Perpetual Ruminations

Tuesday

I wrote my story for the 52 Week Challenge but in the process, managed to miss my blog post again. It ended up getting kind of late by the time I finished the story, and I just forgot to log back in and write in here.

So far, that's three stories, one a week for the first three weeks of the challenge. The first week was the easiest to write, I looked at the prompt, studied it a bit, then went out with the dogs and got a little fresh air while I mulled it over some. Soon, I had an idea for the story, a good start anyway, and then I figured out how I wanted it to end. All that was left was writing in the middle, which of course, was just taking the beginning to the end.

The second week was more difficult. I again looked at and studied the prompt, but even after mulling it over for a while, I couldn't generate any ideas. It took most of the morning to develop a good beginning, but I still didn't know how I wanted it to end. This time, after writing the beginning, I had to struggle with the middle so it would take me to the end. Once I had the middle filled in, however, it was easy to find a good ending.

This week was the toughest yet. After studying the image, I just could not get any ideas. I spent the entire morning trying to generate some ideas, and by noon was still at only one vague idea. By one in the afternoon, I was starting to get frustrated, I just could not come up with anything.

With no idea of what to even start with, I finally just opened the image on the top of my screen, and then opened my word processor below it and started typing out what I was looking at. Once I had a detailed description of the image, I went back and turned the first few lines into sentences. Then, after a bit more mulling things over, I rewrote my description into an introduction line and started going form there. I at least had a beginning, but I had no idea what direction to take it.

It was difficult, but I kind of ad-libbed my way along until I finally seen the ending and then had to go back and make a few changes that would take me to that ending. When I finished the story, I wasn't quite sure if it even worked, or if I liked it. But, after a quick read through, I decided it was a pretty good story.

It's funny, even though the challenge doesn't require much for specifics to meet the challenge, I didn't post my story until after I read through it and decided whether it would work or not. Of course, Rhonda read through it after she got home and gave it a thumbs up, which also helped me to accept this thing that I created.

I also find that as I write again, after the long stretch of non-writing wasteland I traversed, that I'm more aware of the toll writing takes. the first story was pretty easy, and I felt pretty good after I finished. I felt a bit of mental strain, and of course my arms were fatigued from typing for hours on end, but in all, I felt pretty good. I also felt very excited to have written again.

The second story was more difficult, and the strain after finishing was greater. Physically I did better, but mentally I was more tuckered out. Again, I felt good about the job I had done and the finished item. Of course, this was the shortest of the stories, so less typing. But, because it was more difficult to write, it took longer than the first item did.

The third story was the most difficult, it also turned out to be the longest of the three. So, I of course felt more fatigue in my hands and arms from doing so much typing all afternoon. In fact, I had to stop when Rhonda got home and give myself a short break, it was getting to the point my hands were not responding well enough to hit the right keys. I know this part will continue to get better the more I write and type, but right now I'm good for about four thousand words without having to really push it. The last story, by the way, went over six thousand words.

The hardest part, however, was the mental strain it took to maneuver through this story. I worked my brain pretty good just getting a beginning, then it was a constant mental workout to keep it moving along towards an unseen ending. Once the ending became clear, things went along much easier, at least from the concentration side of writing. the outcome wasn't very pretty, my mind no sharp and the ending flowing out like a spring bubbling up from the depths, under great pressure. But, at the same time, my arms and hands were tired from hours of typing, and moving rather slow and sluggish. They just could not keep up with the flow of thought, and the typos became worse and worse. That's why I forced myself to take a break when Rhonda got home. Normally I would stop, greet her with some hugs and kisses, then it would be right back to work until I finished, or reached a point where I could stop for the day. This time around, I took a nice hour break with her before resuming my ending, even though there was only about ten or fifteen minutes of typing left before I was done.