As noted, I take the weekends off. My weekend is Friday night, and Saturday night… but I know you might actually be writing on Friday/Saturday…
So here’s the Friday night, Saturday morning “write a book with me” post. And I’ll have a Saturday night, Sunday morning one popping up for you at the appropriate time.
And I’ll poke my head in Sunday night after I get my words and see what you left here. Have a wonderful weekend, and a great time writing.
Finished 368 words tonight before I knew it, while fireworks were going off in the neighborhood all around us.
Hello everyone, I am really excited to start this little project. I have never actually written a book and finished it, so I am a very, very basic beginner with too many ideas and too little routine. I’m hoping that this will help me cut off from my perfectionism and actually allow me to write for the fun of it.
I am right at the beginning of the book, so it’s going to take me a bit to “get in the flow” so to speak, but I know it’ll be like magic later on when I get to the scenes I really, really want to write. 350 words written today, and I’m right in the middle of a scene, so I’ll be able to get going from there tomorrow.
I just want to say thank you, Holly, for everything. You have helped me far more than you may realize, and I now have the courage to write. 😀
Welcome. I’m glad you’re here. Nice start, too.
Started on Thurs. It was already late and I was just planning to turn off the computer but this blog motivated me to write something. Ended up with 262 words. Thanks!
Cool!
Not alot written for Friday, but I did some great notes/outlining & I remembered why I was excited about this story in the first place, which is a major accomplishment for me! Again, thank you so much for this Holly!
You’re very welcome. I’m enjoying this as much as everyone else.
426 words on White Knight, up to 12,408 total, & chapter 3 is done!
400 words today, 9750 total! Plugging along…I love having a lower word count goal. I’m just now realizing how many days I’ve blown writing off because I didn’t have time to write 2000 words- such a waste!
I’m just enjoying the absence of guilt. When I give myself the right to be happy with 250 words, this all becomes fun and wonderful again.
985 words. The scene ended better than I thought it would. Avery and Magda ended up in the foyer, at the base of Red Stairs, on their butts, laughing their heads off.
I completed 283 words on Friday.
My character just found out that a woman he met in a bar is dead. He suspects there is more to it than he was told by a police officer. So he is heading to have lunch with the dead ladies friend that called him.
300+ words on the project. I’m giving my prospective love couple a chance to be together and start liking each other. It seems that they’re developing profound respect for each other first, which is, in fact, better (even though a less common venue in a novel world where… well, what was the last novel you read where the connection between the main character and the most important person for her was deep respect based on each other’s actions, respect that manifests itself as that instead of flirting, quarreling, longing, lovemaking, boasting etc etc?)
It sounds promising to me.
This was my second day of writing The Hunted in a long time and the day has only just started. I already got 368 words done and I’ll probably write more tonight.
😀 Congrats.
So my vampire who is not a vampire turned out to be something much, much worse. In fact, I would rather crawl through a hallway full of broken glass and rusty nails into a vampire den with about a hundred residents, armed with a toothpick and a clotting disorder then find out that this guy lives in the next galaxy. To top things off, he’s pretty much benign compared to what is coming after my MC who is, regrettably, human. An important human, but just plain human.
1897 word count – actual scenes 2000+ backstory/worldbuilding
I like this a lot 😀
Wow. I’m intrigued. Sounds like you have an awesome villain.
My first day of work on Dragon Touched, my goal is 1,250 words a day 4 days a week. Today I wrote 1,450 words, Mailen bonded with his dragon and every mage on the battle field with N’tal disappeared before casting a single spell in a major battle. Things are going well though I’m not sure I like the battle scene. It’s the first draft so I’ll leave it be for now.
I got 3000 words.
Judging from my wordcount, I should have picked Advanced instead of beginner. But, there is a reason for picking a low wordcount. I am revising, and I decided to the test myself and set a deadline. Sunday night. Why? Well I am leaving on vacation on monday, and I would love to have this one finished before that.
When this one is done, I will probably slow down a bit, too 500 words or so a day. .
This is a flexible game. You can change levels at any time. 😀
363 today. Total word count to date is 26,843. I started writing about 4 months ago but then had a two month long interlude. This is my first attemp at writing a novel and so far I’m enjoying it a lot (just had a few motivation issues along the way).
If I can get myself to sit down and write some words I do have fun.
My MC is alone in a strange land, but she’s tough and tomorrow I think she’s going to come across some hostiles.
Good to hear everyone elses progress 🙂
I worked a bit more on my TiddlyWiki for the fantasy novel last night and have transferred all my ‘character’ and ‘draft’ folders to wiki entries and linked their relationships as far as I know them. Today I’m taking the dogs for a long walk and after that hopefully I’ll be able to get some of the world building entries up and link them. It’s working quite well so far as I discovered a character I’d forgotten about who I think will be quite entertaining (for me at least!).
Congrats on all the words everyone! :o)
Gotta ask. What’s a TiddlyWiki???
Good. We had a date night on Friday night and I have to do some planning and structuring anyway. But I also tend to write frequently on a Saturday and I work a six day week so I plan to get at least one day a week extra.
