Author: writingatlarge

Writer of things

This week’s long run

I’ve still been running, but I’ve cut down on my photo stops lately, so there haven’t been as many of these posts. That being said, I couldn’t help myself this week, since yesterday we had a bit of a storm, and all throughout the run I could see its aftermath.

The beach was still partly flooded and the waves made short work of the breakers.

Crows taking advantage of fallen trees.

Gulls and waterfowl really enjoyed the weather – not a lot of people about, and the tide brought quite a bit up with it.

A little over 8k on an enjoyable and interesting run in almost perfect running weather.

Hermes and Cat

Typewriting a letter today brought out my cat’s curiosity.

The Ferris Wheel

Hair tie, Moleskine, Kuretake disposable pocket brush pen extra fine.

Three Good Things

After reading the great “How to Be Miserable” I decided to start keeping a “three good things” journal at my bedside and write in it every night, right before I go to bed.

The idea is to write three good things that happened to you today, and if possible attribute them. It breaks off the habit of always remembering the bad, upsetting or embarrassing parts of your day, and I also found that it helps me (together with regular journaling) clear my mind and fall asleep sooner.

The good things don’t have to be large, sometimes they’re just a nice meal that I shared with someone, or something good that I read or watched, or just a friendly exchange with a friend or someone at work. The thing is, once you start doing it you:

  1. Realize that even in the shittiest of days there is something good to remember.
  2. Train your brain to look for those things throughout the day, so that you can have something to write down at night.

I’ve been using the Field Notes Resolution weekly planner for that, but you might want to use something larger. I just chose the Resolution because it gave me a reason to use the notebook, and it’s small enough that I’m sure that I will have something to write in it every day.

Chapter 7

Finished rewriting chapter 7. I rewrote it almost entirely, and I had to go back to chapter 2 first to fix a significant portion of that yet again, but the end result is much better I think, so I’m pretty pleased.

The main thing I learned from this is not to be afraid to go back and rewrite from scratch earlier chapters and scenes that I have already reviewed, if the resulting narrative is tighter and more coherent in the end.

So far I’ve managed to cut almost 9,000 words out, which is good progress, but the longest chapter (chapter 8, at a whopping 12,339 words) is still ahead of me, so I need to hunker down.

D&D Game January 8, 2018

Tonight’s D&D game, the first of the year, featured a group of card playing skeletons (that whooped our ass with table legs), a fog spewing magical wooden chest, and a blood thirsty cursed flail that’s our fighter’s new best friend.

A session to remember.

Roses in the Dark

Just so you realise how hot this winter has been – roses are in full bloom in January.