2300+ new words written today
4400+ words rewritten today (combo of new words and old words shuffled around)
One more scene of threats and such
One more scene of closing/wrap up
And then this sucker is DONE.
It'll be in the hands of my critique partners by Monday. Boo-yah!!!
Showing posts with label word count. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word count. Show all posts
Monday, February 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I'm melllllltiiiiiiing
Jesus christ, I hate the heat. And sweating. I hate sweating even more than the heat. It was like a fucking thousand degrees here today. UGH.
But anyway. I checked in over at KSC 2010! I currently owe myself 700 words thanks to Writing Fail, but I shouldn't have any trouble making those up over the next week or two. As I said in my check in, I'm well into the dark, bloody heart of the book. Bad Things have happened, more are on the horizon, but OMGSQUEEE!!1! the Boy is showing definite romantic interest. All of this makes for fun writing and major snarling when someone asks me to put the laptop away and interact with the "real" world. ;)
Here's a teensy little snippet and a shiny word count meter:
“You can’t go home.”
I pivoted slowly, trying to understand the sense of finality in her tone.
“You killed an emissary of the warlord, Megan.” She spoke slowly, carefully, like I was a child. “He’s going to come for you.”
And now, back to our regularly scheduled melting.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Holy hell, that was rough
Aaaaaaand we're back. I made my writing goal today for the first time in... *checks trusty Word Count Spreadsheet of Doom*...jesus, nine days. *shudder* I was having a difficult time navigating some pretty intense emotional fallout from The Big Scene, particularly in light of the way it changed my MC. It turns out the solution was to sit back, take a deep breath, and do a re-read of the last quarter or so of the book. I've been writing way down in the weeds, you know? Only 500 words a day, but really working those words, making sure they're the right ones, etc. Which is lovely and satisfying and giving me a splendid writing workout and producing second draft material during the first draft...but it also means I'm having a hell of a time seeing the forest through the trees. The re-read was just what I needed to get a handle on my MC again, and the relationships she's developed so far. Now, I think I've got a better understanding of how to get through this next section of the book. PHEW.
Also? I am wretched when I can't write. Which, to be honest, I sort of love. ;) I love the need of it, you know? The drive and passion. Makes it feel real. I'm not sure I can say the same for my husband, though. LOL!
So, yeah. Gotta go. Word Count Spreadsheet of Doom says I owe myself 3,000 words...
Also? I am wretched when I can't write. Which, to be honest, I sort of love. ;) I love the need of it, you know? The drive and passion. Makes it feel real. I'm not sure I can say the same for my husband, though. LOL!
So, yeah. Gotta go. Word Count Spreadsheet of Doom says I owe myself 3,000 words...
Monday, June 7, 2010
Musings on Economy of Scale
Thanks so much to everyone who cheered me on (and congratulated my word count!) during my Sunday Write-A-Thon yesterday! I lurve to spend a day with nothing on the agenda but words, so yesterday was a lot of fun. Mostly. But we'll get to that in a moment.
As I've mentioned, I'm on a 500-words-a-day goal for this book. I pushed myself harder for my last book, partly because I felt I should simply because Other People Could (dumb) and partly because I was writing adult and writing long, which meant that most days I felt like I would never freaking finish!!! (Final word count on that one ended up at 118K, though I've come to terms with the fact that it needs a good rewrite.)
Somewhere along the way of writing that book, I lost my sense of balance. I became too focused on getting published and forgot about all the living I needed to do in the intervening years. Family and friends would invite us out and, I swear, my gut reaction was a sort of keening noise followed by the thought, "But that time could be spent writing!"
Yeah. That's not how you stay sane, people. Not as an unpublished writer, anyway. If you've got deadlines to meet, that's a different story.
With this book, I'm trying to keep the pendulum swinging in a tight range more or less at the middle of the time management arc: words written every day at a pace that will get the book finished sooner rather than later, but will still allow me enough time for novel activities such as: reading! spending guilt-free time with my husband, family, and friends! having--gasp!--free time occasionally!
So far, it's working. :D
I found yesterday's Write-A-Thon interesting on a couple of fronts, though: A. I was absolutely certain I would benefit from an economy of scale by writing for a whole day--and I didn't and, B. even when I love writing, I sometimes don't love writing.
A. Monday through Friday, I typically get my 500 or so words in in about an hour and a half, total: two twenty minute bus rides, plus forty or so minutes of my lunch hour, plus maybe a half hour or so at night. All of those sessions have what we in the Process Engineering biz (my Day Job!) call "process fragmentation" costs associated with them, so I'm not fully capitalizing on any of the timeframes I mentioned. I'm starting up and shutting down my laptop, I'm remembering where I last left off, etc.
