Just Shut Up and Do It

 

No, the title's not meant for you, it's meant for me. I'm having a huge procrastination situation. I'm in the process of trying to find a way to earn a little extra money online by writing, but I'm not having much luck. Partly because I refuse to write for pennies, and partly because I'm good at sabotaging myself.

I've joined up with Fiverr and Upwork. I've created a few gigs on Fiverr, but it's Upwork that I spend the most time at. I look through the job listings on a regular basis, but I'm not all that impressed. I'm shocked at the number of people who want to hire a ghostwriter for a 20K-40K book and only want to pay a half-cent to a penny per word. Um, yeah...no.

First of all, I'm a short story writer. I've tried to write novels, more than once. I've done NaNoWriMo on a couple of occasions and actually hit my target once. But I quickly realized that I didn't have the patience or attention span to do novels. I write short stories because they're, well, short.

I read a great article on Medium titled Why Fiction Writers NEED to Write Short Stories. Author Cameron Thomson goes into detail about how and why short stories are a must for anyone who writes fiction. It really hit me. Though most of it was stuff I already knew, it still resonated with me. Then I got an idea. 

Instead of writing a whole book for someone else, write one for me. And rather than doing a complete novel, do a short story collection. If I can write ten different stories of between 1,500 and 2,500 words each, I would have the equivalent of a novella. I did, however, look into the word count needed and found it's not as cut-and-dried as you'd think. One place says a novella should be a minimum of 10,000 words, while another says it's a minimum of 20,000 words. 

I guess I'll just go with the flow. Write the stories first, then worry about word count. I mean, without the stories, it's just a blank document. So, now I get to come up with ten ideas for stories. I'm not a planner, I usually just let the words flow, then go back and re-read it, hoping it makes sense.

The first thing I need to decide is whether it's going to be a book of fantasy stories, mysteries, or something more contemporary. From there, I'll come up with some interesting titles. Those will probably change as the stories come to life, but I have to start somewhere. 

I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me. But I'm doing it for me, not someone else. And rather than sit around and feel sorry for myself, I just need to shut up and do it. 

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Image by Pintera Studio from Pixabay 

Sunday Free Write 2/19/23

 

I think it's time I did a free write here. I do a lot of free writing when I'm having issues getting inspired. I've had several weeks in a row that were less than fun and found it hard to be creative while in a funk. I'm working hard to get myself back to normal and back to writing on a regular basis.

If you look at the title of this piece, you'll see I'm calling it a SUNDAY free write. The reason for that is that I'm hoping to do this once a week. I know from experience that getting a lot of the junk out of my head helps in getting it all sorted out and into some form of semblance. 

I never know what I'm going to talk about in my free writing. It could be anything from the act of writing itself to a book I read (or tried to read). I might rant about something I read on Twitter or just jabber on and on, kind of like I'm doing now. It's not so much what I'm saying, just that I'm saying something.

When I first learned about free writing, there were rules. You were supposed to write constantly for a set number of minutes. Yea, I threw that rule out the window. I'd rather just write freely about the stuff in my head as it comes along. I feel like that dog in the movie Up. Squirrel!!!

If I do end up doing a free write every Sunday, I may have to come up with a list of topics to cover. Even after doing this for years, I have trouble focusing on a single topic. I'll have to see what I can come up with. Fair warning, I may come up with ideas that are so far off in left field, you'll think I've gone bonkers. It's okay, I have.

One of the things you'll never hear me discuss is politics. Nope, not my field of expertise. Not even something I feel comfortable discussing with friends and family. Some people get squeamish discussing bodily fluids or more intimate topics, but those don't normally bother me. Politics, however, makes my skin crawl.

A few of the things I may end up talking about are anything to do with ancient history, mythologies, unsolved mysteries, ways of releasing our creative sides, and/or reviews of various places and things. Hey, look at that, I already started a nice list. And that's why I free write. 

The best part of free writing is you not only get stuff out of your head, you dig a little deeper inside yourself. You may realize things about yourself you hadn't realized before. It's so good for the soul. 

Well, I think that's it for this week. I will try to do this each week, but I make no promises. As soon as I make a promise, I'll break it. However, I will try.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find something out there that inspires you. 

Until next time,
Christine

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Image created by Christine Graves on NightCafe