Making Progress

I had a really good two hours of fiction today, alas it involved mostly editing, story structure and outlining, which means that not only do I have no additional words to report, but that I actually ended up deleting some, which brings me down in my grand total for the novel.

I like seeing my totals go up, but this is all part of the process and since I’m editing as I go along, it’s to be expected. I have a feeling that I’m going to clock far more than 80,000 words on this book and then am going to have to go back in with a sharp cutter and knock some of those buggers out. I feel attached to every word I’ve written so far, even though I know not all of them are necessary, so once I’ve finished writing, I will go into killer editing mode. For now, though, I’m making progress. And that’s all that matters.

Quality Vs. Quantity

What do you worry about more when you’re writing? The quality of the words you’re putting down or the quantity? Or perhaps even the time? My goal, so far, has always been to hit the 1,000-day mark, no matter the quality of the words I’m writing. I can always go back and fix later, right? But lately, I’ve found that if the quality of my words is good, I find it easier to go back and finish the scene, the chapter, the story. If the quality is bad, I beat myself up about how incredibly shit I am at writing fiction and that I’ll never amount to anything when it comes to novels.

 So a good writing day for me is one in which I’ve made a substantial dent in my word count but I’ve also written good words.

 It was a good writing day today. Not a large amount of words written, but I like them. I’ll keep them. They remind me that writing is a process and that the more I do it, the better I’ll get at it. The 60,000-word mark is so close now, I can almost touch it. I’d be thrilled if I could get there by the end of this week. Stay tuned!

 

It’s Time to Get Cracking

April 1. A new financial year in some parts of the world. A new beginning for many. No fool’s day, this. It’s time to get to work.

I’m on a normal 9-5 routine starting today. After I had a baby last year, I fell into the 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there style of working, but this morning I’m back to full-time work. 

Not as much progress on the novel as I would have hoped for, but I managed to clock two hours and 614 words today. I can live with that. 

Let's Try This One More Time

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

In 2008, I started this blog with big goals and even bigger dreams.

It’s now 2013. Five years later. The novels I started have been abandoned and sent to their deaths. The dream, however, lives on.

I am at work on a new novel. This time I’ve reached farther than I ever have before (56,000 words-- woo!), I’m much more confident in my voice and in the story I’m trying to tell and I’m committed.

Starting April 1, I’ll resume this blog to monitor my progress as I race towards the finishing line. The rules for this blog remain the same:

1. I will only post when I’ve actually doe some writing. It doesn’t matter how many words I write, but each post will have an update bar below it to show my progress. And, of course, unless there’s been progress, what’s the point of posting?

2. I aim to write 800 words a day. I might do it in spurts or I could do it in one sitting. But the aim is to write 800 words every day.

Why 800? Well, for one, it’s a nice number. There isn’t the pressure of that massive 1,000 and it’s still more than 500. It isn’t that hard a goal to achieve. Secondly, I’ve got this nice meter which is tracking how many words I’m writing and since 80,000 is my goal, an 800-word average means I’m writing 1% of my book every single day.

Ready to begin? I know I am.

(P.S. I did finish that book referenced below that I started in 2010. It was a memoir. I wrote 100,000 words. They were crap. I threw it away.)

On and Off

It's been an on and off day in terms of writing. It is the weekend after all. I spent most of the day running errands and didn't have much time to spend on the computer. But the little bits and pieces of minutes I did get went straight into my writing. I have no illusion that I'm going to be able to write on the weekends, and I also have no illusion that I'm going to write every day. But there's no pressure, since I'm going to work on this slowly, deliberately and constantly.

For now though, I'm exhausted.

Remember Me?

Hey!

It's been a while. Book projects have been on hold as life and "day job" have taken over. I have a day job I love and am very passionate about. Have I ever told you that? How lucky I am to have two loves, hey?

Anyway, I haven't mourned any of the lack of writing on any of the novel attempts or that solo memoir attempt simply because I've been too busy enjoying the rest of my life.

But as always, I'm back to where I started. Word no. 1. Sentence no. 1. Paragraph no. 1. I'm not going to give up trying. It might take months or years, maybe even decades, but one of these days I'll surprise you and finish a novel.

Attempt no. 3 starts today. The goal is 800 words a day, hopefully more. I only have an hour a day to spare though, so I better make it count.

Discovery or Fill-in-the-Blanks?

I've been writing on an average of 1,600 words a day, which is double the goal I set for myself. I'm pretty pleased. If you remember, the novel had come along at such a sluggish pace that I doubted myself almost immediately.

I have very little self-doubt with this book. I'm pretty sure I'm going to finish it, and finish it well.

That's not to say that the current words I'm writing don't suck. Oh, they do. A lot of it is telling myself what to write instead of actually writing, but I like this way better-- I'm smoothing out the plot and the scenes before actually getting into them and writing them. I'm creating a structure. And once I'm done with the structure, I'll be able to start filling it in.

A non-fiction technique, that is. But I'm used to working like that, I suppose, and it seems to be working.

Maybe, I'm beginning to think, the last two efforts haven't really worked out because I'm not a panster. I need to know what my story is-- what exactly the scenes and the characters are before I get in and start writing.

For me, writing isn't a discovery. I see it as filling in the gaps, the missing pieces.

So far, it seems to be working.