Much better today. This was the first day since the start of the new novel that I really felt focused and 100% on top of the game. Quite an improvement from yesterday.
The result was a 2746-word day, putting the overall total at 10,799. There’s that safety cushion I’ve been missing. If I can string together another couple of good days, I might actually start feeling comfortable again.
Keeping track of progress on creative projects
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Deadly Light - Day Four
The first below-quota day of the Deadly Light project. Also the first time I’ve fallen behind overall pace, which I never did even during the slowest periods of Deep Mist.
Sigh.
It might not even have been so bad, but I had to re-adjust the writing schedule after coming up with nothing at all on Christmas (understandable I suppose) and the day after (less so).
Sigh again.
Do better tomorrow.
Sigh.
It might not even have been so bad, but I had to re-adjust the writing schedule after coming up with nothing at all on Christmas (understandable I suppose) and the day after (less so).
Sigh again.
Do better tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Deadly Light - Day Three
An uneven but overall successful day. I got an early start on writing this morning, hoping to hit quota before the day’s activities commenced. We have a set program of movies and holiday specials we like to watch on Christmas Eve, and I didn’t want to interrupt that to write. On the other hand, I wanted to keep on pace. Stephen King says 2000 words per day, weekends and holidays included. So that’s the standard I’ve set for myself.
For awhile it didn’t look like I was going to make it. I was nearly 500 words short when I had to stop this morning and run a last minute errand. And I couldn’t make myself go back to it. Facing the prospect of coming up short because I didn’t feel like writing (a rare occurrence during the Deep Mist challenge), I sat back down at the keyboard after Scrooge concluded the media marathon. And managed to meet and beat the 2k standard.
By odd coincidence, my daily total was exactly the same as Monday: 2191 words. The novel currently sits at 6384.
For awhile it didn’t look like I was going to make it. I was nearly 500 words short when I had to stop this morning and run a last minute errand. And I couldn’t make myself go back to it. Facing the prospect of coming up short because I didn’t feel like writing (a rare occurrence during the Deep Mist challenge), I sat back down at the keyboard after Scrooge concluded the media marathon. And managed to meet and beat the 2k standard.
By odd coincidence, my daily total was exactly the same as Monday: 2191 words. The novel currently sits at 6384.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Deadly Light - Day Two
Today felt less like creative joy and more like a job. Maybe I’m letting the holidays get me down.
I made quota by the narrowest of margins, finishing with 2002 words on the day. Even that was scraping a little, as I reached the end of the first chunk with another 20 or so words left to go. A little extra detail here and there and it was time to call it a night.
The novel currently stands at 4193 words.
I made quota by the narrowest of margins, finishing with 2002 words on the day. Even that was scraping a little, as I reached the end of the first chunk with another 20 or so words left to go. A little extra detail here and there and it was time to call it a night.
The novel currently stands at 4193 words.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Deadly Light - Day One
And so it begins again. I thought maybe I’d let the novel thing sit for awhile, maybe do the revisions for Deep Mist before proceeding on to another project. But the time seems right, and I’ve got this story in my head. Also, I need a project to focus on.
It’s off to a reasonably good start: 2191 words. That’s a slight cheat for three reasons: first, the opening 111 words are the quote from H.P. Lovecraft that supplies the title for the book. Second, I did type a few words over the weekend, just furtively playing around with it rather than commencing the project in earnest. And third, I’m working from a preexisting rough draft.
Frankly, it doesn’t seem to be much of an advantage. Other than the awkward conversion from first person in the draft to third person in the current work in progress, it isn’t a hindrance. But it doesn’t seem to be making the words flow faster, either. Well, once the first section of the novel is complete, I’ll be back to working without a net.
Many more thoughts on this, but they’ll save for tomorrow. For now I’m tired.
It’s off to a reasonably good start: 2191 words. That’s a slight cheat for three reasons: first, the opening 111 words are the quote from H.P. Lovecraft that supplies the title for the book. Second, I did type a few words over the weekend, just furtively playing around with it rather than commencing the project in earnest. And third, I’m working from a preexisting rough draft.
Frankly, it doesn’t seem to be much of an advantage. Other than the awkward conversion from first person in the draft to third person in the current work in progress, it isn’t a hindrance. But it doesn’t seem to be making the words flow faster, either. Well, once the first section of the novel is complete, I’ll be back to working without a net.
Many more thoughts on this, but they’ll save for tomorrow. For now I’m tired.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Deadly Light – Preliminaries 2
I spent a chunk of the evening fiddling with character sketches and reviewing the old draft of “The Spanking Machine.”
I think it’s time to start writing.
I think it’s time to start writing.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Deadly Light - Preliminaries
Time to start another one.
At the conclusion of Deep Mist, I vowed that it would be the last one I wrote strictly for fun. From here on out I’m working a combination of personal pleasure and market potential. With that in mind, Deadly Light will be much longer (perhaps three times the length) of anything that could be written during National Novel Writing Month.
