A video game MUST beaten.
Sleep is irrelavant when said one is striving to beat said video game.
Now, I am one not to neglect sleep for many things, certainly not a video game. Although there was that one time I was playing
Legand of Zelda: The Four Swords, and I just couldn't stop...okay, this isn't about me.
My child #3 recently spent his grade money on a new video game. I've looked at the online walk-through enough so I should know the title--
Super Paper Mario Thousand Year Door. Well, he's almost to the end of the game so his obsession with conquering is getting pretty intense.
Thus on Sunday night, he wrote an Action Plan.
Dear Mom,
1) Set your alarm clock at 5:00.
2) Go to Jadan's room and shake him and if he does'nt, than tickle him and if he still does'nt than shake his head and if he still does'nt, get 1, 2, or 3 towols, put them on the floor, pick up Jadan, (hopefully he will wake up) put him on the towol or towols and pour water on his face and if he still does'nt wake up than repeat everything on the list untill he wakes up.
(P.S. Make shure dad does not, I repeat NOT, wake up and do the list instructions.)
Needless to say, I wasn't too keen yesterday on getting up at 5 am to wake up this determined child. I'm quite religious in my belief that if the sun isn't up, neither should I be.
Let me not fail to point out that this same child lectured me several times the preceeding week on the importance of a "child getting eight hours of sleep." Thus instead of going to bed at 8-8:30pm, since he didn't have to get up for school until 6:20 am, he ought not go to bed until 10 pm. See that would give him two hours of uninterrupted time to play a video game or watch a movie. Somehow reading a book doesn't qualify as "Significant Time Waster."
Being the non-pushover mom that I am, I told him adults need 8 hours of sleep. Children, especially 9-year-olds, need 10 hours of sleep. In other words, his bedtime wasn't changing.
Thus he orchestrated his
Wake Up Jadan Action Plan.I failed to make it past 2.1 on his list. He woke up enough to answer "no" when I asked him if he wanted to get up now to go play his video game. So I let him go back to sleep. Sadly, I didn't earn any Mom of the Year points with him when I woke him up an hour and a half later because he had to ready for school. Bummer for him.
Action Plans can be successful, but you can't put so much stock in relying on another person to accomplish your plan for you.
Take Personal RESPONSIBILITY.
Over the last six or so years of judging writing contest (pretty much all RWA ones), I've gotten to the point where I can tell which entrants had action plans and which ones didn't. Now I'm not talking about being a plotter verses being a pantser. Each can and have produced well written novels.
I'm talking about writers who've taken the time to educate themselves on the craft of writing.
I'm always on the lookout for a new craft of writing book to add to my library, to add to my education. Since I had a Barnes and Noble gift card, I figured I'd buy a book I've been wanting for a few years yet hadn't bought yet.
The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
http://www.lukeman.com/thefirstfivepages/main.htm"The craft of writing must then be learned. The art of writing cannot be taught, but the craft of writing can. No one can teach you how to tap inspiration, how to gain vision and sensibility, but you can be taught to write lucidly, to present what you say in the most articulate and forceful way." ~Lukeman, page 15.In one of my online writing groups, someone on the list sometime during a year undoubtedly posts about being called to write or questions "how do you know if you're called." Now I'm okay with someone feeling/believing she is called to be a writer.
But being called doesn't mean you have the skills.
Doesn't matter, either, if the call came in a vision from William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Barbara Cartland, or even God. You had the vision, a word from scripture or whatever...well, then fine. Let's go back to my original point. Being called doesn't mean you have the skills.
Hmm. I feel the need to chase a rabbit. Some of the most vocal writers I've heard claiming/insisting they were called by God to write are ones in Christian writing groups. I am not bashing Christian writing groups. I love them!!! I love getting to know fellow Christian writers, too. Yet when faced with critical comments on their manuscripts, these called writers utter, "These are God's words not mine. I write what He tells me."Call me crazy, but I doubt the Creater of the Universe speaks using dangling modifiers and missing-but-needed punctuation. Haven't found one in His best-selling book.Now that I've put that rabbit to bed, let me get back to my original subject. And I'll repeat myself to get us both focused again.But being called doesn't mean you have the skills.
Doesn't matter, either, if the call came in a vision from William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Barbara Cartland, or even God. You had the vision, a word from scripture or whatever...well, then fine. Let's go back to my orignial point. Being called doesn't mean you have the skills.
Nor does being called mean what you wrote the first time (the first draft) is publishable.
"There is no such thing as a great writer; there are only great re-writers. As you've heard before, 90 percent of writing is rewriting. If the first drafts existed of some classics, you'd find many of the dreadful. This process of rewriting draws heavily on editing. And editing can be taught. " ~Lukeman, page 15-16
Because I know and believe this, I'm always on the lookout for a new craft of writing (CoW) book.
Missy Tippins, author
His Forever Love, listed
The Story Within Guidebook by Alicia Rasley as one of her favorite CoW books. Thus I used some of my Christmas money this year from Gran to buy it.
My intention was to read it and as it asked questions pertaining to the reader's manuscript, I'd answer them to help me pre-plot a new three-book series I want to write. Duh. I couldn't answer the questions because I didn't know who the characters were yet. So I figured I'd use a completed manuscript, in particular my Victorian.
I've only worked through the questions on page 52 of this 150-ish page guidebook. And I'm mentally exhausted. The questions kicked my tail. At times I wanted to totally give up writing, due to my natural compulsion to avoid hard work. Yet I'm so thankful I haven't, that I pushed myself to figure out the answers.
Ended up, doing so helped me figure out how I could streamline my hero's and heroine's story goals in relation to their external skills and inner strengths.
Over at the Seekerville blog today, Myra Johnson is talking about CoW books. What ones she has. What ones she likes best.
http://seekerville.blogspot.com/If you have a second, hop on over there. You may find a new craft of writing book to buy.
