Weekly Check-In

Hello productivity!  The Savvy Boot Camp has really amped up my writing game.  I’m not writing anywhere near like what I did for NaNoWriMo this last year (it’s hard to beat 205,000 in one month) but I’m not slacking.  My goal has been to write 5K a day and revise 20 pages.  So far it’s a success!  Okay, except for the weekend and the days I’ve gone shopping.  This next week will be tough because I’ll be crewing for my mom’s cycling event so I’ll be getting my words in when I can.

Blogging.

I did say that I was easing up on the blogging.  And I have.  I feel bad that the blogs are shorter and less frequent, but sometimes something has to give.  For me right now it’s blogging.  No worries, I will return!  The blogs I have been writing are off the wall and a little kooky.  Check back tomorrow for an example of kooky blogging, lol.

Revising.

I’ve been working on an older project from last year called Maliginus.  The characters are good, the story is okay, but the voice is killing me.  I decided to emulate a more formal style of writing.  Unfortunately it totally sucks.  I read through it and roll my eyes.  My revisions right now consist of a little copy editing and a lot of rewording, removing things and fixing plot holes.  Like, the fact that a carriage mysteriously disappeared.  Yeah.  I’m thinking about taking a page from Suzan and doing a complete rewrite of the story, cutting it to one POV and scaling back the romance in favor of the bigger story.  I’m not sold on it being a worthwhile project but it’s good to go back and see what I wrote like this.

Over the weekend I cracked open this short story I wrote during NaNo called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers.  Basically I wanted to write something with lots of action, some adventure and this was the product.  The story is good and I like the characters.  Not sure what I’ll do with it, but it’s fun.

Plotting.

It’s no secret I’m in love with all things super spy, a la Alias.  I have never planned on doing a spy story because I don’t think I would have the know how to be able to do it, but I figured out a way of being able to have my cake and eat it too.  It’s also going to use some lore I created for an old book I wrote called Sing Softly which is a 100% trunk novel.  I was disappointed I would never get to use the lore, but combining it with the spy element I think I can do it and get a good novella out of it.

Also, I figured out where my plot for Little Spirits is going.  This is something I don’t really have to worry about until weekend after next.  The key for when I’m unsure where a plot is going is to write a rambling synopsis.  I did the same thing for the superhero story I want to crack open and write next week, and the plot is a lot better.  I now have a love triangle and everything!

Writing.

Like I said above, the Boot Camp has been great for my writing.  The daily goal has been to write 5,000 words of new fic, which means I’m getting a lot done, especially when you consider that my current focus are novella length works.

Project: Decoy
Genre: zombie hunter romance
Type: novella
Progress: I really love this story.  I have two adrenaline junkie characters living in the middle of the post-rising zombie apocalypse.  It’s not without the hardships, like writing myself into a corner and trying to figure out how two emotionally scarred people connect, but it’s been awesome.  I’d hoped to finish the novella by this weekend but after too any distractions it won’t be done until either Monday or Tuesday I think.  The story has undergone several changes, but I think it’s stronger for them.

Project: Unnamed Paranormal Spy Romance Thing
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: This was a hair brained idea I had and I started writing bits of it.  I probably won’t write it until later this month or later this summer.  The characters are fun and the story is full of secrets and crazy.

What I read.

• Friendly Fire by Megan Hart

ROW 80 Check In

I’m going t do a proper check in this week.  I’ve been blogging less so I might as well do the proper check in, right?  No excuses!

Okay, this last week was the kick off of the Savvy Author’s Boot Camp, which translates to uber focused writing and editing time.  I’ll talk more about it tomorrow when I do my big weekly check in.

ROW 80 Goals…

1. Finish Casual Love

Done, and done, and done! I need to write a new beginning for it but I’m not ready for that. I’m still exhausted from just writing it.  I’m kind of hoping that the last week of May I will have the three stories I have slated to write for the boot camp done and I can churne out a new beginning then, but in the meantime I should probably read over the book so I get a better handle on what exactly it is I need to establish in the beginning of the book.  This is more on the revising of this book, but oh well.

2. Finish at least two short stories.

These are more like novellas.  The first one I wrote, Rescue Me, is out making the critique rounds.  I told the group origionally two weeks and realized that with the boot camp I should wait until June, so in a monthish I’ll circle back to this and work on it again.  I have a general plan for the siblings of the sister introduced in this story in case I can write the whole family.

Decoy is what I’ve been working on in the last week.  It’s pretty awesome.  I’ll talk more about it tomorrow.

3. Do writerly things every day.

This last week was a return to the dedicated mentality of doing things every day.  Yeah, I felt guilty for the two weeks I was laying around reading all the time but I needed that.  It was writerly in that I needed my ‘word tank’ refilled.  It wasn’t obviously writing or revising or whatever time, but it’s still an important part of being a writer.  And I’m okay with that.  This last week though has seen me at the computer until all hours of the night getting in those words and pages!