I thought that if I wrote for a whole day, largely uninterrupted, I would write at a rate faster than 500 words per 90 minutes. Turns out? Not so much. I wrote 2709 words in about eight hours, but during that time I took breaks for lunch and snacks, and read several chapters of a book when my motivation flagged. Loosely rounding, i still wrote at about 500 words per 90 minutes. I think. Honestly, I'm really bad at math, so I could be embarasing myself here. But anyway, assuming I'm right, I found that statistic both extremely interesting and somewhat disappointing.
This book wants to be written thoughtfully and carefully. I get it. :)
B. I'd started the day with a 2k word goal in mind. Once I checked my trusty spreadsheet, I realized I needed to write closer to 3K to get even with myself. Over the course of the day, I ranged the gamut (wtf does that mean, anyway??) from "I'M GOING TO OWN YOU, WORD COUNT GOAL! YOU WON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIT YOU BY THE TIME THIS DAY IS THROUGH!!" to "Okay, this is good. I'm doing fine. Slow and steady wins the race." to actually saying these words out loud to my husband: "There's no way I'll make 2688 but I'm determined to at least hit 2K."
The most interesting thing, to me, was that it wasn't a straight progression, which I could at least chalk up to fatigue. I was up and down and all over the place. I know that I hit an easy patch (meaning the words were flowing and I got caught up in the story) right around 2200 that carried me right up until the end. I checked my word count in the middle of that and I knew I'd make my stretch goal for the day--and at that moment, I felt like I could write 3K! No, 4K! TEN THOUSAND WORDS WOULD BE MINE!!!!
That was crazytalk, natch, but I did have a little rush of motivation there at the end. I just find it so interesting that no matter how deeply I love the holistic art of writing, the act, itself, continues to be a struggle at times. I think that's a mind-bendingly odd concept, but it's one I need to remember for when I hit those rough patches along the way.
As I've mentioned, I'm on a 500-words-a-day goal for this book. I pushed myself harder for my last book, partly because I felt I should simply because Other People Could (dumb) and partly because I was writing adult and writing long, which meant that most days I felt like I would never freaking finish!!! (Final word count on that one ended up at 118K, though I've come to terms with the fact that it needs a good rewrite.)
Somewhere along the way of writing that book, I lost my sense of balance. I became too focused on getting published and forgot about all the living I needed to do in the intervening years. Family and friends would invite us out and, I swear, my gut reaction was a sort of keening noise followed by the thought, "But that time could be spent writing!"
Yeah. That's not how you stay sane, people. Not as an unpublished writer, anyway. If you've got deadlines to meet, that's a different story.
With this book, I'm trying to keep the pendulum swinging in a tight range more or less at the middle of the time management arc: words written every day at a pace that will get the book finished sooner rather than later, but will still allow me enough time for novel activities such as: reading! spending guilt-free time with my husband, family, and friends! having--gasp!--free time occasionally!
So far, it's working. :D
I found yesterday's Write-A-Thon interesting on a couple of fronts, though: A. I was absolutely certain I would benefit from an economy of scale by writing for a whole day--and I didn't and, B. even when I love writing, I sometimes don't love writing.
A. Monday through Friday, I typically get my 500 or so words in in about an hour and a half, total: two twenty minute bus rides, plus forty or so minutes of my lunch hour, plus maybe a half hour or so at night. All of those sessions have what we in the Process Engineering biz (my Day Job!) call "process fragmentation" costs associated with them, so I'm not fully capitalizing on any of the timeframes I mentioned. I'm starting up and shutting down my laptop, I'm remembering where I last left off, etc.
I thought that if I wrote for a whole day, largely uninterrupted, I would write at a rate faster than 500 words per 90 minutes. Turns out? Not so much. I wrote 2709 words in about eight hours, but during that time I took breaks for lunch and snacks, and read several chapters of a book when my motivation flagged. Loosely rounding, i still wrote at about 500 words per 90 minutes. I think. Honestly, I'm really bad at math, so I could be embarasing myself here. But anyway, assuming I'm right, I found that statistic both extremely interesting and somewhat disappointing.
This book wants to be written thoughtfully and carefully. I get it. :)
B. I'd started the day with a 2k word goal in mind. Once I checked my trusty spreadsheet, I realized I needed to write closer to 3K to get even with myself. Over the course of the day, I ranged the gamut (wtf does that mean, anyway??) from "I'M GOING TO OWN YOU, WORD COUNT GOAL! YOU WON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIT YOU BY THE TIME THIS DAY IS THROUGH!!" to "Okay, this is good. I'm doing fine. Slow and steady wins the race." to actually saying these words out loud to my husband: "There's no way I'll make 2688 but I'm determined to at least hit 2K."
