Write to Live and Live to Write

This morning, I continue officially writing two Novellas at the same time for two different Series. One of them, Skyjacker, I’ve set my goal to 1000 words a day, minimum. Only once since I started have I failed to reach that goal. Even the most difficult days (weekends mostly) I managed to find time in my day to complete the task and more. Beginning yesterday, I took up Spell Thief, fantasy Novella Series. After writing around between 1500 and 2000 words in Starjacker, I wrote five hundred in Spell Thief.
This morning, I wrote 500 words in Spell Thief, no problem. My Achievable goal for that Novella has been reached. I can now move on to write in Starjacker.
Lest I forget, I started this post.
Another thing I need to do is edit Chennizzi.

(1) Starjacker, Part I of Knowledge’s Ashes is 14,246 words in length.
(2) Old God’s Shadow, Part I of Spell Thief 8772 words.

I now, some people will call me seven kinds of fool for writing o novels at the same time. But, hey, it can’t hurt to try.

A Writer’s Process: Holidays are like Sundays, but more so. Not only are they family days, but we have this expectation of big things, or at least middle sized things. We are expected to prioritize those expectations.
Perhaps if I were younger I would look see holidays are a time to kick back, relax, let my hair down. For me, I have this intense drive to write, to get things done, to work.

My time on earth is short, and I’ve grown too old to surrender to lazy.

Intimations of mortality aside, Starjackers consumes my mind and energies. I know how it will end. I have a trilogy of Novella’s planned. but as a first draft, I feel I am finding the story, like a rare coin left in the dirt.

Forgot to publish, so here it is now.

Just a short note, because I wrote a whole blog today about disasters. Go read it. It is great.

Today, I overcome the sudden realization that I had no idea who was behind the entire plot against Suri Oza. Now I know who the big bad is. The novel has also expanded to 9226. words.

Tired.

Yesterday’s desire, big, ambitious.
Yesterday’s reality, not so much.
It happens. I wrote, don’t kid yourself, and started my projects, but none of them went as far as I had hoped. There are a number of reasons, not all of them in my control.
(1) The Needs of the family out way the needs of the father and the few. (Gratuitous Star Trek Riff.)
My son needed help with his Boomilever for the Science Olympiad. Man, was that stressful. Neither of us had the skills with balsa wood that wee needed. Thankfully, we had Boomilever Youtube Videos to help us.
(2) Exhaustion sucks the life out of my writing. For no reason I can define, all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep. An attack of lethargy made writing an enormous chore. I found that getting up and moving helped a little. Today, I pulled the laundry off the exercise machine, and if my mind says sleep, my body will say exercise.

Writer’s Log Supplemental – 1.19.2019 0945: Screwed the pooch on this one. You know, sometimes things break down, so late at night I fells asleep. I reached 7,468 words total, and am writing my first disaster. I will explain tomorrow, or today, or something.

One day I’m dancing in the rain and singing “Everything’s coming up roses,” and the next there is this headache dead center of my third eye. But that is no excuse. Time to write, tickle the keyboard, drive the nib of my men into my wrist and bleed fiction.
So bear with me, please, several things I want to do.

The first goal is to work on an article for Medium on a theme in literature. I have been avoiding this like the plague. (Cliche alert!) Going on, I think I am going to use this as a sounding board for my understanding of the subject, which I admit is not very significant.
The image above, which I saw posted by a friend and writer, Anna Dobritt, author of the Ravynwyng Chronicles, links together three critical aspects of literature.
I have a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and no teacher ever explained it to me in this way. Before, I remained blind to the theme, thinking of it as the “moral of the story,” which it is not.
One of the primary themes in Harry Potter was

NOTE: I did not get far with this today. Tomorrow, I will make progress.

“Literary theorist Roger Fowler notes that: “A theme is always a subject, but a subject is not always a theme: a theme is not usually thought of as the occasion of a work of art, but rather a branch of the subject which is indirectly expressed through the recurrence of certain events, images or symbols. We apprehend the theme by inference – it is the rationale of the images and symbols, not their quantity.”
Harry Potter and the surprisingly poignant literary theme

Writer’s Log Supplemental: 1648 wrote 1521 words on the Novella. it is going very well. I even succeeded in screwing around for a while.
Next month, I intend to take Randall’s Bootcamp and use it to write a sequel to Shift.

Writer’s Log Supplemental: 2156 An interesting evening, and I’ve made one serious decision. I have so many short stories, I intend to publish a book about 100 pages long. Thanks, Angela L. Lindseth. (Check out her published works. Sanity’s Threshold, Unconfined Delusions, and more.)

Busy day. Goodnight, y’all.

Resources: Theme (narrative)
The Literary Element of Theme
What is Theme in Literature?
Literary Themes
Wordcloud