Vomit

Sorry, I've been bad about updating lately. I've been super busy. Here is the thing. I had my one-on-one writing session with Elizabeth yesterday and in the days before that I was scrambling to finish a rewrite that ended up being about 8 pages long. So I was way too busy to blog. In theory. Of course there was all that time that I fooled around on the internetz doing nothing, but that's another story...ha.

I don't understand how time goes by so fast when I am not working at a real job. In fact it seems like there are fewer hours in the day, if that's possible. The rewrite was a success at least, albeit still with more revision to do. I need to write some "vomit" today. Vomit is defined as just writing what comes to your mind.

Imagine, you non-writers, that you are daydreaming about something. All of us do it at some point. You're bored at the airport or in a class or at work or in a long Hi-Lo line (hehe), and your mind starts drifting. It could be some wild scenario. I know what occupied my mind for years when I lived in the cold Midwest years ago. I used to think non-stop about living on a tropical island (wow, daydreams work, n'est pa?). Anyway, your mind drifts further. A tall, dark stranger comes along. He says something (what? lost treasure? long lost love? i-know-what-you-did-last-summer?). You are the heroine of your story. Things happen. Before you know it, you're next in line and everyone is staring at you like you're mad. So you go home and harness this daydream. You start to write down what you see, as if you are watching a movie. You see the scenery as if you are behind the rolling film of a camera. You hear the voices (part of writing is being stark raving mad and hearing lots and lots of voices *nods*), the background noises. You write it all down, only you're not concerned so much with quality of writing. Maybe a six-year-old could express language better than you in this moment. Doesn't matter. The goal is to get it all down so that you don't forget the movie in your head. As Elizabeth described it, we call it vomit because it smells foul, there's a lot to clean up, and it's a big mess from the jumble of senses that you have taken in throughout your life.

The key is to not get involved in language or structure or thinking about writing rules or techniques. The goal is simply story. Another thing I read recently. About tension and story. Try to think of the worst thing that could happen to your character. And then write it.

All that rambling to describe vomit.

In other more mundane news, I had terrible insomnia last night. Didn't get to bed until about 3 and then woke up to the alarm at 6:30. I tried to sleep on and off until 7:30. I am WIDE awake though now. No sign of only getting 3 1/2 hours of sleep.