How was your writing week?

[Jozanny]

I have no honest sensibility within as to why I am doing this. On the surface it is simply that a freelance forum that I have just started to use is moving and when all the kinks are kinked out I will post the url, and I no longer have the Speakeasy as it was between 98 and 02 and the only poignancy I have left is nostalgia- in any case, there was once a thread called "How was your writing day?" It wasn't mine but it was very popular and we all patted each other's backs with progress posts.

I JUST SPENT THE LAST BLOODY FORTY EIGHT HOURS PREPARING AN ARTICLE PITCH FOR A PUBLICATION WITH A CLAIMED CIRCULATION OF WELL OVER FIVE MILLION, AND TO THE JOURNALIST WHO ADVISED ME TO SEND OUT ONE PITCH A DAY I HAVE SOME CHOICE WORDS FOR YOU THAT THE CENSOR WOULD GO BIPITY BOP A DO.

Other than that, I have an entire poetry manuscript taking my vacation for me on the west coast, am almost finished a new science fiction story that some online editorializing disparaged without even knowing I'm alive, and I have started my third spec piece to get an online mag's attention once again.

So how is yours going?

Enjoy!

[Virgil]

This is a great idea for a thread Jozy. Perhaps it will kick me in the a$$ and get me to write more. I wrote a poem last week.

[Veva]

My writing week was rubbish.
Have to write an editorial for faculty newspaper, but everytime I write something it all goes wrong and ends up in naturalism (e.g. me writing about how youtube slowly kills our braincells, that you can almost hear them dying one at a second)...
So after it all goes off to the deep end, I turn myself to an unfinished short story (now turning to a novel, because I cant seem to finish it) and realise that my muse must be stoned.
So I switch on youtube instead.

[Lokasenna]

I've written 2000 words on Anglo-Saxon ethnogenesis, a subject on which I know literally nothing; its a masterpiece of nonsense and drivel. The only problem is that I've got to hand it over to one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, who will procede to interrogate me over it.

I'm doomed.

[Maryd.]

Well, need to be honest here, when I say I haven't even touched my novel, this week. I am supposed to be editing the whole story, but am having trouble getting into the gist of things. Don't know why. Just can't get my head around it. I have already edited it once, but need to make a big change and it has just taken me forever. I suppose if I focus and put my mind to it and well... Argh, I am procrastinating as I speak... Argh. Looks like a quiet day today, might just spend two hours on it... Argh, maybe.

[tailor STATELY]

'sigh'

I was attracted to this forum to learn, re-energize, and feed my creative processes after I realized how vain and trivial, for the most part, my efforts had heretofore been.

Having the luxury of not having to make a living off of my writing, I've taken a year off from writing poetry. Perhaps my muse has been bereft of inspiration as yet.

Perchance this week.

[blazeofglory]

This week engaged me writing a variety of articles. I for instance write on a range of subjects from literary articles to economic ones. This week I wrote an article on the economic issue.

It is really hard to write something at times. There are so many familial things in point of fact that are likely to impede. While I get so much absorbed in writing things turn up impeding me. But life is a series of compromises and we cannot dispense with some important things in life. Family and friends I have to succumb to for without them what you achieve through writings will not hold any value. Man wants to share his pains and joys and joys expand and pains wanes by sharing in point of fact.

I therefore am parting with writing for that reason. My passions for writing is very intense but there are other values or things that passionately engage me.

[pjjrfan1]

I am not a writer by profession, but other than sports forums and an occasional attempt at poetry I haven't done much writing in the last 30 years, but just last month I took to writing letters to my 3 grandchildren ages, 11, 9 and 6. It seems they are having difficulty in their reading at school so I thought that this might help them. I've written 2 letters to each one and recieved 2 back none from my 11 year old, but I'm not giving up hope. In the meantime I am literally boring my grandkids to death with stories from my youth, and attempting to leave them some knowledge of their great grandparents. I'm hoping it will make inspire them to be become better writers and as well as becoming better readers, and in the process I am really enjoying doing it.

[Sancho]

I wrote a check to the IRS for a little over a thousand dollars this week. They accused me of putting the wrong number in a column on my form 1040 from a couple of years ago - or some such libel. Anyhow, it wasn’t a very creative piece of writing, but it was a difficult piece of writing none-the-less.

[Jozanny]

Mmm, if I ever need to file a schedule C then I know who to turn to . Once upon a time I did need to file a schedule C but my contractor went out of business, nine years ago, and I loved them.

