Took a long time to find my angle tonight—and the guy I was going to kill off didn’t die after all. What happened to him is a lot worse, though no one knows it just yet.
And I’ve given myself an excellent jumping-off point for tomorrow’s work.
I quit before I hit 300 tonight—first, I don’t want to move into my next direction, and second, I’m fried.
How are your words coming?
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Sunday was difficult (am I posting it on Sunday thread?) Well, regardless, Sunday’s count is 1004. Just made it to the end of the scene where my protagonist is confronted with his own self-importance. He sounds terrible. After that scene no one could accuse me in making him too perfect. 🙂
274 word count today and I am loving the twist I worked in. I can’t wait until tomorrow to continue my WIP, but tonight I am going to bed early. Just so that I can get up early and work before the kiddos get up and with a fresh mind.
Happy writing to all
Talina
Did 866 words todays still moving the story along looks like I’ll have to redo the time line things are happening to quick. A virus needs time to spread maybe a couple of weeks at least. I’ll ponder this at work i have a pretty good ending in mind, nothing is worse than a lame ending.
Sighhh, backstory is really kicking my butt. Maybe I should say worldbuilding…or maybe villains. I really want to join in with the daily word counts so I set a deadline for Friday to finish up with the worldbuilding (end of the month, end of the pointless backstory circles). I keep writing the same thing over and over and can’t make progress. The good guys’ powers came so much easier (not easy but at least I actually made daily progress). The bad guy.. I just can’t figure out how his power works. And the bad guy’s powers are linked with his history and motivation. I want so much to figure out how he got his powers and how they work. It’s very frustrating. Ugh… Does writing the same sentence ten million different ways count as progress? (I didn’t think so either).
I had a lightbulb. YAY. I’m so happy. I reallized the thing that’s been bothering me is that I made the villain too weak. The good guys have loads of powers but the villain is currently cut off from his power source. He’s supposedly causing problems cause he wants it back and will wreck the world to have them. But currently my good guys would just zap him. …duh… no wonder I’m not making progress. I guess tomorrow I have purpose again to just outline exactly what’s wrong with him so I can analyze it and fill the holes. I think that will work a lot better than my current strategy of you know… see above… lol… I’m way more stubborn and blind-to-the-obvious then I thought I was. I hope so much to have good news for tomorrow.
Figuring out what’s not working for you is all a necessary part of the process, as I am also finding out for myself.
Glad that lightbulb went off for you!
932 words.
I got them when I was flying to India. Over 20+ hours of travel time. Read Les Edgerton’s Hooked and started reading Kaye’s Sailing to Sarantium. I also watched some movies. And slept.
I wrote the scene where my Sheriff came home complaining about how bad his day was (because he got fired) and then realized his wife had left him. And then I wrote another scene for earlier in the book where he forgot their anniversary and got to sleep in their daughter’s old bedroom.
Skipped yesterday due to a migraine, but today got me 671 and unstuck, so yay!
Cheers,
Erin K.
I didn’t write and probably won’t for the next few days or only little. Work keeps me busier than I’d like and at home I have to prepare everything for my weekend-guests.
But perhaps I’m just buying time, because I’m still not sure how to continue.
449 words tonight. So far so good. Everything’s going as planned. I have an early start tomorrow so I’m off to watch a bit of tv then off to bed.
TTFN
Holly, always a buz for me to see your process, as well as everyone elses. Yesterday I got 300 words b4 school, so that was great, but too fried last night to do any or check here (it is Wed morning in my part of the world)
Not doing too well – too many distractions. Can’t remember the last time I posted here either.
But tonight’s count is 289 words bringing me up to 3009.
It’s not turning out as a straight narrative. More like having a DVD running while you’re doing chores so you see odd scenes as you step into the room. It makes a sort of sense though and could act as a scene by scene draft. A whole string of little candybars!
Got my 1K for the day. Not a lot of fun but got my characters off the dime and on their quest. Lollygaggers! I see some fast forwarding in their futures. Or a cattle prod. Now–back to card dissection with a big hug for my Muse. New ideas bubbling.
Onward through the fog!
I took ten day or so off and went to my mum’s summer house. The result?
30 pages of worldbuilding notes, 10 pages character notes, and 2 and a half outlines. I typed in the outline for the first book today and it was 1400 (!) words. Oh. I wrote the opening scene today too, so far it is 400 words.
Excellent. Must feel good to have so much planning done.
Monday brought 136 words, but they were big ones. I finally finished that dreadful chapter!
212 words on my novel. Now that my short story is done, I need to get moving on the novel. Yesterday, I worked on the floor plan of the castle and did some discription. Today I will have to work on the kitchen since my MC is going to get stuck doing dishes. Poor girl.
Wrote till the wee hours, slept a couple, wrote some more and finished the novella. GONE!
Today I’ll be working on completely new series idea, which is the only thing on my horizon that makes me happy. I want that fun factor.
