Posts Tagged ‘Progress’
It’s been a slow couple of days on the writing front. I managed to squeeze out about 200 words Monday and 400 Tuesday.
Today would have been better, had I not spent most of the day in my La-Z-Boy with a migraine-like headache. My head hurt so badly that I couldn’t even eat the lunch I made. I took a few bites and decided I hurt too much to eat.
I hurt too much to even move. I sat in the chair, half dozing and half listening to “The Doctors” and then “Oprah” while I wished I had the energy to get up and grab some Tylenol … or even reach for the bottle of water I had beside the chair … or grab a blanket off the couch to help me stop shivering.
I must have slept, because the next thing I remember, I was awake — and hungry. Unfortunately, I still didn’t feel quite well enough to do more than waste time farting around online. (I find it the best way to procrastinate. Don’t we all?)
Luckily, I buckled down at around 10:30 and cranked out a page and a half or so on Meg and Matt’s story.
General consensus so far is everyone likes “Beauty and the Ballplayer” better than “The Baby and the Ballplayer.” I think I’ve finally found my title. Woo-hoo! That’s cause for celebration. 😀
On procrastination: What’s your favorite way to avoid writing?
I’d have to say mine is either playing Bejeweled or checking out my favorite blogs. Writing blog posts is another way I procrastinate. I have three … four if you count the one over at SparkPeople. This one, of course, is my writing blog, but I have two weight-loss blogs plus SparkPeople.
Even though I had to work at the “day job” (which is really an afternoon/evening job), this has been a productive weekend.
Today, I wrote more than 2,000 words on Meg and Matt’s story. Yesterday, I went to plot group and had fun chatting about Meg, Matt, Brad, Erin, and Kari and Damien. There were only two of us there, so we covered a lot of ground.
With Pat’s help, I even came up with a tentative title for Meg and Matt. I’m leaning toward either “Beauty and the Ballplayer” or “The Baby and the Ballplayer.”
Either one might work. Matt, of course, is the ballplayer. That’d make Meg the beauty, though she hardly considers herself one. He does, though, so that counts for something. “The Baby and the Ballplayer” lays out both characters’ initial secrets, though. (She doesn’t know he’s an athlete and he doesn’t know she’s pregnant.)
When not writing, I’ve been playing with the “chart wizard” in Excel, which has led me to some startling realizations.
- Since I started charting words written on Jan. 17, I’ve put out 18,451 of them. That’s 35 days (I think), giving me an average of about 527 words a day. Not prolific, by any means, but it’s a start.
- My highest-output days are about 2,000 words. Some days it’s all I can do to squeeze out 200.
- My goal of 100K words by the end of November is about 18 1/2 percent complete. I can do it!
- Meg & Matt’s story is now up to 29,819 words. If I’m shooting to make it a category romance, which I think I am, that means I’m a wee bit past the halfway point. That’s exciting.
I take that back about 527 words a day not being prolific. I just did the math. If I averaged 500 words a day, that’d be 182,500 in a year. That’s approximately TWO single-title books or THREE category romances of 60K apiece. Wow!
Of course, I know I can’t keep writing at that pace. There’ll be more slow days … days when I do more editing than writing … days when I end up not writing anything at all. (I can already count 13 since I started keeping track.)
Even if I end up averaging just 200 a day, that’s 73K in a year. And considering I’m going to do the NaNo again, I’ll get 50K just in November (I hope. I plan to actually finish NaNo this year!)
I’m really not much of a statistics junkie … but cool charts could just help change my mind. 😉
I was all set to complain about how doing rewrites is much slower work — until I realized I wrote 900+ words today.
That’s right. All I had to do was launch into a new sex scene — one of those “more almost-sex, less food” scenes Kelly suggested — and bingo! Those 900 words practically wrote themselves.
I do, however, find myself wondering why I seem to do my best sex-scene writing in the Barnes & Noble cafe. You wouldn’t think the crowds and noise would be conducive, but I have no trouble shutting everything out so my characters can get busy.
Today’s racy scene, the first time Kari and Damien finally get to finish what they’d started, even Meg & Matt’s first big moment were written at the cafe.
I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about me. Perhaps I’m an exhibitionist at heart? 😉
Anyway, my second draft of “Blind Date Bride” is coming along quite nicely. As I’ve added things and taken others away, it has grown to nearly 95,000 words and 354 typed, double-spaced pages.
Just think: A few short months ago, I was struggling to hit 90K. I’m glad those days are behind me — at least for this manuscript.
Since I launched “Operation Treat Writing Like a Day Job,” I’ve been productive … very productive … more productive than I was most of last year.
I wrote a couple thousand words on Meg & Matt’s story and sent out three more query letters.
There’s room for improvement, of course. I only logged a word count on four of the last seven days.
I’ll try to improve on that number this week. I also have some prep to do for our NARWA board meeting this Thursday.
I also need to start getting ready for my talk on dialogue at our next regular meeting. I’m a little worried about that — I know what good dialogue sounds like, but I’m not quite sure how to go about explaining it to other people.
I sense some research coming on! 😀
Subscribe
Popular Posts
Reading Alley
