Tag: Writing

November Projects

I probably should have posted this earlier in the month, but obviously I didn’t (I’ve been busy).

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

You may have noticed the that the example NaNoWriMo ProgPress meter in my earlier post is actually live. I wasn’t really sure I was going to do NaNoWriMo this year until fairly late. Then I considered how much writing I haven’t been getting done, and started to consider it.

I participated in 2006 and 2007 (“winning” both times), but this was going to be different. The problem was, I didn’t have an outline ready, or even an idea I’d been grooming for a new project. The idea of trying to write 50,000 new words in thirty days without any real plan and only a few days to come up with one scared me. Which is exactly why I decided to do it.

I started the month with about 10 sentences of semi-connected thoughts where I’d usually have a more detailed outline. Some of them haven’t worked out at all, but I am producing words at a steady pace and I have a reasonable chance of “winning” this year. Feel free to follow my progress on my NaNoWriMo profile.

HoNoToGroABeMo: How Not To Grow a Beard Month

HoNoToGroABeMo 2010: Day 8I’ve also been participating this other, less stressful, month-long project.  I shaved off my beard late on October, 31 (although not before doing something silly with it first), and I’ll be letting it grow throughout the month of November.

This isn’t just about growing face fur though, it’s a fundraiser. All funds will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  The lofty goal is to raise $5,000, and you can help by sponsoring me. Check out my HoNoGroABeMo page where (just about) every day on I post a photo of my progress, and blog entry (which is probably more blog posting than I’ve done in the last year). It currently looks like despite all the manly facial hair antics the fundraiser is going to come up short this year, so anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated.

Did you miss me?

A quick update to break the silence.

Wow.  Has it really been almost five months?  Well, I’ve been busy.  Shortly after my last post I changed jobs, and I’ve been adjusting. ((The biggest adjustment is probably the commute, which used to be ten minutes each way, and is now over an hour each way.)) Last week the routine seemed to settle in for the most part, and I’m once again able to make time to write semi-regularly.

The revisions on Miracles are just about done, after being more or less stalled for way too long.

Do Not Disturb: A Day for “Miracles”

Time to put up or shut up with regards to finishing revising my novel “Miracles”.

Image of the "Writer at Work" sign on my office door today.
Do not disturb

Here we are, halfway through January 2010 and I’ve barely made a dent working my way through the last few steps of novel revisions.  There are many reasons for this, but excuses aside, I’m feeling frustrated and disappointed with the whole thing at this point.

So rather than whine about it, I’m doing something about it.  A few days ago I noticed that today was empty on the family calendar. ((it may in fact have been the only empty day in all of January))  I promptly fixed this my writing in “Jay writing day”.  I expected to get some push-back on this, but I didn’t get any. ((At least once I promised it wouldn’t affect our weekly ritual of watching an episode of the Muppet Show after dinner as a family))

So it’s time to put up or shut up.  The seven hundred other things that need my attention are all on hold while I try to plow through as much of this as possible today.  I’m hoping to move that progress meter all the way to the end, and get as far as I can on a “last” proofread.

I’ll be updating the progress bar on the right sidebar ((non-mobile site)) and posting updates on twitter ((unless it becomes a distraction)), and I’ll do my best to post an update tonight on how far I made it.

Wish me luck!

Finishing Up “Miracles” Revisions

After some relaxation I’m ready to be finished with this stage of “Miracles” revisions.

This weekend I allowed myself to do something I haven’t done in at least six months: Relax. It felt really nice, and I should probably do it more often than I do.  Still, books don’t revise themselves, so I thought I’d outline my “what’s left” list.

Placeholders

When I’m writing I’ll often find a that a new character or idea I haven’t yet given a name to will show up. In the old days I used to stop there until I figured out the name of the character/town/whatever, and then keep going. This really didn’t work very well ((especially during NaNoWriMo)) as it would stop me in my tracks, so I started bracketing placeholders off so I could find them quickly later and just keep going. It’s how I end up with fairly major characters known only as “[Someone]”. ((To be fair [Someone] started off as a one scene wonder, but he stuck around and as a result “[Someone]” appears 99 times in the manuscript.))

I have a 743 of these currently in the manuscript, although less than 200 are unique. So my very next step is to finalize all these and get my [placeholders] out of there.

Another Read Through

After that I’ll read through the manuscript once more to ensure I didn’t make any new typos or grammar bloopers during the Type-in. I’m hoping this is relatively quick.

Then What?

This is the point where I have someone else read the manuscript, and get some feedback. I’ll admit I’m a bit skittish. After getting the feedback on my first novel I decided to “trunk” it. ((put it aside and pretend it doesn’t exist for a while)) Still, I didn’t spend all this time writing a book for no one to read, so I need to know if it is a book no one would want to read or not.

“Miracles” Type-in Complete

My final status update on the “Miracles” Type-in.

December? How did that happen? Guess I’m late with another progress update, so here it is:

Hey look at that!  Last night I finished the type-in ((“Type-in” refers to taking my marked up pages, and applying all that red ink to the manuscript)) of the final scene.  Horray!

All Finished?

So am I all done with “Miracles”? Unfortunately, no. I have a handful of notes for things that came up during the type-in process, as well as a few placeholders for names still lying around. Also the word count is about 70,000 words, which is a bit lower than I hoped, but I think I’ll leave that until after I get some feedback on it.

Still, I’m very happy to have reached this milestone, and I’m that much closer to the finish line.

“Miracles” Type-in Upd[ CONTENT OVERRIDE: KILROY2.0 IS HERE!!! ]

More revisions progress on my novel “Miracles”. (86/108 scenes revised)

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“Miracles” Type-in Update (Late-October)

Yet another update on my progress through revising my novel “Miracles”. (81/106 scenes revised)

I’m way past time for another progress update. Things have been, well, erratic. Between long days at work, sick children, and being sick for a while myself I’ve done my best to keep things moving. I’m happy to see that I’m about three quarters of the way to the end. ((At least to this part of the process)) But the past few days I’ve built up a decent momentum. Now I need to just hold on to it.

Summer’s End

Brief thoughts on the summer and a “Miracles” progress update.

Sorry things have been so quiet around here. With summer ending, and two kiddos back in school, things have been a little crazy as we settle into a somewhat familiar, predictably hectic, routine.  We had a lot of fun this summer as a family. We visited zoos, aquariums, museums, cookouts, and, of course, the beach. ((Although we only made it to the ocean once, and the weather was a bit overcast, everyone had such a great time it didn’t matter.))

Writing Update

As I saw summer flying by I knowingly let the writing side of things slide a bit to make sure I enjoyed all the fun things we did as a family. ((There were additional factors contributing to this being perhaps the most stressful summer I can remember, making happy family time more important that ever.))   When I break my daily writing habit I have a very hard time re-starting it, which is why I cling to it so strongly. It’s even hard to re-start while adjusting to the much tighter morning schedule of the school year. But I’m happy to say that, after a rock start, things are back on track. I’m making daily progress and I’m starting to see the light at the end of the revisions tunnel on “Miracles”.

Coming Soon: Serialized Fiction

I’m going to experiment with posting serialized fiction here on the site. Be sure to check back later and give it a read.

I’ve decided to try and  experiment with serializing some fiction here on the site.  My first offering will be a stand-alone fantasy story set in the same world as Miracles, the novel I’m currently revising. If it goes over well it may become a regular thing.

The story will be posted in four or five segments, one each Friday. ((starting today at noon EDT)) Enjoy!