Beep…Beep…Beep…

It’s 4 a.m. and my relentlessly punctual alarm clock heralds the start of my day. I glare at the evil device from blurry eyes before striking it soundly to cease it’s annoyance. The house is quiet, and the dogs barely glance at me as I roll from under my warm blankets. My fuzzy Lion King slippers wait for me with far more faithfulness than my dogs will show. The black and white Merle Australian Shepard quickly occupies my vacated place in the bed, while the larger liver-colored Shepard stretches out to enjoy the extra room; neither will follow me to the kitchen, knowing ‘morning treat’ time is still hours away, and no amount of begging will sway me.

I set the coffee to brew and head for the front door with misplaced hope that the newspaper will have magically appeared on the front porch — it is not, of course. I grab the broom kept next to the door and head out into the morning to fish for the paper religiously deposited somewhere under my car.

The coffee is ready when I return, and I flop down at the table to begin my daily dissection of newspaper articles I wish to keep. I check the time; 4:16 a.m. I have fifteen minutes left to leisure over the newspaper, separating news stories, or sometimes just a headline, and tossing them into the ‘Ideas Box’ for later retrieval. I check the time again; 4:30 a.m.

I pour a second cup of coffee and head for my den. My computer is waiting; Scrivener and several Word documents are already open and waiting. The words ‘Chapter 9’ stare at me from the top of the page. I check my notes to remind myself of what I wrote yesterday, then plunge into a make-believe world of fantasy. The words pour from my fingers, fueled by a caffeine stimulated brain. The hours slip past unknowing until a wet nose pushes against me. I check the time; 9:00 a.m., it is time for ‘Morning Treat.’

I dress while the Milk bones disappear with the crunch of enthusiasm. My two little time-keepers are finished and waiting at the door by the time I return in jeans, shirt, and comfortable shoes. I won’t need their leashes, whatever children occupied the walking path are now safely tucked away in school somewhere. The dogs will have the walking path to themselves, as well as the park. We spend the next forty-five minutes playing and getting our daily exercise.

I check the time; 9:52. I’m running late now, and we hurry back to the house. I settle back at the computer and pick up where I left off, and continue to work until 1 p.m. Time for a 30-minute lunch and back to work. The morning was occupied with writing new words, but the afternoon is strictly for editing previously written chapters.

The shadows grow longer across my den, and I check the time; 5:00 p.m. and time for a nap and an episode of ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ I have recorded and waiting. 7:00 p.m. starts dinner for my dogs and me. This is leisure time and used to eat, read, cruise YouTube, or any other fun activity.

8:00 p.m. and the T.V. and internet is again shut off. This is now ‘Free writing time.’ I may write something for the forum, or something to post in the Writers Gallery, or just some little vignette that has been playing at the corner of my mind. But, even though it’s Free Time, it is just as strictly scheduled as the rest of my day.

Writing is a pleasurable activity that stretches the boundaries of your mind. You can write anywhere and anytime you like. But, to be a published writer is a business that must be as strict in its schedule as any nine-to-five job. There are perks to being a writer. I’m in my comfy Lion King slippers for most of the day. I’m in the comfort of my home. I take a nap during the day.

If you want to be a writer — write. If you want to be a published writer — make a schedule and treat your business with the professionalism it deserves. This is the best advice I can give you. I wish you the best of luck.

R.L. Wolf

:Wolf:

I would love to hear your experiences and suggestions on writing.

Great advice!!

I write whenever I feel the need and I write about whatever I comes to my mind.

Sometimes it's a poem and sometimes it about my day and or feelings about something.

@KristiS

We would love to read your poetry, you should post some of it.

"I would love to hear your experiences and suggestions on writing."

I am not a good writer, and I have proven that repeatedly. I'm better at taking a good writer's work and creating an animation (respecting copyrights, of course). But I have had a little success with "writing what you know". I told of an example here, the entry about sailing:

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2900150

An example of me using someone else's good writing for an animation is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjpOLI4eN5I

@Steve K.

That was a poignant animation video, probably one of the best I've seen. As for writing, it's just like any other art, it must be practiced daily.

I would like to start showing what I have written, thus far in my story. Should I start a new thread, or add to this one.??

@Idgilman

If you want to post small sections, under 5k words, start a new thread, that way you can just add posts to your story thread as you go. But, the only people that see your story will be those that come to this forum, which are mainly just the writers. If you have a full chapter to post, lets say around 10-20k characters, post to the Writers Gallery. In Writers Gallery, you'll get more views. Now those are only suggestions, you are perfectly welcome to post smaller paragraphs to the Writers Gallery, and all the way up to 50k characters. It just depends on how you want to approach presenting your story.

Make sure you know your character count, it's kind of important in knowing when you are reaching a standard chapter length. 23k characters is a good average chapter length. 50k character count (45k minus spaces) is a full novel size chapter. I would recommend for new writers to keep it to 5k character count, and build from there as your skill grows. When I first started writing, 300 words was a lot for me to struggle through and get everything right.

wolfenshire posted at 11:42AM Sat, 23 April 2016 - #4266666

@Steve K.

That was a poignant animation video, probably one of the best I've seen. As for writing, it's just like any other art, it must be practiced daily.

