Okay, I wrote a short story that will be published tomorrow, well yesterday, and now I've got this Sunday blog to write and I will schedule it to publish in two days, well today, and then I'm covered for the weekend so my restless brain can feel accomplished. Yay me!
The story I wrote "yesterday" was another writing prompt that Dana sent me. It's actually a thing I've done before because I like patterns in writing. It was to start a story with a line that was positive and end it with the same line that was now sinister. Paraphrasing, but that was the gist.
I really had no idea what the middle parts were going to be, and I think it does show in the story a bit. I mean, that's a completely off the cuff, oh wouldn't it be cool if the roses were red story. At first I thought the florist was going to be a bad guy. Then it was like, nope, she's leaving the florist so where is she going? Her mom? What did her mom do? And again nope, that's not it. I know it seems really odd that I often have no clue what I'm going to write even while I'm writing, but it happens a lot.
Sometimes it's really great and the story is wonderful. Sometimes it's not great and the story doesn't work at all and it gets put "away." The one I wrote just now, two days ago, yesterday, is in the middle. I wrote it in an hour, I re-read it twice, I set it to publish and I called it good. This is what happens when you are in a challenge to yourself. You cut some corners. It's good enough.
And that, my friends, is my writing process a lot of the time. Good enough. I write to get the words out of my head. And sometimes I write them in such a way that they are really good. Those are great days. Even when I'm the only one who likes the story. I wrote one recently that got like close to zero interaction on my blog page and I was bummed out for a bit because I was really proud of it. But that happens. Especially because I tend to favor things that are a little off. I view the world sideways so I know my writing is cockeyed as well.
Another thing that happens because of the fast way I write a lot of blog short stories is that I forget them. You've seen me post about it. I'll be searching for something else I've written and stumble across a story I don't remember at all. I like reading those and seeing if I like them. You don't often get to judge your own work. The good news is that I generally do like them. Can you imagine if I didn't? What an existential crisis that would be. I mean, it would be great in one way because that would be like, 3 or 4 blogs worth of material right there! But probably horrible over all...
It happens often enough when I am working on a piece that really needs to be polished and GOOD. I get about halfway through it, or halfway through editing it and decide it's crap. And not only is it crap, but everything I've ever written is crap. And everything I ever will write is crap. And I am not sure why anyone would ever tell me differently, except for Brent and he has to because we're married and he doesn't want to see me cry. CRAP I TELL YOU. But that's pretty standard for the writers I know and the writers I've read who talk about their writing process. There comes a point where you are sure you suck. The trick is to not delete everything and just wait it out. Then a break through comes and you are good again.
Let's hope for something really good for next week to wrap up this month. If you have a cool writing prompt you are always welcome to share it with me. If it grabs ahold of the muses I will be grateful for the help, if it doesn't then please understand the prompt was good, it just wasn't for me.
I hope your weekend has gone well and you are enjoying your time. I am sure I am. I mean, I am. I know I am. It's Sunday after all. I would know that I am having a good weekend by now, right?
And done...
Whew.
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