April 2024 Challenge - Build a Writing Habit!

[kaitie]

Day 20 was 2,239 words.

After-effects of a Friday kicked in :x

Due to tiredness and procrastination, I didn't get much done during my early session... then fell asleep early, so I lost more writing time. I managed to make a bit up in the evening before eventually starting the late session, but I was still low for the day. (Granted, it was over 2k, but I've been shooting more for 2.5k or 3k because I'd been hitting those numbers.)



You could post it to sandbox and likely get a wide array of feedback. (I would probably glance at it there.)

I'm avoiding that on purpose haha. I don't mind usually, but this is kind of the biggest part of the story. I think it's okay the way I want to do it, and more impactful, I think.

I need to clean my house and do construction projects but I'm going to write first.

 

[Woollybear]

Day 21: Worked through chapter 38 again. I've reached the point in this editing process that I've accepted this draft is still hugely problematic. Instinctively, I know there are plot inconsistencies and all the rest. For a second draft (or for a solid first draft) it's not too bad, but it's deflating to know in my gut that there are a lot of issues with it.

So, I'm cleaning it and straightening it from the truly messy thing it had been, and that's good, but it's a day where I do wish the process was less of a marathon and more of a sprint.

Current count: 116,748. About 14,900 words to go.

 

[kaitie]

1400 today. Solidly sitting at 80k now, which is awesome. I wasn't entirely sure if I'd make it that far. I'm starting to think I might even hit 90k, but it's iffy. I'd be happy with that, though. We'll see.

Made it through the really crazy scenes. Have a couple of calm ones before we hit "everything goes to crap part 3", but that's all resolved a little easier and is a little more existential than fighting people. Going to stop for the night because it's late and I have work.

I'd love to finish this by the end of the month. Theoretically, I still can, but this week is also my crazy busiest week of the semester so I don't know, realistically, if I'll pull it off. I'm so close to the end I want to finish, though!

 

[Nether]

Day 21 was 2,205 words and I read the first 33 pages of PP YA (making minor fixes as-needed)

Weak early and main session. Battled a headache for a portion of the day. Called a relative, which cut into my writing time. And then the late session was about average.

I wound up reading the first 33 pages of PP YA, which I enjoyed. Good sign? Maybe, maybe not. As mentioned, I have a strange quirk where I tend to like my writing whereas others sometimes complain about feeling self-conscious. I like the characters and the narrative flows. The only kinda issue is the story isn't terribly focused, but that might come down to needing to frame it differently. And some characters, etc, are being introduced way later than planned.

All in all, the issue is I started too soon. And I knew I was probably starting too soon, but figured I'd have something resembling an outline put together pretty early on. Hasn't happened as such.

 

[Parametric]

I'm 18k deep into the revision of my YA? urban fantasy. This is a "remixed" version where I'm trying to build a more solid plot around the same characters and ideas. So far not a lot of the original text is surviving, but I'm enjoying putting my new plotting skills to the test.

 

[iwriteforfood]

1,530 words today. The MC is trying to save a sinking ship full of prisoners. She's gonna fail. I've wavered between plotting and pantsing this section, but pantsing this part has been great fun. I'm sure I'll regret this in revisions.

 

[kitkatt33]

Big day for me. 3006 words.

 

[Nether]

Day 22 was 2,871 words.

Not quite 3k. Towards the end, I kept thinking I might hit 3k, but the late session is right at the literal end of one day going into the next, so... yeah.

Still, it was a kinda-better day.

 

[kaitie]

A little over 900 today. 81k total. Woohoo.

 

[kaitie]

I don't think I'm going to get writing done tonight. Had a lot of grading to do, but finally finished it, and I'm tired. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow.

 

[Nether]

Day 23 was 3,048 words.

Got a tiny amount done early, a bunch done during the rest of the ES (where I kept going instead of going to sleep), and then just enough during the LS (which I late-started).

 

[Woollybear]

Day 24:

Polished Chapter 38 again, and it's good enough for now.

