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.)
6 comments:
Please tell me that you WILL take a break from writing for the Thanksgiving weekend ... won't you?
I find it interesting that your quota is a mere 334 over the minimum. Its not like there's a distinct trait in our family to "cut it close"; quite the opposite for us engineer-types, we like to over-deisgn and over-build to buggery! I'd have been shooting for 2500/d so that I'd have a buffer for editing and/or days off at the end :o)
VIVE L'DIFFERENCE!!!
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.
Well, I am personally very impressed that you are doing this. (hope you don't mind the comment, I was surfing through the blogs and I came upon yours) what is the novel for/or about?
I know I always have to write college papers and they seem to take a substantial amount of work, so for you to do that every day is outstanding.
Nate
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?)
yeah, I wanted to spruce up the blog a little bit with a nice looking picture :)
I remember when I was younger I would sit down at the computer and try to write stories, it always gave me a wonderful sense of achievement (even though I look back at them and know they were utterly horrible). If only I had more time I would definitely attmept to write something for the fun of it, instead of critiques and research papers on psychology, which I sort of enjoy writing, but...
anyway, congrats so far, I bookmarked your blog so I'll be around :)
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