatively fast typer though. I just tend to let myself anguish over the words too much.

I think this has led to less story output than I’m capable of. Honestly, I’ve just let myself get lazy, telling myself I’m not a pro so I don’t have to produce like a pro. The problem with that way of thinking is that now that I have some aspirations to go pro, I have the habits of a noob. Unacceptable. So work will continue on the novel. I plan to finish my treatment over the weekend. And though I want to publish this work, I’m going to break from my normal routine and actually push myself to write this draft quickly.

I was able to push out about 1k last night in under an hour. I think this is publishable material. It’s not great by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s publishable.

For more fun than should be allowed, go visit Gord Sellar’s site to see KITTIES!

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