Homer...but not THAT one

Hello!  Well you'll be pleased to know that I have done some writing today instead of playing Wii...however it's been in the form of the first essay for my new Open University course, rather than any of my projects.  It was unavoidable though, as the deadline is midday this Friday and because I'm out at work at that time, I have to upload it on Thursday night.  So I have even less time available!

Fortunately it is only a 500 word essay - a critical review of an extract of Homer's Odyssey (an epic read, to say the least!).  However because it's only 500 words I have to be pretty picky with which ones I use.  That's one of the benefits of these courses, they do teach you how to be economical and efficient with words, getting your meaning across in the most concise way possible.  Of course fiction does require a little more than that to stop it from becoming dry and lifeless, but the idea is the same.  Pretty much all the writing advice books I've ever read have mentioned at some point the fact that however many words you put into your first draft, you'll need to take a good percentage of them out to make it into something that an editor/agent/publisher would consider. 

This makes me think of the problem I have whereby I self-edit as I go along.  I seem to be trying to take out words before I've even got them all down!  Maybe what I need to do is try to be as wordy and waffly as possible (in the safe knowledge that any or all of it can be removed later) so that I can steam through and make proper progress with the story, instead of hanging around at the beginning worrying about the small stuff.  I wonder whether there is any way of flicking my brain into this mode..? 

Thanks for reading!  Knowing I have to write to you every week is very motivating - even if (as today) I didn't do any project work, it can be quite thought-provoking to consider how what I have done can relate back to writing. 

Have a great week! :o)
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Choices, choices...

Today I had every intention of working on Project Crunch (my chick lit idea), but when I fired up the laptop and went to Documents I ended up being drawn into Project Blake instead.  I've been finding lately that I think of snippets of ideas and changes that I want to make - either while at work (oops, if you're reading boss - I write them down and get straight back to the day job, honest!) or driving, or falling asleep.  Today I just went into Blake to make one of those changes and have ended up working on it all day.  It makes me wonder how more established writers keep themselves disciplined to focus on one thing at a time..? 

I'm also finding that now I have this dedicated writing time every Wednesday, I do struggle with just letting the words come.  I'm something of a perfectionist (in everything, not just writing) and it is a real struggle not to self-edit as I'm going along, or to spend ages trying to think of precisely the right word, when instead I should probably just type everything as it comes to mind to get the action and the scene down, then go back and look at the fine detail another time.  I wonder whether anybody knows of a way of overcoming this? 

Also this week, the analytical part of my subconscious has pushed its way forward and made me set up a graph to monitor the word counts of my projects.  Whether this is a good idea or not in terms of motivation I don't know, but I do like a nice graph so it'll stay!  I don't think there's any way of posting it on here, but in case you're interested, today's standings are:

Project Blake: 1500
Project Crunch: 214 (this is why I was intending to work on it today)
Project Witch: 1430

Witch is an idea for a children's/Young Adult story that I had aaaaaaages ago, started writing, then as usual got distracted by other ideas.  I found the draft I'd started on a memory stick recently so have added it to my stable of projects.  I find that when I read my own writing back later I really like it - it's just while I'm working on it that I feel it's appallingly bad and going nowhere!  I wonder if every writer is like that? 

"All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them." ~ Walt Disney
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