I was feeling really, really ill yesterday and since I ended up sitting on the couch not doing anything productive anyway, I thought I’d open my WIP and fiddle with it. I managed to get 443 words (shy of my goal of 500, but I just couldn’t push through to make it there).
The words are probably not any good, and I have a feeling I’m bloating a particular scene with all kinds of nifty world building just because it’s coming to me as I write, but I’m hoping I can fix the bloat when I revise.
I hope you’re feeling better!
I decided today that I needed to do some cleanup. You see, I had some sort of weird blend of manuscript and outline going on. I started with a sort of outline where each scene that I had come up with was written out and separated by some lines. Then, as I wrote each scene, I left those thumbnail sketches of scenes in place. But, it got confusing trying to look at the story arc that way, so I ripped the outline parts out into a separate document and added a thumbnail for a new scene. I got to do some rudimentary critter creation with that one too. The unfortunate thing from a psychological perspective is that my total wordcount for the story is now significantly lower. I also finally settled on a working title. For now, it will be called “Chosen.”
For the record, I tried notecards and I just lost them. I still try to carry some though for writing down ideas. I then transfer them to electronic docs. Hopefully this will work better.
I was shooting for 300 words but got interested and made it to 480, so I’m happy! One of my MCs just surprised me with a hidden side of her character. And the plot is going off on all sorts of twists I wasn’t expecting. Love it. And I would have kept writing, but I decided I should let my subconscious work for a while on the next part, because I need to figure out where the legendary map to the secret weapon is actually hidden… 🙂
881 words yesterday. Still enjoying being free of the day job for the next two weeks.
I’ve made it through my stalling point (I think)… I was having problems with not knowing exactly where things were doing. I should really know better than to try another ‘seat of your pants’ approach, no matter how slowly I’m writing. Yesterday I got 772 words of outlining down, and I feel much better about it. I’m not certain everything’s back on track, but at least I can keep writing now without tearing my hair out in complete frustration. This is supposed to be fun, after all!
I completely surprised myself…and started writing yesterday. Words. A voice that came out of nowhere, complete with attitude and a willingness to believe in the impossible. 617 words.
“A voice that came out of nowhere, complete with attitude and a willingness to believe in the impossible.”
Sounds like you just met your muse! Very cool.
Here’s hoping she sticks around. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, though, on how to get her to stay! 🙂
Last week I decided to back up and do some planning. I am going to keep posting, becuase it helps me move forward and develop better writing habits. Yesterday, 1000 words — 750 on “writing discipline,” 250 on Pedestal. Pedestal is my new working title. Bx is actually a different story.
Wow, lots of comments today! I’ll have to go back and read them after I post.
Had a wonderful night! 850 words during lunch and started the rebellion that will eventually arch over all plot threads… then found enough energy when I got home to write another 700! So – drumroll please – 1550!
And what’s even better is DH actually took an interest and helped me do some research on mapping the city! Normally he’s all “keep those words away from me, it’s not my genre” so I was psyched!
That’s awesome. Especially about the DH. I have the same issue. If I write mystery or romance, he could care less — but if it’s fantasy, he wants to kibbitz the plot!
389 words. I had limited time in which to write yesterday and did not manage to get myself into writing mode early enough to write more. My narrator is like an infomercial. But wait!, she keeps saying, there’s more! I keep following her lead, trusting that she will eventually get back to critical year — when the bulk of the story takes place — instead of wandering back and forth through the time. I know, theoretically, I could persuade, cajole, or threaten her to be more on topic, but so far she’s given me nothing that’s irrelevant. But wait, she keeps saying, there’s more . . .
I did have a plotting breakthrough while cooking dinner last night, something that will ratchet up the conflict toward the late middle of the book, so my muse and I ended the day on a happy note!
Some days I think I know what I am doing. Today is not one of them.
Libra (who I have been referring to as Enigma!) is going to character development rehab. I’m embarrassed to say how many words I’ve written without much help from her. Maybe it’s because I thought she would come along like my male MC did, but that hasn’t happened. It’s gotten so bad that my male MC has even been using his abilities to try to see inside her mind (and risking her life to do so), because I’m just not giving him any information. I’m pretty sure that still works in the context of the story, but I can’t finish this without her. So off she goes.
Do I focus entirely on writing her story and then come back to the novel? Do I work on some scenes in the middle that need to be filled in a bit? Finish the book anyway because I really want to see what happens? Will I lose interest in it entirely? (I doubt it because I love what I am working on, but I’ve heard it happens.) Am I revising when I should just be finishing the first draft? Is the whole thing irrevocably broken? Tune in to see what happens next.
422 words on how the pet fish saved Libra’s life though, along with many, many more. (And it WAS fun!) Words, I got ‘em.
Sounds fun that the guy didn’t die after all in DTD, can’t wait to see what happens to him!
I just count 500 as the day’s output, whatever’s left over counts towards the next day.
I’m working on two storyline’s at once, the first is my very first finished first draft (started at Nano’05, finished @ 190k, now 220k), that I’m still editing and the other is a prequel to that one (now @283k).
