AugNoWriMo!

Caitlin Black · Aug 18, 2014

Just wrote a 550-word first draft of a short paper. It's meant to be 500 words, but I can edit it down a bit. It's due in... 3 days. Eek!

Next up, I need to basically rewrite a former assignment. It was that speech I gave, and I need to overhaul it into double the word length for an actual paper. What I have planned will mean basically using the speech as a guide, as opposed to just adding words. *sigh*

That's meant to be 1000 words, so I better get onto that soon. It's due in 6 days.

ETA: And 1070 words written for the speech-cum-paper. I think I only copy-pasted about 30-40 words, though I did use the speech as a guide. I'm pretty happy with it, actually - much happier with it than the 550-word paper, anyway.

Meanwhile, it took me about 3 hours to write 1600-ish words today... *sigh* When I'm just writing my own stuff, I can write twice as fast as that. Damn you Uni homework, you're making me look bad! :tongue

eternalised · Aug 19, 2014

Today's goals:
- write four reviews on my book review blog
- write one mini-review
- write a blog post for on my author blog
- write 2k in Ghostslayer -> get to 16k words
- edit chapter one of another YA manuscript I'm working on
- edit four chapters for one client, first round of edits
- edit sample chapter for another client

Caitlin Black · Aug 19, 2014

Eternal, I just checked your website because I was curious about you editing for clients. I see that you offer critique services, and you obviously get enough clients for it to be worthwhile.

What I was wondering was, did you have any special qualifications and/or experience when you decided to start doing this? It's something I'm considering doing when I finish Uni, but loads of people have told me that I'd need experience to hook prospective clients. So yeah - I was just curious.

chompers · Aug 19, 2014

Cliff Face said:
Just wrote a 550-word first draft of a short paper. It's meant to be 500 words, but I can edit it down a bit. It's due in... 3 days. Eek!

Next up, I need to basically rewrite a former assignment. It was that speech I gave, and I need to overhaul it into double the word length for an actual paper. What I have planned will mean basically using the speech as a guide, as opposed to just adding words. *sigh*

That's meant to be 1000 words, so I better get onto that soon. It's due in 6 days.

ETA: And 1070 words written for the speech-cum-paper. I think I only copy-pasted about 30-40 words, though I did use the speech as a guide. I'm pretty happy with it, actually - much happier with it than the 550-word paper, anyway.

Meanwhile, it took me about 3 hours to write 1600-ish words today... *sigh* When I'm just writing my own stuff, I can write twice as fast as that. Damn you Uni homework, you're making me look bad!

haha, I remember always putting off my essays until the last minute when I was in college. I'd always write my 1,000-word essays 4 hours before it was due haha.

Caitlin Black · Aug 19, 2014

I can't do that, Chompers. I've tried the last-minute approach in the past, and it's just more stress than I thought was worth it. Of course, not having a life means I can do things ahead of time easier. :tongue

Parametric · Aug 19, 2014

Cliff Face said:
Eternal, I just checked your website because I was curious about you editing for clients. I see that you offer critique services, and you obviously get enough clients for it to be worthwhile.

What I was wondering was, did you have any special qualifications and/or experience when you decided to start doing this? It's something I'm considering doing when I finish Uni, but loads of people have told me that I'd need experience to hook prospective clients. So yeah - I was just curious.

Not to muscle in

but I work full-time as an editor, mainly for self-publishing novelists, and my only semi-relevant experience was an MA in publishing. I relied on low prices, free sample edits and a referral bonus to get started with my first clients.

Caitlin Black · Aug 19, 2014

Thanks for butting in.

Those tactics were all things I was considering, so it's good to hear that you don't have to be super qualified or anything. Though an MA is better than the BA I'll have in a few months.

Parametric · Aug 19, 2014

Shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure any degree is actually necessary to do this job, so it's just about impressing the clients. :tongue

Caitlin Black · Aug 19, 2014

Good to know.

jorodo · Aug 19, 2014

My writing goal this month is shot. On a good and bad note though, I got request for a full synopsis. The bad ... I only sent out a few queries to agents that wanted queries and pages, not synopsis .. because I tried to write one and thought it was garbage.

Soooo, I was lazy and now I'm paying for it. Was up all night outlining my novel, turning the outline into a shitty synopsis and trying to tweak it all day. I guess I've technically wrote around 3000 words today. Now I'm at that delusional point where I can't even tell if the words I'm writing are making sense. :e2violin:

VP_Benni · Aug 19, 2014

I just got my last day at the Graduate School bumped to the 29th and an extra 7 hours to work on top of that. The other assistant is going out of town so I get to fill in for her. Works for me! Not like I had any plans...

I've finished 6 books total so far this month, which is awesome, and I've started putting together a few blog posts. It'll take me a little bit still to get them all pulled together, but it's progress.

I also started this ridiculous puzzle... It's gorgeous:

...but by the time I had the coffee table covered with puzzle pieces I realized about 900 of them were all the same color:

This is going to take a while.......

~Amber~

Forbidden Snowflake · Aug 19, 2014

I lost myself at 23'000 words yesterday and instead read all day long. I wish I could find my plot better...
2 books done.
1 blog post outlined but not yet posted.

Caitlin Black · Aug 20, 2014

LOL Vamp, good luck with that puzzle. It reminds me (in a far superior way - Nightmare Before Christmas for the win!) of a puzzle my brother worked on for about 6 months when I was younger: 2 rally cars driving in the snow. Most of it was just pure white.

