I have so many drafts that I've lost interest in. It's like I blink and the excitement vanishes. My experiences and the way I write them all seem to come about like a joke with no punchline... I'm new to writing anything other than free verse forms of poetry. I loves seeing your post come up in my feed because I feel less alone for it. Thank you for sharing ☺️
Funny you mention cats, because one of my most recent poems is about my cat Pippin.
I’ve begun a habit of writing every day while my newborn is holding me hostage on the couch--poems or posts or little chunks of the novel or picture book manuscripts I have going.
I’ve had to be okay with jotting down little snippets on my phone to come back to later. Any idea that comes to mind and sticks for longer than five minutes usually turns into something. I traditionally have had an aversion to writing on my phone but realized I need to get over that if I want to spend time really creating--and it’s actually worked so far! Funny how that works.
I'm 2 stories away from completing a flash fiction collection of 200-word stories. I was stuck on a sweet romance fantasy, but I had a nighttime epiphany that meant I had to delete stuff first but I should be back at it soon enough.
Yup. I have a little series called A Quick Tale. There's 3 books out so far. And, of course, there are monsters and death and magic because I'm me. LOL
I’ve never heard writing described as a cat, but it’s such a perfect analogy! I’m in a similar position and placed my serial aside. I was starting to publish just to publish without any love! Now I’m working on a new short story for my fantasy anthology. The prose/style is really different than the serial and it helps to shake things up!
I had sort of the opposite problem yesterday: I knew what I wanted to write about, but no idea how to go about writing it. Inspiration struck me last night, though. Right before I went to bed, of course. So today, I'm writing a short tale about cowboys and werewolves. I really like this protagonist, and I wish I had a more epic tale for him, but the muse demands a truncated adventure for the time being.
For substack, I’m working on a piece about why writing in rhyme is so wonderfully hard. I’m also itching to get back to one of my novel projects, a historical novel in verse.
As always, I'm working on Harold ans Sallie stories. I've got a few random drafts in various stages of completion. But I've also learned that I don't have to write every day. Today I'm doing research for a couple of stories. It might lead to nothing, might not.
Someone else mentioned write about your cat? Having been owned by two cats in my life, I've got cat stories forever!
In moments like this, Ben, I step away from the words ... or go and peek at old prompts (Justin Deming's for 'Fifties by the Fire' are good - Erica Drayton has a hatful for Pentober ... the word count limits are great - 50 for Justin, 100 for Erica - and I always find they warm up the writing muscles). I realised this morning that on 1 November it will be 6 months since I started 'Just Write, Write' and so I drafted a newsletter (scheduled for the 1st) about 6 things I want to remember from the past 6 months of writing more and having the confidence to share it (not lessons for anyone else, just nudges for me). There are plenty of 100-worders in there as well as art and photography-inspired tales. I've enjoyed writing fiction - there is always a new story to make up, which brings me back to your current dilemma ... a short 100-word imagining - I'd read it ... "just write, right"!
It's hard to find inspiration sometimes! On a podcast about making podcasts (Gimlet Academy) there was a discussion on the notion of "good tape". There's an ineffable quality to a story that makes it go from alright to great--it just "clicks", it's hard to pin down, elusive, but always comes back (just like your cat). The example in the podcast, I believe, was about a theater troupe practicing for a Shakespeare play about murder--but the troupe was composed of inmates who were in jail for murder. Now that's good tape.
I have been revising poems, the first versions of which I wrote last year. Nothing methodical about it, or particularly disciplined, I just read a poem over and if a door is hanging open on a broken hinge I go inside and see what might be fixable.
It’s perfectly okay to step back out, shaking my head, and move on to the next.
Hi Ben! 1. It's not Hannah's fault. 2. I'm the one who said that. 3. I think you meant to write "I wish this were a joke" not "I with this were a joke" unless you want me to trip on my tongue and fall into my soup? 4. You actually DID write something, and it was just very short. 5. When in doubt, photo essay, which you started with that pic, which could be a great prompt 6. Also when in doubt, laugh at yourself or pull Bodhi's lips a bit or push his ear bases inward to get those head wrinkles (only if he doesn't mind, of course) and see if you can make him look like Ed Asner. My Corgi used to let me use his face for mental health purposes like this. 7. When in doubt, suggestion #3, take a nap (or have a wank), lol hopefully no one is really reading down this far in this comment 8. Eat ice cream with chocolate sauce — with your hands 9. Buy a really nice pen or pencil and doodle 10. Read stuff and you'll have an opinion in no time. OK glad we had this chat. And you know this is all said in fellow writership friendship, just in case the joker font doesn't show up? SMILE!
In these tedious 180 days we call a school year, I write post-it notes, to-do lists, emails to parents/guardians, more emails to other people, even more emails, appointments in my calendar, and lie down to try and sleep just as I write damn-good lines in my chaotic head.
I had a creative director tell me to write every day. He said write whatever popped into my head. Even if that was, I don’t know what to write about over and over on the page. Eventually, something would find its way out he said, and he was right. Like with anything, the more I did it- the better I got. You’ll figure it out.
Why not write about the cat, Ben?
I have so many drafts that I've lost interest in. It's like I blink and the excitement vanishes. My experiences and the way I write them all seem to come about like a joke with no punchline... I'm new to writing anything other than free verse forms of poetry. I loves seeing your post come up in my feed because I feel less alone for it. Thank you for sharing ☺️
Chasey, you're far from alone. A lot of writers here would say the same thing.