Thanks for the kind words. I give a lot of credit to the poet, Mr. Robinson, who as you may know also inspired Paul Simon to write the song "Richard Cory":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwqwAy85CgY

I'm sure you're right about practicing writing, but my animation hobby takes up pretty much all my hobby time. I do enjoy reading, but its hard to find books I enjoy. I have a handful of favorite authors (Christopher Buckley, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Oakley Hall, William Kotzwinkle, a few others), but the current "best sellers" leave me pretty cold. I have discovered a series at Amazon that I like, New York Review Books Classics, most of which are 50+ years old and by authors I've never read. An example is "Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley", clever, humorous, etc.

I once thought about having a blog... It sounds a lot like some sort of Bulgarian turnip based goulash or something one may contract by cavorting naked with manatees... I'm not that fond of goulash so I wasn't that big on that whole thought... To be honest I don't really think I know exactly what a blog is... It's not this rash I got from the manatees, the doctor said it was unusual, but not a blog. From the general usage of the word I'm starting to think it has very little to do with turnips or manatees and more to do with some sort of writing format. I should probably look that up and stop guessing at stuff.

Okay... I just looked it up... It does have to do with writing... That's kinda disappointing, because I thought cavorting with the manatees would be more rewarding and possibly give me something to write about... Well, I suppose that could have been something if I had actually written any of it down, but the crayons don't work on wet paper and I forgot most of it already, so I suppose it's a moot point.

Moot point... Moot... That's another one of those words that's misleading... It sounds like it would have more to do with cows and cow related activities, which in case anyone is wondering, it does not.

English is such a strange language... I wish I could speak it, or write stuff in it.

Wait... I just looked it up, and apparently I do speak or write in what is probably English... Maybe I was thinking of Portuguese or Kusunda... Its not Kusunda, because I just looked out the window and it's not Nepal and I'm pretty sure I just made up Portuguese... I make up a lot of stuff, so it's really hard to keep track of what I'm going on about at any given moment, especially in Nepalese... Nipplese... Nepal... Nipal... Nipple.... I always wanted to go there... then I found out that most people just pronounced it poorly and it has nothing to do with nipples.

I don't know what's wrong with me... Surly lots of things, but in this case particularly, I'm at a loss.

I guess if I ever wrote a blog it would go much like this and that's probably not a good thing... Blogs are supposed to be informative and interesting or at least coherent. I don't think I'm capable of any of that nonsense. I believe in free range writing... Like when you go to one of those chicken farms where there are no rules and chicken society has broken down and the chickens are all murdering each other because no one is telling them what to do.... Well, I mean I believe in the no rules part... I'd never deliberately murder a chicken unless it was pointing a gun at me or I was really hungry and maybe it was on fire a little bit just before... Just enough to get a golden crispness and hopefully it had been rolling around in some herbs and spices... That would be nice.

I seem to have forgotten why I began writing this. I hope it didn't have anything to do with cavorting naked with manatees... Did you know you can get a rash from that? Well, so much for this confusing and intellectually damaging reply.

@McGyver

I do hope that blog rash of yours clears up soon. Manatees are disreputable fellows and known for passing such things along. I found this a most entertaining and wonderful article, and would very much like to post it as 'The McGyver Blog #1', with more to come. I think you are a natural and would love to see more ramblings of this nature. Certainly there can be more than one blog. Mine can be the 'Wolf Blog'. In fact, I think you have stumbled on a great idea. I've breathed the barest flicker of life into this forum, but that's about all -- just a flicker. Unless other writers decide they want this forum to flourish, I'll soon succumb to my goldfish like attention span and likely wander off to live with a pack of wolves somewhere. Anyway, consider posting more of your awesome ramblings. And anyone else that would like to post articles, prose, blogs, or incoherent musings... please, do so. Every person enriches the whole.

Oh, and please, wash your hands after molesting manatees, you never know where they've been -- the manatees that is, not your hands... you probably know where your hands have been... hopefully. Or maybe, wash the manatees, then wash your hands, or maybe wash your hands before molesting the manatees. I'm sure the manatees would have something to say on the whole sordid affair.

Well, one could do much worse than to wander off to live with wolves... I was raised by them and they are quite social creatures and know how to make a proper cup of tea... Mostly... They fall short a bit on the lack of thumbs, so there is a bit of spilling and they do tend to stick their snouts in the pot and snarffle about, but if that sort of thing is not a bother, then they are great to live with. Mostly. Regardless of that, please don't wander off like a goldfish to live with wolves, especially if you are wearing a suit if ham. Besides most wolves can't read and are terrible poets, so even though there is the prospect of good tea and in some cases even decent biscuits (mostly dog biscuits), there is a good chance your writing and creativity may suffer. I too have a distinctively carp-like attention span, but do manage to return here frequently to see what is going on... I must confess, sometimes I feel like writing something, but more often I don't because I feel it too random or nonsensical. But if you do feel it may contribute in some small way, if not in quality, perhaps in volume, to this forum, I guess I should put that aside. Thank you Wolfenshire, for your kind comment... And manatee advice.

Loved this, @Wolf!