Yesterday went well. Not wildly well, but well enough that I made quota and a little bit more. I'm running about 3000 words behind where I should be at this point. If I keep up with quota though, that will gradually disappear and I'll be able to finish on time. (For those who wonder what my quota is, it's 2000 words/day. That's 334 words higher than the minimum needed (50K words/30 days), so if I make quota, I'm gaining ground.) I don't have much leeway for taking time off, but as I said in the beginning, this is to teach me discipline.
Now if I can only figure out where this story is going...
(On a side note, I am learning not to push for higher than quota if it's 11 pm and I'm tired. Hopefully that will help my stamina over the weekdays.)
3 comments:
The difference lies in feasibility, Herdsman. 2000 words takes me 4 to 5 hours, which is pretty much my evening limit (7 or 8 to midnight, hopefully). Another 500 words would add another hour or more. I often find reaching 2000 is a challenge in and of itself. (Plus I can barely survive on 6 hours of sleep a night as it is.) To me, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
That "small" amount would add up to finishing on 11/25, 5 days early. That, of course, assumes that the quota has been consistently reached every day, which in this case it hasn't. Plus, there is no requirement for editing. This is for a first draft only.
If you can write faster than 500 words per hour, vive l'difference, as you say. I'm doing as best as I can.
And I won't take off Thanksgiving weekend, mainly because I'm going to finish come hell or high water. Hopefully I will be able to take off Thanksgiving Day. That, of course, depends on how disciplined I can be between now and then.
Thanks, Nate. I'm pretty jazzed about doing this myself, especially since I did so well catching up this weekend.
The novel is what I call a "fluffy" sci-fi, meaning it has little substance or weight. The story is fun, with little depth (well, it's turning out to have depth, but that's not my fault). I'd love to write hard sci-fi, but obviously don't have the time to do the research during an event like this. I hope to spruce it up and maybe get it published. In the long run, that's what I'd like to do for the rest of my life, write novels. I've tried the go-to-the-office-everyday in a pretty creative field (architecture) and though I like it, I don't LOVE it.
Doing this writing "marathon" was intended to teach me to apply discipline to writing, which I think it has done excellently. Of course I had to be disciplined in school, because as you are familiar with, there are papers and projects and teachers and parents. After school it turns out that you have to motivate yourself.
To make sure I covered all the answers, I'll post the link to NaNoWriMo, http://www.nanowrimo.org . I learned about this writing-a-novel-in-a-month thing there. Apparently there are a lot of people crazy enough to try it. I think in the long run I'll apply the principles I've learned to projects throughout the year. I may change the parameters, say a novel in two months or something sane like that, but the discipline has been good.
Feel free to post anytime! (And I checked out your blog too. Love the photo in the background. Venice, right?)
Cool. Thanks, Nate. I'll be checking yours out too.
And I think writing for fun should be the first goal. If it's marketable, that's just icing on the cake.
If it's horrible, hey, at least you had fun writing it.
:)
Post a Comment