Okay, so 250 words a day is not working so well for me. Here I am on day 4 of that and I should have 1,000 words toward my novel... I'm about 1,000 words shy of that mark at a nice round zero.
New determination hit me this morning though, and I think it might just work. I am not going to promise to write a page worth of words, or a paragraph or anything else.
My new goal. 5by5. I am going to write five words by 5 p.m. each day of the week 5 days a week. If the muses want to keep going I certainly will not make them stop, but the goal here is, I have to have five words added the page by 5 p.m. every weekday (M-F).
Five words ain't too much. And if you leave out the 'ain't ain't a word' type cheats, then it gets harder to keep your count to just five words, because - Five words is not too much work to fit into an afternoon.
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
250 Words A Day
Okay, I am going to start working tomorrow on my 250 word a day / five days a week effort to write a novel. I decided to set the start date for tomorrow (Monday) since the goal is to write five days a week and it seems that it will work best to get that written on week days rather than weekends. I can count anything I get done on weekends as bonus points on the word count, or use the weekends to refine the outline. Which is what I am going to be working on tonight.
Tonight I am going to lay out a very broad basic outline for what I am going to be writing about. Get a general idea on the setting, characters and basic plot. That will be done in a small notebook, which I will use as a novel workbook from there on out.
I'm fairly sure that I can make 250 words a day, since I have taken a bit of time to nudge the words in this post around until it has exactly 250 words in it. And if I can write a single post, meandering though it may be, that has the target word count in it, and can write several different such posts on various blogs every day, plus the writing I do to my friends on AIM, then I can and will write 250 words on a novel each day, five days a week, until I have a finished novel.
Tonight I am going to lay out a very broad basic outline for what I am going to be writing about. Get a general idea on the setting, characters and basic plot. That will be done in a small notebook, which I will use as a novel workbook from there on out.
I'm fairly sure that I can make 250 words a day, since I have taken a bit of time to nudge the words in this post around until it has exactly 250 words in it. And if I can write a single post, meandering though it may be, that has the target word count in it, and can write several different such posts on various blogs every day, plus the writing I do to my friends on AIM, then I can and will write 250 words on a novel each day, five days a week, until I have a finished novel.
Heir on hold for another book
Okay, Heir is on the back burner once again, but this time it is for a reasonably good cause. I am still plugging away at it, but I have started trying to work on a novel with a friend of mine. I won't be saying much about it, but I am at least still working on my writing.
Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 18 I think
Today's Word Count: 0
Chapter Word Count: unknown
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work on another novel
Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 18 I think
Today's Word Count: 0
Chapter Word Count: unknown
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work on another novel
Writing on more than one novel at a time
I've got a good percent of Heir to Magic copied over into yWriter, but I have shifted my focus to another story for a brief time. There is a good reason for that, the other story works better at the point I am at in going back over the writing course I have been taking.
So, I am sort of pinging between the two novels at the moment, working on both of them as the muses shift their focus from just wanting to write, to working on the course work. It seems to be working so far, especially since I have kind of a gerbil mind that likes to shift focus at random points between one thing and another.
I'm not sure how many other writers work well when they are focusing on more than one novel at a time, but I think it would be interesting to look into as a study to see if some writers can function better when they are working on several novels or if the same group works better focusing on only one novel at a time.
So, I am sort of pinging between the two novels at the moment, working on both of them as the muses shift their focus from just wanting to write, to working on the course work. It seems to be working so far, especially since I have kind of a gerbil mind that likes to shift focus at random points between one thing and another.
I'm not sure how many other writers work well when they are focusing on more than one novel at a time, but I think it would be interesting to look into as a study to see if some writers can function better when they are working on several novels or if the same group works better focusing on only one novel at a time.
Heir to Magic
Here's something I have not been able to do for a while - an update on Heir to Magic. ::wince:: I've been forced to restart my novel. It is an involuntary start brought on by a computer virus and the loss of the thumbdrive I had my backup copy on, so I have decided that I will work my way though my novel using Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways course as a guide to help keep me on track so that I do not have the same problems I had before with the muses deciding that they wanted to follow random directions off course from the plot thread.
Mind you, I think I will still be keeping the scene where I toss a certain character over the side of the ship to force my lead character to behave, but me and the lead can negotiate on that as I work on the first half of the rewrite. For now, the tally for Heir to Magic is...
Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 0
Today's Word Count: 0
Chapter Word Count: 0
Total Word Count: 0
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: Working
National No Novel Writing Month
How about a NaNoNoWriMo? National No Novel Writing Month? If you think about it, November is one of the most insane months to be thinking novel anyway, which I guess is the point, if you can survive writing a novel in November then you can do it at any time - but I think that it was more a matter of November being the month with N-o-v-e in it, which made the month just too awww cute to pass up as Novel writing month.
Think about what else there is to be done in this month, though. For most people we have Thanksgiving, school and getting ready for Christmas.
