I've got a simple question for this simple thread. Do you talk about writing more than you do actual writing? I do, lol.
I make a conscious effort to write every day. Some days I only write for fifteen minutes, but I usually end up writing for an hour or two or, on a rare occasion, five or more hours. I guess it depends on what sort of mood I'm in. But I can definitely say I write more than I actually talk about writing. I've never told any of my friends, my teachers or my parents that I write short stories as a personal activity, and the only time I talk about writing is on message boards. However, I certainly think about writing more than I actually write. From the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, I'm always thinking about ideas for stories or stories I'm currently writing. Even if I'm out with friends I can never stop thinking about writing -- which I guess is a good thing.
I wish I could do that. Funny thing is, now that school is over, I almost have enough time, but I have a feeling my writing would deteriorate after the fifth hour.
Definitely talking about writing. Between posting here, talking to my writing friends, and studying/writing for uni (I study lit) I'm talking about writing all the time. Writing is really just a by-product of all my talk about writing . Funny story: I got really drunk at my friend's birthday and talked to a complete stranger for about half an hour about how reader alignment drives the satire in each of the four parts of Gulliver's Travels. So I think its safe to say, I talk about writing a little too much.
With two exception, everyone I know who writes is through sites like this, so I write about writing, rather than talk about it., but I do more actual writing.
I talk about it far more. My best friend does a fair bit of writing, on the quiet, and I've come through a year group that produced two published authors already. People also seem to take an interest, so I bore them silly with long-winded talks on writing every now and then.
Writing. If I don't meet my objective of the day, I'm usually too pissed with myself to talk to anyone, irrispective of what it's about. I like talking about writing, though, when I come across someone who is particularly knowledgable about an aspect of writing I'm interested in.
Wow, you really know how to party. As for myself, I'm not really sure. I always have a word document open when I post here. If I spend a few hours here, I'll usually manage to get something done between posts. Occasionally I will write for most of a day. That's when I'm most likely to post here. If I'm in the mood to write, I'll write, but I like to take breaks from the main project when I'm running a marathon - otherwise I can get bogged down with a headache, and my ideas start to dry up. I almost never talk to people I know IRL about writing. . . I save the shop talk for writing sites and msn. Sometimes I talk more, sometimes I do more. But I do talk a lot; it helps me think because I'm still writing and learning - just with less pressure from myself.
The fun never ends..its their fault anyway, they asked me to tell them about what I was studying...they just got more than they bargained for
I spend more time writing than talking about it. If I'm not interested in writing at the time, then I'm definitely not interested enough to talk about it.
I listed myself under writing. I visit forums like this to discuss writing and occasionally discuss writing with friends, but I spend a lot of time if not writing, then working with my crit group critting members works, doing research, maintaning my writing website, corresponding with other writers, typing cover letters and submitting pieces, and reading about writing. All of that I count under writing, not just talking about writing. Terry
I think the more appropriate question for me would be that I think about writing more than I do. I want to write but I don't. Never do I talk to people about writing, or that I feel like writing. Don't know why, but I get embarassed sometimes about admiting it. Not many people know I write.
since i mentor writers of all breeds all over the world 365 days a year and help them improve their work, along with checking several writing sites daily, where i post help/info/advice, i guess you could say that takes up more of my time than writing my own work does... however, the mentoring/helping does involve lots of 'writing' so i answered the poll with 'write' because i don't just 'talk about writing' unless it's to help the person i'm talking to become a better writer, or get their work published...
That is probably a good thing! I told people, but I now regret it, since every time they see me they ask "How is your story coming along?" And how do you respond to that other than saying it's moving nicely??? lol but then they expect to read some of your rough first draft, and that would be embarrassing. Even months after starting my novel, I have found I had to go back to the start and change some things that sounded awkward, and I feel happy that I didn't show even the first chapter to anyone I know yet. So I can't talk about my own writing too much, and I only come here to write about writing when my own story slows down for me. I'm not sure where to take my characters next - even though I know where they are going.
Some days, I write until I can no longer stay awake. Other days, I could write as much as I want but it would be horrible. I haven't figured out why sometimes I just can't write anything good. Might be tiredness, exhaustion. So, I tend to write for a few days, then do no writing for a few days. In either case, I read if I'm not writing, and I think about writing if I'm not writing. In fact, I remember times when I was writing a novel on the walls of a hotel, with notepaper, because I was at work. When I'm able to write, I drop everything and write. When I'm not able to write, I write about writing, or read. It's an obsession.
Most days I write more than I talk or think about writing. Other days I don't write at all and spend time playing video games with the kids, like we just got Rock Band 2 and I've been playing it for two days straight. Other days I just don't feel the inspiration to write and I hang out outside with the kids and my neighbors. Of course doing mommy and wife duty always intrudes on writing time...so I do think about writing quite a bit while I am doing chores or shopping or driving. I average about 1000 words a day. I say average cause some days it's like five sentences or none, and others it's 5k words in one sitting. The current idea I'm working on has been about three weeks and I am almost at 25k words. I also read a lot, but I'm not thinking much about writing when I am reading. The internet is definitely a help and a hindrance to writing. I'll come on here for a few minutes and get stuck writing something for an hour. Or Facebook that's always a time waster.
This poll should have offered a third choice: Thinking about writing. I don't talk about writing very much because A) I'm self conscious about my fiction writing, and B) I don't think anyone I know would really be very interested in the subject. I spend idle time thinking about my story and my characters more than I actually do clacking away at the keyboard. I chose Writing because I do actually write more than I talk about it, though I haven't written anything fiction-wise for at least a couple of months.
Only a few friends know I'm writing at all, and nothing has been detailed. I don't know, I just feel really pretentious when I say 'I'm working on my novel today'. Of course, the two people that I've mentioned this to (and one of them was in order to glean information from what it was like to be a teen in the eighties) showed absolutely no interest in this whatsoever. In fact, it is so much so my secret past-time, that if I ever got published it would be under a pen name. I couldn't be bothered with my mother reading it and 'critiquing it' in her usual unhelpful style. My parents knew I used to write (aged 7 onwards, scribbled in notebooks with a black bic pen- I still can only write with that type of pen), but thought I'd given it up as a teen when my mother read one of my short story ideas and said 'oh for God's sakes, can you not do something a bit more productive with your time than work on fairy stories? Perhaps something that might have a career at the end of it?' It was about then I decided that no-one really likes an unpublished author (around here, anyway) and just closed my mouth and got on with it regardless.
