WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 26 -- Sunday

[linaewen]

Greetings on the first day of the last week of our January WIP Challenge!  I'm serving as your cheerleader this week.

How have things gone so far today for you?  Do you feel confident that you are accomplishing your goals for this month?  Are you seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?   Are you happy with how things are going with your writing, even if your word count isn't where you want it to be as yet?  Tell us all about it!

For Discussion:  How do you feel about deadlines?  Do they help you stay focused on your writing, or do they hinder more than they help?

I've had a pretty good week for writing this past week.  I'm starting to get the hang of doing some writing every day, and it's helping me be more productive.  As a result, I've managed to reach several of my goals for the month, and I'm hopeful about posting another story today!  As for deadlines, they usually are helpful to me.  I have a tendency to procrastinate, so if there is a deadline with a date on something, it helps me stay on track.  That's probably one of the problems with my neglected WIPs -- somehow my self-imposed deadlines just aren't as binding as I need them to be! 

Comments

[the_rck]

I pretty much never get any writing done during the weekends while my daughter's at home. I ought to try now-- She's got a friend over, and they're keeping each other occupied (If I'm really lucky, they'll go sledding). January hasn't been a good month for writing. There've been too many days off from school for my daughter, and I'm struggling with trying to start a chapter that's like nothing else I've ever written.

I seem to do better at writing when I have an external deadline. I've never missed the deadline for a fic exchange (though I have for at least one optional challenge. I guess optional deadlines don't carry the same weight for me). I think I'd be doing better with my current WIP if I had a deadline, but I haven't found anything that works for a story that's going to take me at least a year, probably more, to finish. My estimate is that I have ten to fifteen chapters left to write, and, at best, I can do a chapter every two months.

[merryghoul]

Today: working on a Porn Battle piece, which will also be for Trope Bingo. It's coming along slowly, but it's coming along, and I expect to cut out chunks of it if the non-porny parts don't work well.

I find deadlines sometimes helpful. Depending on my muse, I can either finish something in time for a deadline or I know when to raise the white flag if I can't make a deadline.

[lilly_c]

Today has been spent editing my big bang and a couple of short pieces that are prompt fills, and I've also been adding more notes to an outline for a fix-it fic (likely to be 3 chapters) and I need to do a canon refresh but the episode I'm working with for that particular fic is one that I don't like.

My main goal for the month was to finish my big bang and I did so I'm feeling quite good about it even though the editing is slow going. I've done a few prompt fills for various challenges and although they're posted to my comm I'm still getting them on to AO3 and that is something I'm going to have to start keeping on top of.

I'm quite good at keeping to deadlines for challenges especially when I know the time limit (weekly, monthly etc.) before I sign up. The self imposed deadlines vary, sometimes they keep me motivated (example: finish a chapter, have a hot drink) and sometimes they distract too much because I then get anxious about not finishing something within a self set limit.

[juliet316]

Not much writing done this weekend. Going to try and get something done tonight.

[ladygriddlebone]

Not much writing today. I hit my word count goal of 500 words for my big WIP (for the 26th day in a row!), but that's about it. I wish I could be this productive with one-shots or other stories, but at least I'm making progress on the super-gigantic-ridiculous WIP and at this rate I may actually finish it. Based on how the rest of the story has gone so far, I estimated back at New Year's that it would take another 100K to 150K words to finish the story, and if I keep meeting my goal every day I'll exceed that. I've managed almost 20,000 words just this month so far.

Deadlines are a HUGE help for getting me to actually write shorter fic. When I try to write big bangs or chapter fics on a deadline, they just make me want to cry.