Category: Writing

It’s been a while since I posted a self-challenge update and, since I didn’t have anything else planned for tonight, this seemed as good a time as any to do so.

Goal 1 – write every day

I’ve written every day since May 30th with the exception of Tuesday, June 7th.  I missed Tuesday because I was completely stressed out from work and my brain was a puddle of mush sloshing inside my skull.  Ah, well.  At least I picked it up again the next day.

Goal 2 – write at least 1000 words per day, 1500 on the weekends.

I have written at least 1000 words per day, some days I’ve written more than that.  I have not necessarily written 1500 words on the weekends.  But the first draft is at 41,050 words, so we’re definitely making some progress.  Except for one slight problem…

Goal 3 – finish the first draft before I leave for the RWA conference on June 28th. (EEEK! – that’s only two weeks away).

I’m not going to be able to make this goal.

As you may remember from a recent post, I’ve had some challenges meeting my writing goals recently.  I realized today everything came to a stop because I’m dissatisfied with the direction the WIP has been taking.  It’s not bad, but it’s not…right. It’s like I’m listening to music and some of the notes are just slightly off.  Today I had to admit to myself that I’ve drifted off track, and the drifiting started fairly early in the story.

I always think of writing a first draft like the basic sketch of a painting.  The colors, the textures, even some of the details, aren’t there yet.  But the sketch gives you the bones of the painting.  The first draft gives you the bones of the book.  Good bones, good book.  But if you’ve got the bones in the wrong place, they’re never going to be what you want them to be.  If I give you blocks and you start to build a house, then change your mind and want to build a bridge, you basically have to knock the blocks down and start over again.

The good news is that, since I’ve been working with these characters for so long, I know them a lot better now than I did when I started this thing back at the beginning of May.  I’ve lived inside their heads and I have a better sense of them.  In fact, that’s how I know that the draft is sliding in the wrong direction.

So I need to pick at some threads and unravel a bit and then start again with my better, deeper knowledge of the characters.  Which means that I won’t have the draft finished in two weeks.

On the other hand, sooner or later – it will be finished!  Then I shall have victory! And I’ll keep you updated on my progress now and then, just in case somebody’s interested. 🙂

When I’m not writing, I feel sad and out of sorts.  These facts came home to me with a vengeance last week, because for some reason, I stopped writing.  I didn’t write.  At all. Nary a word.  Nary a peep, except on the blog, Facebook or Twitter. Nary a jot nor a tittle.

I’m not quite sure what happened.  In some ways last week was an exciting week – I got the draft of my book’s cover and cover copy, I found out my release date.  These are good things.  But the writing came to a full, dead, grinding, stop.  And that was very bad on many different levels.

When I’m writing, I feel centered.  Grounded.  Happy.  Writing makes me feel full.  Last week I was empty. Stressed.  Depressed.  Unfocused.  Lost.

I forced myself to start writing again on Monday.  So far, I’ve written every day this week.  At first it was like trying to push a boulder up a hill made of mud.  Day by day, it’s gotten a little easier, the boulder rolling easier, the inertia less.  Little by little, the gears are starting to move again.  The feeling of completion is coming back again.

I don’t know why I stopped writing, but now that I’ve started again the feeling of hope and joy stirring inside me remind me why I am always compelled to go back to it.

What about you?  Is there something you do that, when you do it, you hear a voice down deep inside you saying “Yes!  This is why I’m here!”

Well, if you have that thing, if you know what it is, then you are blessed indeed.  You need to go out and do it!  No excuses!  It’s important.  Not everyone is so fortunate.

And if you haven’t found your thing yet – don’t give up.  The possibilities are endless if you are willing to look.  We, all of us, are special in our own individual ways.

Now, then.  I think that I shall go, take a dose of my own medicine, and write something  🙂

While writing the first draft of the book which eventually grew up to be HOLD ME (the book being published soon – in case you didn’t know), I gave a few friends each individual chapter as soon as I was finished writing it.  I discovered about half-way through the process that this, for me anyway, was a bit of a mistake.

See, I didn’t feel like I had any freedom while I was writing the first draft.  I didn’t feel like I had the opportunity to change my mind. I had set up certain expectations and felt obligated to follow through for the sake of the readers, even if the vision developing in my head had changed. Then, when my friends made well-meaning, and even very good, suggestions, I felt like I had to respond to them immediately.  The net result was that I ended up concentrating on details and losing the bigger picture.  This is not where you need to be in the first draft of a book.