Funny you mention cats, because one of my most recent poems is about my cat Pippin.
I’ve begun a habit of writing every day while my newborn is holding me hostage on the couch--poems or posts or little chunks of the novel or picture book manuscripts I have going.
I’ve had to be okay with jotting down little snippets on my phone to come back to later. Any idea that comes to mind and sticks for longer than five minutes usually turns into something. I traditionally have had an aversion to writing on my phone but realized I need to get over that if I want to spend time really creating--and it’s actually worked so far! Funny how that works.
I have been in the same boat...Or I try to write, but the words don’t come
I'm 2 stories away from completing a flash fiction collection of 200-word stories. I was stuck on a sweet romance fantasy, but I had a nighttime epiphany that meant I had to delete stuff first but I should be back at it soon enough.
A collection of that’s awesome. Do you plan to publish it. ?
Yup. I have a little series called A Quick Tale. There's 3 books out so far. And, of course, there are monsters and death and magic because I'm me. LOL
I’ve never heard writing described as a cat, but it’s such a perfect analogy! I’m in a similar position and placed my serial aside. I was starting to publish just to publish without any love! Now I’m working on a new short story for my fantasy anthology. The prose/style is really different than the serial and it helps to shake things up!
I had sort of the opposite problem yesterday: I knew what I wanted to write about, but no idea how to go about writing it. Inspiration struck me last night, though. Right before I went to bed, of course. So today, I'm writing a short tale about cowboys and werewolves. I really like this protagonist, and I wish I had a more epic tale for him, but the muse demands a truncated adventure for the time being.
Also, I have an idea for you. How about a part three of the double arm breaking story? Or an epilogue?
For substack, I’m working on a piece about why writing in rhyme is so wonderfully hard. I’m also itching to get back to one of my novel projects, a historical novel in verse.
As always, I'm working on Harold ans Sallie stories. I've got a few random drafts in various stages of completion. But I've also learned that I don't have to write every day. Today I'm doing research for a couple of stories. It might lead to nothing, might not.
Someone else mentioned write about your cat? Having been owned by two cats in my life, I've got cat stories forever!
In moments like this, Ben, I step away from the words ... or go and peek at old prompts (Justin Deming's for 'Fifties by the Fire' are good - Erica Drayton has a hatful for Pentober ... the word count limits are great - 50 for Justin, 100 for Erica - and I always find they warm up the writing muscles). I realised this morning that on 1 November it will be 6 months since I started 'Just Write, Write' and so I drafted a newsletter (scheduled for the 1st) about 6 things I want to remember from the past 6 months of writing more and having the confidence to share it (not lessons for anyone else, just nudges for me). There are plenty of 100-worders in there as well as art and photography-inspired tales. I've enjoyed writing fiction - there is always a new story to make up, which brings me back to your current dilemma ... a short 100-word imagining - I'd read it ... "just write, right"!
It's hard to find inspiration sometimes! On a podcast about making podcasts (Gimlet Academy) there was a discussion on the notion of "good tape". There's an ineffable quality to a story that makes it go from alright to great--it just "clicks", it's hard to pin down, elusive, but always comes back (just like your cat). The example in the podcast, I believe, was about a theater troupe practicing for a Shakespeare play about murder--but the troupe was composed of inmates who were in jail for murder. Now that's good tape.
I have been revising poems, the first versions of which I wrote last year. Nothing methodical about it, or particularly disciplined, I just read a poem over and if a door is hanging open on a broken hinge I go inside and see what might be fixable.
It’s perfectly okay to step back out, shaking my head, and move on to the next.
Hi Ben! 1. It's not Hannah's fault. 2. I'm the one who said that. 3. I think you meant to write "I wish this were a joke" not "I with this were a joke" unless you want me to trip on my tongue and fall into my soup? 4. You actually DID write something, and it was just very short. 5. When in doubt, photo essay, which you started with that pic, which could be a great prompt 6. Also when in doubt, laugh at yourself or pull Bodhi's lips a bit or push his ear bases inward to get those head wrinkles (only if he doesn't mind, of course) and see if you can make him look like Ed Asner. My Corgi used to let me use his face for mental health purposes like this. 7. When in doubt, suggestion #3, take a nap (or have a wank), lol hopefully no one is really reading down this far in this comment 8. Eat ice cream with chocolate sauce — with your hands 9. Buy a really nice pen or pencil and doodle 10. Read stuff and you'll have an opinion in no time. OK glad we had this chat. And you know this is all said in fellow writership friendship, just in case the joker font doesn't show up? SMILE!
In these tedious 180 days we call a school year, I write post-it notes, to-do lists, emails to parents/guardians, more emails to other people, even more emails, appointments in my calendar, and lie down to try and sleep just as I write damn-good lines in my chaotic head.
Yeah, that's pretty much the way of it...
I had a creative director tell me to write every day. He said write whatever popped into my head. Even if that was, I don’t know what to write about over and over on the page. Eventually, something would find its way out he said, and he was right. Like with anything, the more I did it- the better I got. You’ll figure it out.
That makes a lot of sense. Pen to paper and see what happens. Thanks for sharing.