636 words for today. People need to infiltrate a community to save it, but the traditionalists are keeping them out.
Fixed yesterday’s problem by actually doing some research so I’d know what I’m writing about. That helped. (Who’s surprised?) Then I listened to Holly’s visualization from the Writer’s Block audiothing, and that helped some more. 586 words today.
874 last night and really pleased with the second half. The first part is fine I just got caught up in a certain part of the scene and left a load of other good stuff out. Will probably add that in tonight and then move on to the next scene. Getting very close to finishing the middle and getting more and more scared the closer I get. A finished draft? Is it really possible… makes me shiver just thinking about it!
Good luck everyone!
So far I’ve done more than a thousand words starting my new novel. It is very rough and I am feeling my way about the words and the scene and the characters. But I’m still busy with it.
I managed to write a 2500 word short story for a competition today. Very happy with the result. And tomorrow, after mowing the lawn, I’ll return to my WIP. I’ve got the feeling that I’m back to working order.
Just under 250 words, rewrote most of my scene 2. About to conclude the scene I called “a priest walks into a bar.” Also, my MC showed up a scene earlier than expected. He was sitting at a table in the far corner and I almost didn’t notice him there!
2043 (hey, my wc is a future year, yay, I’m grinning ear to ear)
and a character with no name. Indulge me, please.
But Noname has not moved in many days and is so weak he falls on his first step. His head lands in the stream. He is too weak to raise his head out of the water. From underwater, with his lungs full of water and eyes full of stars and blackness encroaching, he hears the mystic and his daughter speaking.
“Stop,” the Mystic says.
His daughter obeys. “But father, he’ll die.”
“maybe . . . ,” the Mystic leans over the stream and cups his hand around his mouth, “I KNOW YOU CAN HERE ME DOWN THERE. YOU WANT ME TO TEACH YOU, YET YOU FAIL MY FIRST INSTRUCTION. YOU’RE THE WORST EDGAR I’VE EVER MET.”
I think I rather like this tense, makes the writing flow smoother for me. Any thoughts on tense?
HERE? ME DOWN THERE. Crap on a ball. Please make that HEAR ME DOWN THERE.
Oh 🙁 And I was getting all excited.
Mind does amazing (creepy) things sometimes. I remember when I had intended for my antagonist walk in on my protag and instead I stared at the screen where I had typed, “my husband walked down the stairs”. Word for word.
wow, you’re protag must’ve been relieved.
Well, that made me want to read more. As for present tense, I think it makes the story more immediate. However, one of my problems when writing in present tense is that often I find myself switching between present and past tenses!
Yeah, my number one concern is I tend to fall back into past tense pretty easily. I guess it takes practice.
LOL! I just love that line: “You’re the worst Edgar I’ve ever met”!
As for tense, I agree with Brian P. It makes it more immediate but I have trouble pulling it off without switching to past tense at some point. But I like how you did it, definitely grabbed my curiosity!
Thanks. I’ll be sure to toss an asterisk beside it. On occasion, I’ve been known to fly off the artistic handle and wipe out entire pages. ugg!
1500 for me. Not sure if I like it, but I gave myself a date to finish this story by, so I’ve got to do everything necessary to get that done. I’m over 100K, and I feel as though I will flounder around without a date.
Cheers to everyone on their words!
I promised myself to do 100 words and ended up with 800+. Go figure.
And I like to write things that happen somewhat right for a change.
Took Sat/Sun off, and decided to double my goal for this week to 500 wds per night. Tonight got 539….must get some sleep now!
Rounded off at exactly 2000 words for the “finished” plot cards. Now, I know I’m not even close to done with my plot, but it’s good to have something nailed down. I’ve already got a few addenda to make to it and some twists to throw in, but that’s fine. I can tackle that tomorrow. For now, I have 60 scenes with Sentence Lites of 30 words or less.
I’m a very happy writer :]
Great plotting, Brian!
434. Back. With everything going on I’m glad I managed this but to reach deadline I’ve got to do roughly 1500 words until the 5th, then I have 5 days to revise.
I know, I know. I can do it. 🙂
Good luck! :] We’re all cheering you on.
Thanks 🙂
After a day full of editing other people’s stuff, I read a bit on te 12 mo class and some other of your postings, then jumped into my wip and so far, 1411 words. I’m bout to finish up reading Hawkspar,is there a 3rd?
Worse is better in fiction!
762 words for me today. My MC’s friend thinks it’s highly inappropriate that her cousin treats her like another one of the guys. He also told her cousin about his romantic intentions, but she missed that part…
734 for the night. First 250 was a total slog, the rest flowed well. Got the acolyte on screen, but just barely. Tomororw should be good for some fun dialogue, and a few sparks.
Cracked 22k today total, hoping to be at 25 by the weekend.
Finished the revision slog and wrote about 3K new words. I’m very happy with the shape of this thing now. Continuing on until I have to call it quits for the night.
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