CoffeeBeans · Aug 20, 2014

Edges first Vamp! Growing up, we always had a puzzle going in my family. At some point, we started doing them face-down...

Lots of paddling, very little distance traveled yesterday. I wrote over a k, and ended up tossing almost all of it in the cuts folder. One good conversation might be revived in a later scene, maybe. From here out, my scene list was a little vague, so I think I need to set a better goal in mind when I start out, to save this floundering.

Forbidden Snowflake · Aug 20, 2014

Did the blog post.
So it's now
23000 words
1 blog post
and 4 books read.

So, that's good

Now onto writing.

Parametric · Aug 20, 2014

Hit 20k last night. Zzzz.

PillBlast · Aug 20, 2014

eternalised said:
Today's goals:
- write four reviews on my book review blog
- write one mini-review
- write a blog post for on my author blog
- write 2k in Ghostslayer -> get to 16k words
- edit chapter one of another YA manuscript I'm working on
- edit four chapters for one client, first round of edits
- edit sample chapter for another client

Just wanted to know that I got an email from amazon recommending me your books for back to school . I'm, not sure why since I don't have kids and I never bought a book targeted at kids from them, but I was so excited when I saw it I actually snipped it. There are more of your books in the email but I just cut out the first.

Congratulations on that and I hope it results in lots of sales. :hooray:

mrsmig · Aug 20, 2014

Survived press weekend and the fundraiser event. Both went well; reviews of the show out thus far have been sterling, and the fundraiser made over $18k. However, as anticipated, very little writing was done.

August goals so far:

3,416 words written (out of 10k goal for the month)
Finished the appendices to The King's Grave and have Peter Taylor's A Summons to Memphis on my bedside table, ready to go.

eternalised · Aug 20, 2014

Oh my god, that's great. Thanks for letting me know, Pillblast! I had no idea Amazon sent out an email about my books, that's awesome.

I'm super-happy now. I even saved the capture!

Thanks for making my day.

Yaaaay!

Forbidden Snowflake · Aug 20, 2014

Congrats on everyone's progress.

Is it bad that I have 25'000 words that are completely gibberish? Seem to not come together? And frustrate me?

I've read The Giver (was so disappointed), American Psycho (was a bit what? with that one) and an erotic paranormal romance, because why not? (Black Dagger Brotherhood)

And published a blog post about my 2nd Anniversary with my partner and the cake I baked.

Still, I feel I'm not productive, sigh.

Caitlin Black · Aug 20, 2014

I've now edited that short paper to a better standard, though I still need to finish the proper referencing. Also have read about 70 pages for sociology, with another 70 to go. Ack! (Oh, and there's also a single 60-page reading that I can't access, so this week's readings for the one sociology class would be 200 pages. *flop*)

Going to try to get another 35-pager read before dinner.

Caitlin Black · Aug 21, 2014

Finished that extra reading. That's all I'm doing today, though...

Tomorrow will be finalising the short paper (including proper referencing!) in order to submit it (due tomorrow, eek!), and then doing some more readings. With any luck, I can get all the readings done by tomorrow night, and then have the weekend to work on 2 other assignments (1 due on Monday, the other a few days later on Thursday...).

CoffeeBeans · Aug 21, 2014

eternalised said:
Oh my god, that's great. Thanks for letting me know, Pillblast! I had no idea Amazon sent out an email about my books, that's awesome.

How cool! Congrats!

Forbidden Snowflake said:
Is it bad that I have 25'000 words that are completely gibberish? Seem to not come together? And frustrate me?

And published a blog post about my 2nd Anniversary with my partner and the cake I baked.

Sounds like a first draft to me :tongue

The Giver wasn't good? I read it in school as a kid, and loved it, but I did worry it wouldn't be as good as an adult...

Happy Anniversary!

Cliff Face said:
Finished that extra reading. That's all I'm doing today, though...

You've been busy! Good work!

I am convinced that the planner and stickers I bought (suggested by the YA chat thread) are the best writing purchase I've made in ages. Every day I write, I add the word count and the appropriate number of stickers to the calendar, and make a note of how long the writing took me, and where I did it on the day's section on the planner pages. Maybe it's just seeing my work build up so visually, but it does really encourage me.

I can see the end up ahead on the SNI. I think I have 11 scenes on the list, but other than one fluffy one, they are all big plot movers. I really want my nine-week novel. Really want it.

Caitlin Black · Aug 21, 2014

Submitted that short paper this morning, then went out for a bit.

I think I have about 60-70 pages to read today. It's hard to tell, as 3 of the readings are web pages, so don't have a strict page count... Going to get stuck into those soon, then hopefully tomorrow and Sunday I can power through 2 more assignments - 1 that needs edits/referencing, and 1 that needs more outlining, and a first draft.

Forbidden Snowflake · Aug 21, 2014

CoffeeBeans said:
Sounds like a first draft to me The Giver wasn't good? I read it in school as a kid, and loved it, but I did worry it wouldn't be as good as an adult...

I don't think it's a first draft, I think it's a mess

And no, I did not like The Giver, I was mostly underwhelmed by how fast it ended. And the world did not make sense to my critical self.

AugNoWriMo!

Wild one

practical experience, FTW

Wild one

Wild one

Wild one

Wild one

likes a colorful font

I'm quite put out.

Wild one

I'm quite put out.

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.

practical experience, FTW

I'm quite put out.

Wild one

Wild one

Wild one

I'm quite put out.