Comments on: The Quickening Squirrel

By: Pushing Your Writing, Pushing Your Mind

Pushing Your Writing, Pushing Your Mind — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:07:12 +0000

[...] The Querulous Squirrel’s 100-stories-in-100-days challenge? Ambitious, wot? Supremely well executed, [...]

By: John

John — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:25:16 +0000

rowena: It's such a simple but ingenious plan, and seems to instill some sense of fun into the act of creating day-after-day. Like, "I don't have to feel absolutely great about what I wrote today, because I know I've got tomorrow." As Squirrel said somewhere up there, each of those little 24-hour packets of time is much easier to work with than a grand "write every day, forever" master plan. When I saw you were doubling up -- arting as well as writing -- yes, the word "NUTS" (among others) ran through my mind. But you seem to be handling it quite level-headedly so far... especially considering that you're somehow managing to work it in around the little'uns, in a way that seems to satisfy your maternal soul as well as your creative one. marta: Yeah! Albert Brooks's movie The Muse features Sharon Stone as the embodiment of the main character's muse. She's very demanding, and eventually moves in and establishes a better relationship with the MC''s wife than with the MC himself. Some folks from a sanitarium show up to take her away, explaining that she's not really a, let alone the muse -- just a woman who suffers from severe multiple-personality disorder. The movie wasn't that great, just OK, but I always thought the premise was hilarious. :)

Reply - marta:<\/strong> Yeah!\r\n\r\nAlbert Brooks\'s movie The Muse<\/em> features Sharon Stone as the embodiment of the main character\'s muse. She\'s very demanding, and eventually moves in and establishes a better relationship with the MC\'\'s wife than with the MC himself. Some folks from a sanitarium show up to take her away, explaining that she\'s not really a, let alone the<\/em> muse -- just a woman who suffers from severe multiple-personality disorder. The movie wasn\'t that great, just OK, but I always thought the premise was hilarious. :)'); return false;">Quote

By: marta

marta — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:33:26 +0000
It is always an inspiration to see other creative souls at work--and committed, not waiting for the muse to alight. and the recaptcha: spectators week. really should be 100 days.
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By: rowena

rowena — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:16:32 +0000
I love that you guys love the 100 days challenge. I swear, ever since I started on these personal creativity challenges, it has changed who I am as an artist and a writer. I get exhausted a lot, really exhausted. I have to drop other things sometimes, like keeping up on my favorite blogs, but it's so valuable as an artist/writer to have that commitment, not to inspiration but to the work. The working. I myself haven't been so consistent on this last 100 days, probably because I'm kind of trying to do it both in writing and in art which is just NUTS, but I'm so glad that nuts are good for squirrels and our Squirrel is going going going. Oh, but yeah, the last 100 days of 2009 was deliberate. I'm not the one who called it,but it was deliberate.
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By: John

John — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:47:12 +0000
Squirrel: Found it, in the comments exchange for "The Sneeze" (posted 9/22). Very funny that later in that same exchange -- actually on the 23rd, less than 2 hours before you posted "The Cough" -- you said, "I'm a afraid there are no stories left, but I suppose it's like a chicken laying an egg. There's bound to be another." What a great way to look at it. Although the mingling of the species introduces a certain weird cognitive dissonance.
Reply - The Sneeze<\/a>\" (posted 9\/22). Very funny that later in that same exchange -- actually on the 23rd, less than 2 hours before you posted \"The Cough\" -- you said, \"I\'m a afraid there are no stories left, but I suppose it\'s like a chicken laying an egg. There\'s bound to be another.\"\r\n\r\nWhat a great way to look at it. Although the mingling of the species introduces a certain weird cognitive dissonance.'); return false;">Quote

By: The Querulous Squirrel

The Querulous Squirrel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:12:05 +0000
Actually, Rowena picked the date and it was way too good to pass up. "You know, it's 100 days until the end of the year." I was ready. What a great way to celebrate the New Year.
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By: John

John — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:01:11 +0000
Squirrel: In some people's minds, maybe, a tendency to hop from branch to branch (as it were), never alighting for long -- that tendency might be looked down on. "A.D.D.," they might say. "Flighty." I say the proof is in the product, and I think what you've done so far pretty much closes off all argument on the point. Of course, you've still got 40-some days to go, so I don't want to give you too much credit just yet... :) Holy cow. I just did the calculation: 9/23/09 + 100 days = 1/1/10. (Well, technically I guess, it should be + 99 days = 12/31/09.) You must have known that, right??? Way to pick your milestones!
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By: The Querulous Squirrel

The Querulous Squirrel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:32:25 +0000
I can't tell you how honored I am. The short form comes naturally to me, so I don't count words, but I'd say 400 words is a good estimate. It's the length I think in. I don't think in longer or shorter. I also don't think of the larger objective. It's more one day at a time. If I can do one day at a time, I can go on to do this forever. I'm not really even thinking of 100 as the objective. It's just keeping me on task. It's very satisfying to have it as a goal however. Much more so than, say, the abstract dictum of "write every day." I'm flattered you think my writing is getting better. I often think it is getting worse when I have to force myself to get something, anything out every single day, pull a rabbit out of the hat, so to speak, as in my last two stories that are metaphors for the whole process. Rowena was definitely my inspiration. She just keeps going and going and going. Her artistic process is completely transparent. I admire that greatly and emulate it. It gives me courage to just write whatever comes forth and worry about editing if I ever decide to try to publish something. And most of all, this is enormous FUN, including the comments which are as much fun as the writing itself and so I know I would never have done all this writing if it weren't for blogging. Thanks so much for this.
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By: John

John — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:54:03 +0000
Darc: Nowhere has The Querulous Squirrel laid out a word-count limit, as far as I know. (The sprinter bit is < 400 words, which is what the number in my post referred to.) In a note in her blog's sidebar, Squirrel says:
Flash Fiction Stories under 1000 words, most of these less than half that length, even falling into the category of micro-fiction, but who's counting?
I don't know for sure, but I gather her approach is to just start writing each bit -- always keeping her mind aware of the limits of the form she's working in -- and doesn't spend much if any time doing revisions. It's like the objective for each individual piece mirrors at a small scale the larger objective of the full project: Just get there. Maybe she'll pop up here to tell us, or just to chitter angrily from the branches. An interesting thing to see happening is how, over time, the pieces seem less tentative/more confident. The same thing happened, btw, with Rowena's art project. I'm no judge of art, but the quality of her writing, I thought, jumped almost measurably from start to end. And neither Rowena nor Squirrel are slouches in the writing department; they just got even better, if that makes sense.
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By: DarcKnyt

DarcKnyt — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:14:56 +0000
That's a brilliant idea, this 100 pieces in 100 days. Nothing better to push one forward than pushing oneself forward. It's brilliant, simple, doable. No word count limit? Or is the 400 the ceiling? That's very inspirational. And your sprinter piece is nice, too. Thanks!
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