You'd think being a writer involved writing...

Current Project: WoTF short story -- Character work. Plus editing for Final Redoubt.

I'm not making the progress I'd like on my story. I have my plot, characters, and world, but it's just not coming together. So tonight I'm working on a technique to get to know my characters a little better. I don't think they've quite come to life in my mind yet. It's amazing how easy writing tends to become once your characters are alive. It becomes a process of chronicling their adventures rather than making it all up.

It's probably for the best that I'm not going to be writing much actualy prose tonight. It's been an exhausting day. I've had the joy of fighting with my insurance company about covering my child's birth. That, and the headphone jack on my mp3 player has decided to go fritzy on its connection. So I'm kinda fried. I really shouldn't let these things bother me, but I tend to be a worrier.

Anyone else wondering what happened to August?

Current Project: A short story for Writers of the Future -- due to the anonymity of the contest I won't publish the title or plot elements of this story at this time. Currently approx 1000 words.

So it's more than halfway through August, and I've barely gotten a day's worth of writing done in that time. My official excuse is the birth of my daughter, but even that's not a great excuse for missing deadlines. (I give myself a weekly deadline based on when my writing group meets) Keeping deadlines is one of the most important habits for a young writer to cultivate. Writing is a business, and a writer who chronically misses deadlines isn't likely to be an agent or editor's favorite person to work with. And yes, that matters.

Anyway, I'm taking forever to write this story because it's for WoTF and I'm being more critical than normal. I've just started over on it because I realized my narrative voice was wrong. I came to that conclusion after I talked with my wife about characters, and she could relate to all BUT the POV character. Bad sign. I was pulling back from really getting in the character's head because I plan on treating him worse than any character I've previously written, and it's hard to do horrible things to people you like. (Yes, my characters become real people to me) But worse would be to do horrible things to someone and have no one care because they don't like him.