Unfortunately, a half-day. . .

With the fall term coming to a close, I have big projects due that I've hardly begun. There is one due on Thursday that I've only done some precursory work on, and I really have to focus my attention on it for the next few days. Which means that things like writing have to take a backseat for a while.

But I don't want to neglect it entirely, so today, rather than not write at all, and rather than try for ten thousand words, I'm going to try for 5. It feels a stunted amount; I usually have to struggle and push my way through several thousand words before I really get on a roll. 5K feels like I'll be cutting out just as I get into the swing of things. It feels like a compromise that leaves no one happy, but today, it'll have to do.

Well, it's not a concrete deadline. If I'm really going smoothly, I'll keep going until things are played through to the end. The 5K limit is really the limit if I'm struggling to keep going, which happens from time to time.

I just hope it doesn't happen today.

 

Wish me luck.

Cris.

 

Tally-Ho...

Getting a late start today because I had to, among other things, put the Christmas lights onto the house.

But I'm ready now, and I'm going at it full-steam... or... you know, full-steam after a slow and shaky warm-up plagued by false starts and loud, indecisive puttering. (I've about milked the train analogy to death, I think.)

My beginning word count for Scamper is 110,128. My goal, therefore, has to be 120,128, and this has to be done in the next 24 hours (still technically in one day, though not all on Sunday).

Today's title says it all, I think: Tally Ho.

 
 

 
 

Cris

Mission. . . Accomplished? Sort of?

Well, despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to write 10,000 words yesterday. Having started the whole thing at 3pm, it was too hefty a goal to set; I was up until 5 in the morning (again, it's a damned good thing I don't have school today, or I'd be well screwed), but even so, I fell asleep at my keyboard. Which was a bit cool, actually. It's not something I've ever done before, and of all things, this made me feel most like a writer. Strange, isn't it? It wasn't the 9,300 words I wrote, or the editing, or the new scenes of characterization that added a depth to secondary characters that previously had no depth. . . . it was the falling asleep that did it for me. :P

Well. All was not lost.

As I mentioned, I did write 9,300 words, and that's nothing to scoff at. Today, when I woke up, I sat myself before my computer, cranked out the rest of my goal, and now, my word count rests comfortably in the six digits, at 100,214. Awesome.

It feels weird to say it. By many accounts, that's a whole book (80-125K is the size of a lot of general fiction, I'm told). If you're going for a Brandon-Sanderson-esque epic, then 100 thousand are just your first steps on a larger journey. That dude writes books around 250-400,000 words large. And good that he does; I've read every one of his books, and they're all fantastic. He pulls it off. I'm not sure I could.

Which is why I'm aiming for somewhere around 200-250K for Scamper. That, too, is a hefty goal, but I'll get here. Hell, I'm nearly halfway there already.

This was a lot of fun; frantic writing, damn the internal editor, just keep going and going, not always producing the greatest work (though a lot of it was pretty good, I daresay), but always producing.

Yesterday's epic goal was inspired by the need to reach, for the first time ever, a word count of 100,000. But I'm beginning to wonder if I couldn't make it a regular thing, where each weekend, I aspire to write 10,000 words in a day. A NaNoWriMo Light, if you will (only not really, because if I do it every weekend for a month, I'll have 40,000 words, which is just 10K less than the goal for NaNoWriMo.)

I'm excited about this. It's a hell of a prospect, I think, and I look forward to giving it another shot this weekend.

 

 

Wish me luck.

Cris.

Today’s Goal:

As of this writing, my word count for Scamper is at 90,627. When I started writing earlier today, it was at 90,100, give or take a few words (I've been doing a lot of re-reading, a lot of editing, but not writing a lot of fresh material).

I'm excited at the prospect of reaching, for the first time ever, 100,000 words, so today, I write, and I won't stop until that goal is accomplished. =)

(It's a good thing I don't have school tomorrow, because I'll probably be up pretty damn late.)

 
 

Wish me lots (and lots and lots and lots) of luck.

 
 

Cris.

Disregard previous post

Well, I've rewritten that missing scene, and at the risk of sounding full of myself, I think I did pretty damn well. The characterization's not as strong, but there are parts that are better than before. Setting the scene, and a bit of foreshadowing that didn't exist in the previous version. Better still, I managed to string together five or six strings of a few paragraphs each into one 5-page scene. In all, I wrote around 1500 words today, and though the scene's not quite done (there's an action sequence I'm putting off, as action's not my strong suit), it's a good start. Better, even, than what I originally had for Part Two, where things happen too fast, and I head, in the very first chapter, into a situation that shouldn't come around until well towards the end of this section of the book. It's not bad writing, what I had before, but it throws Scamper (and the reader) into the thick of things before they're ready, and I wasn't quite prepared to that yet.

So, oddly enough, losing that scene ended up working out for the best.

Who'd've thought?

 

Cris.

*tired sigh*

I wrote a scene a few months ago. It was a couple of pages long, and an interesting addition to Scamper, and how he interacts within a group. It characterized someone who, previously, didn't really stand out from the other, minor characters in the group, made him a more rounded person. It wasn't a perfect scene, but it was a good one.

Long story short, I lost the scene.

It's not on my old computer. It's not on my new computer. Not on any of my three flashdrives. It's not on paper (I don't think), and not a part of any of the 30K (or so) word documents where I keep the scenes that don't yet fit in, or that I've cut out.

It's just gone, and this kills me, because I'm convinced that this 5-page scene would be a great way to enter Part Two. There are other ways to do it (I've tried and scrapped at least a half-dozen distinct ways), but I'm convinced this scene would be the best way.

If only I can find it. =/

I can always rewrite the scene, of course, but I'm always dubious of this. Rewriting a scene from memory is a tricky thing. I am, in essence, writing an outline of a scene, going by what I remember. The little flairs of inspiration, the turns of phrase, the characterizations, are gone. They won't, experience has taught me, come around a second time.

So back up your work, kids. Back it up often, and in multiple places. Two places on the same computer doesn't count. Invest in a flashdrive (or three). Use CDs. Or, if you can't afford any of these, just print out your stuff, and store multiple copies in different places.

Now, I'm going to try to recreate inspiration.

Wish me luck.



Cris.

Getting through the muck

Writing means reading. A lot. Write a scene; then revise it. Revise it again. Figure out where it fits chronologically (because I never write from beginning to end; I tend to hop around the timeline), then rewrite it to fit. Then revise it.

This involves a lot of reading of the story; which, when the scene I'm reading isn't all that great, means suffering through what can be (and sometimes is) some pretty bad writing.

It's the process, I know, by which bad writing becomes good writing, but sometimes it's tedious, and sometimes it's boring.

Then there's the other side of the coin. There are the parts I read that I haven't read in weeks or months; parts written well, which draw me to the story like they were someone else's words. An action scene that has me on the edge of my seat, or an emotional scene between two people that makes my heart skip a beat. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's a major thrill. Especially when I'm in the middle of an especially tough case of writer's block. I read a scene like this and find myself in a state of disbelief; I can write like this? Since when?

It's a boost to the ego, a shot of adrenaline I desperately need when slogging through oceanic levels of mud. Because if I've written well before, it only stands to reason that I can do it again, right?

Right?

Like I said, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's a thrill, and though it's not why I write, it certainly helps keep me going.

Just a thought.

 

--Cris

 

PS – Writing also means inevitable Microsoft Word crashes. Save your work, kids. Save often.