I am currently working on a few writing projects, a few tales of Humor and one rather dark tale for an anthology I am hoping to submit (and find acceptance within) this Spring. I have mainly been working on the latter piece, and though the word count requirement is 3000 to 5000 words, the darn thing seems to have taken on a life of its own.
The story won't stop writing itself.
In the last several months, when starting a writing project, especially one for a publication with a deadline to meet, I have been trying to get myself in a different mindset than previously. In the past, I would always sit down and start writing, then hardly get into the first several paragraphs and then I'd start to re-read it and feel the need to edit as I wrote. What problem this created was that I'd hardly get anything done as I was always proofing what I had just written OR practically proofing while I wrote. I never would JUST WRITE. I would not just LET IT FLOW.
And then, time would be eaten, deadlines would loom, and then panic would set in, then writer's block and all other forms of things to break down the writing process and story completion process.
What I am trying to do now is...JUST WRITE AND LET IT FLOW.
What I am trying to get myself to do now is simply write the story, let it all come out, and then worry about molding and whittling it down to size afterwards...if possible. So far, I have been good at cutting away the blubber and dead weight and getting a, say, 7000-word story back down to a 6000-word submission requirement...without feeling I just totally slaughtered the piece.
In my next blog I will relate the dark tale I am currently working on...and how it may become a monster (and potentially something I simply publish on my own).
