Checking in on Day 29

[linaewen]

The month of May is almost over -- yes, already!  So, how are things looking for you today in your writing?  Are you going to meet your goals for the month?  Have you already met them -- or have you already despaired of meeting them and are waiting for June to come to make a fresh start?

Click "Reply" and let us know the good or the bad, or anything in between.  Share word counts if you have one, or something about your research or idea gathering.  If you haven't made the progress you had hoped to make as yet, feel free to complain about it here and find some encouragement in the process!

Do you ever feel like this is what you are doing in order to get your word count up?
 

Comments

[linaewen]

It's the old refrain for me: I haven't written anything new for the past few days. However, I have been spending a lot of time plotting and planning, and tweaking my outlines, which is going to help me be able to write actual words that move the stories along very shortly. Maybe even today!

I am currently working on two stories at the same time, both involving the same characters. One is for a challenge that requires me to reach a certain word count, and I definitely find myself now and then thinking, "Hmmm, I wonder if I can make this sentence say the same thing, only using more words...?" ;-) I can't decide if it's a good thing or not to be aware of how many words I'm aiming for. On one hand, it is encouraging to see progress; on the other, if it's all I'm thinking about, I'm not necessarily giving the other aspects of the story the due they require. I think my recent planning is helping with that in a way; I see now that if I just write what I have outlined, there's no way I won't meet the word count quota! What I'm more likely to have to worry about is whether I'll be able to to stop and wrap it up to complete it by the due date. ;-)

The other story has no word count quota; it just has to be complete by a certain date. Unfortunately, I keep falling into the "make this story longer" frame of mind with that one, when I really just need to say it quick and finish it up!

[anyssia]

Urgh, word count quote! I thought it was a good thing at first, to help me write, but finally I spend more time watching the numbers than concentrating on my story. Same thing for the number of pages. I use Q10 now, that way I don't actually know how much I wrote (well, you can configure it as you want, but I hide everything except the word processor itself).

Anyway, good luck with your stories! Even if it's only working on the outline, you're still focusing on it, so you don't have to feel guilty about it ;p

[jagnikjen]

No recent writing for me. The muse seems to have gone on summer vacation, but I completed my challenge for the month, so all is well.

The chapter I am writing for my June challenge has been brainstormed, so all I need to do is write it. Though the problem is more that I have no desire to write it that anything, but I promised I would. And write it I shall.

[anyssia]

\O/ for your chall!

Hold in there, you can do it ;p I bet once you'll get going, you'll write words like you can't believe it :D

[vamirault]

In the past two days I've written several hundred words, which isn't much really but considering that I haven't written anything in several months, it just feels good to get anything down on paper. That I'm incredibly pleased with the way my entirely experimental stylistic choice is working out is a huge bonus.

[anyssia]

Yeah for words! Don't worry, I only wrote 500 words this week too ^^;; you're not alone in this! ;p

What's your experimental stylistic choice?

[vamirault]

Ah, it's kind of a mix of a few different elements that I'm playing with - there's no dialogue, it's written in very short, one paragraph segments, and the chronology is structured a little weirdly; there's basically two stories happening at once, one in the past and one in the present, and the present segments are moving chronologically forwards while the past segments are moving chronologically backwards and all the while it's alternating present, past, present, past, and in general it's just kind of weird and different and I didn't know if it would work. I'm still not really sure if it'll work because I know what's going on but I don't know if the reader will be able to pick up on it (although it shouldn't be too hard, because the content does follow a prompt very closely, even if the structure is odd). It's not looking to be too long of a piece, but it'll probably be a while before I can post it because I see revisions in my future.

[anyssia]

Wow, yeah, I bet it's hard to keep it together. I always have trouble following a fic in which two stories are happening at the same time, so with one going chronologically backward, it might get awkward really fast, good luck with that!! ^^

[anyssia]

I haven't written more than 500 words this week but I'm at a difficult point in the story: the actual sex scen ^^;;
I'm not that good at writing porn so I didn't force myself, because I knew it would only make things worse.

