Tag Archives: first draft

I’ll Tell Myself I Was Tired

Posted on January 18, 2023 by mohawkvalleygirl

Hello and welcome to another Tired Tuesday Post.

I often feel like an idiot.

I am feeling rather brain dead today. My main ambition right now is to make my Tuesday blog post on Tuesday with a minimum of whining. But no promises.

My brain is fried like a pan of onions!

I was searching my Media Library for a picture of The Brain from the Planet Arous, which I usually use to illustrate my own lack of brain. I was having no luck when I ran across the above. That’s it! I thought. My brain is fried!

My writing has been sporadic at best lately. I progress on an interactive mystery (not murder, more about that in future posts) in fits and starts. I tell myself any progress us still progress. I wrote my article for Mohawk Valley Living magazine. I feel I should have done a better job. Thus I give myself mixed messages.

You know, something just struck me about the things I tell myself. I encourage myself over the unfinished stuff. Then I beat myself up over the finished project. No wonder I have such a problem finishing anything!

One may argue that the carrot-and-stick nature of my self-talk is not a bad thing. Get the first draft out, this line of thinking goes. Then be merciless in revision. That is all very well, but I did revise the article! Once I have submitted a thing and it is beyond my ability to change, can I stop with the criticism? It is something to consider.

So this is my Tired Tuesday Post. I shall hit Publish and strive to refrain from telling myself it should have been better. I only hope I did not whine too much.

2 Comments

Posted in humor, personal, Tired Tuesday and tagged blog post, blogging, first draft, Mohawk Valley Living magaine, not writing, self talk, The Brain from Planet Arous, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

Words Happen. Or Not.

Posted on January 23, 2019 by mohawkvalleygirl

Tired Tuesday follows Monstrous Monday in many cases.

I typed in that sentence, then I just sat here and stared at it, wondering what else to say. It’s odd how sometimes I put fingers on keyboard and words happen (ooh, great title, that). Sometimes not so much. Guess what kind of day today is.

First drafts and blog posts.

Full disclosure: most of my blog posts are first drafts. Most of my everything are first drafts. The papers I wrote in school, my murder mysteries, a lot of my articles for Mohawk Valley Living magazine, my many unfinished novels. Oh well, I guess I do some editing, more on some things than others. My writing is so informal, sometimes a first draft will do.

So this is another post about I Can’t Write a Blog Post Today. What I am really trying to do is NOT write a post whining about some physical, emotional and personal troubles I have been having. Oh dear, I should not have mentioned that at all. And here is where a first draft can be a really good thing. If this was a first draft, I could cut out that sentence when I edited and re-wrote. The second or third draft could read entirely differently. Less whiny, more coherent, in short, a better blog post.

A better blog post is always my aim. I’ll see what I can do about that tomorrow. However, experience has shown us all that sometimes Wuss-out Wednesday follows Tired Tuesday. As always, I hope you’ll stay tuned.

Was it a Killer First Draft?

Posted on October 3, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

Words to live by!

Of course, the first draft I just finished should have been done a week ago, but we cannot always live up to the ideals we set for ourselves. The important thing is, I wrote it, I typed it into the laptop, I printed it out, I will edit and polish it, I will email it to the cast. Then it’s on to rehearsals and performance, but right now I’m writing about writing.

Well, maybe a little about rehearsal and performing. The draft I finished was for A Trivial Murder, the interactive dinner theatre we are presenting as a fundraiser for Herkimer County Historical Society. The performance will be Saturday, Nov. 3, 6 p.m. at the Ilion Moose Lodge. For further information, you can reference the Facebook event.

I feel a little self-conscious admitting in public like this that I am just finishing the script. We are a month away from performance! Well, murder mysteries don’t take as much rehearsal as a full-blown play. Up north, where we had a company called Murder For Hire, we used to put them together in three rehearsals: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and go on Saturday! I was younger and more energetic in those days. Now I feel more secure with a little more time.

However, I am feeling increasingly good about this show. After a few glitches, I got a really wonderful cast. I think everybody will fit their part fine and fill it out with little touches I didn’t even think of when I wrote the lines. That is why writing scripts is more exciting than writing novels.

Writing a novel, incidentally, is my next project. Why don’t I have a novel published yet? I am almost 55. I was about to say, time to get off my butt, but in fact it is time to sit on my butt in front of a notebook or keyboard and get going. I’ll write a few blog posts about it along the way.

Nobody’s Perfect

Posted on September 12, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Likewise blog posts.

Yes, it is another post about How I Can’t Write a Post Today. Or much of anything else. However, I do have a fascination with writing about not writing. By the way, I stole the above image from a Facebook page I follow called Writing About Writing. The fellow that runs it writes a blog, but full disclosure: I don’t follow the blog. Come to think about it, none of the blogs I follow are about writing per se. I wonder what that says about me? To answer that would probably call for some half-baked philosophy more suitable to Lame Post Friday than Monday Mental Meanderings.

As you may guess by the plethora of lame posts lately, I continue to have difficulty with my writing. Sometimes it is a question of just not sitting down and getting to it. However, whenever I do sit myself down, it seems that nothing happens. I know, one must persevere, and I will. I’ll let you know as soon as I get some results.

I would like to share with you the actual projects I am having difficulties with. However, that would be to advertise to the world how close I have come to the deadlines and nothing to show for it. Oh dear, what if the people I am writing for read this blog? I’m hard at work! I’ve finished those projects! Everything is great! Not writing? Me? You must be daft! I am prolific as the day is long!

They say you mustn’t worry what people think, about writing and everything else. However, right now, the thought of people counting on me, feeling certain that I have written or am writing wonderful things for them… well, it makes me want to finish off this blog post and get back to work on them. Writer’s Block? Pshaw! Never heard of it!

Mohawk Valley Girl