Weekend Magic, Phase 1

Saw Adam today — excellent movie about a young man with Asberger’s Syndrome, and a young woman with a disastrous father. Well worth your time if you’re looking for something that isn’t, say G.I. Joe.

Bad movies never bother my writing. Good ones sometimes do, because like good fiction, they have a magnetic pull that drags my own writing compass in the wrong direction — away from the story I need to tell and toward the story someone else already told. Main reason I don’t read fiction while I’m writing.

But, anyway….

How’s your writing going so far this weekend?

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By Holly

Novelist, writing teacher, on a mission to reprint my out-of-print books and indie-publish my new ones.

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Charmaine
13 years ago

Just got 602 words in place about my secondary character’s introduction to the ship, ‘Mahtilda’. He’s feeling quite despondent about leaving England for Ireland, and his posting is a punishment, but managed to end my session on a promising note. The Pirate Girl herself has entered the scene and shown some curiousity.

Biggest accomplishment was cleaning up and clearing my writing desk. An appropriate space for The Pirate Girl to unleash her adventures.

Stormlyht
Stormlyht
13 years ago

And once again I forgot to post words yesterday! *facepalm* Ah well. Yesterdays words were 824. Working on a hard chapter where I’m not sure what exactly is important to keep and what isn’t. As I’m rewriting it I’m actually asking myself questions like, “Will it hurt the story if I cut this part out or not?” and, “Flesh this a bit maybe? Or what? Do I even know how long this desert area is?” and even the occasional, “Hmm… are they going to figure out about water and cactus’?” *sigh* Ah well, this is the life I lead.

Not getting any words today, have been majorly cleaning because I have company coming Monday and have been working since Thursday on getting it “ready”. I know there’s no such thing as perfect but at least I want “tolerable”. Just have to unearth the dining room table now and I’ll be ready. It’s in there somewhere… *faraway voice*

Sarah Collins
13 years ago

Nothing on the edit Friday, but I did sneak my laptop into bed in the middle of the night to add 620 to the ol’ WIP! I’ve been stuck decorating cakes for two days. Puts a dent in the writing time!

Sarah
13 years ago

1580 on my main WIP last night and my MC is fed up of being lied to and misdirected…but he’s also starving, so he’ll eat with his manipulators and listen to them explain themselves. I think this is going to be a very long scene.
No words on my short story, as I was exhausted b the time I got done with #1.

Sarah Collins
Reply to  Sarah
13 years ago

Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

Debora
Debora
13 years ago

300 words. Good enough.

Leah
Leah
13 years ago

711 words. Even better news, I wrote six days in a row this week. My discipline is getting better. Tomorrow is break time!

Treelight
Treelight
Reply to  Leah
13 years ago

Congratulations on this busy writing-week!

Ieva
13 years ago

700+ words. I didn’t expect this novel to have a creepy mind-reading scene (minds are like terrains, eerie and unknown even to their owners, much less the one who is reading it), but that was the only way to get the important information out.

Leah
Leah
Reply to  Ieva
13 years ago

Yeah, I didn’t expect to have “connections” or “awareness” pop into my novel either. Creepy, esoteric, etc. But it works for some strange reason. It’s one of two of my hero’s biggest secrets.

Treelight
Treelight
Reply to  Ieva
13 years ago

Oh, mind-reading can be fun to write. My male MC has this ability occasionally he is allowed to use it.

Michelle
13 years ago

It’s okay, Treelight. Keep trying and the words will come.

280 for me today. Plugging along. 🙂

Treelight
Treelight
Reply to  Michelle
13 years ago

Thanks for cheering me on.
I am trying, and it even worked for a short while.
Unfortunately I’m now again at the point where I need to find out how the characters will react when they meet. I’m not yet sure if they will tell me.

Adam
13 years ago

Had a productive, but long and choppy night writing. finished ch 9 and shortened the second section of the chapter by collapsing 2 pivotal scenes into one (the first time my MC and narrator assassinates anyone, and his escape from the Mercenary band that trained him to become an assassin). its very barebones, but i like the plot and can flesh out the environment when i revisit the scene. Overall, i’m really happy with how this chapter turned out, and if it fits or not is really depending on how i can get the transition into the next chapter. Got to go into history of the world a bit (well, one person’s version of history anyway), which is the first time its really been appropriate to do so. this chapter begins to set up the theme that pervades what i have planned in the future, the long war between rival lower planar creatures and this material plane being the key to one side’s victory.

on another note, helped my wife break through her mental block of worldbuilding (or as she called it, my D&D campaign BS hehe). She’s getting the start to an outline, her characters are beginning to come to life, and her world is finally beginning to come together. also sounds like her and i may be forming a writing group with some friends and co-workers…

wrote 2657 words, and liked them as they were written. good luck to you all!

Treelight
Treelight
13 years ago

No words for me on friday.

I’m afraid of loosing the drive that made me write quite well in the past few weeks. It seems as if I can’t find the words I need anymore.
Yet I know there is this story that waits to be told.

Ieva
Reply to  Treelight
13 years ago

*hugs*

One thing that helps me in times like this (not that I always employ this, but still) is lowering my word count to one word per day. I usually don’t count in chapter titles and scene names. Anything else counts.

Just open your word processor, find your slightly dusty novel in there and type one word.

Treelight
Treelight
Reply to  Ieva
13 years ago

One word per day!
That sounds like a nice, practicable advise 🙂 Thank you Ieva!

The Pencil Neck
The Pencil Neck
13 years ago

687 words.

I wrote to the end of a scene but… it didn’t go the direction I expected. I expected to write more but I’ve got to figure out what happens next. If I just continued writing, it would have been too happy and too easy on the MC. I needed to stop and think about my options.

The Thief woke up in owl form with a priest prodding him with a broom. It was still light outside so he couldn’t leave the shade of the canopy of flowers that form the roof of the Shrine of Heroes where he was hiding. But someone opened the door to the cathedral and he darted inside. He didn’t want to land on anything in there because it’s all magic and he wasn’t sure how it would react to him (he had a bad experience with that earlier in the story.) So he just flew around in circles looking for anywhere to land with his wings growing more and more weary. Priests and parishioners frantically tried to lure him down with food and falconers gloves and branches and sticks and they were all worried about him.

And then when his strength was about to give out, the crystal statue of the Empress put out her hand for him to land on.

I didn’t expect her to be in this story at all and now the Empress is in it twice. But I’ve got to make this bad, bad, bad for the Thief. Creatively, wickedly, unexpectedly bad. And it’s got to fit in with the rest of the story cause I didn’t plan this.

Clare K. R. Miller
13 years ago

567 words tonight! (I love it when it works out to neat numbers like that.) Cricket agreed to let the elf woman, Lanira, accompany them, and is disappointed to find she can’t just teleport them home.

Rabia
13 years ago

I just got back to working on the wip I set aside in the spring. Got 935 words tonight. Woohoo!

Lisa
Lisa
13 years ago

I haven’t been here in a couple of weeks. Just got back from two weeks of vacation, during which I didn’t write but worked on my htts lesson. And…well, this is a tough decision, but I think I’m going to consign my wip to a back desk drawer. Not quite to the fire yet – it might have something worth going back to eventually – but for right now, it has nothing in it to make me care about it. And htts is helping me find all this potential of ideas I do care about and want to write about. So I’m going back to planning and will hopefully be back with a lot more word counts in a few weeks! Thanks again, holly, for helping me recognize when a work isn’t worth keeping.

The Pencil Neck
The Pencil Neck
Reply to  Lisa
13 years ago

That’s a tough decision.

Congratulations on making it.

Sarah Collins
Reply to  Lisa
13 years ago

Lisa, I hope we see you back (when you’re ready) with a project you’re really excited about! It takes a lot more to make a decision like yours than it does to NOT make it. =c)

Jim Mitchel
13 years ago

I’m almost done with the first scene in Chapter 9. I really felt the connection between the female MC, and the male MC. At least until the male MC’s wife showed up.

Word count for today: 605

Sarah Collins
Reply to  Jim Mitchel
13 years ago

Yeah, there’s a mood killer for you!

Patricia
Patricia
13 years ago

829 words today, and danger lurks around every corner, waiting to catch our unwilling hero unawares. 🙂

Shannon
Shannon
13 years ago

Hi. I just introduced myself several posts back. I’m usually a day behind reading the posts, so I’m reporting 509 words for last night and just getting started tonight. I’ll be working on some dialogue and moving into the next scene. Thank goodness it’s the weekend and I’ll have lots of time.

Roo
Roo
13 years ago

More than one blip – somehow I bounced off the list. Close to done with the section, but the section’s taken three times as long as I thought it would. We’ll see how it goes this weekend.

Steph
Steph
13 years ago

757 words today, and finished chapter one! No looking back now. Got through a difficult scene for MC, and liking how it’s going so far. This is addicting!

Sarah Collins
Reply to  Steph
13 years ago

Congrats on finishing chapter one! Yes, this is DEFINITELY addicting! =c)

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