The most interesting thing, to me, was that it wasn't a straight progression, which I could at least chalk up to fatigue. I was up and down and all over the place. I know that I hit an easy patch (meaning the words were flowing and I got caught up in the story) right around 2200 that carried me right up until the end. I checked my word count in the middle of that and I knew I'd make my stretch goal for the day--and at that moment, I felt like I could write 3K! No, 4K! TEN THOUSAND WORDS WOULD BE MINE!!!!
That was crazytalk, natch, but I did have a little rush of motivation there at the end. I just find it so interesting that no matter how deeply I love the holistic art of writing, the act, itself, continues to be a struggle at times. I think that's a mind-bendingly odd concept, but it's one I need to remember for when I hit those rough patches along the way.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
KSC, spreadsheet geekery, and a Sunday Write-A-Thon
Greetings, fellow writers!
Have you heard about Kaz's Summer Camp? Basically, you sign up with a goal (or two or ten or whatever) and then you work towards your writing goal over the course of June, July, and August. There are weekly check-ins to help keep all of us accountable but the environment is supportive and flexible--the idea is that it's a way to help encourage you to meet your goals, not be a punitive experience. You have until the end of the day tomorrow to sign up. Click the link above for more info!
Anyway, KSC(tm) brings me to my trusty writing spreadsheet (which will bring me to my Sunday Write-A-Thon--bear with me). A while back, I created a quick spreadsheet in Google Docs to help me keep track of my writing progress. I wanted to know two things: how many words I owed myself and, on the days I didn't meet my goals, why.
My spreadsheet, cleverly named TLOS Word Count because I am a genius at titles, has six columns across: Day, Date, Goal, Actual, Words Owed Cumulative, and Notes. The Day and Date columns should be obvious--e.g., Sunday 6/6/10. Goal is always set at 500, since that's my minimum daily word count goal (and one of my two overall KSC goals--to write 500 words a day for the next three months). Actual is where I enter how many words I wrote that day. Even if it's 21 (that glorious number appeared for one of last week's entries). Even if it's 0 (that glorious number also appeared last week). Words Owed Cumulative has a simple formula in it that subtracts the Actual from the Goal and adds it to the previous day's Words Owed number.
Have I confused you yet?
So, for example, if I always wrote exactly 500 words a day, the Words Owed column would always show 0. Let's say on day 1, I write 700 words. Now the Words Owed column shows -200 because I have like extra credit for 200 words since I wrote over my goal. But let's say on day 2 I write 0 words. Now the Words Owed column will show 300 because I was supposed to write 500 minus the 200 word credit I had, leaving a debt of 300 words.
Which brings me to the Notes column. Every time I write fewer than 500 words, I'm leaving an honest comment as to why. For example, there are two days that say "Magic Bleeds" (hee hee) and a day that says "migraine" and a day that says "had to plot upcoming scenes."
The reason I've explained all this in painstaking detail is that I'm finding it incredibly beneficial to have that Words Owed column. I don't want to get caught with my pants down a few weeks away from my target date, thinking along the way that I've been more or less keeping up with things--missing my goal some days but over-writing it others--only to find out I'm 10K short or something. In short, it's keeping me honest. If you're someone like me who doesn't have ironclad discipline but strives to, I highly suggest creating your own version of the spreadsheet. If you don't know how, I'd be happy to create one for you on Google Docs.
So! According to my magic spreadsheet, I currently owe myself 2688 words. I'm going to try to hit that goal today. If anyone would like to join me for a rest-of-the-day write-a-thon slash holy-god-what-else-can-we-hyphenate, let me know! I'll be checking in periodically.
Happy Writing!
Have you heard about Kaz's Summer Camp? Basically, you sign up with a goal (or two or ten or whatever) and then you work towards your writing goal over the course of June, July, and August. There are weekly check-ins to help keep all of us accountable but the environment is supportive and flexible--the idea is that it's a way to help encourage you to meet your goals, not be a punitive experience. You have until the end of the day tomorrow to sign up. Click the link above for more info!
Anyway, KSC(tm) brings me to my trusty writing spreadsheet (which will bring me to my Sunday Write-A-Thon--bear with me). A while back, I created a quick spreadsheet in Google Docs to help me keep track of my writing progress. I wanted to know two things: how many words I owed myself and, on the days I didn't meet my goals, why.
My spreadsheet, cleverly named TLOS Word Count because I am a genius at titles, has six columns across: Day, Date, Goal, Actual, Words Owed Cumulative, and Notes. The Day and Date columns should be obvious--e.g., Sunday 6/6/10. Goal is always set at 500, since that's my minimum daily word count goal (and one of my two overall KSC goals--to write 500 words a day for the next three months). Actual is where I enter how many words I wrote that day. Even if it's 21 (that glorious number appeared for one of last week's entries). Even if it's 0 (that glorious number also appeared last week). Words Owed Cumulative has a simple formula in it that subtracts the Actual from the Goal and adds it to the previous day's Words Owed number.
Have I confused you yet?