Sometime after that, I read ON WRITING by Stephen King and realized I had been trying to, as he put it, “write with the door open”.  So, when I decided to bust apart the draft I’d written and completely rework it, I kept the door gently, but firmly closed.  I didn’t even tell people I WAS writing.

And I found that the problem writing with the door closed is that you don’t have anybody to motivate you.  You don’t have anybody to cheer you on, or make you feel like you really need to keep writing, to hold you accountable.  After all, the only person who knows what you are doing is you.

Thus with this latest WIP, I decided to leave the door slightly ajar.  You all know that I AM writing, but I decided that I would only give you basic word count progress reports until the book is in the final revision stages.  I had hoped this would give me both the freedom and the motivation I need.  Hence the self-challenge I’ve been blathering on about for the last couple of weeks.

It turns out that this approach too, has its bad points and good points.

Bad points – I feel pressure to produce word count so you will judge me favorably because I’ve written the appropriate number of words in the appropriate number of days.  The problem is, I’m not sure what I’ve written is any good.  I haven’t had the time to evaluate where I am or how I got there.

Good points – Even though I haven’t met my goal to write every day, I’m much further along with my WIP than I thought I’d be.  Because I’m not revising as I go, I’m moving steadily forward, instead of lurching ahead in stops and starts.  This feels a little uncomfortable, but if I want to be a productive writer it is a skill I think I’ll need to develop.

The verdict – So far the good points outweigh the bad.  Hopefully I won’t get to the end of the first draft and realize everything I’ve written is poo.  But if I can get to the end of the first draft in 6 weeks, that will be an accomplishment all by itself.

Upshot – The door stays slightly ajar for now.

Week 3 stats (because I didn’t post them earlier) –
Write every day – No.  I didn’t write on Sunday 5/15 or Saturday 5/21.  Weekends are hard for me.
1000 words per day – my average was about 857 wpd
Finish WIP before end of June – my final word count was 28,926 – that’s about halfway to my total expected final word count of 60,000, so that’s good.

So far Week 4 sucks – I might have to think of something else to post on Sunday  🙂

Better get running!

Week 2 of my self-challenge had more…opportunities for growth, shall we say…than Week 1.  First, I was back at work, and the day job does tend to require both time and energy.  Also, I usually find the second week of anything to be more difficult than the first because the novelty has worn off.  Heaven only knows what Week 3 will bring!

Here are the stats:

1.  Write every day

I wrote every day this week except Friday, so that’s a step in the right direction.  I’m not surprised that I missed Friday, because by the end of the week I’m just struggling to drag myself through to the weekend.  But I’ll have to plan better in Week 3.  That being said, I already know that I’m not going to write today, so Week 3 isn’t starting out very well!  😛

2.  Write at least 1000 words a day, 1500 on the weekend.

I started out the week going gangbusters, but it kind of fell apart after Tuesday.  On Wednesday I only wrote 400 words.  On Thursday, I wrote 800 words and was well on my way to making my 1000, when the COMPUTER TURNED OFF!  Apparently Windows had decided that it would be a good time to automatically install updates.  Oh, you do not even want to know the foul language flowing from my mouth as I tried to stop it so I could save my document.  And then when it FINALLY rebooted, everything was gone.  Everything.  Every. Thing. Let this be a lesson, kids, save early, save often.

Needless to say, I changed the update settings after that debacle.

Friday I didn’t write, as noted above.  Saturday, I wrote about 1200 words, so I was shy of my 1500 goal.

With these problems, my average was only about 794 words per day.  Disappointing.  Bad Betsy.

If I count the 800 words I lost, the average improves to 907 words per day.  Much better.  I have decided that I shall include the 800 words.

3.  Finish first draft before RWA conference at the end of June.

Wow, I just realized how close the RWA conference is, and now feel much pressure.  Despite the many obstacles, including my new Sims3 expansion pack, I did make progress.  Last week I ended at 18,873.  This week I ended at 24,427.  At  least the number went up, right?

