It took me an hour to write, I figured it would take an hour to read

errant: wandering; deviating from an appointed course, or from a direct path; roving.

Courtesy of Dictionary.com Word of the Day

First off, the irony is not lost on me, as a self-proclaimed writer that writes for about two weeks every year, and never finishes a piece. Errant. That’s me.

Hmm. I just spent the last 30 minutes writing a short story, without knowing the plot, just riffing. And you know what? It didn’t work for me. I deleted it without saving. Brainstorming is fun. Coming up with characters and conflicts is fun. Creating new worlds is fun. But an errant plot is no fun to write, and certainly no fun to read.

I feel that I just gave myself a little object lesson there. Who says that you can’t teach yourself? I hope you got something out of this as well.

What else can I learn from this brief experiment? Plot: what happens in the story. I should have at least an idea of what’s going to happen before I write it. Now, I’m open to allowing inspiration to come and accept the fact that a scene may turn as I write it. But, without a destination in mind, it’s difficult to plot a course.

Ooh, did you see that? “Plot a course.” I totally did not plan that. I can get a handle on that.

I took an Aviation class a few years ago, and a large part of the class was devoted to plotting courses. You pick a starting point and a destination. You look at the terrain and weather conditions, and plan course alterations as necessary. If it’s long journey/flight, you also pick several waypoints along the way to help you find your way. I never really looked at writing that way before. I bet if I bought a book on plot development, I would find this, or a similar, analogy. Plot a course, write a plot. It’s the same word, yet I never looked at it as the same thing. See what I mean by I need to get a stronger grasp on vocabulary. Well, at least I learned something else tonight, even if it is the most basic of concepts.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The fact that you’re fat, sarcastic and wear glasses doesn’t mean that you’re smart. (BTW, that’s what kinda annoyed me about Chris Sligh. Everyone kept talking about how smart he was. What did he ever say or do that made him look smart, other than being fat, sarcastic, and wearing glasses?)

My internal editor is saying: It’s bad when your parenthetical statement is longer than your essential clause.

That’s enough for one night.