The official Friday Night WABWM posting thread.
Having fun? Making progress? Stopping to think or to plot? What’s going on with your project?
Write A Book With Me–Friday
read with hunger, write with joy, live with passion
read with hunger, write with joy, live with passion
593 today. Was sure I wasn’t going to even drag 250 out of it, so I’m happy.
Only 193 of actual progression of story yesterday, but I spent quite a bit of time working out my plot using Holly’s create a plot clinic. It was great, I ended up with about 5 (A5) pages of handwritten notes. I figured out some major plot issues which have had me stuck for quite a long time, and have had some great ideas for twists later down the track.
I also went to Dralion (Cirque do Soleil) today. Was fantastsic!!! It’s the third one of been to and they’re all brilliant. Would definitely recommend going if you get the chance.
Now off to do some writing so I can post in today’s thread 🙂
Not sure what the word count is, but I’ve got a good 2 1/2 pages hand-written, plus a nice organized Excel project and a fairly detailed synopsis. I’m going to write for an hour or so as soon as I finish with this. I’ve really *wanted* to write recently, which is good- it’s been a while since I had that major creative itch. 🙂
Did I post yesterday? I don’t think so. 339 yesterday.
I planned to start on Monday.
So far.
Monday, found out Daughter who has undergone cancer treatment for years is pregnant. I am bursting with joy.
Tuesday, after daughters scan we find she is 20 weeks pregnant and hadn’t got a clue. We are all bursting with excitement.
Wednesday, my youngest son informs me he needs to move home. This involves a major shuffle in the sleeping arrangements by August. MY head starts to spin at this point.
Thursday, we travel to other end of the UK to collect granddaughter who is getting into loads of trouble at home and bring her to stay with us for a while. Another major re shuffle of sleeping arrangements.
Friday, long talks to wayward thirteen year old grand child about how she is going to end up like her parents if she doesn’t take up this chance of a fresh start with us. ( Daughter of our eldest son.)
Saturday. Said grandchild is arrested for shop lifting in town, spend 8 hours at police station with her. WE now have a pending court case.
Not only have I had no time to write anything this week but I have forgotten what I was going to write about. Ha ha.
I am considering writing a 250 word a day diary.
This I hope has made somebody smile. It has made me sit at PC and type something here. SO!
I am going to start my book tomorrow if that is okay.
Holy crap.
Hugs. You sound like you could use them.
(((Hugs)))!
Friday’s word count was 283. I didn’t write on Wednesday or Thursday. Wednesday I was feeling quite depressed, so I took the night off and watched TV. Thursday I had friends over for cake, and the company helped me feel a bit better for Friday, so I was able to get some writing done.
On Friday I managed…probably right around 4,000 words, which may seem huge, but I’m also doing JulNoWriMo, which is a contest to write 50,000 words by the end of July. I had hoped to be halfway through by now, but I’m still not quite there. I switched projects this past week too, so that meant I had (originally) lost about 8k. I may have gotten it back, since I may have found a way to cross over the two books, but it really needs more planning, and I have no time for planning. But this project you’re doing, Holly, is a great idea for me, and may save my writing when I go back to school – just doing a few hundred words a night would be enough to satisfy myself AND my wonderfully overprotective friends (they want me to pass). So for now, falling behind where I had intended, but I will write a few scenes tomorrow and catch up.
Sustainable writing.
That’s the objective. 😀
Taking Saturday off. But I get a couple hours away from kith and kin and responsibilities Sunday morning, so I’m hoping to get in a few words between glasses of orange juice and cups of tea.
Sounds like everyone had a great Friday night/Saturday. Cheers!
The night off yesterday must have done wonders because I got 3508 words today (Saturday). Of course I didn’t do it all in one sitting. I did it in about three sessions spread out over the day. It helped that my daughter was happily engrossed in her Lego for most of the time I was writing.
Holy mackerel! Fab word count! Congrats!
Awesome. Cheers!
Wow, I’d sure like to double my word count! Blow some of that dust my way, would ya? (Not that I’d ever distinguish it from the rest of the dust, LOL). Congrats!
