Drawing from the Well
Scenes Arranged: 8
Total Scenes: 166
Yesterday was a GREAT day for writing. I got an entire chapter mapped out start to finish, encompassing two full points on my checklist to the First Pinch Point. I’m hoping I can do the same today. It felt SO good getting so much done at once. I just have to keep my mind focused on the goal and keep going.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 54%
Elegy: Page 11 of 89
Jessica Jones: S2E10 of 13
I got a little consumption in yesterday so that’s nice on top of how much production I got in. I should be plowing through Elegy, though, frankly. I expect today to be a better day with that.
And I started every sentence in this section with “I.” How pretentious. 😉
Polishing the Well
Yesterday was our last night together as a family before the scattered insanity of Spring Break so we spent it watching the Flash and conducting a Dessert Dash. That is our ritual where everyone gets to pick the place they want to go for dessert. It doesn’t matter where it is; everyone gets to pick what they want. Somehow last night all four of us ended up at Cold Stone Creamery, which never happens. It was a good night. Now we dive into break…
Well Chat
Starting Writing When You Have Nothing to Write About
How do you write when you have nothing to write about? As always with my advice segments, there are many methods to get around what I call simple writer’s block. I’m going to explore one of my favorites, though. Despite it being my favorite, I don’t engage in it actively very often. That method is called Stream of Consciousness.
I learned about this in high school english class. We were told to sit down and write whatever came to mind without pausing. You only pick up the pencil between words and don’t stop until time is called or your timer goes off. You don’t worry about punctuation or proper spelling or grammar. You just write everything that comes into your mind.
So we’re going to try this and see what comes out of it. Two minutes. Here goes:
I can’t believe I had to clean up so much cat crap this morning like i’m in thin tmidile of my blog and trying to get stuff done and i go to make the coffe for my wife like I walays do and I smell something and I look down and the cat got sick and i still smell and then there’s stuff on her cone oh yeah she’s broken rigth now poor paw at least the stictche comes out on monday i can’t wait for her to go back to normal she alks so funny right now but she’s cute and sweeter than she’s been since she was a kitten she sleeps with us sometimes at the foot of the bed now instead of sleeping all over the house which is so nice but she doesn’t move and I don’t think she’s comfortable of course she isn’t comfortable at all right now i should write that short story about a glass of water i’m actually really excited about it and it’s going to be fun i have to come up with so many disasters to throw at the dad in that situation because of course it’s a dad because i’m a dad
and stop.
That was pretty fun! Definitely wiped the grease out of the gears. Now trying to compose a sentence feels like digging through stone. I tend to write sentences by composing the whole thing in my head first and then writing the sentence, tweaking as I go. The stream of consciousness was so freeing and fun.
Sometimes all you need is momentum and a stream of consciousness exercise can get that going. This applies even if your stream has nothing to do with what you’re writing professionally. The point to this is just to get writing. You can save it or discard it later, but at least you’ve started writing.
This can also be used as an ideation tool too. If you’re trying to come up with a way through a plot block (writer’s block but based on not being sure where the plot is going), you can start a stream of consciousness on the subject and let it flow. Now, you may get off track because of the nature of stream of consciousness, but you might also get some cool ideas you wouldn’t have unearthed otherwise.
Oh, and keep the time limit short or you run the risk of following a long bunny trail to nowhere. If you’re trying to get the gears moving, get in, get ’em moving, and get out. Don’t stay lost. Just like me, you can do this.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG