Archive for the ‘Progress’ Category

Wordy Writer

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

One thing I'll miss, now that Phase One is complete, is the rapid word count gains I saw last week. I never thought I could sustain a burst like that, but I owe it all to my detailed synopsis. One major difference between plotting and pantsing (at least for me) is the former allows me to really crank out words as I go from bullet point to bullet point.

Exhibit A: Here is a post from the NaNo forum containing the Austin Area stats as of Sunday:

Hey everybody! We have some numbers for the first week -ish. These numbers were accurate as of Sunday morning around 8 am.

We have 1,497 people homed in Austin and 827 have entered word count. Our total regional word count is 6,016,832. The average word count of folks who are writing is 7,561. With yesterday's end of day goal at 11,669, there were 191 on target - but actually, there are more because the numbers are from the beginning of day and the target was end-of-day. Anyhoo, we have two winners already!

Here's a list of the top dozen wordiest Austin authors so far:

  • Caeraerie : 101,307
  • MerryTwoTwo : 72,852
  • dalartha : 38,109
  • rianlrt : 35,153
  • theresajmc : 33,547
  • hillsc : 31,717
  • Peska : 28,084
  • MTeson : 27,815
  • marysipe : 27,284
  • Tathry : 25,742
  • OrangeTangoDoble : 25,377
  • Rabidtreeweasel : 25,059

Check me out there in sixth place. Of course, that's as good as it's going to get. I'm essentially dropping out of NaNo for now (since the spirit of NaNo is to simply crank, crank, crank, and that phase is behind me now).

It will be sad watching everyone catch up and eventually soar past me. But that's okay. I was never in it for the win this year. It was simply an excuse to get a 33k word burst in one week and prepare me for the slow and difficult part.

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Half a Draft

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

It was the end of NaNoWriMo Day 8, and I somehow found myself writing last sentences of the first draft. It felt a little strange, actually, like, "is this really happening?" But as I stared at it I thought, "Well, yes, I think it is."

But something about it didn't quite feel right either. There was no, "Wow, that felt good," moment. Or, "Man, I'm so awesome! Check me out." As I searched for the source of these feelings of discontent, I found it right in front of me: this draft.

It wasn't like anything I'd ever tried before (not that I've tried this that many times). As I thought about it, I slowly realized it's not so much a first draft as it is a highly detailed, sixty-two thousand word synopsis.

In the movie Finding Forrester, Jamal and Forrester sit down at back-to-back typewriters and this scene takes place.

Jamal: What are you doing?

Forrester: I'm writing. Like you'll be, when you start punching those keys.

A moment passes. Jamal has not begun typing.

Forrester: Is there a problem?

Jamal: No. I'm just thinking.

Forrester: No thinking. That comes later. You write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is to write. Not to think.

I really liked this scene because I remember thinking how spot-on it was. It's exactly the path I was following a year ago: just write, write, write and let it flow the first time around. Don't think about it. Don't worry about. This is the phase where what happens to your head in the process is more important than the words that hit the paper.

But it also got me nowhere. And this time around, without even a firm conscious decision to do so, I changed tactics. I used nothing but my head this time. When I followed heart, I ended up with one hundred and twenty three thousand meandering words that no one---not even me---would ever want to read. I made valiant attempts to fix it with my head on subsequent passes, but my heart had apparently taken that story to unrecoverable places.

Reboot.

This time I decided to nail the plot. I had to make sure, first and foremost, that the framework was solid. If I wrote the first draft with my head, I could then use my heart on later passes to really flesh it out, without the worry that I'd end up with all frilly words and no backbone.

And that's why this draft is just that: a backbone. It has lots of, "add something here" or "don't forget to stick this there". It's full of placeholders where I knew story needed to go but those words weren't necessary at the time to keep things going. It' as if I were building a skeleton. As I work my way down the backbone I might say, "Arm goes here . . . leg goes there," without the bother of wasting time building the perfect limbs. Yet limbs the body needs. I can't leave it with nothing but a backbone.

And that's why I got to the end of this "draft" feeling nothing but, "meh." Because it really does feel like only half of a traditional manuscript.

But it is a major milestone, and I'll take it. For the first time in my life I feel like I have a solid, complete, end-to-end story with some great potential---and that's saying a lot. Even with "half a manuscript," my job is really ninety percent done.

Now I just have to finish the other ninety percent.

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NaNoWriMo Day 4

Friday, November 5th, 2010

It is just November 4, right? (Well, okay, it's half past midnight as I write this, so technically today is NaNoWriMo Day 5.) In spite of that technicality, I did just finish up my fourth day of writing and I wanted to let you know how it's going.

Why? It's not because the entire blogosphere is dying to know what I'm up to, but because I had to go on record saying I'm utterly astonished that I've somehow written over 22,000 words in just four days. I had no idea I was capable of that. I guess that's what a little "spark" can do.

Wish me luck. It still has yet to pass the dreaded "But Is It Crap?" test. I mean, for all you know I've written, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" twenty-two hundred times.

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PBWQ->NNWM

Monday, November 1st, 2010

As PBWQ enters its third month, NNWM begins. My plan had been:

Sep: Planning
Oct: First Draft
Nov: Second Draft

But I'm only 28,300 words into the first draft: maybe one third of the way through, so now I'm about right where I was a year ago at this time. Therefore, my NaNoing this year will mirror last year's. In short: I'm not beginning and ending a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I'm hoping to add perhaps 60,000 words to an existing manuscript in 30 days.

I "won" last year, but didn't mark myself a winner, since I neither started nor finished the book in thirty days. "Don't forget to claim your winner status," the WriMos said in response to my surpassing 50k words at the three week mark. But I hadn't won for the aforementioned reasons, and this year looks like a repeat.

At least, here's hopin'...

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Back on Track

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Well, mostly. I'm writing this post on Day 17 of the First Draft. As I mentioned last time, I can't help but compare this month's progress to last year's NaNo progress. Back then, I hit 50,000 words then after just three weeks. This time around, I've had six full zero-count days and at least two more days that were close enough to zero to be zero. By Day 16 I was behind nearly 15,000 words for the month.

But . . . behind what? Some arbitrary and meaningless schedule? Sure, it was a nice plan, but you can't plan creativity, right?

Ah baloney! Of course you can and that's what I did on Day 17 (which, at the time of this writing, isn't over). I had gotten stuck at a real sticky point and decided to solve it by ignoring it. Oh, I'll come back to it later, but the very act of typing "come back to this later" in the manuscript and moving on gave me a psychological boost. My gross word count today (which, at the time of this writing, still isn't over) was 6,723. My net word count was more like 5500 because I deleted a bunch of stuff too.

So here's hoping things keep heading this direction. I doubt I'll finish the first draft by Halloween, but that will just give me something to do during NaNo: namely cheat like I did last year and start the month with a manuscript in progress.

But who's counting?

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And the Slump Returns

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

I was looking at a comparison of my writing progress for this month versus where I was during NaNoWriMo last year. What a difference a year makes. And I don't mean that in a good way. Total word count is now 12,694, which isn't bad. But that's over ten thousand words behind this month's pace and less than half my word count during last year's NaNo.

Granted, this means absolutely nothing in the long run. What surprises me is that unlike last year, I actually feel like I have a purpose this time around. Last NaNo I was pantsing it, this year I'm plotting it. Last year I had no idea where the story was going. This year I know exactly where the story is going, and even have the soundtrack music already picked out for the movie's climactic scene.

But that ain't gonna happen if I don't get my behind in gear. These books just don't write themselves, you know! So guess what I'm going to do now as soon as I submit this post? That's right! I'm going straight to bed.

🙂

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Nearly Back on Track

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Day thirty-eight of PBWQ. Made up for some lost time tonight and the manuscript sits at the delightful word-count of 11,101. I have a feeling this time around it's going to end up around 80,000 words, so it feels strange to be pushing the 15% complete mark. My main goal this time around is to make sure the story doesn't drag. So I should probably stop and read what I've written so far, but that takes time away from the actual writing.

I should be at 14,888 words today. The one big advantage PBWQ has over NNWM is (you guessed it): October is 31 day. That means only 1613 wpd instead of NaNo's blistering 1667 wpd pace.

Have a good weekend.

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Fast and Furious

Monday, October 4th, 2010

I'm three days into the fast and furious writing phase. I'm taking a slightly different approach this time too; which I can probably sum up as: "not getting too hung up on every last word." I've done that in the past and it always leads to what we call in the software development world as "premature optimization." In short, it means you're polishing something up before you even know if you'll even need it. I've wasted countless hours on words that will never see the light of day. It's paramount I get the story structure solid first. It's like working in clay: throw a lump on the wheel then begin to shape it gradually. Each pass gets closer and closer to your vision. In no case do you perfect the eyeball first and then figure out what shape the head is going to be.

Hope it helps!

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PerBoWriQua 2010: Month Two

Friday, October 1st, 2010

October. OCTOBER! We'll ignore the discussion about how September only lasted about eight days this year and instead focus on the fact that the second month of the first-ever PerBoWriQua begins today. If you're following the traditional pattern (and by "traditional" I mean "the one I just made up at the end of August") then all your outlining, planning, and synopsizing is done and you are ready to begin the first draft of your manuscript today.

If you're like me, you didn't get any of that finished. So today's the day you're going to take your good, yet incomplete, plans, and wing it. That said, I still feel positive, though admittedly a bit nervous. I always get nervous at the beginning of a project. I'm not sure why. I'd love to tell you how I feel at the end of a project because, well . . . my projects never end.

Here's hoping to break tradition.

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Running out of Time

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

As of the time of this writing, we're now about an hour and a half into the fall season in the northern hemisphere. (And did you catch that full harvest moon last night?) This means September is almost over. This also means the first month of PBWQ is almost over.

Month One, for me, meant pure R&D. It was about "getting it together" and pretty much nothing else. I've plowed forward into dense forests before only to find myself completely lost and out of energy. I swore I wouldn't let that happen this time around. I was going to do my homework and have the clearest blueprint ever before writing Word One.

Overall, I am happy with the progress. Things feel like they're coming together and, in spite of the fact that I don't have everything completely nailed down yet, this still feels right. I managed to spend some time on it even while out of town the last several days.

Let's just hope this translates into a good story. Because all the planning in the world isn't enough to make a book actually enjoyable.

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