Oops, that was supposed to be a reply to Silke. I’m on a roll today, LOL.
LOL Sarah 🙂
I sort of got going on that one and it’s fun to write at the moment, so I get a lot done. No doubt I’ll soon trip over one of those trenches my heroine is digging and fall into a rut, and get nothing done. 😛
HUGE progress since the last post. 🙂
Added 6064 words since the last post, giving me a total of 12,096 words on my “Short” story so far. 🙂
First post. I wrote 914 words today and am happy to be here. Thanks.
Welcome and congrats on a great start!
Great first day. Welcome aboard the ride.
no words today (Sat), I’m picking names. It’s gotten to the point where I sort of need to. You can’t twist and insult someone’s name when you don’t know what it is!
Names are a huge step! I honestly think I spend more time naming my characters than I did each of my children – and that’s without DH shooting down some of my favorites! And the funny thing is that – not at all unlike my kids – I simply can’t imagine my characters by any other names at this point.
Good luck with your choices!
Well I didn’t plan on doing any writing at all today (Saturday, I’m in the UK and just about ready for bed!) but it just kept calling to me. So I did a little bit in the morning when my daughter was eating her breakfast, then a little more when she went out with Grandma for a few hours and then some more once she was in bed and to my shock I have yet another completed scene which I love! Word count for today is 1258, really, really pleased with that.
Worked out if I keep writing roughly the same amount each week as I have this week then I may actually have a completed first draft in just under six weeks. Course I’ll cling to that hope but I’m not gonna kill myself for it. Must keep it fun!
I know what you mean. I keep thinking that if I can keep up something like my current pace, I could be finished with the draft with a few weeks to spare before Nano starts this year. But at the same time, I really want to keep this fun. No pressure.
I think it’s great that you managed your words in several small sessions. I find I get tired if I try to manage it all in one go. I may have to try breaking it up the way you’ve done.
That’s how I got all my first few years of writing done. And later, when I had my third child, how I did it again (only I was blogging by then, so the travails of writing while mom-ing is all tucked away in here.)
Can’t believe I’ve been doing this since the kid turned four.
Little bits and pieces—it works. Congrats.
My crit partner has this uncanny way of picking up on points that bother me, whether they don’t quite sit right or look perfectly fine but bug me anyway. After I had SO much trouble with the last chapter – I swear I would have thrown it at her when I finally “finished” if we had ANY less than half the width of the U.S. between us – she managed to put her finger on everything that felt “wrong” at the moment. She gave me a much stronger conflict and got rid of the smaller, annoying ones in one easy breath. I’m not sure if I want to kiss her or kill her, but either way I’ve backed up about 10k words for a rework. I’m giving my characters a slightly bigger commitment to up the ante on the conflict (I believe her word was to make it “heart-wrenching” – oddly like idea of the do-over felt when I realized her suggestion was right on.) So, write on I will (wow, that was a bad joke). I’m back to 25,835 and about to start revisions on the last chapter I decided to keep. Moving the rest of it to the discard file was a bit painful, but luckily it only took a couple of clicks and I’m back to moving forward again.
You, me, three long years. It’s a date.
Hi Sarah,
All the best to wrench your readers’ hearts! Pen is sharper than a sword and you might do a clean job of it. Hee! Hee! Hee!
If wrenching is what you do by your writing, then I am a hardhearted back pusher: My aim is to get hold of my readers and push them down a roller-coaster – More they scream as they cartwheel down the ride, the bigger the vicious glee that I wore on my face becomes 🙂
I just finished the rewrite of Chapter 11 and sent it her way. If she stabs me with her sharper-than-a-sword pen, then I’m going to start banging my head against my rather blunt keyboard! I must be in the middle of one of your novels, LOL, screaming and cartwheeling all the way!
My crit partner is only 300 miles away, but that stiletto-like pen she wields might as well belong to a surgeon. It’s painful… but oh. so helpful. I have a tendency not to be able to see the forest for the trees sometimes and it’s actually nice to have someone willing to take off the gloves and give it to me straight. (can I mix any more metaphors?) Glad she was able to help you find your way.
