Meme: First Line from Last Ten Stories; Writing Update

[kungfuwaynewho]

Saw this meme today in attempting to begin to catch up on my flist maybe just a little.  I cheated a bit, in that I used the first two or three lines for a couple.  Also, this represents the first lines of the last few chapters from my novel, as I haven't been writing much - if any - fanfic lately.

1. JENNY ADAIR (17) never stops moving with a boundless, jittery energy from room to room.

2. I believe we've been here in Transoceanus for four months now?

3. JOHAN (V.O.) Heinrich, tell me a story.

4. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but Hermann didn't think so.

5. Calisia was a charming little town northeast of Omitaqua, built on bluffs overlooking the ocean.

6. A clearing in the woods. Green, birds singing, like a poem or some shit. Daryl made it no further, dropping to his knees.

7. Evenfall Hall, like any castle in the Seven Kingdoms, was filled with many particular odors.

8. It had been their last night together in the wild, though of course neither knew it at the time.

9. The walls were thicker at the bottom than at the top, like an old pane of glass.

10. Shouts at the end of the corridor. Shouts that were coming their way. Claudia slid her right hand up her left bracer, drawing out the dagger there, spinning it free of the linen.

As far as writing goes, for the last year I've been writing primarily on my novel The Orphan Queen, as well as two screenplays.  Rewrites and edits on a screenplay I optioned last fall (my first option!), which is ostensibly being sent around to directors right now?  I don't know; I haven't heard from the producer who optioned it in about two months.  The other is a script that I started literally a decade ago, that the producer read and liked the concept of, but he had a lot of good notes and said that it felt a little dated.  And it totally did; even though my last rewrite of that script had been 2010, it's amazing how much technology's changed and such.  So I'm currently about two-thirds through a page-one rewrite of that one.  I've been pretty consistently writing every single day, and it's become so much of a habit that I don't even really think about it anymore.  It's like, what else would I be doing with my time?  It would be cool if something happened with the first screenplay (The Dead House, which I think I wrote about on here once upon a time), but that's just a bonus, and not the reason why I sit down and write.

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's a tricky one. I feel like if it's something you're doing for free, then you have to enjoy it on some level. If it's not fun at all, then I'm not sure what you gain from "making" yourself doing it. You know? Do you normally work on novels, or on short stories, or what? Maybe if you threw everything aside for a while and wrote in a different format/genre, or even just did a week of a different flash fiction each day, if that might shake the cobwebs off? Just spit-balling here.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, it's not like I don't enjoy it at all. I do get a deep satisfaction from it. When I get a scene right, a line of dialogue, a description that just hits the spot. The feeling of creating something. I'm rather good at it, and I know it, and I want to get even better. I love all of that. It's just not - fun. Fun is watching movies or reading Stephen King novels. Writing is more like meditation or reading Samuel Johnson: it's something I need, something I want, something that's part of me - and yet I have to push myself to do it.

If that makes any sense at all.

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

It makes sense! I certainly have times like that when I'm struggling with a difficult scene or can't quite work out a transition. I guess fun maybe isn't the right word; but it certainly shouldn't be torment, you know?

When I get a scene right, a line of dialogue, a description that just hits the spot. The feeling of creating something.

Yessssss, the best.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

but it certainly shouldn't be torment, you know

Exactly. Which is why I've decided to schedule time every day for writing (I have to schedule everything, it's a thing), but I've also decided that if it's not working I won't force myself.