When I had traditional employment, I almost could not write, and between 01 and 04 I suppose I was in a significant depression because I could not cope with a serious rupture between myself and a former supervisor, but I still earned. 05 through 08 I am not sure how I survived, but achieved one significant byline.

Now I am emotionally and physically worn out, and need money and know what my odds are, since I don't know any contractors that I am aware of who'd I feel an affinity with to approach for a contract, and I do not have enough really good bylines to aim for anything salaried. Still, for me I am pushing as best I can, although I fear The New Republic. They have the sole honor of being the one magazine where I applied for a job, and to my shock they treated me with respect, at the time, but because I am afraid of them I did not aim for the column I thought was my best shot, though I am angling for a blog slot. I just cannot work as fast as I want to anymore, but I am trying for one pitch a week, and slowly returning to the literary circuit.

But I can no longer dream. I know too much, how damn hard it is, and how little technical skill or access to sources I have. The one major mistake I made when I really got my break was not keeping a source list. Writers who are actually published don't live on the ether of their reputation, and most fans make that mistake about us, which is why I keep my distance when mine have sought attention.

I must still need therapy if I am laying all this out in this forum. I'll end with wondering if I should care.

[Sancho]

Ah-hah! That’s a splendid summation of the writing life. Or at least I think it is. I wouldn’t really know because I’m not a writer, but it’s pretty-much how I imagined the writing life to be, which is why I have a regular job (if there is such a thing).

When did it go from being a passion to being just plain hard work? Or did it? Is some of the passion still there? Does the passion get pushed to the background? Do you have to sell your soul to the devil to make a living at it?

Jeez, I’m starting to sound like Macaulay Culkin in Uncle Buck: “I’m a kid; it’s my job to ask questions.”

Here's another quote that just popped into my head for some strange reason: "Why...does jury-duty... pay more...than my regular job?" --Steve Martin

As for therapy - P'tooey! I mean, you know, unless you really need it.

[Maryd.]

Well, I am not sure about most people, but for me writing is a passion. I have been writing now since I was 11 years old and have had quite a few rejections (to say the least) I can actually get downhearted at times, but I continue to write. I love it so much. I think in my case however, it allows me to escape the reality of life. It also allows me to say what I want, when I want and how I want. I'm not necessarily a good writer, but a story teller. My literary skills are to be desired. But that is not what I write for. I write for stories/tales. I have a story to tell and everyone move out of the way because I am going to tell it. Whether anyone can understand my average literary skills, is another story... (Get it - another story, ok, so comedy is not my forte.)

[skib]

After reading the first four posts, I'm glad to find I'm not the only one vomiting on my computer and finishing the work only to find it a wreck of overly used words and senseless rantings about things we know nothing about!
That being said, my writing week has been the equivalent of a puppy running full-boar on the ice and deciding at the last minute I want to turn around.

[Paulclem]

Mmm, if I ever need to file a schedule C then I know who to turn to . Once upon a time I did need to file a schedule C but my contractor went out of business, nine years ago, and I loved them.

When I had traditional employment, I almost could not write, and between 01 and 04 I suppose I was in a significant depression because I could not cope with a serious rupture between myself and a former supervisor, but I still earned. 05 through 08 I am not sure how I survived, but achieved one significant byline.

Now I am emotionally and physically worn out, and need money and know what my odds are, since I don't know any contractors that I am aware of who'd I feel an affinity with to approach for a contract, and I do not have enough really good bylines to aim for anything salaried. Still, for me I am pushing as best I can, although I fear The New Republic. They have the sole honor of being the one magazine where I applied for a job, and to my shock they treated me with respect, at the time, but because I am afraid of them I did not aim for the column I thought was my best shot, though I am angling for a blog slot. I just cannot work as fast as I want to anymore, but I am trying for one pitch a week, and slowly returning to the literary circuit.

But I can no longer dream. I know too much, how damn hard it is, and how little technical skill or access to sources I have. The one major mistake I made when I really got my break was not keeping a source list. Writers who are actually published don't live on the ether of their reputation, and most fans make that mistake about us, which is why I keep my distance when mine have sought attention.

I must still need therapy if I am laying all this out in this forum. I'll end with wondering if I should care.

It sounds like you need a good break. I hope you can have one.

[Maryd.]

After reading the first four posts, I'm glad to find I'm not the only one vomiting on my computer and finishing the work only to find it a wreck of overly used words and senseless rantings about things we know nothing about!
That being said, my writing week has been the equivalent of a puppy running full-boar on the ice and deciding at the last minute I want to turn around.

Hey skib... By the sounds of this ^ post, looks like you write comedy.