michaeljasper.net
"Another Wrecked Web Site"
THE DARE JOURNAL: WEEK ONE
This week's total words: 4,300
For
more about the stories I'm working on, see my Works In
Progress page.
Week Two News
Okay, what's a Dare? It's a challenge for writers to produce a lot of material in a relatively short period of time. Previous Dares have been one month or three months in length, with the same result: the first draft of a book.
I'm doing things a little differently; instead of a novel, I'm going to write 13 stories in the next 13 weeks, from October 1 to December 31, 2000. Check back here to keep up with my progress!
For more information, see
the Dare
Home Page.
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October 8, 2000
Total Words:
300
Another story done (more or less...)!
Still finishing up that durn "Working the Game" story. I've got another draft done, hopefully my penultimate (there's that word again!) draft. I'm gonna see if anyone in my online writing group is interested in rereading it and seeing if it makes more sense than the earlier draft. I can only hope. I'm ready to move on, now.
Elizabeth read my marked-up hard copy for the story I started last week, "A Feast at the Manor" (tentative title!), and she really liked what I had so far. So that's my next project. Unfortunately, I won't get to it 'til tomorrow. We've got a ton of stuff to do around here, and I don't want to spend my day in front of the computer, as tempting as that may be. I need one day to sort of relax...
mjj
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October 7, 2000
Total Words:
1,600
Today's
quote:
"The
jumpers were positioning themselves into their harnesses, aimed at
the wall, when I arrived at the jumping. I said hello to some of the
scrags who'd abandoned the site early, and they guiltily led me to
Takeem, strapped into his jumper. He was trembling against the
resistance of the salvaged bungee cord tight at his back, the cord
secured at either end to posts jammed into the ground. He looked like
a big fly caught in an oversized slingshot."
I was able to pop out of bed today at 6 a.m., which is really good for a Saturday, and got to work.
I was wrestling with my older story, "Working the Game," for the past week or two, having gotten some really good comments and questions on it, and yesterday at lunch (at my favorite dive of a lunch place, the Hunan Express - rice, eggroll, and a main course and a drink, only $4.98) I had a breakthrough and started work on it again. I made a bunch of notes and cut whole scenes and made notes for two new scenes, which I drafted out today. I'm printing it right now for one more run through. I've been at it for close to six hours, total. Crazy.
That's the weird thing about writing. Time sort of loses focus for me when I do it. I guess I get "in the flow," as my sister Shelly calls it, and I forget everything else. It's a great feeling of being focused and relaxed at the same time. I just hate that it takes so long to revise.
I guess it goes to show that I'm really doing all this for myself, not for fame and fortune and glory and even publication - I just want to tell my story, have people read my story and get something out of it. Hopefully a nice little kick. This story's got a great ending, I think. A great surprise that makes perfect sense.
If I did it right, that is.
I'll let you know.
mjj
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October 6, 2000
Total Words:
0
Maybe tomorrow...
Slept in this morning, until 6:30 a.m., so I lost an hour and a half of writing time. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe my body and mind are staging a revolt, just like the folks over in Yugoslavia. But instead of a cruel dictator, I'm overthrowing my all-work-and-no-play attitude. Okay, so my metaphor sucks. Give me a break!
In the good news department, one of the two short-short stories I sent in to Speculations was selected by the slipstream editor. Actually, she said she'd take it, but she wanted me to run it past the horror editor first (who'd already declined my first short-short submission). Either way I win. I was going to try and send off a short-short in each category - horror, fantasy, sf, and slipstream - but I realized I was just putting off my work on my other story. Distraction still rules.
Part of the problem may be that I'm doing this novel Dare with some other Clarion grads. I like the challenge, but it's a bit more structured than the story-a-week challenge the Writers of the Future writers are doing (and only Toby and maybe Ilsa have been keeping pace, as far as I can tell). I think I'll be able to get more stuff done tomorrow morning. This week has just been an anomaly. I have to believe that!
mjj
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October 5, 2000
Total Words:
500
Today's secret word is... "Distraction!"
Argh. Got caught up in some other miscellaneous stuff last night and made a liar out of myself again. Didn't get any writing done. Did read a good story by Lewis Shiner in the latest F&SF, about what happens when two timelines colllide.
This morning I got up, checked e-mail and some internet sites, and got a note from Toby about a short-short anthology looking for genre stories, so I spent the morning tweaking a horror story ("She" - not crazy about the title, but I think it'll work) and making it fit 500 words and make sense. For some reason, I keep procrastinating with my hotel story. Maybe because it looks like it's gonna be longer than I'd thought. And I still have urges to go revise an older story.
I have no ability to focus. Maybe it's working with all these stories instead of a novel. I'm really looking forward to starting another one next year. Maybe even revising "Autumn's Fall." Maybe.
mjj
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October 4, 2000
Total Words:
0, so far.
So it's Wednesday already. I plan on doing a lot of writing this evening on the laptop while Elizabeth gets caught up on her homework. My schedule has been all goofy lately, but that's all right. I looked over my notes for my hotel story last night and put together a very rough outline that I can fall back on if I draw a blank. I've definitely learned the virtues of outlining from the writers I met in LA.
Check back tomorrow for my wordage.
mjj
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October 3, 2000
Total Words:
0
What happened, you ask? Uh, let's see. I just got distracted. Website stuff again. I finally got my entire site switched over to SFF.NET, and I'm pretty happy with the results. No more banner ads, no more Spree garbage at the bottom of my homepage. I have total artistic freedom. More or less.
mjj
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October 2, 2000
Total Words:
1,500
Got up early today, ready and raring to start my new writing routine. I'm actually accustomed to getting up at 5 a.m. nowadays, which is a little startling - woke up this weekend at 5 on both Saturday and Sunday, but was able to get back to sleep.
I was going to finish an older story, "Working the Game," but I just don't have the time right now (maybe later this week), and I'm itching to write something new. So I'm writing my "weird hotel" story, and I was really jamming on it this morning. I had a couple scenes done by the time I had to go walk the dog. Not bad. I'm having fun with my main character and his wife. They're at a weightloss retreat for a week, and they're just now discovering how odd their hotel is...
It's looking like the story is going to be more horror or dark fantasy than SF, which is fine. After the critiques I got for my futuristic SF story, I think I'd better stick to my strengths and write the kind of stories I like to read.
I'm already looking forward to tomorrow morning's writing session.
mjj
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October 1, 2000
Total
Words:
0 -- Make that 400 (see addendum)
Ummm...
Okay, I'm not exactly off to a blazing start here... I did do a final revision to "Natural Order" and will mail that off tomorrow. Today was mostly a catch-up day for me, having spent most of my weekend at the convention.
But I've gotten some ideas. Just haven't written anything.
In the hole already. What a great start!!!
Addendum: Worked on my list of story ideas (see my revised Works in Progress page) and was able to pound out some wordage on a couple new stories ("A Feast at the Manor" and "One Last Chance"). One thing to keep in mind is that ALL my story titles are tentative. But I've got to have something at the top of the page, just for a reference point. Some of the temp titles I have are pretty goofy. So are some of my "permanent" titles, actually.
So I've got something to show for day one.
mjj