Friday Night At The Keyboard

If you’re writing Friday night or Saturday morning, this is your Write-a-book-with-me post.

How are the words coming?

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27 responses to “Friday Night At The Keyboard”

  1. Evelyn Avatar
    Evelyn

    1,600 words today, not all usable. Nice to be able to check in though.

  2. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    A quick-fire 534 before catching a plane to Dusseldorf!

  3. Debora Avatar
    Debora

    171 hard-fought words. I won’t say I’ve written myself into a corner, but my muse has led me on a bit of wild goose-chase. The bulk of my book takes place in 1863, but right now I’m stuck back in 1853, trying to figure out what really happened the day my MC’s mother put her up on a horse for the first time. It’s an important scene, because it foreshadows the climax of the book, but I would really like to get back to 1863. And Gettysburg. Right now I’m in Philadelphia, trying to figure out what kind of scenic ride my MC and her mother might have taken. Down along the Schuylkill River, I think, past the Waterworks maybe, or across the High Street Bridge? Past the old boathouses. Would her father have been a member? Is he participating in a race? What happens that makes this day so terrible? I know my MC loses control of her horse somehow — but how, and with what consequences? Who gets hurt? and how badly?

    yada, yada. You get the picture.

    Also thinking of setting up a grad student blog, along with fellow HtTS grads, which will take some time. Do I really want to do this?

    1. The Pencil Neck Avatar
      The Pencil Neck

      Maybe you should try doing some of the conflict questionnaires just for this particular scene. I know you’ve probably filled them all out for the main part of your story, but maybe if you treat this as a “mini-story” and go through the process on it, something will pop up.

      You may also want to read some of your previous stuff and see if that gives you a clue.

      OR… you could consider skipping this and coming back to it when it’s more in focus. After all, you WANT to be in 1863. So why ARE you in 1853? You can come back to it and later you may have given yourself some ideas on what needs to happen there.

      1. Debora Avatar
        Debora

        Thanks for your interest and advice. Guess I sounded a bit irrational. I just keep following my Muse’s/MC’s lead. There’s a logic to it all, however obscure.

  4. Julia GD Avatar
    Julia GD

    2700 and counting. Saturday is still not over 🙂 I am writing from two different POV, both 3rd person limited. However, there is a clear difference between the two. One of my protagonists is hundred times easier to write than the other. I just wish I knew why 😛

  5. Sarah Collins Avatar

    I finished the post-crit edit of chapter 16. I have a deadline Saturday so when (if) I finish that project I’ll head back to “Jack” and add to chapter 17, although I’ll probably be technically into Sunday before that happens, LOL.

  6. Don Avatar
    Don

    Sat morning 508 words spent most of last night wrting notes on what needs to be done, plot progression, holes, a pesky time line problem, I would like all these settled before I start the next 60,000 words. Get everything and everybody lined up and heading in the right direction, then I’ll feal better about the project.

  7. Roo Avatar
    Roo

    Trying to get a move-on today, after finishing a section yesterday. Where are the weekend people at?
    (Yes, I know it’s gorgeous outside :D)

  8. Dawn K. Avatar
    Dawn K.

    Once again I got words. I’m not sure how I feel about them but I got them and I have to be happy about that. Today’s total for Dragon Touched is 2,485 and N’tal will have to allow the mages to fight. He’s now taking someone with ulterior motives to bed with him. He sure will be sorry in the morning! *rubs hands* I look forward to writing that.

  9. The Pencil Neck Avatar
    The Pencil Neck

    600 words.

    I went back and picked up the scene I couldn’t figure out yesterday.

    My sheriff is asking questions and being told no. But in telling him no, people are telling him who he needs to talk to.

  10. Jessica Avatar
    Jessica

    906 and a lot of great chaos! I’m having so much fun with this chapter!

    A modern day swordfight that I didn’t expect, and my crazy rebel has decided to spout Lewis Carol references – which fit very nicely with the story. Now, if he could only make up his mind on whether he wants to kiss or kill the female MC…

    And while that’s going on, the male MC and FMC’s mother are about to find themselves in a different game of hide and seek from the secret service!

  11. Lisa R Avatar
    Lisa R

    0 words yesterday. Work kept me busy trying to get all the monthly reports done because I am on military duty for the next seven days. Last night I enjoyed spending time with friends taking turns walking a .43 mile track for Relay for Life. I slept for about 2.5 hours on the damp ground. Needless to say, coffee is my best friend this morning.

  12. Larkk Avatar
    Larkk

    486 words in my notebook. Ideas are starting come together about how the physics/magic really works. Starting to anyway.
    Today was the day I had set as a deadline to finish this, my first novel, but I have decided to move that back, not sure to when yet. The story has changed and I think I’m finding out more about what it is I really like to write, so I’ll just let that keep happening.
    Besides, I really like it here at WABWM, and I’d like to stay awhile!

    Enjoyed reading everyone’s posts today.

  13. Dena C. Avatar
    Dena C.

    Haven’t checked in for a couple of days. I’m enjoying my vacation, but I’ve snuck in a bit of writing. Thursday I got 488. Took Friday off, and this morning I’ve gotten 536 in 15 minutes of writing time. I may do a little more later.

