John Kusters Jr.

Welcome to my Writing Adventure

Tag: practice

A Friday Outing

2023-08-11 /

I tried the ol’ “writing at a coffee shop” thing this morning. It went ok, not especially well, but not horrible.

I’m not a coffee person, and not really a tea guy. I do like spiced tea (commonly called chai) so an “iced chai latte” is usually my “go to” drink at coffee shops.

The one at the shop I went to was not very good. Had a watery mouth feel, with a harsh spice taste with little to cut it. The cinnamon muffin was tasty though.

And I did get some work done. I tried to come up with a story from a writing prompt, but nothing really called to me. I did some free writing based loosely on an idea I had for a scenario in a space opera TTRPG setting I’m toying with. That got 800 words out of me, but I don’t have a plan for the story, so I’m not sure it’s going to go anywhere. Still, was a pleasant hour under noise-cancellation headphones with music from Sid Meiers’ Civilation games playing on shuffle.

Flipping the Script

2023-06-21 /

So one of the things I’m working on in my head as I open this new chapter in my life, especially when it comes to my writing, is flipping the script from “I have to do this” to “I want to do this.” I’ve spent most of my life laboring under one massive obligation or another. Whether it was school or a job, I’m doing things because I have to. Only on rare occasions have I found myself laboring because I wanted to do something. Working at conventions is such a time. So is gamemastering sometimes (though often I do feel the weight of obligation to my players). There is no obligation now, at least not to other people. I still generally feel like I “have to.”

But a couple times in the last few days I’ve been able to hear myself say it’s what I want to do, that I could walk away from it with no penalty, and what’s keeping me at that desk is self fulfillment. It’s a very unaccustomed feeling.

Writing Progress

2023-06-20 /
man ripping finish line strap
Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU on Pexels.com

Well, I’ve completed the short story I started last week. I would up with 5500+ words, a little over my target of 4000, but that’s okay. I’ve a bit verbose at the moment. I should be able to tighten it up eventually and bring it under 5K. But for now it’s in my “marinating” file for a few months. I’ll get back to it when I have more distance from it.

I’m behind where I want to be, but I’m not hugely concerned. I do have the write-a-thon kicking off next Monday, so I will be spending some time in the next few days laying as much groundwork as I can–story ideas, titles, interesting characters, maybe a few plot notes. I won’t have my usual amount of time to work this week as I’m attending PolyCon in San Luis Obispo this weekend.

Writing Practice Surprise

2023-06-08 /

I took a prompt from the Revised edition of Judy Reeves’ awesome book “A Writer’s Book of Days” and set a time for 25 minutes. I went a few minutes past the end of the timer so let’s call it a 30 minute sprint. In that time I wrote more that 900 words. I surprised myself. It’s just a practice narrative, no real story, just stream of consciousness imagining an alien trying to pay a visit to Paris. I had no idea where to go with it but was beginning to head towards the alien being from a gastropodal species (wearing a human disguise) and sampling the tastes of Paris only to discover what escargot was made from. Hardly original but maybe could be fun? I’ll file it away for later cogitation, as I do with all my practice writing. Still, 900 words in 30 minutes is a damn good rate. I’m happy about that.

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