Still, I did wrote 6'700 words this month, so I count it as a win \O/ (those were my first words of the year ;p)

[bay_alexison]

The last couple of days I was moreso brainstorming/outlining what I want to happen in a couple of my stories, but I was able to get around 700 words together Friday and Saturday. What's throwing me off is one part in the story I was working on where three characters are conversing and then a fourth character will appear. Sometimes conversations flow well with me, sometimes it doesn't. >.<;

Speaking of conversations, dialogue is actually one thing I tend to do to get the word count up, LOL. BAD IDEA. I eventually though cut the dialogue down a bit and put more emotional stuff in the narrative during the editing process, though and the word count ends up more or else my target.

This month's challenge I'm able to get one of my help_japan fics done. I still haven't posted it yet because my beta is looking over it now and she just emailed me saying she should be able to finish reading it and giving suggestions by Tuesday. The other help_japan fic I already mentioned I have to go back to square one. I'm able to think up a couple ideas and wrote them down so that I don't forget, but I need to have myself get rid of distractions so that I can think more over which direction I want to take the story now.

[anyssia]

wow, you were busy ^^

well, dialogs aren't my thing at all, so I'm kind of impressed that you can use it that well. I always spend days angsting over my dialogs because it doesn't flow at all T.T

[bay_alexison]

Oi, many times my dialogs doesn't flow well for me either, so I would be upset over it. x_x The times where the conversations flowed well is when I already have an idea what the characters will talk about and their reactions. The three people and then a fourth person will come later convo I mentioned earlier I'm having a hard time because of two characters that I have never written before and I'm afraid the interactions between everyone will be bland. D:

[pipisafoat]

I tend to forget about description when I'm doing dialog, and forget about dialog when I'm focusing on something else. End result: my first drafts are always "chuck of dialog! chuck with no dialog! chuck of dialog!" etc.

So I mostly write short things so nobody notices :D

[bay_alexison]

Haha, that's how I'm like too and the results of my first drafts are the same. This is why I edit a few times and then ask my beta for any suggestions to make certain parts better. :P

[pipisafoat]

I have met more of my goals than I thought I would! (I also think that I ought to make "commenting on check-in posts" a goal for June, oops.) Wrote a 10,246 word Doctor Who fic - getting ready to do the final edit on it this afternoon - as well as getting a couple of false starts but also lots of ideas for an AU Harry Potter fic. And last night I wrote one chapter of my In Plain Sight WIP; probably two more chapters to go there. It would have been nice to get more done, but I am totally satisfied with this much. Looking forward to June!

[anyssia]

10 k this month? \O/ well done!

you're pretty productive! I'm impressed ;p

[pipisafoat]

10K this month on that! And a couple thousand more words on some other things. :D This is probably my best month for writing in, um, ever. Thanks!

[snowynight]

I only managed 2K this week. It was not a good week for writing.

[curuchamion]

I WROOOOOOOOOOTE. I wrote and wrote and wrote and then there were 50,025 words. So I came over to the Internet to tell people. :D

(Probably I am posting this comment while Linaewen is making the next post and nobody will see it. But I wrooooooooote.)

Wordcounts! Well. This is the first time I've tried to hit a minimum wordcount. Yes, I feel like I've been kind of babbling wordily. But it's mainly just because I always start with something wordy and then rephrase it to be pithy and cool; this time I just didn't rephrase before I wrote stuff down. (Ack, the amount of rewriting I will need. Especially in James's dialogue - he's this very terse person really, and I've been doing these babbly OOC paragraphs just getting down what he needs to say, because rewriting to cut his wordcount down is a Whole Other Thing.)

[linaewen]

This is totally awesome! I have been staring at a page that is begging for some words from me but so far none have been written. But you encourage me that it's actually possible to write those words -- and lots of them!

I missed the boat on a new post for Day 30, oops.