I have frequently done the six-day-week thing. It works, too.
today I printed up that old story and apart form finding a mess, noticed it has been sitting for nealry 2.5 yrs. Only have read through 25 of 55 pages (24000w). I thikn I still like it, well I am liking a lot of bits and confused about some and tearing my hair out about others. Do I start off with the MC findng out she has a twin? Or is my bad seeming babe the MC? Whose story is it anyway? Totally lacks suspense, but good thinkg I have learnt baout that in the lat 2 yrs hu?
Okay. Study the story, and figure out in one sentence of 30 words or less what it’s about. Then select the intro that creates the most conflict that directly leads to that.
Thanks for that Holly. ( I keep loosing track of which post who what and where, so spend a while rereading them all). Anyhoo, I still have to figure out what’s up, besides, a totoally alien girl, a race af not so nice rulers, a Barrier, and an identicle twin (maybe?? is she?). But one of the girls, she shouldnot have known so much, better that she not. And that has taken a while to figure out how that would be, and now how to get them all to meet…
Today I started working on the revision of my first novel. I’m refocusing the story by concentrating on building it from the ground up starting with writing of the main sentence and then working on the new set of plot cards. I spent a little while going through my old plot cards and identifying which ones still apply as-is and which ones are going to need some massive rewriting. I had thought that I was going to lose most of what I’d already written but I’m actually going to keep quite a bit.
So, I haven’t been counting words or writing that much.
That’s funny. It’s what always happens to me, too. I always discover I can keep a lot more than I thought I could.
2100 or so today. I will be writing on a weekend too. Weekends are my primary writing time. Have a good weekend everyone!
After a quick look-over and some preening, I have 443 good words today. Not bad when one considers that the chaos of life never seems to take a holiday!
*wink*
472 today. But then an idea hit me that will make most of them and several of yesterday’s totally irrelevant. But it is a better idea – and has a LOT more conflict between the good guys! – than the direction I’d started out. So, I took almost as many notes on the new direction as I had written earlier.
When you get one of these great direction shifts, take good notes, and then pretend you wrote the first part as if you already knew what direction your story would take. This will save you from going back and retrofitting in the middle of your first draft—and then discovering later on that you have an ever better idea that will require even more changes to your first draft.
Good notes, man. It’s all about good notes.
I got 1019 words today and I’m very pleased with myself. I decided to make my goal 1k, and I did it with very little trouble!
Awesome. 😀
525 words, and still plodding along. Maybe I’ll manage a little more tomorrow.
Perfectly respectable count.
280. It feels like very slow progress compared to the other numbers I’ve seen but it’s progress none the less. Passed the 2k line. Just wish I knew a better way to transition than just cutting scenes.
“Important safety tip, Egon…”
Don’t worry about everyone else’s numbers. It’s easy to look at what other folks are doing and think you aren’t doing enough. But all you have to do to finish the book is write consistently.
Hang in. We’re cheering for you.
A net of 653 words for me Friday and – drum roll please – the end of Chapter 13! Daily goal is 500 and I’m up to 30,850 with an end goal of 55k-60k. My poor characters think life is hard now – just wait until the second half of the action hits! HA! … um, then HEA. Gotta love a romance! LOL.
Nice numbers. Congrats. 😀
I’ve decided to treat my writing like I job, meaning I take Saturdays and Sundays off. This takes the pressure off weekends, which I think is a good thing.
Only 647 words today. I felt like I was floundering because I was trying to describe something I’ve never personally experienced. Good thing I have tomorrow to do research on it!
Ack! “a” job, not “I” job! This is why I usually post in the morning.
Got another 1700 and might still work on more. The Monk/Librarian’s world is coming unraveled. Did the math and realized I currently only have to do 700 words a night to meet the deadline.
I’m glad you posted something, it would have been a bummer to have not had a place to reply and post my daily word count. Thanks.
Glad to be able to help. And 700 words a day is not too bad.
It’s always interesting, by the way, when a character’s world is coming unravelled. Not so much in real life…
Started tonight, 283 words. Keeping my word count and expectations low, because I have a habit of not following through with my intentions, and I want to make it very easy NOT to quit. Those 250 words will become harder to find soon enough, when the well of ideas begins to run dry.
Holly, I’m glad you said “Allow your first draft to suck,” because even as I’m getting the words down, I’m thinking that every sentence needs a rewrite. As a technical writer, I know when my work is good. As a fiction writer, I don’t know what to think yet.
Any work you get done writing fiction is good.
Got 538 words done yesterday, but then froze today. Made a really good start on a scene, but don’t want to go any further until I understand what I want the scene to accomplish.
Time out for brainstorming!
Debora
Learning to let things go in the first draft is both difficult and important.
Frequently, the story you think you’re telling in the early stages of writing transmutes into something different and far better in the latter half. If you keep trying to polish the first bits before moving on, you never get to that latter half—and don’t realize that all that polishing is going to have to go as you update the first part of the story to match your MUCH better second half.
This has been my experience with nearly every book I’ve written—and sweating ongoing revisions in earlier novels taught me NOT to sweat them in later ones. 😀
Holly, I thikn I am Finally getting that, since my story is taking new and better turns! Still no word count but my notebook is filling up while I sit on trains and in waiting rooms, chatting with my muse