The new project will be composed of three parts, following a set of characters as they grow from children to adults in a small town with some terrible secrets.
Part one will be an adaptation of a novella I’ve drafted at least twice already. It’s called “The Spanking Machine,” based on the childhood belief that schools possessed disciplinary devices – spanking machines – for punishing bad kids. The characters begin the tale in the springtime of their fifth grade year.
Part two – “Childish Things” – follows the characters to high school. The foursome of friends grows apart only to be thrust back together when the darkness that first found them as children returns for them on the edge of adulthood.
Part three – “Homecoming” – reunites three for the funeral of the fourth and a final showdown with the deadly light.
And yeah, I’ve got some idea of what happens in the first part and pretty much no idea at all about the second and third. Even the first needs to be around three times the length of the last draft, which means it needs a big bunch of extra character development and subplots. But as I learned last month, sometimes not having a plan is a good thing.
With that in mind, I’ve begun with character sketching. And that was the activity for today, the official commencement of this big new step.
At the conclusion of Deep Mist, I vowed that it would be the last one I wrote strictly for fun. From here on out I’m working a combination of personal pleasure and market potential. With that in mind, Deadly Light will be much longer (perhaps three times the length) of anything that could be written during National Novel Writing Month.
The new project will be composed of three parts, following a set of characters as they grow from children to adults in a small town with some terrible secrets.
Part one will be an adaptation of a novella I’ve drafted at least twice already. It’s called “The Spanking Machine,” based on the childhood belief that schools possessed disciplinary devices – spanking machines – for punishing bad kids. The characters begin the tale in the springtime of their fifth grade year.
Part two – “Childish Things” – follows the characters to high school. The foursome of friends grows apart only to be thrust back together when the darkness that first found them as children returns for them on the edge of adulthood.
Part three – “Homecoming” – reunites three for the funeral of the fourth and a final showdown with the deadly light.
And yeah, I’ve got some idea of what happens in the first part and pretty much no idea at all about the second and third. Even the first needs to be around three times the length of the last draft, which means it needs a big bunch of extra character development and subplots. But as I learned last month, sometimes not having a plan is a good thing.
With that in mind, I’ve begun with character sketching. And that was the activity for today, the official commencement of this big new step.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Deep Mist – Conclusions
Yesterday I printed the book, all 177 pages of it. Though this is small in novel terms, it looks big as a stack of paper on my desk. Double the length of my previous fiction writing record, and then some.
So here’s what I learned from participating in National Novel Writing Month 2014:
1. The project is a good idea, though the web site occasionally has problems.
2. Though my average for the project was just shy of 2000 words, I feel like my natural pace is a bit faster than that. When I could really sink my teeth into it, I cleared 2k easily and sometimes even topped 3000.
3. My writing is plot intensive. Actually I suspected that before I started. But most of my writing before this has been short stories, which by their nature tend to be mostly plot. This is something I need to work on for novel-length stuff. Longer form writing needs to have more character development. Or at least character descriptions. I know what all the characters look like in my mind, but I don’t think I described any of them.
4. I don’t need to fanatically plan every last detail in advance. This was a shock to me. I’m such a control freak, I was uncomfortable with parts of the story at the outset. I knew what points A and D were, but points B and C were unformed at best. By some miracle, when I sat down to write, those intermediate steps seemed to come naturally, popping out of nowhere when I needed them to.
5. I seem to be comfortable writing from beginning to end rather than hopping around in the plot. That also surprised me. I assumed that I’d write the big scenes I already had planned out and then fill in the gaps later. I’m glad I started at the start and motored on to the end. It worked well.
6. I write better in the evenings.
7. I write better at my desk at home.
8. I can actually do this.
So here’s what I learned from participating in National Novel Writing Month 2014:
1. The project is a good idea, though the web site occasionally has problems.
2. Though my average for the project was just shy of 2000 words, I feel like my natural pace is a bit faster than that. When I could really sink my teeth into it, I cleared 2k easily and sometimes even topped 3000.
3. My writing is plot intensive. Actually I suspected that before I started. But most of my writing before this has been short stories, which by their nature tend to be mostly plot. This is something I need to work on for novel-length stuff. Longer form writing needs to have more character development. Or at least character descriptions. I know what all the characters look like in my mind, but I don’t think I described any of them.
4. I don’t need to fanatically plan every last detail in advance. This was a shock to me. I’m such a control freak, I was uncomfortable with parts of the story at the outset. I knew what points A and D were, but points B and C were unformed at best. By some miracle, when I sat down to write, those intermediate steps seemed to come naturally, popping out of nowhere when I needed them to.
5. I seem to be comfortable writing from beginning to end rather than hopping around in the plot. That also surprised me. I assumed that I’d write the big scenes I already had planned out and then fill in the gaps later. I’m glad I started at the start and motored on to the end. It worked well.
6. I write better in the evenings.
7. I write better at my desk at home.
8. I can actually do this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)