Category: Output

Stuff I’m creating

Back to Writing (Now Where’s my Pencil?)

Things have (mostly) settled down around here. I’m ready to jump back into writing (hopefully) starting tomorrow, but I’m a bit stuck for what to do now. The original plan called for doing some work on another project before diving into revisions on Miracles. I had a list of things to do before the revisions, but it sort of called for me to be done with them by now. None of that happened so I can either start that list now, or skip it and start revisions. I need to make some sort of plan or I’ll use my writing time failing to decide where to start.

Life on Hold

I mentioned before that we were all not feeling very well. I’m mostly better, and so are the kids (Rachel a little more so, Vanessa a little less). Denise, on the other hand, is about the same, and it looks like she’ll stay that way for a while yet. So everything (including the writing) is on hold until things settle down. After having a crazy, exhausting week last week, this one is a lot closer to normal, but not quite there yet. I’m itching to get started on a number of things, but family comes first.

“Miracles” First Draft Completed

I finished my first draft this morning. I’d been having a hard time writing the past few days and I wasn’t quite sure why. This morning I was able to turn my inner editor back off and just write, and to my surprise I had reached “The End”. My goal was to make sure I finished this draft by the end of the year, so I’m rather glad that I’ve gotten it out of the way now so I can enjoy the holidays more.

I don’t think I’m going to revise this draft using One Pass, but instead I’ll write an expanded second draft after this one has cooled for a bit. When I started I had some ideas for what to do with a short work, but since I wrote this book with very little description I want to add the missing detail in and see where that puts me. I also want to take some of the new ideas about the world and work them back into my other worldbuilding note before starting the next draft, so things seem a bit less nebulous.

NaNoWriMo 2006: I did it!

NaNoWrimo2006 Badge (small)

Yesterday I was ready to stop writing for the day, so I calculated my word count and was a surprised to see I was within 300 words of the 50,000 word finish line. I decided to keep going and ten minutes later I checked again and I’d crossed the line (not by much, but that’s not the point).

So 50,000 words in 26 days. That beats anything I’ve ever done before. Is it any good? I think it is. Maybe not right now, but with a bit more work. Of course the novel isn’t finished. I’m guessing it’ll be about 60,000 by the end of this draft. It’s a very rough draft, but it’s nearly finished. My last novel had over 100,000 words in the first draft, but it took me about a year to write. At my current pace I’d have that done in two months.

So what have I learned? Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2006: I did it!”

NaNoWriMo 2006

NaNoWrimo Progress Graph

Sorry about the lack of updates. If you’ve been wondering where I am, you haven’t been paying attention. I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo, meaning I have until the end of the month to complete 50,000 words of a novel. I doubt I’ll be updating much during that time because if I have time to post then I should be working on the novel. Things should return to normal once I’m finished.

Next Steps

I wrote the new ending for the novel (ended up being more than one scene). I’ll update the “final” wordcount soon. Now it’s time to get some feedback from readers, and that will determine what the happens next there.

The other novel I stated working on in January will remain on hold for a bit longer. I’m still excited about the idea, but I wasn’t giving it the time it deserved and I need to go back and flesh out my characters and worldbuilding some more.

Unless something stops me, I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. That gives me a few days to solidify my idea before I need to start writing. I’ve always wanted to try NaNoWriMo, and while I don’t exactly have the time, I am between projects, so I might as well give it a go.

There are a few reasons why I want to do this. I need to learn to embrace the bad first draft. I need to write with the intention of rewriting it all later. That might sound backwards, but having just been through a novel revision on a book it’s something I need to try. If you’ve never been there, I’m not sure I can explain it. Besides, I want to have something else done by the end of the year. I have other reasons, but they are more abstract.

1-Pass Day 33 (71519/93173)

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Made some more progress last night. I’m feeling pretty ready to be done now. If anyone has some spare time they can lend me, I’d appreciate it.

Totally unrelated, but I found this pretty amusing. Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me one of these, I wouldn’t complain. I have just the spot for it in the yard.

1-Pass Day 32 (68501/94126)

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This morning I had a great momentum going, and had life allowed it to continue I may have finished the whole thing today. Still, not a bad day all said.

The next scene is very fast paced and covered with corrections, and my eyes are crossing, so I think that’s it for tonight.