Writing Progress 6/18
I did much better last night than the weekend. 16 pages edited (plan calls for ten on Monday), so pretty happy there. 1,002 words added to second novel. I’m not keeping up with how many words I’m writing in Sorcerer Rising for two reasons. First, it’s done. I’m not here to add things, if anything I am cutting out words. Theoretically, I could keep up with what is added, but it would be more trouble than it’s worth. Second, it doesn’t count. This is reworking. If I started counting the words I had deleted, rewrote, added, deleted, added again, I would be the most prolific person in the world who’d ever written only one novel.
Weekend Report
Friday, I posted my goals for the weekend. Today I am posting a report on how well those goals were accomplished. Unfortunately, it would be better to say this is a report on how well they were avoided. It was a miserable failure and I have no choice but to own up to it, however much I would like to think up an excuse. So what did I accomplish? No writing for one. That’s right, not a single word. I feel the worst about that. I allowed other things to get in the way, but really I just didn’t feel like writing. That is a fatal error. I allowed that type of thinking for far too long, to the point that it took me four years to write my first novel. Tonight, I am going to write. I am looking for around a thousand words. I did do my plan. I have…
Goals For The Weekend
My goals for the weekend are as follows: Ten thousand words. A lot of writers would say this is a lofty goal. Others would say this is a low goal. Either way, I’m trying to push my boundaries. A plan. I want goals set up for the summer. I know I want the following, but am unsure how each will fall. First book published Second book first draft completed Third book started Certain amount of short stories I really want to rent The Last of Us as well but I’m going to resist that to make sure I get things done. I didn’t write much last weekend or this week at all. Sometimes you just need to buckle down.
Profanity in Writing
Keith Cronin wrote a great post on Writer Unboxed (that I just now caught up to on Feedly) about profanity in writing. It covers most of the bases, but I had some thoughts to add as well. My writing has some language in it, the f-bomb or damn most often. It’s a part of my character. He is a man of the world and has a temper that often times gets the best of him. That’s part of this character. But he is also from the South, and he’s well educated. There is a time and a place for language, and that plays into the when he says what. He doesn’t cuss around women, most of the time, because that’s how he was raised. He doesn’t use the Lord’s name in vain (Because my mother and mother in law are reading this) because he grew up Catholic and that influenced…
Writing Progress 06/11
Didn’t write last night much, about a thousand words after getting home from an MBA class. I liked what I generated though. I’m kind of in a weird spot right now and having a hard time pushing through this part of the story. It was a moment where things just kind of jumped off the rails (literally, actually) and now I was driving the story in a direction I hadn’t anticipated. With a character I hadn’t planned on. But this is how it always is for me when I’m creating new content. Transitions are difficult for me and are usually doe on the second run through, like seams. Dialogue, much to my shame, is also a difficult part to handle in these moments, especially when they’re are more than two characters. That’s something I’m trying to work on as an author as a whole. So now, I’m just writing the…