Writing in Snow

Thoughts on Writing and Rewriting

Word count: 571

Each day place everything in God’s hands and write. It does not matter what you write early in the morning because rewriting is necessary before finishing an article or story. As you write, notice any bad habit such as deleting the preceding words because you misspelled or made a grammar error. Spell checkers catch typos and misspelling, you can correct that at the end of the paragraph. Grammar errors are correct in the rewrite.

Ideally writing the first draft of an idea is in long hand, but that is not always possible because it is quicker to compose in a word processing document. Be sure to save the drafts because you may want to go back and start all over again. Having copies of each draft of a story or essay is a good idea. It is necessary if you get to the middle and suddenly realize that the characters have taken off and began to write their own story.

If there is not time to write then find time to write. Write while to coffee is perking. Write while the rice is cooking. Write in the small hours of the morning when everyone else in the house is asleep. Write while you are waiting for a slow Internet connection. Write on your break, that is why you carry a notebook or journal wherever you go.

It does not matter what you write in the first rough draft. That is the reason you call it a rough draft because it is the idea inscribed on paper or in a document. Simply write. If you do not know what to write, describe the morning sky or the birds singing. Describe the way the character looks at a piece of dark chocolate.

Write between sips of coffee. Exhale a prayer and write. Inhale the morning air and write. Describe a galaxy floating in space. Describe your mood when you woke up. Describe the cat asking for food. Write a poem about cleaning the cats litter box. Write a short story about the neighbor’s dog barking all night.

If you have a specific word count, do not count words until you finish the writing exercise. Even if you do not make the word count, you have written something. Write, even if you forget what you were going to write. Write that you forgot because the mind can remember only so much. If you forget the next word in the sentence, do not worry about it, write another word or end the sentence in the middle and write something else.

Write about how it feels to forget what you wanted to write. Did you have a Senior Moment? Did you have an attack of CRS? You can choose to label the moment of forgetfulness whatever you want. Perhaps an invisible alien vampire sucked the thought out of your mind. Perhaps you are stressed because a 24-hour day is too short a time to accomplish everything you want to accomplish.

Do not worry if your sentences are redundant because you are going to rewrite anyway. I you do not want to rewrite the story immediately that is OK. In fact, it is not a good idea to start rewriting immediately. Let the item lay for a day or so and then began the rewrite fresh. Before starting to rewrite print off a hard copy of your work and edit the hard copy before beginning the rewrite.