So… do you get to return the favor? Sometimes revenge really is sweet. 🙂
Ah, yes! I DO get to return the favor, but I’m afraid she’s a few light years ahead of me when it comes to her skills as a writer. It just makes finding something to pick on her about THAT much sweeter, though, LOL. She has the BEST critting style – not only pointing out the “oops” and “WTF” among my words, but sharing her emotions and impressions as a reader. I’ve seen other crits just go into what’s wrong with a piece, but her reactions right there in print tell me whether or not I’m on the right track, and more than once she’s brought a happy tear to my eye. I am so blessed to have her – and boy oh BOY you should have heard how much I liked her before her comments led me to cut 10k words! LOL.
I’m happy to hear that you, too, have a great crit partner. They truly are worth their weight in gold! (Sucks when you want to toss them through a window, though, doesn’t it? Can you still type if you throw your back out? LOL!)
She sounds like a GREAT crit partner. That’s what Matt does for me.
Glad you’re here. This’ll be fun.
I had a good writing day today. I managed 1202 words but the scenes were much harder to write than I thought they were going to be.
I’m feeling a bit emotionally drained now and I might take a break tomorrow.
Having said that, I really do hate to leave my characters in a predicament, so maybe I won’t.
I love leaving mine in predicaments. It gives me a place to start when I get going next day.
wrote 319 which was great for me. However it was on a completely different angle. Wonder where this is taking me.
Did 1,216 words before the monster thunderstorm struck and I had to quit.
That brings me to 22,231 words. MC is in pine forest in foothills west of Denver, unarmed and being pursued by three armed bad guys.
But never fear, he has special forces training.
oops, that was all last night.
Tonight???
So I’m still on ‘pre-writing’ – i.e. a sprinkling of research, a bit of planning & lots of thinking. 🙂
I think I’m a little scared to jump into this project, but I don’t want to outline it & would rather just wing it. And that worries me! I don’t want to waste time heading down dead ends & getting lost in backstory, but at the same time I’m just not much of a planner.
Maybe I should just give some Actual Words a go tomorrow/Monday.
Same advice I offered upstream. Give yourself a single sentence (30 words or less) in which you write down what the story is about.
The only way to get where you want to go is to KNOW where you want to go—but you don’t need an onboard computer giving you step-by-step directions to get there. You can do it with just a compass and a map. Good luck.
Thanks, Holly. 🙂
I haven’t even STARTED… I’m not even well into plotting/planning, but I am completely submersed in abject terror. I’ve never finished anything I’ve started writing in the last 10 years. I’ll never be good enough…
Blahblahblah!
For me, right now, I’ll assume that this is just part of the process and keep going anyhow.
Hey Lisa, I was like that too, and although I am having what feeling like mega probls with something I really want to write, I actually finnihsed a short story, 3000 words and that feels so great. I finnished! I fiinished something! So, go you , love you not giving up attitiude
Congrats, Megan. Cheers on finishing.
Yep. Part of the process. Keep going. You can do this. You don’t think about finishing. You just think about this word, and then the next word. One word at a time.
No words Friday night. The EDJ was mind-numbing and I was never able to shake it off last night. Plan for today is to incorporate a scene I wrote a couple of months ago and think about scenes that should be told from my (new) alternate POV. I’m close to the hopefully-not-sagging middle, so need to also think of some ways to ramp up the tension there.
507 words late last night after watching movies with the girl child. I was hoping to writie this morning but opted to sleep in and then call the parents. My short story is coming along nicely. Three more characters were added last night. Unfortunately one will die in the next day or two. Conflict, you just have love it:-) Have a great weekend everyone.
Conflict. The V-8 engine in a classic Corvette.
Hi Holly and others,
No words yesterday, Friday, Today – Saturday, a Holiday, I wrote 800 words including a small poem of eight lines, part of my novel. I’m satisfied and am enjoying my writing 🙂
Enjoyment is the ultimate goal! =c) Congrats on adding another 800.