4. Juggle revisions and writing.

The boot camp has made this really happen.  I revise during the day at lunch or before work, and then write and blog at night.  It’s really working out well.  The revision project this last week was a fantasy book I wrote last year called Maliginus.  I’ve been writing on Decoy.  Last night I did a quick pass through a short story I wrote during NaNo called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers.  Sometimes I really surprise myself with my writing.  All things are awesome!

NaNoWriMo Wrap Up!

Average Daily Words Written: 6,847

Total Words Written: 205,402

Target Goal to Date: 200K

Words to Make Up: 0

Projects Worked On: 4; Gate Keepers, Derby Girls Are Dangerous, Space Particle, Hockey Hotel

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Write-in’s Attended: 7

Write-in’s Hosted: 6

Total Write-in’s Hosted: 26

——-

Well, NaNoWriMo is over. It’s done. And I met my 200K goal! My brain is a pile of mush, but that’s to be expected at this point I think. My daily word average really needed to be more stable on the day-to-day basis for me to come through the month not feeling so raw, so I really can’t blame anyone but myself for that mishap. Skipping days and slacking on others was a really bad choice since my target goal was 50K higher than last year – and last year I was pushing myself to make it at the end. Today was hell.

I had a lot of success this last week though, maybe because I really buckled down at times and got stuff done. Write in’s I attended were:

• Monday: impromptu Pajama Write-in & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Pajama Write-in & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Pajama Write-in
• Saturday: Thanksgiving Write-in
• Sunday: Thanksgiving Write-in II

Out of curiosity I added up the number of write-in’s I’ve hosted – 26. That’s almost one a day. That’s crazy! Granted there were a lot of days that I had a Lunch n’ Write and something else or a Pajama Write and something else – but that’s a heck of a lot of social writing! I like having people around to write, but I’m slowly making the transition to a solitary writer. It used to not bother me, but I’m becoming more temperamental, maybe. I want to write in a certain set of factors, so to speak, for my environment to optimize writing. For instance, the last two days I’ve been writing from the hospital. It’s been a trying experience and I’m glad to have finished today at home and writing. (My dad had a scheduled surgery. Everything is just fine!)

Anyways, that’s a topic for a later date.

I’m not going to be writing any this week for two reasons: a) burn-out, I need to avoid it and b) it’s my Birthday Week. I’m going to be doing as I please people!

This last week I’ve been working on two projects: Space Particle and Derby Girls Are Dangerous.

I started out doing a lot of work on Space Particle. It’s jumpstarted from a short story I did back in Story a Day in May. There was about 10K of the hilight scenes that gave the story it’s main climaxes without any of the set up or the real story. It had such a great responce I started writing what I think of as “the real story”. The problem I ran into was a lack of plot and no real handle on the characters themselves. Last I really looked at this was probably sometime in June. I had to grasp at forgotten characters and create them. What I discovered were two characters that are deeply flawed, hurting people who think they’re fooling each other to achieve separate ends. I think that when I finally figure the whole story out it will be good, but there are a lot of rough edges on this one.

Space Particle as it is right now sits at around 33,000 words. I’m firmly into the meat of the story and have plenty that’s coming up that’s exciting. An assassination attempt, defying the established alpha government and a mysterious universal threat to uncover. There’s a lot going on and I want to write this. But I’ll finish it later, like, next year.

The last few days I’ve had a lot of luck working on my Derby Girls Are Dangerous story. I’ve had a lot of fun writing typical pissed off roller girls and lots of great character development. The characters for this one are really strong and I think that the personal journies are really awesome. It’s the plot that sucks, but I knew that going in. I had a character and situation rich environment; the plot was what I went into it blind. There are a few places that I’ve jotted down to write in later once I really hammer out the plot. I’m sort of at a point that I think I should come back, figure out the plot and do a quick pass over what’s written right now.

Derby Girls Are Dangerous is around 48,000 words. It’s probably 2/3′s done and I foresee it being a shorter book when it’s done. That’s not a bad thing! It’s just fine with me, because easier to revise at the very end. Again, this is something I’ll pick up later after I’ve had some time to rebound from this whole November thing.

Okay! So that’s what I’ve been working on this last week.

During November, I’ve worked on a lot of things. I’m really excited about my completed projects:

• Blood Bound; cyberpunk novella
• Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers; steampunk short story
• Gate Keepers; YA novel

It’s not the completed four projects I’d hoped for, but I have two very strong drafts I’m working on now, so I’m hopeful! I’m going to do a recap later on from an ML perspective, but I’m exhausted right now and actually have to work tomorrow so I’m cutting this short. Night people! It’s been real.

