Only got 240 words today, but I’m back at the story again, and I finished the chapter “Laying Bait.” I love this chapter, and at the same time I think it’s going to be one of the ones that requires the greatest revision.
I’ll post it tomorrow. I’m still running behind on my stuff for the How To Think Sideways Walkthrough and need to work on that for a couple hours more.
How about you? Any words?
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None for me today, although I’m pretty sure I’m going to get at least 350 on a new short story before the night is done. I’m shifting to more of a revisionary posture now, so I’m going to lower my minimum quota and get started on some short story material while I work on HTRYN.
What I did do today was get a new laser printer and some supplies and prepped my novel for HTRYN. It’s all printed out, hole-punched, in a binder, and ready to go. I can already tell the laser printer is a much better investment than the inkjet I was using. It’s very fast. It made me wish I had a laser hole-puncher.
On Friday I start HTRYN =)
602 words despite a million or so distractions. Even though I’ve done quite a bit of work on my gimmick(s) it’s always a whole lot easier when the characters just explain them for me.
Morning is my writing time. No words today, I slept late. But, I did spend my lunch hour yesterday trying to format and clean up my questions. I am only a 3rd of the way through, but it’s getting readable. Maybe more today at lunch.
My weekend (Sun/Mon) was a bust with company coming to visit. I always hope I can sneak some time to myself but… not always so easy
Anyway now that the weekend is over, back to work!
Skimming over the first few bits of HTWAS at work got me another gigantic musebomb regarding probably the worst-neglected aspect of my series: the heroes’ powers.
I hadn’t really defined them…they either felt too superhero or too D&D wizard for the gritty but deeply mystical setting, which doesn’t have traditional magic or at least doesn’t have it widely available.
Now I’ve been hit by this series-shaking idea leading off my OTHER series shaking idea on not only what the heroes’ powers are, how they work, what their limitations (and there are scary ones) are and how they integrate with the other musebombs…in a way that may give me a decisive ending to my series. o.o
But true to my word I’ve just jotted this all down and continued with the HTRYN revision. ONWARD, SOLDIER.
Wanders-
That’s awesome news! Musebombs are just great…and for me always end up being a lot of work. But they are so worth it. Isn’t HTWAS just mindblowing?
Glad to hear you haven’t given into temptation and started revising! Probably one of the most torturous things ever…not being able to fix what’s broken. But I’m finding I’m learing a lot more by holding back then just diving in and fixing stuff.
What lesson are you on at this point? I’m still slowly making my way through Lesson 5…but I’m starting to see the end.
And I think I’ve found a solution to keeping my Muse happy enough to work on the revision: Giving myself a Busman’s Holiday like Holly. A day or two each week I’ll let my Muse work on the new and exciting project. IF however my Muse tries to shift away from revision I’ll have to leave this idea. But so far I’m really excited about getting work done today!
May tomorrow mean I start Lesson 6! And get a better grasp of my story idea.
Onward!
And I’ll post later tonight to let you all know how it went.
Heeeey Tori!
I’m still chewing on my Promises. I found a couple. There’s a scary assassin guy in Book I who gets a whole lot of setup and then doesn’t really do anything. Suggested fix? Have his TRUE mission turn out to be something else, and have him actually do it at the end in a loose-end-wrapping way.
And there’s another assassin woman I was toying with having this whole storyline with the first guy, and I wrote a scene for them that came out kinda cool….but was not really necessary. I may cut her entirely even though she will reappear where she was originally scheduled in a later book.
And there’s a servant girl the princess leaves behind to protect her that I think will rock up again in later books, though maybe it won’t end well x.x we’ll see.
And there’s the princess’s bodyguard, who needs MORE material because he’s barely mentioned and he’s supposed to be much more important later.
Chainsawwww time!
505 words on a new YA story about treasure hunters. This was the first time in the story that I broke through and actually wrote a scene that said ‘YA, magic, fun, adventure’, not ‘businessman w/ emotional issues tries to fake it’; at least to me anyway. It was great. I’ll try to edit the story (after I finish 1st draft) to make the rest of it like this scene.
Just getting back into my WIP after revising and translating the short story. I’m slowly building up a stock of stories that I can publish when I go Indi. Now, back to my Non-Linear Novel. If anyone wants to help me find a title (with the chance to win the first draft), head over to my Blog: http://katharina-gerlach.blogspot.com/
I had a terrible time trying to comment on your blog–it seems like it only accepts comments if you already have a account with some service or other (Google, etc.). So, I’m posting my comment here…
“I’d work with something like “Strangely Trivial Pursuits”. The line about the case being one Holmes turned down prompted me to look up why he turns down cases, which inspired this as a title. I hope it fits.”