Congrats. I’m glad you’re finding the joy in it. If it doesn’t make you happy, why do it?
I wrote 350 words yesterday morning and then was busy until late last night and I work again today. I hope to slip in a bit of world building this weekend and yet keep moving forward with the story.
This story started out as a writing exercise that I wanted to turn into a short story. It got out of hand and is threatening to become something huge. While the idea of the story is huge, I find I need more detail about this world my fortunetelling con artist is living in. Especially now that, the story went and got all epic on me.
Also hoping to start up a website in the next few days.
845 words on Bloodsworn yesterday. Need to do some background work on the magic in my world before I go too much further, so a lot of next week is likely going to be devoted to planning.
Sounds fun. Good luck. 😀
Started writing late, between cooking and eating, so got distracted and only wrote 120 words. Really anxious to do planning and research this weekend. Also need to start editing some previously written short stories. Started a spreadsheet to track progress and glad to see I average 300 words per day. This week hope to up that closer to 500. Still looking for a avatar at Gravatat. Someone has my username … aarrggh.
Hope your work does not turn into a mega-serial. (soap opera) coz that’s what 90% of South Indian home making women do in the evenings 🙂
I meant to say that they watch mega-serials and soap operas during the time between cooking and eating 🙂
Just about 700 words over the last couple of days – we had hubby’s birthday and a day of grandbaby watching, so I was glad to get that. MC thinks that the violent sounds she’s hearing in her new place are not all in her head -a by-product of recent life upheaval as her best friend suggests – it will be fun when bf hears it too!
Interesting twist you’re inserting. Cool.
I’ve gotten 4854 words since I posted last, over the last 5 nights. A great total, as I was only aiming for about 500 words a night.
I realized today that I have been working on this story off and on for over 2 years, even though I just started writing it last month. It’s high time I got this one finished so I can work on something else!
Know that feeling, the story I’m working on has been going round by head for about five years now. I work on it, I leave it and do something else but I always keep getting pulled back. Think I’ve finally cracked it this time and I’m determined to finally have a completed first draft by the end of this year.
I find myself pulling in things that have been cooking in the back of mind mind for years as well.
Congrats on the good words.
Today is my last day of writing for the week. I wrote 1,972 words which puts me at a total of 8,375 so far for Dragon Touched. My favorite part today was the moment when Mailen was badgering Istrel for more information about himself. He complains Istrel didn’t even introduce himself properly.
*
“Oh, and how will you introduce yourself youngling?” Istrel’s eyes challenged him.
“Mailen, bonded to Tsaya, unknown mage type.” Mailen glanced at Tsaya whose body was curled around a nearby tree branch. Her eyes were closed tightly as she dozed in the sun.
“Then I am Istrel, bonded to none of your business, of a mage type you need not know.”
*
I really get a kick out of Istrel. He was the character who most had a voice when I worked on my Character sheets.
A total of 800+ words. I’ll have to stop and think soon though. As soon as my characters get touchy-feely or add some background information (necessary, but still), it’s a sure sign something’s wrong with the plot.
Besides, I do have my wordcount for a week done (and then a little bit more) so technically, I can spend all weekend doing n-o-t-h-i-n-g.
I took a personal day on Friday and read a novel from cover to cover. On Saturday morning I jumped in and did 1138 words. A whole scene that gives the story a new edge and a lot more to develop in future.
I am writing with the barest minimum of a plan because I work on the assumption that this is a slow process and I can correct course without crashing the boat.
Works for me. I have an outline, but I’m hell on outlines. I break them, ignore them, and revise them the second I have something better to put in place. Did another new plot card today to replace one that had become outdated.
What I don’t ignore is my Sentence. THAT I stick to with fanatical fervor. It’s my North Star—it’ll get me to the end if I just keep it in sight at all times.