Goodbye NaNoWriMo 2010!

NaNoWriMo Week Three Check In!

Average Daily Words Written: 6,073

Total Words Written: 127,516

Target Goal to Date: 150K

Words to Make Up: 22,484

Projects Worked On: 4; Gate Keepers, Derby Girls Are Dangerous, Space Particle, Hockey Hotel

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Projects Not Started: Protector

Write-in’s Attended: 9

Write-in’s Hosted: 7

——-

I’m on my way to my goal of 200K, and I’m pretty sure I can still make it, but I’m going to have to make the most of the rest of November, which I have also taken off work. Readers n’ Ritas last weekend really knocked me off my already rocky game. All I’ve wanted to do all week – is read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. But I couldn’t, because I had words to write and things to do!

The write in’s this last week were sparsely attended, but that’s okay because that often means more work gets done!

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Lunch n’ Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Lunch n’ Write
• Thursday: Lunch n’ Write & #writersdatenight
• Friday: Pajama Write
• Saturday: Evening of Scribbling Wrecklessly

It was the last week for the Lunch n’ Writes since I’m going to be at home. People slowly tapered off attending until it was just Linda and I, but again – that provides for some nice, focused writing time. I didn’t go anywhere Wednesday, mostly because I was exhausted from RnR and needed to hit the sack early at least once this last week to just get some sleep!

Thursday night was really fun because we went to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter – and wrote while waiting to get in. It was fun and different and oddly productive.

This last weekend was the monthly all night writing event. I’m not sure how helpful it really is, but it’s a lot of fun. There were two rooms, one loud and one quieter – at least until the early morning hours when a few of us broke off and found another quiet corner – with couches! A good couch is apparently key to my writing success. Go figure!

So, this next week is Thanksgiving, but also a big push week for me – with no work. I’ve told people that my apartment is open for writing time during the day/evening depending on when and it looks like it’ll be a nice, busy week. I’m going to have to take a break sometime tomorrow and do some serious cleaning, but my schedule looks like this:

• Monday: Pajama Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Pajama Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Pajama Write
• Saturday: Thanksgiving Write

Nice, huh?

I’m still working on Gate Keepers, which kinda has me bummed because I would like to have finished it already. However, writing it is slow going. I like the story, I like where it’s going, and I’m so close to the end! But I have to sit and think about what I’m writing so much that it’s semi aggravating at times. I’ve been doing really well with writing about 2K on it and then moving on to something else. It’s not the best way to complete a project, but it’s working. I’ve been watching episodes of The Walking Dead and those really help to get the gears going – granted there’s nothing similar between the tv show and my story, but still. It’s zombies! The weirdest thing about Gate Keepers? The “theme” song/album. The characters are kind of, I don’t know, I wouldn’t call them bubble-gum types, but they’re all of the more ‘normal’ variety of kids than anything gritty. I’ve been listening to Haste the Day’s Pressure the Hinges album. There’s one song, Chorus of Angels, that has become THE Gate Keepers song. Don’t ask! I don’t know. There’s something about the combination of growling and singing that lends its self well to my mental eye; I have some great scenes set to the music that are really cool to write.

The other thing I’ve been working on this week mostly is my new romance, Derby Girls Are Dangerous. It’s a mash-up of paranormal shifters, and roller derby. I didn’t really know where this was going when I started. I had this great image of a chick in street derby gear taking on a werewolf armed with a paintball gun, and I sort of ran with it. I know where most of the story is going, but not the whole thing, so I’m semi-flying by the seat of my pants, or I might be, once I write what I have planned. It’s a fun story so far, nothing overly magical. I’m playing with very rigid character profiles; meaning my female character is a sort of typical angry derby girl and the male character is a work obsessed shifter. They clash and I’m hoping that they come out on paper as making each other better. I’m not totally sure I love how I’ve worked it, but it has been a lot of fun to write and put the derby characters to use.

Like I said earlier, I’ve been doing a bit more reading than I was at the beginning of the month and part of that includes reading this contemporary hockey romance series. Once upon a time I had a contemporary romance that was set around a hockey player – it fizzled out and I shelved it – but I had an idea for at least a beginning and I took the time to write up that beginning. Not sure if I’ll actually use it or not, but we’ll see!

I did work on Space Particle a little; mostly going through the old text and adding bits and pieces here and there. I’m hooppiinngg to finish Gate Keepers and then pay this project some special attention.

So my concrete goal is to finish Gate Keepers this week. It’s do-able. I think I need about 10K more to wrap it up and there’s not that much plot left and it’s mostly action writing. I can do it! I’ll just keep teling myself that. I’ll jot more on the Derby Girls story, and then shift fully into Space Particle. But we’ll see how that goes!

Well, that’s been my third week of NaNo!

