Word counts again

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 34027
New Words: 487
Present Total Word Count: 34514
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: Finding a clever way to end this is the hardest part. (This is a compilation of a few days worth of writing right now as I was in NC for a week and working on marketing projects.)

Resolutions: Finish the climax tomorrow or tonight.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: So far not so much except business emails. Next stop is gardening though.

Reason for Stopping: Hit a brick wall and needed to get the garden started.

Another progress post

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 33048
New Words: 1100
Present Total Word Count: about 34100
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: This is today's and yesterday's totals. I wrote yesterday... just not so much. Chapter 20 is done and chapter 21 is close. I think they are bother going to end up shortish but their are action and the cuts are in good places. Even though my outline has changed... I love writing into my outline. It means I never sit there and go... what do I write next. I always have some goal. Also today was the exercise in writing while babysitting. I have the 5 year old and the 10 month old to take care of and about 5 hours of time. I am pretty proud of the progress, and the children were fed, entertained and no catastrophes happened. It makes me hope that when I have children I will be able to steal enough time to write.

Resolutions: Finish up chapter 21 Monday and get 22 started at least. Hells I'd love to plow through to the end... but we'll see. I've got some other things going.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: No gardening today. I babysat for 5 hours and now I am packing up for the Exiles game.

Reason for Stopping: Had to go home and get things together for Exiles this weekend.

Current progress

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 31366
New Words: 1682
Present Total Word Count: 33048
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: I went with writing Maisie as male in this chapter and the character is coming out more. I've talked before about writing badly but plowing through to get the plot down on paper. Yeah this stuff is bad. But I can see how to fix it and the rewrite is going to be better... I hope.

Resolutions: Tomorrow I do want to get to chapter 20. This is the vital chapter. Everything is revealed here.... I have most of an outline on that. I think it will end up with some holes ala [insert clever line here] but if I can make everything tie together reasonably logically I will be happy. Even if the writing sucks. I can prosery after I'm done holding the live wires and trying to macrame with them thank you very much.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: I planted blackberry bushes, tore out bushes and gardened for 3 hours straight. I ache.

Reason for Stopping: Finished chapter 19.

Irony

Writing is happening, among other things including coming up with a marketing plan for a small business.
One thing that never fails to amaze me is the turns that a story can take. Massie's tale has taken a strange turn that seems to involve my main character being rewritten as male. So rewrites are happening, scenes are being corrected and progress is decidedly sideways.

Hiatus

I really had not planned on taking a hiatus from this blog. Unfortunatly life rather took over. Writing has been happening. The word count tickers to the side show forward progress if not enough for my satisfaction. More words will come later but for now I leave this thought. Finding the "right" words means not being afraid to try the wrong ones.

And back again

I am happy to announce that I am now Mrs. D. M. Beucler and the wedding went off with only one hitch, and that was the intended one. I decided to keep my maiden name. There are a variety of reasons why but professionally all the writing I have submitted so far is credited under this name. I would hate to lose that shadow of credibility. Besides, this means I don't have to stand in line at the social security office or change my signature or monograms.

As things are beginning to get back to normal around cricket house expect more writing updates. There might be actual content! Shocking. In the mean time I am applying butt to chair and hoping to get through this chapter soon. Over halfway through draft 1.

An update...

I have not forgotten this blog exists. Right now I in a state of "Can't sleep wedding will eat me!" This mostly contains panic attacks because the wedding dress isn't done yet (EEEP!) and odd dreams about missing the wedding due to scrubbing out the downstairs bathroom. Blogging will commence sometime after 9/20. Once I can sleep a full night with out getting up to check if I really did get enough wedding favors for everyone. In the mean time I did come up with a title for Massie's tale. That ought to count as major writing progress... or not.

Writing through the weekend

I spent the weekend writing, which sounds quite virtuous until you realize that I should have spent the weekend unpacking boxes, cleaning up the chaos from the unpacking and getting the wedding stuff done. But I managed a thousand words a day, and 1700 yesterday. The word count is up and I can see the flaws but... I can also see a story.

As a motivating factor...background noise I can tune out helps and setting my screen saver to scream "GET BACK TO WRITING!!!!" in large red letters has also helped.

Tonight is my night for dance so I expect the word count will remain low but tomorrow 25K should be my next achievement. I can not wait.

Settling in

I moved into the house completely and I am trying to vary unpacking boxes with writing. There is some success thus far.

Today's odd writing tip is flashbacks. Flashbacks can be one of the most overused bits in writing. They can work, but they can also be a crutch. And I know why. They are easy to write. You aren't immediately in the scene and your hero of choice is retelling the choice bit of action. You know they made it out alive and the is more objectivity for the writer. They take you out of the "what happens next" head space and let you plot backwards.

For example our hero Mary has blown up a spaceship and by her reflecting back we can reason out how she did it and why with a lower pressure. It's already happened. Connecting the dots in reverse. When I get stuck with a piece of action that I can't figure out how to resolve I skip ahead and write a flashback. All of these flashbacks have ended up on the cutting room floor. Once I knew where the scene needed to go I wrote the ending and deleted the flashback.

Right now I am in middle of chapter 12 of a planned 23. Things are turning out a bit different then I planned and the outline is being modified on the fly to keep it on the track to the ending. Nothing major but things have come out in the writing that give a new spin to the ending. One of my favorite parts in writing is figuring out just how the story will end up going together.

If anyone is interested in the word counter I use it is located at Zokutou. Now back to boxes, wedding invitations, and word counts. The goal for today is to finish chapter 12.

Housekeeping

Things are rather hectic in the house of Beucler. I am in the processes of finishing out my job in one city, moving to another, unpacking a house, and planning a wedding. If the blog entries are a little light at the moment and the word count is a little low, that is why.

Today's brief wandering is on the written word is an ode to the word processor. I use Word personally but I think these tricks should apply to most systems.

When I am writing at a good clip things will happen to trip me up. "What was the name of Suzy's third uncle? Which book did she read in chapter 7?" The analytical part of me wants to go check. This is death to the flow of words. By the time I check my fact and come back I've lost momentum and I have to work to get back to the scene. My solutions is to type in "xxname" or something to that effect and keep writing.

Say you are writing about Larry's journey into the woods of wonder and realize if I gave him a sword back in chapter 6 when he talks to Wizard Walter it will solve the plot problem with the giant rutabaga that's coming up. Don't stop! Type a note to yourself (I use red colored font) in the story and keep going. If you run out of words go back... but I try not to insert scenes while I am doing the first draft. In point of fact I try not to even read what I wrote before. This works for me because I outline the novel at the start and I write directly into the outline so I always know what needs to come next.

To avoid the temptation of either editing what I've already written (and thus not moving forward) I turn all of the parts I've already written into 1 pt font. Or I open a new window and write the chapter there then paste it back in the master copy. Editing for me is deadly in the first draft. I keep fixing things and making this line better and correcting that detail... and nothing moves forward.

For me it all seems to boil down to momentum.