18 February 2013

ROW80 check-in 6

Question: is it possible that part of my writing process involves long-ish periods of not working on my works-in-progress as a way of letting the ideas ripen in my subconscious? Or is that just a convenient excuse for procrastination?

This post is a day late and several dollars short. Despite my best intentions I did not work on my stories this week.

I did, however, finish writing this poem.

And I wrote an article about Carrie Padian (@carriepadian) for VoiceCatcher that should be going up around March 18. FYI: Carrie is a Portland-based poet and creative non-fiction writer whose blog Sweet Nugget should really be in everyone's RSS feed.

And I worked on some creative non-fiction of my own. My favorite line from this week: "The magic of the human heart is that there's room for more than one person at a time to fill it completely."

And of course I've been working on my second novel(la) under my pseudonym as well.

And today I got some exciting news about a project that I'll need to work into my ROW80 goals for this round: my Twitter-friend Josh Hewitt (@the_j_hewitt) has invited me to write a speculative fiction poem for a series he'll be posting on his blog in April. The details of this collaborative project are a secret for the time being, but I'm so excited to participate!

Which reminds me. I was also invited by Twitter-friend Aliaa El-Nashar (@Aliaa_ElNashar) to participate in a chain story. I hadn't heard of this idea before, but it turns out it's a bit like an exquisite corpse, just on a grander scale: each writer writes a chapter of a novel whose theme is agreed upon ahead of time. I've agreed to participate on the condition that my turn to write comes after this round of ROW80, just because I already have enough on my plate through the end of March. Evidently we're going to be writing a crime novel. Should be interesting. I just love the idea of all this collaboration.


Okay, so when I look at all this I don't feel so bad about slacking on the speculative fiction stories. I mean, it's not like I've just been sitting around drinking margaritas and staring off into space. Though that sounds kind of nice, too.

4 comments:

  1. Okay, chain crime novel sounds like the most fun project ever! You'll have to tell us how it goes :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right?! Kind of reminds me of our DigiWriMo collaborative novel, now that I think of it. But I will keep you updated and then you can decide whether to organize a chain story of your own. ;*)

      Delete
  2. I agree with that statement Sione. Marination is an important part of writing. Especially when you have several 'irons in the fire' as they do say.

    I often let things stew for a while and start something smaller, more attainable. The culmination of ideas and secret "procrastination sauce" often helps clarify things, even if its just in my head.
    Poem was AWESOME! Look forward to more of your writing in the future. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So you mean I'm not just an enormous slacker? Whew! That's a relief. ;*)

      Delete