5/25 No words this morning, but I am still on track with my revision plan. I finished formatting questions for my characters this morning and printed them out. I don’t have detailed interview questions yet about the story, but I have some in mind. They also may come from questioning the character who needs to know “why.” I will run the questions by my Muse at lunch, get her worked up about finding the answers.
Sort of an off day last night. Put in an hour. Mostly going through my previous notes on the villain’s powers (from a year ago). Now I have all the info in one place. Hope to move forward tonight.
Brainstormed for an hour today. Got a few good things. Most impt thing was finally figuring out where I was causing myself unnecessary complication (i.e. giving up the shiny that was messing up the rest of the story’s consistency). Now with that set aside, I have to figure out it’s replacement and I hope it can be just as shiny and still fit with the rest of it.
It’s funny how the brainstorming keeps circling around the same key topics/black holes. I get a few things on question 1 and that eventually leads to question 2. I get a few things which leads me to question 3 and so on through about 6 or 7 things which then loop question 1 again. They are all so interdependent. And hardest part is figuring out the correct questions to ask about each topic and also which one I should focus on first (which sometimes involves staring at the page).
Boredom seems to help my subconscious quite a bit so I just resist the temptation to do something else while I’m “thinking”.
Although my muse likes to bring on the sneak attacks: I’m halfway across the room to check some silly thing when I realize I’ve been had AGAIN.
I haven’t written so far this week or any last week. But I have an excuse I accept for myself. I had all my relatives over this weekend to celebrate my birthday and then some friends over on my actual birthday. At the same time I’m in the last weeks of my studies. (I’ll finish up the last things today.)
I’m expecting to get back to writing on Sunday or Monday. (I’m going on a trip Friday-Saturday.)
No words, answering character questions.
1061 words. This scene looks like it’s going to be another long one. New characters, description and dialogue are taking pages and pages to do. But I also realized I didn’t need a character in this scene that I thought I did. The heroine can handle this one all by herself.
BTW, I love reading what everyone else is doing. You guys are doing great and are an inspiration to me!
The musebombs are falling like rain.
I won’t be 100% until I’ve gone through the revision and either written them in or scrapped them, but I have a good feeling about these. Dominos are falling into place.
I’ve managed to condense all of my willy-nilly flashbacks and dream sequences into something far more interesting; a kind of alternate dimension the heroes can enter and interact with the artifact at the heart of the story from afar. This is the source of their dreamworld and realworld powers, the place where they meet both mentor and villain, and the place where they can discover clues to the arch-plot without copious exposition…and I can make it tense as HELL because whenever they step into this dimension, the Big Bads can hunt them and their time is short…
This dimension idea (‘dimension’, I should say, what it really is is a big spoilery twist) also gives me not just their powers, and the how and why, and the limits and dangers of using them, but it just…ties into my whole previous revelation about the series’ mythology in such a perfect way that it finally feels like it’s all coming together. It even gives me an ending. And lets me bring the original Big Bads (who’d faded into the background) into the story in a way that showcases their omnipotent, overwhelming evil without stealing their …ahem…thunder.
Ahahahahaha. God damnit. I’ve jotted all this madness down, and am TRYING to focus on finding all my hidden Promises, but even getting time away from work and god damned computers to sit with my worksheets and gnaw at this stuff is challenging.
Rocky start tonight! I wasn’t sure I was going to get anything. But it finally started to come together. Once again jumped from one topic to another but I like what I got.
I’ve figured a good deal about villain’s powers, not sure whether I got it all yet. (I hope not, it feels like I’m missing some good really-villainy stuff). Then moved on to how some of his deviousness/actions affect other people. Had to leave off with some impt questions that I’ll chip away at tomorrow.
I wish my writing time didn’t have to be so short, although it is nice to take a break and let the muse ponder to herself for awhile. (90 mins though, definitely met my goal for the night)
Hi everyone.
I haven’t written.
What’s worse, far worse, is that I haven’t wanted to write. And I have no idea why. My stories are still exciting. I still love the characters and settings and conflicts and all. But I just don’t want to sit down and write. Something’s not right here, and I don’t know what or why.
I’m sorry, Danzier.
One thing to try: maybe just do the time limit like I’m doing? I’m just making myself sit there and stare at the page for at least an hour. My muse does not like being bored. Sometimes it doesn’t work (like tonight was pretty much a bust) but other times my muse will start to show up toward the end and then the next day starts going better and so on.
It killed me having to take last weekend off–I was on such a roll. Now I feel like I’m having to slowly build back up the momentum I lost.
I’m sorry to hear that too, Danzier.
Sometimes I find that reading a good book about writing can get me jazzed about writing. Some of them have some good inspirational stuff mixed in with the practical tips that make me think, “Yeah…I can learn to make awesome stuff too.”