NaNoWriMo Week Two Check In!

Average Daily Words Written: 5,822

Total Words Written: 81,584

Target Goal to Date: 100K

Words to Make Up: 18,416

Projects Worked On: 3; Gate Keepers, Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers, Roller derby & Paintball & Shifters

Projects Completed: 2; Blood Bound & Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers

Projects Not Started: Space Particle & Protector

Write-in’s Attended: 10

Write-in’s Hosted: 8

——-

I could be irritated about my word counts, but I’m not going to be. My overall goal is to have written over 200,000 words during November, and finish with one full novel and my novella finished, and then whatever else I write I’m okay with it not reaching The End in November.

In order to do that, I really need to write about 50K a week. I did that last week, with a little cushion. Part of it was that I was switching projects and the different demands were difficult to manage.

This last week was also an unfortunate example in how write-in’s can hinder more than help, and this is to no one’s fault but my own! Because I was writing dialogue being around people and hearing them talk interfered a lot. This last week’s schedule went like this:

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Lunch n’ Write & Addison B&N
• Wednesday: Lunch n’ Write & Arlington CB write-in
• Thursday: Lunch n’ Write & people came over to write
• Friday: Pajama Write-In
• Sunday: Pajama Write-In

The Pajama Write-In’s are possibly my favorite. Those are the days when people come over to my apartment and we curl up and just write. There’s little talking and much writing going on, or at least a lot of staring at the screen pondering what next to write. This coming week I’m not going to be attending as much, in part because the week doesn’t allow it and in part because I need to finish Gate Keepers this week.

• Monday: Lunch n’ Write & Mondayers
• Tuesday: Addison B&N
• Thursday: Harry Potter Write-In
• Friday: Pajama Write-In
• Saturday-Sunday: Evening of Scribbling Wrecklessly

So there’s plenty going on this week even with me cutting back on write-in’s.

Last week I admitted in having difficulty writing Gate Keepers, so I jumped ship and wrote Blood Bound which flowed so much easier than writing Gate Keepers. When I finished Blood Bound on Friday and started Gate Keepers on Saturday, I will admit, I was hesitant. I knew it wasn’t going to come as easily as Blood Bound and I was getting worried that it wasn’t going to be written at all.

As of today I’m officially over halfway through the story, I’m at the part where everything the characters are doing is possibly dangerous and it’s becoming easier to write it. The thing that I think I’ve been having issues with in Gate Keepers is dialogue; I’ve never written something that is so driven by character interaction so much. I start out with three teenagers, and then there are five, and suddenly there are seven crammed in an SUV and the world is standing blind in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. It’s crazy and it’s great and I’m so exhausted from writing dialogue.

During last week I took a break one day because I was running into a wall with Gate Keepers and I needed to jump tracks and just do something else. Just so happened the new Abey Park came out and I was feeling like writing a set of characters that have been in my head for a while to write so I wrote a nice short story that I have no clue what I’ll do with it. It’s called Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers, which is a bit misleading because it’s not romance so the title will probably change in time. But! I really like the way the characters were done and I have a nice setup to write more about them and perhaps in time delve into a full length novel.

I think that I still need a small, fun side project to scribble on after meeting certain daily goals of working on Gate Keepers so I’m starting to “discovery write” another idea I had that’s all about roller derby and shape shifters. Yup. How exciting is that? I’m going to see what I can make happen, but the primary goal for now is to have fun. Heck, naming the roller derby characters alone provides great amusement!

So, goals for the next week!

First up is to finish Gate Keepers. I want about 30,000 more words to finish it off to a nice first draft, YA length. I’d like to establish the roller derby story but I’m less concerned about it at the moment since it can’t decide if it wants to be urban fantasy or paranormal romance. The jury is still out, but I’m sure I’ll know in time.

Well, that’s been my second week of NaNo!

This intermission to NaNoWrimo brought to you by pirates and smugglers

So yesterday I was supposed to be working on Gate Keepers. That novel I’m writing for NaNoWrimo, ya know? Well, then I had this great scene in my head for a steampunk moment on an airship. There’s a misplaced pirate captain on a merchant vessel and they’re under attack from another bunch of pirates. In the midst of a gun fight the only woman on board throws up her skirts and pulls out a set of pistols and starts shooting!

And that’s how Gentleman Pirates and Lady Smugglers was conceived. I really wanted to write a quick piece about airships and gun fights.

I didn’t just abandon Gate Keepers; I worked on the plot some during lunch and figured out the holes I had, so my ‘road map’ is much more clear, albeit much more detailed. Here’s hoping that today I can get a lot done!

(do you have any idea how hard it is to write a blog the day before it goes up? you have to make sure instead of saying ‘today’ you have ‘yesterday’ and stuff like that. it’s too much to worry about during nano!!)