A round of words in 80 days: A writing event where you set your own goals.
It starts tomorrow, so I’m volunteering last minute. I crashed on NaNoWriMo 2010, and since this event is a little more forgiving, I’m back at it.
So, my goal for the next eighty days is this: 250 words per day or more, five days a week.
It’s not much, so I won’t drive myself crazy on the days it just won’t come, and I get days off. And, if I get inspired, I can make much better progress.
Wish me luck!
The revision is done. Blue Crystal now stands just over 96,200 words.
No more rough edits. No more large-scale rewrites. Edits are put off until after NaNoWriMo, but after that, I’ll scrub out whatever typos and awkwardness my test readers have found and prepare my query letter.
Still sick. 960 words. Will fall into bed now with lovely, lovely aspirin.
I’m pulling an all-nighter to finish some work things I put off too long. 800 words (typed between chores) is all we’re getting today.
It’s a 1,000 word day. They were pretty hard to put down. Also, I’ve had a lot to think about atmosphere in writing. I had a tune in my head that I wanted to convey the mood of. How do you write, and make your words ring with the same emotional impact as an auditory piece?
Rylan sat back in his chair. His manacles dug into his back. “I think she’d rather die than marry you.”
“Are you certain that you’re not speaking of yourself?”
“I’d rather die than marry you, too.”
1500 words by midnight. (And the snippet amused me. Rylan doesn’t get to be funny nearly enough.)
With all of the changes I’ve been making to the plot, my traditional progress bar is less than effective. Since my typical chapters run about 5-8k, I’m guessing that tonight’s effort is about 22% of the last chapter (ish). It’s progress, at any rate.
8 complete 24-hour days until November.
Progress: 175/185 pages. 94.6%, was 92.4%.
Chapter twelve is finished. Now for the hard part. Chapter thirteen (the last chapter) needs a complete rewrite.
Blue Crystal
(Current) Word count: 99,050.
Table of contents:
‘Three Faces in Filigree’ is written. After Catch a Star, this draft will be finished, and I can start editing.
There are days you think, “What am I doing, how can I hope to tie everything up, how can I make the ending unpredictable yet still make sense?”. And then there are days when you read over the previous chapter titles, remember what happened in each, and suddenly feel so satisfied.
Alright, I’m a day early. It’s probably tomorrow off in Russia, though, so the title stays.
This is just a short update on the novel progress. I’m now sitting at 92,645 words. I’ve just finished chapter eleven last night. I’ve got two more chapters before the book is done, so I’m predicting that this draft will hit about 105k. 1,000 words a day, and I should be done before March.
Also, I’m very pleased with my reveal. I’d been worried about handling it right. Now for the grand finale!
Oh, and happy singles awareness day. 
I once read somewhere that the last 20% of a book is harder to write than all the 80% before it. I’ve been opening my book lately, rereading the last lines (right before a minor fight scene, major discovery, and pre-discussed setting), and I promptly freeze up and try to think of something else that I could do.
It’s a little like drawing. I have sketchbooks filled with character sketches, half-finished, because I’m too afraid to draw the second eye. I’m terrified that they won’t match and that I’ll have indented and smudged the paper if I get it wrong. There’s nothing worse than a very cool character that comes out cross-eyed.
I always do this before important scenes. I do this in drawing… I even do this when I’m reading. Sometimes it’s so hard to open up a book and read that first page. And when I do work up the nerve, I sit down and gush it all out at once, like a tsunami when the tide was due to come in. My goal for today is to end that scene… be it five hundred words or five thousand.
Anybody else run into this problem? How do you get over it?