After a wonderful 13+ hrs sleep I wish I could say I woke up brislting with ideas for all my problematic plot holes… oh well. I would write but I need to plan or esle it will all be another wate of 20k words. Maybe it is time to scrap it and go onto the next idea
Megan, who said that you have to fix all the plot holes? Even holes, left in a certain way, will make a plot whole. For the rest, there is the Fantasy world – anything may happen there. You never know how far a reader is ready to stretch his/her willing suspension of disbelief. After all, if Shakespeare’s audience can believe a few men standing dressed in green to be a forest, why not your audience too? But, the question is, why should they do that. Find a reason, and your plot might have a hole to sink the titanic and none would care.
If logic is the problem, then I would ask you to work patiently and fix things, they would eventually get fixed.
anambika, thanks. I always thought logic and plot went hand in hand, for this story it is a logic thing, Trying to work out WHy certain characters are doing things. If the evil Empress discovers one of her puppet leaders has a foundling who bares the resemblence of the EE,s worst nightmare, why does she let the babe live? EE can make anyone do anything, she could make the puppet leader forget all about the baby and do away with it and no one know anything, end of story
Woo! Wait. How did the evil empress do that? “Boom!” (one word), “The evil Empress raised her wand, pointed it at the puppet leader and cried, ‘Oblivio’. She then pointed her wand at the foundling and cried, ‘Abracadabra’. (25? Words), and if you can add a twist by making the spell rebound and hit the empress, Woo! You might have written the best seller of the century. Logic? Reason for the rebound – Father protection? Improper casting? Simply an accident? Convince your readers, that’s it. stretch it to a 5k length, you have a short story on your hands, if your imagination can, stretch it to a mindboggling 100k words, you have a fantastic horror fantasy fiction on your lap. – not joking! Just encouraging : —–)
oookaaay, thanks for that, might give me a kick start Anambika. Previous 20k words i had hinged on the girl living, a Prince wanting revenge on EE and finging an identicel girl out in the world that EE doesnt know about. I will put your suggestins, help inthe stewing pot and go look up some other unfinnished ideas
Anambika, just in case you think I’m a dolt, I got the HP ref, just got side tracked by some possibilities your suggestion (no matter how tongue in cheek) threw up. My world has no magic, the power just stems orm the nature of the beast, like maybe a vampire of som other supernatural creature.
Dude, no. Seriously, NO.
If anything can happen, nothing matters. Fantasy requires rules and internal logic as consistent as the real world’s. It requires that what the author declares a problem at the beginning only be solved in a fashion that fits within the world’s internal rule set. And that rule set must be AS STRICT as the rules in the real world, or you’re writing without conflict.
In fantasy you get one gimme—one thing for which the reader will suspend disbelief without a solid foundation of logic. You have to pick your gimmme carefully.
And you do not EVER get to leave a plot hole.
The approach you have outlined is the recipe for every disastrous failed fantasy novel ever—the rules have changed since Shakespeare’s day—and while he was a great writer, he was never a terribly convincing fantasist in the first place.
Hi Megan,
Last couple of days I’ve been having a look at Holly’s create a plot clinic as I’ve gotten to 30k words and hadn’t really started any plotting. In the tools section she had a few basic questions to ask yourself about your plot, after answering them I had found 3 more questions to ask, and from those 6 more arose. I started filling in my plot and by then end of an hour had about 5 hand written pages of plot. I found it amazingly helpful.
Maybe you could try this with your plot holes? Why does the Evile Empress let the baby live? – So if she keeps it close she will never grow lax and be caught unprepared by her worst nightmare; Because despite her evil tendancies she was once a mother herself, her child died but she still can’t bring herself to kill an innocent baby; Because she doesn’t know the child was born, when the puppeteer saw the resemblance she sent the baby away in order to protect it.
And so on… 🙂 Hope this is helpful but if not please feel free to disregard entirely.
Hi Sari, thanks. I have been using those clinics, although not picked them up just recently. Beleive e I have sat down and asked all sorts of quetions and got no good answers. I love the characters to omuch to let them go, maybe that is a flaw. But maybe, just maybe I have found the answer to one of the biggest holes, the one that meant I had no beleivable story… so wish me luck!