So, for example, if I always wrote exactly 500 words a day, the Words Owed column would always show 0. Let's say on day 1, I write 700 words. Now the Words Owed column shows -200 because I have like extra credit for 200 words since I wrote over my goal. But let's say on day 2 I write 0 words. Now the Words Owed column will show 300 because I was supposed to write 500 minus the 200 word credit I had, leaving a debt of 300 words.
Which brings me to the Notes column. Every time I write fewer than 500 words, I'm leaving an honest comment as to why. For example, there are two days that say "Magic Bleeds" (hee hee) and a day that says "migraine" and a day that says "had to plot upcoming scenes."
The reason I've explained all this in painstaking detail is that I'm finding it incredibly beneficial to have that Words Owed column. I don't want to get caught with my pants down a few weeks away from my target date, thinking along the way that I've been more or less keeping up with things--missing my goal some days but over-writing it others--only to find out I'm 10K short or something. In short, it's keeping me honest. If you're someone like me who doesn't have ironclad discipline but strives to, I highly suggest creating your own version of the spreadsheet. If you don't know how, I'd be happy to create one for you on Google Docs.
So! According to my magic spreadsheet, I currently owe myself 2688 words. I'm going to try to hit that goal today. If anyone would like to join me for a rest-of-the-day write-a-thon slash holy-god-what-else-can-we-hyphenate, let me know! I'll be checking in periodically.
Happy Writing!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Forgot!
I forgot to link to this superhilarious post by on plotting (sort of), via Marjorie Liu.
And, since I'm posting for the second time today, I might as well add this:
38751 / 70000 words. 55% done!
I met and another friend at a coffee shop to write on Saturday. He asked what everyone was working on that day. My response? "The fucking middle of my book." He and my other friend just nodded in sympathetic understanding. Book honeymoon = over. *sigh* But good work is still being done. It's just good hard work now. ;)
And, since I'm posting for the second time today, I might as well add this:
I met
Sunday, April 25, 2010
So this is your maverick
Monster writing weekend. Woo!!
27188 / 70000 words. 39% done!
Tomorrow: Big scene with Bad Dude and Bad Dude's Minion
Tonight: Going to see these guys (EEEEEEE!!!!) with my friends Brian and Theresa:
I've told you numerous times how much I love The Fray, but I'm going to tell you again: I. LOVE. The Fray. This will be Ben's and my second time seeing them on this tour, though last time the lead singer was recovering from bronchitis. I'm super excited!!!
(Incidentally, the title of the post is one of my favorite lyrics from their song Vienna on the How to Save a Life album.)
Tomorrow: Big scene with Bad Dude and Bad Dude's Minion
Tonight: Going to see these guys (EEEEEEE!!!!) with my friends Brian and Theresa:
I've told you numerous times how much I love The Fray, but I'm going to tell you again: I. LOVE. The Fray. This will be Ben's and my second time seeing them on this tour, though last time the lead singer was recovering from bronchitis. I'm super excited!!!
(Incidentally, the title of the post is one of my favorite lyrics from their song Vienna on the How to Save a Life album.)
Friday, April 16, 2010
Character love
I spent the day writing (well, periodically throughout the day. there was the pesky Day Job, after all...) a new character whom I absolutely ADORE. She's cute and perky and has purple streaks in her hair. I can't say that I've ever had characters whom I've actively disliked writing. Tthere was this completely deranged shaman in B&S who was really difficult to write--he had to be a particular blend of psychotic and wise that proved very difficult to pull off on the page, despite the fact that I could envision his character perfectly in my mind.
But do you ever have those characters you just LOVE to write? Like, you could write their dialogue scenes all day long and never get tired or frustrated? My main character's love interest in B&S was like that. In TLOS, Megan's boy is really fun and easy to write (hmm. a pattern?) but this girl has definitely been the most fun so far. So fun, in fact, I'm afraid I'm stretching the scene out a bit! Heh heh. Oops...
What about you? Who do you love (or hate) to write?
p.s.
22229 / 70000 words. 32% done!
p.p.s. I suppose I should add that I love writing Megan, too (just as I loved writing my MC from B&S). But that sort of goes without saying. (right?)
But do you ever have those characters you just LOVE to write? Like, you could write their dialogue scenes all day long and never get tired or frustrated? My main character's love interest in B&S was like that. In TLOS, Megan's boy is really fun and easy to write (hmm. a pattern?) but this girl has definitely been the most fun so far. So fun, in fact, I'm afraid I'm stretching the scene out a bit! Heh heh. Oops...
What about you? Who do you love (or hate) to write?
p.s.
p.p.s. I suppose I should add that I love writing Megan, too (just as I loved writing my MC from B&S). But that sort of goes without saying. (right?)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Oh, and...
Friday, May 9, 2008
Shuffling forward
Monday, May 5, 2008
Here's where we stand:
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