My month includes...
A writing course I can't work on at the moment
Thanksgiving - which I pretty much blew off this year
Getting shopping in for Christmas
National Family Caregiver Month
National Alzheimer's Awareness Month
And then there is my normal work schedule.
Who has time to write 50,000 words that are just throwaway junk words? I would rather write 500 keepers than 50,000 junk words. So, instead of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I am celebrating National No Novel Writing Month (NaNoNoWriMo). Anyone else with me on this?
Think about what else there is to be done in this month, though. For most people we have Thanksgiving, school and getting ready for Christmas.
My month includes...
A writing course I can't work on at the moment
Thanksgiving - which I pretty much blew off this year
Getting shopping in for Christmas
National Family Caregiver Month
National Alzheimer's Awareness Month
And then there is my normal work schedule.
Who has time to write 50,000 words that are just throwaway junk words? I would rather write 500 keepers than 50,000 junk words. So, instead of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I am celebrating National No Novel Writing Month (NaNoNoWriMo). Anyone else with me on this?
Heir to Magic update
At long last, I can make another update to my progress on Heir to Magic. I got to working on it the other night and have added roughly 500 to 1,000 words to it. No, bad me did not keep exact count. But I know it's somewhere in that range.
Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 21
Today's Word Count: unknown (500 - 1,000)
Chapter Word Count: 1,329
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work
Heir to Magic
Current Chapter: 21
Today's Word Count: unknown (500 - 1,000)
Chapter Word Count: 1,329
Total Word Count: unknown
Current Favorite Method of Procrastination: work
Story Prompts - do they work?
You've seen those story prompt things, they generate a random idea for a story that you can flesh out and build on. I have the Writer's Idea Bank, a random story prompt generator, on my iGoogle page. It's interesting sometimes to see what the thing comes up with for story prompts. Today as I am checking the page I get:
Hmmm.... intriguing. What can I build from that? Let's see...
The year is 1889 and the protagonist has just come out of the Thames after diving in and swimming in it during a storm. Why? The location must be somewhere near a school, because there is a group of bored schoolgirls clapping as the protagonist steps out of the Thames. And a girl in a nearby house, waiting for something, is significant to the story. Okay...
The protagonist dove into the Thames to retrieve something that was lost in the river. The item was thrown into it perhaps? As the protagonist exits the river they hold their prize high to show they retrieved it. A group of schoolgirls clap unenthusiastically, acknowledging that they see the victory, but really don't care much one way or the other. The protagonist has retrieved the item for the girl that is waiting in the nearby house. Perhaps it is something of hers that someone threw away into the river?
Who would have done that? A school bully perhaps? Her step-father? or Step-mother? Maybe it is her mother's locket, and her step-mother grew angry with her and threw the locket into the Thames as punishment for something that the girl had done. The boy who wants to be the girls' friend dove into the river and found the locket for her.
Will they run away together now? What is the significance of the locket, or is it merely his hope that retrieving the locket will get the girl he loves to notice him?
The Thames can, of course, be changed to any other body of water. The ocean, a pond, an old water-filled quarry, a deep well... simply taking random segments such as the story prompt offered by the Writer's Idea Bank can provide the basic foundation for a good short story, or even a novel. You just need to be creative in reading a story into the offered prompt.
You have just been swimming in the Thames
during a violent storm.
The year is 1889;
The bored schoolgirls are clapping,
in a nearby house, a girl is waiting for something.
Hmmm.... intriguing. What can I build from that? Let's see...
The year is 1889 and the protagonist has just come out of the Thames after diving in and swimming in it during a storm. Why? The location must be somewhere near a school, because there is a group of bored schoolgirls clapping as the protagonist steps out of the Thames. And a girl in a nearby house, waiting for something, is significant to the story. Okay...
The protagonist dove into the Thames to retrieve something that was lost in the river. The item was thrown into it perhaps? As the protagonist exits the river they hold their prize high to show they retrieved it. A group of schoolgirls clap unenthusiastically, acknowledging that they see the victory, but really don't care much one way or the other. The protagonist has retrieved the item for the girl that is waiting in the nearby house. Perhaps it is something of hers that someone threw away into the river?
Who would have done that? A school bully perhaps? Her step-father? or Step-mother? Maybe it is her mother's locket, and her step-mother grew angry with her and threw the locket into the Thames as punishment for something that the girl had done. The boy who wants to be the girls' friend dove into the river and found the locket for her.
Will they run away together now? What is the significance of the locket, or is it merely his hope that retrieving the locket will get the girl he loves to notice him?
The Thames can, of course, be changed to any other body of water. The ocean, a pond, an old water-filled quarry, a deep well... simply taking random segments such as the story prompt offered by the Writer's Idea Bank can provide the basic foundation for a good short story, or even a novel. You just need to be creative in reading a story into the offered prompt.