Today the MC began a conversation with his wife. He’ll soon attempt to convince her not to go on their mission. She’s not going to be very happy about that.
Word count for today: 492
A very long tiring day. After 9 hours at the office I came home to guests, who mercifully did not stay long. I managed 429 words, and I’m still not convinced that this scene belongs here, but if not here, where? I left Ursus at the edge of a cliff and went off with Avery to do other things. I had to get back to his story line soon. Only now what do I do with all those fairly banal things that still have to happen before things get really dire?
You don’t write them. Instead, you think of all the interesting things that might happen instead.
Okay—look at it this way. If you don’t get excited writing the scene, why would anyone ever get excited reading it?
I think I’m taking the night off tonight, from the looks of things.
I managed to work in 58 words. I guess any improvement over Thursday is welcome.
On a day when all you want to do is sleep, 58 words is a triumph. Congrats.
Started today! Finished a prior WIP a few days ago, set it aside, and figured now was as good a time as any to start something new, one of those ideas that I’ve been kicking around for awhile and figured I’d “get to it eventually”. Evidently, eventually has come! Wrote 459 words – introduced the MC as she returned to the stage for the first time after breaking her ankle… she’s just about to discover a dead body hung on the costume rack. I should mention that this will be my first attempt at a mystery, ever… should be interesting, but at the very least, I’m going to have fun with it! 🙂
Nice start. And good luck. This sounds fun. 😀
296 words today. Tired from the day job. My main character is finding that all the folklore is contradictory. I also did a tiny bit of worldbuilding–I realized that the guns ought to be laser guns!
784 words today… and a little necromancy gone wrong to keep the MC around. My female lead was left with a Goulvan, a kind of “tree troll” and she mistakes his leering glances as something sexual, when he is thinking whether to roast or broil her when Alex (the non-vampire) leaves her in his protection. Very fun scene. and new and strange characters cropping up all over the place. 😀
I re-read everything I had written up until now.
I have some great characters, and a series of really nifty vignettes. What I do not have is a STORY with a good plot and a few subplots. I know there’s a really GREAT story in there somewhere.
*growls* Mebbe it’s like Michaelangelo… you chip away everything that’s not the sculpture?
Hi Noel,
Plot? Right,
1. A quiet start – Drop in all your characters on a single street and let them interact with one another and see what happens (all inside your mind);
2. A bang start – Go to a sea shore village recently hit by a hurricane, drop your characters, see what happens;
3. A bizarre start – The sun fails to rise the next morning, the world comes to a standstill, what will your characters do?
— In all these circumstances, if your characters are real and complex enough, they themselves might take over the plot and move it along.
Try it, and tell me if it works. Yes? Hurrah! You got a solution to your problem. No? Alas! You must have gained some invaluable experience, after all, “Experience is the name given to mistakes” – Oscar Wild.
Note you might gain experience from other’s mistakes too, like me, from you 🙂
Noel—Thinking sculpturally is one way to approach the issue. Another is to think narrationally—that is, to ask yourself what the story is about (main character, main antagonist, primary conflict, and the thing that makes you want to write the story in the first place, and to write this information in one sentence.
When you do that, those things which are not the story stand out in stark relief, and you’re able to work around them.
Thanks! Thinking about your advice, I want to do it narrationally mostly because I’ve noticed that the stories I love the best seem to have a specific structure and often follow mythic themes rather well.
Actually, what made me realize what was wrong with That Damned Book was watching the children’s series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Yes, it has fantastic, engaging characters, but there is a specific STORY that’s really rather well-plotted to the entire series.
You can’t fool a child. If you’re not satisfying the “Tell me a story” impulse, they’re not gonna be engaged. I’m still at the child stage of enjoying literature *grin*.
Nothing yet. I had another busy day and now I just want to sleep. I was around some heavy smokers and I think the overexposure got me.
I took the night off tonight. My daughter came home from my mother’s house, and I hadn’t seen her for five days, so we went out for something to eat and then went to a movie. I’ll be raring to go tomorrow morning. Have a good night everyone.