I figured out why this draft feels more frazzled the further I get into it. In the set up chapters, it felt like if I was diligent I could make this second draft fairly readable and consistent, so that by the time I reached the end the whole thing would be nice. Like I could keep track of all the various bits and make sure they all work together. It was easy enough to do that, early on.

But by this point there are so many characters and threads to tie back in and together, and some things have changed from the first draft. Somewhere in Act II (where things complicate and life gets wild and crazy) I added more than my tired little brain can easily keep track of while editing any particular Chapter Whatever.

Writing is hard.

I think overall things are much better though (I know this is true) on almost every front. Setting is better, tension, agency, plot, characterization, most of it is better. It looks like there's going to have to be another pass through to get it to all hang together, and coming to terms with that has been hard.

OK. Remaining words of rough first draft left to go = 14,600

Current count: 116,654

 

[Gehenna]

Finally finished revising Ch 16. Took longer than expected but I basically rewrote the whole thing. Yesterday I went back to my query. It sucks...

I am at a stage where I "don't know how to make it better" even if I think it's a pile of ****.

 

[Parametric]

But by this point there are so many characters and threads to tie back in and together, and some things have changed from the first draft. Somewhere in Act II (where things complicate and life gets wild and crazy) I added more than my tired little brain can easily keep track of while editing any particular Chapter Whatever.

Writing is hard.

Writing is indeed hard! I keep a master list of changes I want to make, ordered by what part/chapter of the novel needs changing, and then I also use Scrivener's document notes feature to keep more in-depth notes on potential revisions to each chapter. It's definitely too complex to try to keep it all straight in my mind.

 

[kaitie]

I use scrivener, too, and have all my notes as part of the document so I can reference them as I go. It's really helpful!

~400 actual manuscript words today. No new scene, but adding in an important section I forgot in the one I wrote a couple of days ago. But I also wrote a ~1000 word synopsis and a ~500 word synopsis, so now I have a couple of single-line hook/elevator pitches, a query, and two synopses basically ready to go once the draft is done.

 

[Nether]

Day 24 was 2,728 words.

Just keeping on keeping on.

 

[The Second Moon]

I need to start writing (and editing) again. On the 18th I re-editing the first short story in Barney and Mr. Thomas. I published it around four years ago, but I need to touch up the grammar some.

Today I'm writing in my humor sci-fi story collection, Kevin, Alfie, and Ray before I got to work. I'll share the word count I get in today later.

Edit: 409 words.

 

[Nether]

Day 25 was only 1,849 words (and some kinda-planning for an unnamed SF/sci-fantasy)

Came up short during the early session largely as a result of tiredness, meaning I was starting off a bit behind. And the fact I fell asleep for a while during the late session meant I missed hitting 2k words for the day.

Also had some ideas for a sci-fi or sci-fantasy so I took down some notes. Not sure when/if I'll use it

 

[Woollybear]

Day 26

Plowed ahead into chapter 39. Determined to finish up this second draft and let future me deal with the shortcomings in it not reaching where I'd hoped when I started last fall.

Current count: 116,653 (still about 14,600 words to go)

 

[Nether]

Day 26 was 2,522 words.

Wounds up being surprisingly good for a Friday. I had an okay-ish early session, but it was more that I managed to get a lot done in less time during the late session that pushed it over the top.

 

[Woollybear]

Day 27: Hurray! Chapter 39 was not too rough to get through this morning. I went through it again and it's cohesive. A lot transpires, bad stuff, the vise tightening. We are close to the climax.

Current count: 116,776

Remaining first draft words: 12,600

Thank you for this space, Magnus, because it helps me stay on task.

 

[Nether]

Day 27 was 2,309 words.

Given it was a Saturday, I was hoping for 3k+, but the early session and main session were weak (which can happen since I'm coming off a Friday -- ie, if I'm exhausted during Friday's late session, I'll still be tired during Saturday's early session... although I also procrastinate going into Saturday)

The other kinda issue was I'd hit a place where I wasn't sure how I wanted to continue or to get to where I needed to be for the next moment. Took me a while to figure it out

 

[Woollybear]

Day 28:

Checking in extra early because I read through chapter 39 again and it works! Hurray!

I'm moving on to chapter 40.

Current count: 116,979