Onward to 2012

So, how about another stab at this writing thing?

Over the holidays I was looking for something to do. On a near daily basis, someone asks what I have been writing. I usually respond with the truth and say, “Nothing at all.” To my actual surprise this upsets people. As far as I know, I don't know anyone that I actively interact with that has actually read any of my creative writing. It doesn't help matters that my creative writing ended back in college oh so many years ago.

I decided that I should change some of that. Around this time a couple years ago, I made a semi-New Year resolution to write more. In fact I gave myself the task of attempting to write 500 words a day. I did just that for a couple weeks. Things happened and I just stopped. I want to say that I was busy with other stuff, but I probably wasn't. The real culprit is a lack of ideas that made me want to write.

With this being a new year, I am attempting to write again. I have a couple reasons for this. One of them being that I can stop saying that I don't write. Granted, I may not be stringing these letters along in a fictional sense at the moment, but at least they are being committed to a sharable medium. (That's fancy speak meaning that I am writing something, even if it just comes across as stream of consciousness).

I found a helper this time though. Being the nerd that I am, I like going to book stores way too much. This is especially bad because I spend a fair amount of money while there. Sure that wouldn't be a bad thing, but when I don't read the stuff I buy, it adds up. I have piles of books scattered everywhere ranging from recommendations of literature, gifts of fiction, somethings that looks cool, and resources material, like mythology books. I barely skimmed through some of them. One of the things I sometimes buy is Writer's Digest.

The names says it all. It is a magazine about being a “writer”. The one I dug up is a special issue from June 2010 called Writing Basics. Contained within is a creativity article with writing prompts. 52 of them to be exact. A weekly idea to write every week. Now, since it was from June, it starts in June. This is January though, so I am going to start from January. Of course, the obvious first week of January prompt is about New Years resolutions.

What are your New Years resolutions for 2011 (we'll change that to 2012)? What specific writing goals do you have for the upcoming year, and what do you plan to do to accomplish them?

I think I already covered a bunch of my writing goal in the paragraphs preceding the prompt. Still, I plan on attempting to just write more. Maybe I will have at least on actual, real short story under my belt by the end of the year. That's an attainable goal, I think. Just one story with no real set length.

My only real other resolution is that I see my friends more. I tend to go into hermit mode and keep to myself too much. I stay home, isolated. I fear major travel, so I avoid it as much as possible. I don't like change, so I don't like to go to new places. I also don't like getting lost. My car isn't the best in the world, but it works for me, but I feel it's love for me will crap out as soon as I have to travel on a road it hasn't been before.

How I am going to accomplish these goals is to just overcome fears and push through. I am tired of feeling like a bad friend. The unfortunate thing of Facebook has allowed me to keep a modest account of some friends lives, but that doesn't include face-time. So, I will just have to actually plan things on a real calendar and stick to them. Friends are a good thing from what I am told.

As for the writing stuff, I will just try out this prompt thing. I kind of want to go through each one, one-by-one. I don't think I may necessarily do one a week though. If I can crank out all 52 in 52 days, then I'll do it. I'm sure that will be a lot of words, but so be it. With the creative writing, I'll wash something through my head and see if I can make something work from it. Failing that, I will just take some popular genre with the young adults and butcher the hell out of it for easy profit.

So, there you have it. One down, a bunch more to go. I will probably keep posting these on my blog just to put them somewhere to prove to readers that I do write. Maybe just to prove to myself as well. If things get too personal with these prompts redaction may occur.