"A writing community based on encouragement and cooperation." PoMo Golightly’s idea is genius. If interest exists, she’ll pair writers up, and we’ll encourage each other over the ether, with perhaps a small reward in the end? A yarn swap, perhaps? I’m in, and if you’re a writer who likes the idea, go drop her a comment.
Me: Fighting a migraine which is most likely hormonal, and a mood, which I am attributing to post-book-completion let-down. Of course, I have two other books in the works, either of which I’d love to swing into, but there’s a but. A friend would like to write a script with me. It IS Scriptfrenzy month, after all, and I’d love the challenge. But it’s a HUGE challenge — the subject matter is not what I usually go for, and I’ve never written a script. And I think he has high regard for my writing talent, much of which might be misplaced in this context. I think I’m going to have a meeting with him, to see if it’s too completely ridiculous for me to consider, in which case I’ll tell him, straight up, no dice. But I find myself drawn to it like I was drawn to the marathon — such a crazy thing to want to do, so difficult, BRING IT ON — then I’ll give it a shot.
Which puts me in a mood. It’s not even a bad mood, especially since I called in sick with migraine. It’s just an… itchy, angsty, get-up-and-move mood. A dangerous mood. I’m trying to stay very still and sit with it. I’ve reread most of Steven King’s On Writing yesterday and today (great book, even though I’m not a fan of his fiction), and now I will watch TV and finish up that lacy sweater. Yes.
I’m glad you’re going to join me for this writing partner experiment!
I totally agree about the Stephan King book. It’s one I always recommend for fabulous writing advice!
Thanks for the tip. I signed up, though if you’d like more than one buddy, I’d be happy to do it. I had an idea a couple weeks ago for a genre romance (not what I normally write, but what I read for extreme relaxation) and 3400 words just volcanoed out of my head, so I’ll be working on it this summer after I finish my Nano Novel edits.
And King’s book? Love it.
Yes!
You have the right prescription for that particular mood. Dang itchy mood.
I’ll see you at the writing swap at PoMo’s! FYI, another great writing book I just discovered is Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext. It’s short but very useful. He’s also editing an entire series of these “The Art of” books, covering various aspects of writing.
Go grab yer copy of “Moby Dick” and read the 1st paragraph of Chapter 1, where Ishmael describes his itchy mood:
“…whenever my hypos gets such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can….”