9 posts tagged “progress”

Sometimes you think your work is The Shit, sometimes you think your work ain't shit.  Sometimes you pinball between those two extremes a dozen times within a couple seconds.

Tomorrow is the 15th.  It's all but assurred I won't make my goal of a complete contiguous draft by then.  I'm not beating myself up though, progress has been good and I am still really close. 

I've never had faith that I could finish this book.   That's actually been one of my biggest obstacles to finishing.  Kind of like punching yourself in the crotch.

But this weekend for the first time ever, I started to believe I might actually finish.   I can taste it... though I have tons more to write and re-write I am creeping up on the final page.  When I write that final page, I have to go back and fill in some scenes I skipped over and then I can start re-writes. 

I had been hoping that a better ending would come to me as I approached the end of the book.  One hasn't, though my basic idea has gotten a bit refined and I might be able to build up more support when I re-write so that when the reader gets there it will feel right. 

My brain has had to go to more extreme measures to try to distract me from working on the book.  It's most cunning plan to date; it's started to give me some ideas for book 2.  I've noted them down and haven't been able to help but think about the theme of that book and where Nick will be at the beginning and end of it.  

And then it happened.  I thought of a truly kick-ass killer ending.  Unfortunately, this seriously tasty idea can only be the ending of book 2 (or possibly later). 

I really think book 2 will not take as long to write as this one is taking.   Of course, this creative flow concerning it may actually dry up fast when that becomes the novel I am supposed to be focusing on.   I'm no genius, but my brain is freaking Hannibal Lector when it comes to distracting me.   Currently though, I'm winning.  I believe I will finish this book and write another.   A massive change in fortunes from last year.

I haven't been around.  I apologize, but it's kind of a good sign.  

I got moved.  I got unpacked/stowed enough to have a housewarming party while my sister was in town.  I got sick and then better.   I got writing done.   Not the whole time.  I took a couple week hiatus before and after the move and another week's break just before the party, but I'm making progress.

See my next entry for details.   This one is one of those I'm not sorry, but I apologize notes.  Usually that's a  passive-aggressive thing.  It's nice for it to be good news all around.

But I am hanging in with my writing schedule.  I've missed a couple nights, just been exhausted, but I'm still hitting my "at least fight nights a week" goal.  

I neglected to reward myself for a couple periods, but that's OK.  Come payday I'm buying myself a new Palm Treo 700p.  

I have to find a way to make allowances for time spent editing or plotting, but I haven't figured out how to measure a fair nights work of that yet. 

I sat down thinking, I'm not going to get anything down.  This is just gonna be one of those nights I skip.

1222 new words later, I'm headed for bed.   I wrote a longish thing on my progress and why I thought it was going so well over at my other vox blog Writing In Traffic  so if you're curious you can look there.

Goodnight.

I know these progress reports are dull to anyone but me.

In the fourteen days since the new program started.  I've written 500 words or more for twelve of them.  Over 8000 words.  Not that they're all good words, but progress is progress.   I have a total of about 48,000 on the book right now.  I am not sure but I am guessing, in fact totally guessing, that this book will run 85-100k. 

The question of course, is will making up and writing scenes every night actually get me to a climax (LEAVE IT!) and conclusion?  I'm not wild about the ending I've had in mind and am hoping something better will occur to me.

In the meantime though I'm delighted to be writing as much as I have been, and some of what's been coming out hasn't totally sucked. (Now, you may make the climax joke.)

Ten of the last eleven nights I have worked on the novel.  That's better than my quota of days, and each time I hit or exceeded my wordcount quota.  I'm over 6100 words added to the novel since I started the program.

So I ordered my little reward today (a dvd I wanted) and I get to consider what treat I will buy myself if when I hit my goals again in a couple more weeks. 

I wrote six days of seven.  My goal was five of seven.  I could have done that seventh, Saturday.  Probably.  I decided to skip it so that I didn't get myself into a mental funk by getting a too many days in a row.  Why would that be a problem?  It might when I finally missed a day.  Yeah.  My brain is that messed up.

Also I was tired.

Anyway, the part that surprises me is that the writing hasn't totally sucked.   I'm doing it at night after my son is in bed.  I hadn't been writing at that time because I am usually really tired and brain dead.  Turns out though, that once I usually force a few sentences out I can often get something started that I am happy with.

Of course, I have yet to re-read any of these scenes by daylight.

It's too soon to crow about it much but I am trying a new approach, and it's led to my writing five whole days in a row. That's not much, but I honestly feel I am going to be able to maintain some consistency for at least a while.  There are two main things I am doing differently. One is re-defining the writing as something that just has to get done. The other is rewarding myself when it does.

The Stick:
Im now treating the writing as a chore. It's just something I have to get done, like taking out the garbage. Doesn't matter how good it is, but I have a daily wordcount and a number of days writing per week quota to achieve.  I've often groused that by the end of the day my mind is shot and I can't write anything good anyway. Now I am really trying to embrace the "shitty first draft" school of writing and not care about that. The only thing that matters is making my quota, which ain't that high. A couple of the nights were brutal as I really couldn't figure out what to write and I was just exhausted, but I didn't want to end my "streak" at just a few nights running. In the end, I was pretty happy with what I got (though it's still shitty first draft, it can be re-writ, not tossed completely.)

The Carrot:
If I write at least 500 words every day between now and my net paycheck, I am buying myself a couple dvd's I'm anxious to own. If I don't manage it, I'm still allowed to buy the dvds, but not during the next pay period.  There are a couple of "outs"(*).  My real goal is writing five days a week. In respect for the concept of weekends I am allowed to miss two days a week, but I am supposed to make up the 500 per day I miss in overflow from other days.  If I start consistently beating the 500/day mark, I hope to bump up the quota, but for now I want something achievable even when I have NOTHING coming out of my brain to put on the paper.

The Big Carrot:
This is unlikely, so I'm not even thinking about it much, but in September Bouchercon, THE big mystery and thriller conference of the year, is in Anchorage. IF I have a completed manuscript, it might make sense to attend (assuming I can afford it and get the time off). This would be a big reward for completing the draft, and an opportunity to meet agents and editors and be able the answer the magic question, "Why, Yes. Yes I do have a completed manuscript."

Monday about 40 minutes before "24" started, I told myself I had to make my count before turning the show on. It took about an hour and though I was now "allowed" to watch the show I decided to put it off for the next day, as I was beat. That was both carrot and stick.

The 25-page Cleanup:
Both years I found the prep that I did for Writers in Paradise helpful.  I liked combining scenes, smoothing the transitions and polishing a decent sized chunk of work.  I think every 25-pages or so, I will stop and so some cleanup. The amount of "polished" pages in a row will grow. I think this also makes me feel like a draft of a book is appearing, not just a set of scenes. Organizationally it's also good to get my stuff into fewer files, rather than one for each scene. It's kind of GTD, in that I no longer have to keep track of what scene comes before what. I start putting them together and I don't have to think about it.
 

(*) and by "a couple of outs" I mean more rule variations and exceptions than the tax code, though not as many as in Magic; The Gathering.