Unfortunately, this count includes two scenes that I know need to be cut.  I left them in so I could give an accurate accounting (it’s kind of like writing something on your to-do list so you can cross it off).  But now I’ve deleted them, so my count going into week 3 is 22,079.  This makes me really sad. Over 2000 good words gone.  But such is life, eh?  Writing a first draft, for me anyway, is like feeling your way through a dark cave with a small flashlight.  Sometimes you just take the wrong direction and need to adjust.

Okay, so there you go.  Week 2.  Who knows what Week 3 will bring?  Hopefully it will grant me a lot of writing time and creativity!

And may your week be bright and happy as well!

Here’s one thing I learned while I was on vacation last week.  I need structure. 

I mean, I kind of knew it before, but I’ve been trying to deny it.  I want to believe that I’m footloose and fancy free. That I’m bohemian. That the only thing keeping me from writing a novel a week is the fact that I have to work to pay bills and keep the indoor plumbing, but if I just had the tiiiimmmmeeee… 

The problem is, when I’m just hanging around the house all day and have all the time in the world, I just don’t seem to get much done. 

When I’m at the day job, I’m pretty productive. I have a structure. I need to be here or there at a certain time. I have to perform this or that task. When I’m at work, my entire day is structured by various expectations.  When I come home, there are tasks that must be performed in a set amount of time. 

But when I have free, unstructured time, whether during the week or when I’m on vacation, I tend not do anything productive at all.  I find myself staring at the computer screen or skimming through Facebook or Twitter.  I get distracted by the internet or tv. And then I rouse myself to find that my precious hour or two has gone and I’ve accomplished nothing worthwhile.  Since I am trying to be a productive and prolific writer, this is a problem.

But last week I actually did get some writing done.  This was mostly because I had set certain daily goals and wrote about them in my blog.  And because I’d put the goals out there, I had some incentive to try to meet them. I had created expectations and the desire to meet those expectations gave structure to my day.  Hence, I was productive.

My takeaway from all of this is that I’m going to need to come up with a structure, a business plan if you will, for my free time.  The challenge I issued to myself is a good foundation, but it will have to continue beyond the end of June and become a discipline. Then the discipline can give me a foundation for the productive use of my free time.  If my free time is used efficiently, I’ll actually be able to move forward and go anywhere I want to go.

Otherwise I’ll just be looking for the next bag of chips, brushing the salt off the corners of my mouth while I play video games in my underwear. Not that I do that. Um….no.

As you may, or may not know, last week I issued myself a challenge.  Basically, starting May 1st, I challenged myself to 1) write every day for 58 days, 2) write at least 1000 words a day (1500 words on the weekend), and 3) finish the first draft of my WIP before the RWA convention at the end of June.  Since today is the end of the first week, I thought I’d let you know how things are going.

First of all, I have to admit that I was on vacation this week so I didn’t have the problem of fitting writing into my regular work schedule.  I did, however, have some other issues getting down to business, and I’ll talk about those in my next blog post on Tuesday.

How did I do with #1? Did I write every day?

No.  I wrote 400 words on Sunday, May 1.  I did not write at all on Monday and Tuesday.  I did write every day for the rest of the week.  So my consistency left something to be desired.  Part of the reason is I was just plain tired.  Part of it was that I was out shopping for the RWA conference.  But regardless, I did not meet this particular goal this week.

#2 – write at least 1000 words per day, 1500 words per day on the weekend.

At the beginning of the week my WIP was at about 6,200 words. Today (before today’s writing block), I am at 18,873.  That’s about 12,600 words this week, or an average of 1800 words per day.  So even though my consistency left something to be desired, I did hit my word count goal for the week (and then some).  I have to admit that I probably was able to pull it off because I was on vacation, so once I actually put my nose to the grindstone, I had the time to keep it there for a while.

And how am I progressing towards #3?

Quite well, actually.  HOLD ME, the book coming out at the end of the summer, is about 104,000 words.  I’m aiming my work in progress to be shorter – probably around 50-60,000 words, or the length of a category romance.  That means I’ve made good progress this week.  I know there are a couple of scenes I’ll eventually have to delete because the characters are changing as I work with them, but it’s still moving right along.

So, all in all – a pretty good week.  And now next week the real challenge – fitting it all in with the day job. Wish me luck!  😀

How about you?  Did you issue your own challenge?  Are you moving towards it?  I hope so!  That way we’ll both make it to the finish line.