Off the top of my head, I like The Art of War For Writers by James Scott Bell. I could probably pick others if I had a look through my collection. And of course, Holly has some nice inspirational stuff on her website.
Music helps me a lot too. I have a selection of favorite writing music that helps put me in the mood when I sit down to write.
Maybe it would help if you could find a way to shake up your writing routine a little bit. When starting a writing session, I wonder if it’s generally helpful to kick it off with some sort of light-hearted exercise that’s designed to be fun and limber up the writing muscles before getting started with the serious work. I can see how it might be hard to sit down and dive right into something utterly grim and serious or whatever.
Maybe you just need a break. Pick a reasonable time frame. Take the break, then start back with baby steps. Put the question out there and see what’s next.
I know for me, when I start to drag my feet about sitting down and writing, I just need some guilt free time off. It’s not the same to just not write in a day, but to actually give yourself permission to not write and do something else you enjoy instead. Maybe your Muse just needs to refresh?
566 words. Not much time to write today but a scene I’ve been apprehensive about writing has morphed into a candy bar scene.
My heroine is doing cool things…all on her own! I’m saving the twist for after this long weekend.
Also, I reached my goal of doing 20k words for this revision in the month of May.
Tonight/today was so off for me. It felt like an impenetrable wall. I couldn’t focus. I thought my questions were going to be pretty logical/straight-forward/make stuff up and see how it fits together. But ugh. Just couldn’t focus or get anything going.
I’m going to try and take a step back tomorrow. Usually I enjoy this sort of fill-in-the-blanks brainstorming.
I don’t know what your writing habits are generally like, but if you’ve been working really hard over a prolonged period, sometimes the brain just needs a break, I think.
I know, I know. Very true. I am liking the habit of showing up however. I hope someday to do this full time so I really want to get into the habit of doing it even if I don’t feel like it. I was honestly quite wretched at it last night and let myself quit after I had done my minimum (and watched a movie… gah!!). I plan to do a better job tonight. I liked what you suggested about warm-up exercise and I think I’ll try Holly’s meditation method to get my head in the right place before I try to work tonight.
That sounds like a good thing to try. I used to meditate before sitting down to write. For me it was more of a calming thing because when I first started writing again after a 20 year hiatus, the thought of sitting down to each session was both exciting and intimidating.
I also used to begin each session with about 10 minutes of freewriting. I have a favorite piece of electronic space music that’s just over 10 minutes long, and it made a pretty awesome timer. Sometimes I’d do “targeted” freewriting, where I’d put a topic I wanted to explore at the top of the document, then I’d write about it, without stopping to think at all, until the timer was up. Other times I’d just write down whatever random stuff popped into my head at the time.
It was a pretty good way to limber up before a session, kinda like how an athlete might warm-up and stretch before performing feats of strength.
Maybe I should start doing some of that again.
Yeah, I like the freewrites too. I might try to encorporate that more in my routine
360 words for me today on a first draft for a short story. I’m going with a smaller word quota for the foreseeable future while I revise my novel–which I’m starting on this evening.
I woke up from a dream this morning that kept me snuggling under the covers to think about it, even though I knew I had to get up to go to work. And all the way to work I thought about it. And on the way home my brain picked up the threads again (which was really surprising after the day I had), and I was able to come home and write about 2000 words. A personal best for me in quite a while. It’s not on my main novel, but on another short story I’m looking to do to submit to a magazine.
That’s awesome, Cassie. Good job =)
Thanks Oz. Keep up the good work yourself.
Did more work on HTRYN! Yay! I’ve made significant enough progress that if I work on my lesson tomorrow and Monday I should be ready to start Lesson 6! Woot! God I’m glad to be saying that with some confidence! This was the Lesson that would never end…I’m a little worried I’m confusing some of the work with what I already did in Lesson 4…but I’ll deal with that later. For now progress is progress. I can’t screw this up any more than it already is! And I’ve already come up with a few fixes I’m excited about!
I ALSO decided that my Muse needs a change…something to keep her entertained enough to let me work on HTRYN. So I’m doing the Walkthrough of HTTS with Holly and I’m working on The Sentence now. I’m liking what I have so far but also know I’m going to be here awhile longer. The Sentence is not easy for me.
I’m just SO HAPPY I not only worked on HTRYN…but did some cool stuff with a story I’m excited to write as well! If I can keep this up I’ll be writing the new thing in July and maybe…just MAYBE be ready to submit my first work to agents. We shall see.
Things are looking up. Too bad I won’t have hours upon hours to work on this stuff. That would just be too amazing!
I’m glad things are looking up. Rewarding your Muse on a regular basis for letting you work on your revision sounds like a good plan =)
got in my brainstorming last night and pretty happy with some of the connections. today’s going to be hard but I’m determined to show up for at least an hour.