Tag: indexing

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Start Doing Next

I’ve mentioned my curating or indexing a number of times lately. I may not have explained what I meant. 1000 Days grows each day—not always wonderfully so—but grows nonetheless. I know I’m losing some good stuff in the cracks. I’m not too concerned about this happening since much is not worth dredging out of those cracks, but there are some worthwhile pieces mixed in with the sludge. And several older pieces I’d forgotten drifted away too.

So I’m indexing. I pumped all my posts into a spreadsheet and started rereading them post by post. I pull out character names, events, places, invented objects of interest and put them in a wiki. This way they can be linked to each other. Each item resides on it’s own page with summary and detailed information capturing it’s essence. At the end I list the reference rows from the spreadsheet so that I can relocate the source material if needed.

Apart from imagining such an endeavor holds it’s own innate value, I also find the effort invigorates my writing thoughts. Usually these thoughts form into tendrils advancing the thread I lost, but yesterday I indexed a pair of back to back entries that held more interesting characters and concepts than I’ve come up with in a month recently. I wonder if I wrote better ideas then or if my learning since that time helps me see these elements with a more purposeful intent. I suspect it’s the former. I think maybe my writing suffered less from a critical eye. I think I felt less constrained to produce quality and volume and more inspired to produce anything at all. The trouble is that none of that writing went anywhere.

Yet.

I hope my nostalgia will resurrect the worthy and my increased inclination toward structure will prop it up and take it somewhere. Got to stop doing now and start doing next.

325 words on day 563

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Indexed Month Two

Today I currated 1000 Days.

With only a few entries early in the second month of writing I’d invented Brother Gane, The Shanty, Johnka, You, Tritti, kabs, clearcrete, hres, Brother Chabe, Solexcorp, Tacons, and a few others I can’t recall right now.

Prolific times back then.

55 words on day 562

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Indexing and Reading More Like a Writer

Yesterday I reignited an old effort to index and catalogue the work I’ve done here on 1000 Days. You may recall I’d attempted or claimed to have attempted to create a glossary. Yesterday I created a better infrastructure for following through on that endeavor. I may use it as a safety net for one day of weekend writing.

Aside from creating a default activity to go to during those tough-to-write-on Sundays during football season, I look forward to defining the volume of what I’ve done over the past years as well as uncovering some misplaced toys from the youth of my daily writing. Toys I knew I had, but forgot I enjoyed.

Finding Mr. Johnathan Goffe, The Shanty, and You all before entry thirty-two surprised me a bit. I’m certain I’ve not created two such deep wells in a thirty-day span since. Or if I have, I haven’t done so in a while. Indexing 1000 Days should help.

I bought a Kindle 3 less than a month ago. I’ve read several sample bits on it, I’ve loaded it with books I’ve already read on the iPhone, and I’ve read more than halfway through my first full novel on it. This inaugural book, Clockwork Angel, kicks off the The Infernal Devices Series by Cassandra Clare. The balance of the series remains pre-published. Clare published three previous novels in the same world but set in present day. Clockwork Angel finds it’s setting in 18th century England.

These Young Adult novels appeal to me because I find myself looking more and more at books from the perspective of my children. I wonder what I might read to them; I wonder what they might choose to read to themselves. Of course, ‘clockwork’ in the title captures my eye—so far, I’m left cold on the point of the title.

The book is well written and good, but I doubt I’ll purchase the first series or even the second book in this series soon. I may purchase them after some other reading. This one just didn’t grab me which is likely not a surprise to the author since I’m a middle-aged man rather than a much younger girl. The suspense, both dramatic and romantic, feels a little drawn out for my taste. And, my God!, the descriptions of eyeballs overwhelms me. Sure, window to the soul and all, but apparently front door, back door, and chimney as well.

None of that was meant to be my point. I meant my point to be that I’ve been reading with more of an authorial eye. Appraising what I’ve read from a creator’s perspective rather than a consumer’s. I’m not great at it, but I think I’m getting better.

459 words on day 549