Day 53: creating tension

"During the making of the film "Friendly Persuasion" — from a novel by Jessamyn West, West remembers director William Wyler, saying, "We’ve got to get one more ‘Will he? Won’t he?" into this." As a writer, West tended not to do enough of creating that tension, which is what readers want."

So again, creating tension. Sometimes in order to do that you've got to be ruthless. Make your characters suffer. Let bad things happen to them. Or let them do bad things. Then see what will come out.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

47 days.

Day 52: “Character is action.”

"F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “Character is action.”
Characters do not operate in a vacuum. Their actions usually involve other people, and these interactions are what make up scenes. Full scenes, half scenes, and narrative passages are the building blocks for constructing a unified story line."

Ok, I guess he means that we are describing characters, and all characters have their actions and the motives behind the actions. What we need to do is making the characters and their motives "relatable" or "care-able," so when readers read they will find they care about these people and want to find out what happen next.

Easier to say than done.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

48 days.

Day 51: Most successful writers have had unhappy childhoods...

"Dean Koontz, for example, was the only child of a physically frail mother and a violent, alcoholic father who twice tried to kill himself and was eventually committed to an institution. Instability was a constant in his family. This terrible childhood stirred a passion for books in Koontz.
One of his very first memories stemmed from a period when his mother was hospitalized for several months. At the age of 3 or 4, Koontz was kept by one of her friends, who, every night, would tuck the little boy into bed, give him an ice cream soda and read him a book. Koontz connected these sensations of safety and happiness with storytelling. This has stayed with him.
Koontz has read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame at least 50 times, relishing the theme of “friends pulling together to overcome the bad guys.” Koontz credits books for showing him at the age of 9 that not all families were like his.
“I am a driven adult child of an alcoholic,” says Koontz. Today he works six days a week, arriving at his desk by 7:30 a.m. He writes until dinner, skipping lunch.
But what does one do who hasn’t had an unhappy childhood? Ernest Hemingway once said that writers have to have had a terrible childhood, or at least think that they did."

By that unhappy-childhood definition, I should be a pretty successful writer. But I guess either I don't have the talent or I must work way much harder.

Kind of depressed today. Dissertation is such a big problem. I can't think of more things to write. I don't have time. And this weekend I have to go camping with my 2 boys; scout activity. I almost want to give up this writing.

Today I hate many things. I will not say everything, but it seems pretty close.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

49 days... over half way now.

Day 50: We are the masters of the superior secret...

"The novelist and poet James Dickey, talking to students near the end of his life, said, “I don’t mean to sell the poet so long or at such great length, but I do this principally because the world doesn’t esteem the poet very much. They don’t understand where we are coming from. They don’t understand the use for us. They don’t understand if there is any use. We are the masters of the superior secret, not they. Not they. Remember that when you write.”"

I guess I like that. "People might not esteem my work very much. That's because they just don't understand." At least that makes me feel better.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

50 days... wow, come to the mid-point of the whole thing.

Day 49: "Writers should have a physical hobby"

"The gifted writer Jo-Ann Mapson, who has published a half dozen novels, believes that writers should have a physical hobby. “Something that takes you away from books and criticism, because it teaches you, it informs you, and it changes your writing.”"

I play basketball. The problem is I am way too much into it, every time I lose a game I feel very bad about myself. Also, when the team I support lose the game, I feel super-bad.

Don't know how to fix this problem!

I sometimes also swim. Should I just change to swimming instead? But I know it's impossible.

But the point is to have something else to take away the attention, to distract ourselves from all the writing and negativism. Then when we come back we have a fresh start. Hopefully.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

51 days...

Day 48: Persistence is what is required.

"Novelist Harlan Ellison once said that if anybody can stop you from being a writer, then don’t be one."

Good say. In fact, these days I was thinking about (just a little bit though...) giving up. I'm too busy: my dissertation just seems so damn difficult to write more--I just have to put a lot more things that I don't think is so necessary. I have to look for a job this fall and if I don't have data that probably is not good for job hunting. Time seems to be running out.

And I guess nobody is reading my story...

But I have to be persistent, I guess. I have to finish this thing from beginning to end. As I said, I probably can't finish this one in 100 days. But I can have another 100 days. The important thing is I have to write everyday.

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

52 days...

Day 47: In 1979...

"...at the age of 80, Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux began to write the story of her life. She wrote innocent tales of her past, tales of her grandmother and of a distant Aunt Clara who chewed tobacco and could spit in a cat’s eye.
Every morning she went into the kitchen of her white two-bedroom house in Manhattan, Kansas, where she had raised eight children. She sat down at the table and, aided by scrapbooks, letters and photographs, she wrote. Day after day, week after week, she wrote in longhand the story of her life, noting down the watershed events: births, deaths, one marriage, three wars, one flood, as well as the things that just struck her fancy, like the first time she saw Lawrence Welk. Having told the events of her life, she began then to write about the world that she never spoke of. Her feelings and thoughts.
Jessie Lee wrote all of this for a teacher, Charley Kempthorne, at his Harvest of Age, a program for senior citizens. Her writings were published by the local college and entitled The Life of Jessie Lee Brown From Birth Up to 80 Years. About 30 copies were printed for her family and friends. That was 20 years ago. Family, friends, and strangers are still reading her 208-page book now entitled Any Given Day: The Life and Times of Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux: A Memoir of Twentieth Century America [Warner Books, 1997].
Since writing her first memoir, Jessie Lee has written two more books. The latest, Granny’s Ramblings of This and That Two, was published in 1993. That year she wrote to the teacher who encouraged her to tell her story, “Thank you so much for not giving up on me,” she wrote. “I am not a writer, but my poor efforts have made a great difference in my life.”
If Jessie Lee Brown Foveaux isn’t a writer, who is? Everyone’s life is a book. Jessie Lee told her story. And Warner bought her story for one million dollars."

In the age of 80! And it's in Manhattan, Kansas! What a co-incidence!

Now that's persistence, keeping hope, and optimism!

Some more revisions:

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1655035-An-endless-failing-pursuit-temp-title1

Don't forget my other short story:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1567145-Prince-Vingo-Imperfect-love

53 days...