  14. Khena Avatar
    Khena

    I wrote 21 words yesterday, but they were special words. I wasn’t planning to write at all, since most of my writing time was taken up when hubby and I went to see Harry Potter at the IMAX, which is always fun. Except the film got stuck in the last 10-15 minutes of the movie, and we had to sit there and wait for them to fix it. Not cool. Plus, there were two children there who had no right to be there. A baby no more than 3 mos, and a little girl about 2. Which irritated me because a babysitter wouldn’t cost that much, and let’s the poor kids actually sleep. It’s what we did after all.

    Anyway, besides the point. I was laying in bed later trying to sleep when one stanza of the poem I’ve been dreading writing for my MCs to puzzle out came to me. So, I had a nice unexpected bonus to my evening!

  15. Ieva Avatar

    I did 600+ words yesterday that leave me less than 200 words shy of my weekly goal. I put my antagonist on track of rolling forth, instead of lying in bed, sulking and hurting herself that would have been her preferences but also would make this novel a bore to read… I’m starting to think that *I* am the real villain of the novel.

    Anyhow, the track is set, and she’s on it, but I still haven’t decided what kind of fuel to feed to get her moving on acceptable speed.

  16. Cat (from HtTS) Avatar

    1038 words and the walls come a-tumbling down in real life. Actually, only the tiles are coming. After all I need the walls to put up new ones. I was so fed up with the spit-yellow tiles from the 60s that I took the sledgehammer yesterday and got rid of half of them. I intend to get the rest off the wall today (my last day of being 40). It was a great way to get exercise after a week of writing.

    1. Ieva Avatar

      Hehe.
      Don’t tell me you’re from the eastern side of Germany (since I had tiles like these from Soviet times, and, well, I solved the problem by moving away from that apartment altogether :D).

      1. Cat (from HtTS) Avatar

        No, I live half an hour south of Hanover. But the house was built in the 60s and the bath had never been redecorated. The nasty bit was that the tiles were placed in concrete at that time and they wouldn’t come off in one big piece but in tiny splinters. It was a helluva work but I am reasonably happy with it.

        No writing tomorrow – it’s my birthday after all.

        1. Nancy Avatar
          Nancy

          Happy Birthday, Cat!

  17. Brian Cansler Avatar

    Word of the day: WOAH.

    I’ll start at the beginning. Earlier today, I evaluated my current 60-scene plot for kinks and found 16 scenes needing work. Late in the evening, I was sitting in my room looking out the window. A thunderstorm was on its way, and everything outside had a yellowy-sepia tint…kind of like looking through cheap kid’s sunglasses. I’d never seen anything like it before. The sky was grey overhead, but I could see the sunset to the west and a rainbow to the north. So I took a walk.

    As it got darker, I headed back toward my house. As my house came into sight, streaks of lightning moved almost in slow motion horizontally across the sky, and I remembered thinking that they branched out like the fingers of a god. And that got me thinking and imagining. So the Macbook and I went outside and sat in the gloom to write. I wrote a scene (a very poorly written scene, but I had to get the image down as quickly as possible before it left) in which my story took a radically new direction. But what was at the end of that path?

    I came inside, turned off AirPort on the laptop, and typed away. I twisted about 30 scenes into the beginning for this story that had started to blossom in my head. What was originally my whole novel was now just an introduction. I got stuck as I came upon the new material, so I pulled out my new tarot deck and tossed a few as food for my Muse. She ate them up, and told me to sell my MCs into slavery in a very distant land they’ve never heard of before.

    Overall, about 1300 words today. Woah.

    1. Debora Avatar
      Debora

      Love thunderstorms. Glad you had a “woah” kind of day!

    2. Nancy Avatar
      Nancy

      Very “woah”. As I am particularly uninspired today, maybe all I need is a good thunderstorm to get me back on track. Thanks for sharing your Muse contact!

      And yeah, I second the I Love Thunderstorms thought!

  18. Clare K. R. Miller Avatar

    535 words written today. And we learn that the male MC thinks he’s in love with the female MC! Whee!

  19. Brent B. Avatar
    Brent B.

    547,

    Freezing his butt off on top of a mountain. The character who becomes No Name, takes a family oath that dates back more than two thousand years. It’s a pledge to become a master swordsman and defend Ralon Pass when the icemen come. He’s not taking the whole family pledge thingy too seriously, or the icemen either. Bad idea.

    I’m not writing scenes in exact order, just writing. And I still battle with Mr. Critic over what I wrote, but I have at least worked out a deal with the stiff old thing on a hanger. When something really, really stinks, he can hop out of the closet and make me redo it. However, if its reasonably decent, he stays out of my way and on I go.

  20. Patricia Avatar
    Patricia

    387 words today, and though they may not be the best at least I got something written. I’ve been too distracted with what’s going to happen tomorrow (I fly up to Connecticut for a new job, and the first time I’ll be away from my family for more than a few weeks), and I couldn’t focus on my writing very much today. Ah well, I’m happy that I’ve got words written, and that is enough to satisfy me.

    Thinking back now, I’ve progressed a lot since I first started writing short stories. A couple of years ago, a few months ago even, I never would have gotten past the first few paragraphs without turning back and nitpicking every mistake. Now I find that I am happy simply to have written a few hundred words that day, and I must thank Holly and myself for this accomplishment. I stumbled upon this site a few months ago, and I have learned so much in so little a time that it would be almost mind boggling if I hadn’t experienced it myself. I look forward to continue learning, and thank you Holly for sharing your experience with us.

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