I’ve only written about 500 words today, half on the fanfic piece and half on the short story I’ve been working on.
I was working on the fanfic tonight, while watching a bit of TV, but it was more editing than writing. I added a few words at the end of the scene I’d been rewriting and the next one was more editing than writing. This is something that I’m hoping outlying will help me with. I seem to have to go back and do a lot of gap filling with my writing and that’s got to add to the time it takes me to get a story done. I know I can write pretty fast (three NaNoWriMo victories in the last three years), but I’ve got to learn to write a coherent first draft.
I’ve got a couple of short story anthologies I’m going to try and submit to, so I’m going to get this short story wrapped up and then focus on those anthologies and get the stories written. I am brainstorming and scribbling down ideas for them but I want to make some time to focus on them properly in the next week or so and give them the proper attention they require and deserve.
It’s been a busy day at work, and a slower but busy evening with writing. I’m feeling beat, but I’m feeling energised and enthusiastic.
(I’ve not proof-read this, so please excuse any typos).
Good morning! Well, it’s another Sunday morning, the dog is snoring at my feet, and the cat is nowhere to be seen (probably stretched out on a bed somewhere). I can hear the birds singing in the garden but that is all the sound I can hear right now. I live in a rural area and this time of the morning on a Sunday is quite often very peaceful (as I said that a car went pelting up the road at a silly speed). Anyway, this last week has felt somewhat slow, writing wise. I’ve not written a huge amount of words but I have written everyday and have averaged about 300 words a day (I’m not including yesterdays words in that). So I’m pretty chuffed with that. It’s felt like an odd week where I haven’t got much work done, but I was quite pleased when I saw that I’d done that much this week.
This last week has seemed to have gone by in a flash, but aside from Wednesday when I had a Write-In, I’ve not had an especially busy one outside of the day job. That said though, I only really had Monday and Tuesday night’s to write. I did do a few words at the Write-In, but not many. My brother and his family have just moved house, so on Thursday night I helped him move a lovely sofa they have, which wasn’t easy but we got it out the old house and into the new one. That took a bit of doing. And then on Friday we moved the bulk of his furniture. So Thursday and Friday I didn’t get a lot written, but I wasn’t expecting to because of helping my brother out. Last night I just flaked out, but I did write 600+ words in the morning before I went to work.
This week I’ve got today to get some work done, and tomorrow is a bonus day. As it’s Easter Monday we get a Bank Holiday (same with Good Friday), so no day job. I’d like to have put a big dent into my FanFic piece. I’ve barely touched that this week and would like to make some serious progress with it. The majority of the work I’ve done this week has been on the short story I’ve been playing with. It’s over 3000 words now and I like a lot of it, although I’m not sure about how strong it is. It’s a story in Owen and my Assembly universe and at worst it’s a great character piece which is letting me flesh out a character we’ve got plans for in the future, and at best something we’ll put out one day, probably in a collection.
I am thinking through to NaNoWriMo a little. I know November is a long way off but it’ll be with us sooner than we know, and I’m seriously considering writing the zombie piece I’ve just done the primary outline for. I’m thinking of this story because I always assume I’m going to be able to do more than I can during a year. It’s about seven months till November and I’m not sure we’ll be able to get The Space Watch locked down by then, I’m also going to try and submit to some anthologies this year so I’d like a little time to be writing for them as well. I’ve also got one Assembly story I’m working on the outline for, and I’d like to get another couple of outlines done for next year. I’m also thinking like this as a way to start planning what I’m writing. I’ve tried to do that a couple of times but it doesn’t play out like that. Partly because I wasn’t outlining at all, or anywhere close to the depth of outline that I need to have. So, if I decide to do this zombie story for NaNo this year then I know I’ve got over six months to spend more time on the outline, I don’t think I need that amount of time but I’ll know what I’m doing and what time frames I’ve got to work with.
Having that amount of time will also give me time to work on any submission calls I come across, as well as some short stories I want to work on in addition to outlining and planning future pieces.
I’d love to be smashing out a thousand words a day and writing where the wind takes me, but I’ve been doing that for many years and it’s not working for me. I’m hoping this steadier, more prepared, approach will prove fruitful.
I didn’t make a start on a short story like I was hoping but I did manage to knock out all the work I needed to do on the Fan Fiction piece. I created a Scrivener file, sorted the story into chapters and scenes, put my notes into the chapter/scene summary’s and added additional notes as I was going. I then added a few notes for scenes that I need to add to tie it all up, although I think some of that I’ll digress from when I come to writing them, but it’s a place to start.
I was working on this pretty much from mid-morning and didn’t finish till pushing seven this evening. Towards the end of that time I was drifting a little, but it felt really good getting so much done today.
I’m going to crack on this week with getting these edits done and try to get this fan fiction piece wrapped up. I’ll be outlining as well, and hopefully I’ll get on that short story.
I’m going to wrap up now, finish watching this episode of Red Dwarf and then get some reading done.
I’ve had another slow week, but as it came to an end I started feeling more myself than I have done in quite a few weeks. Thursday evening I was feeling a lot better and when I woke up Friday I actually felt energised.
So since then I’ve typed up my notes and order for my FanFiction piece. I’ve got a lot of organising to do with this project. I’m going to put it all into a Scrivener file and see what I need to add to connect the scenes together. I think I’ve got a good foundation, and a lot of what I need to be doing is connecting those scenes and expanding some of the scenes I’ve already written.
I have done some more outlining work on a zombie piece, but I’ve got to the point where I’m not sure what else I need to add to the outline that will be useful, so I’ve not done any work on it for a few days and see if anything shakes loose while I’m working on other pieces.
These last few weeks, okay more like two months now, I haven’t written a single word of fiction. As I said at the start of the post, I’m finally beginning to feel like myself again, and I don’t think I’d realised how unwell I was feeling. It was nothing major, but I think it was just a combination of loosing my Grandad at the end of January and some minor, albeit painful health problems. The last few months I’ve just not been myself. I do think how I crashed and burned on the Penal Earth rewrite I was working on at the start of the year hasn’t helped. About this time last week I thought about writing a short story, just a few thousand words, but I need to get some words down. Now I’m feeling pretty good again I’m going to try and get something done in the next couple of days. I’d just like to get some fresh words written, it’s been far too long since I have done that.
Owen is working his way through The Space Watch, I haven’t had any in-depth feedback so far, aside from a technical query, but I’m not expecting anything too detailed until he’s finished and we sit down and have a look at his notes.
I did finally get a Patreon going, and I’ve supported some podcasters and writers I’ve been following for a few years now. I’m a strong believer in supporting creative people, especially in this day and age when it seems like the arts aren’t being taken seriously, and I’m in a position where I can put a little bit of cash to people I like and respect.
Hopefully this coming week I’ll start moving forward again.
I’ve not blogged much recently because I want to move away from posts where I’m just updating how my writing is going. Instead I may do a post like that once a week or so, and try to focus on posts where I’m putting more thought into them talk about the things that interest and excite me.
To the writing though; I’m making steady but slow progress on my WIP, last years NaNoWriMo novel. I’m in a position where I’m editing but I’m re-writing a lot and adding some totally new sections as I go. I’m still finding my tone a little with it in places but I think it’s getting there now.
I am working on a chapter by chapter outline of the Project Delphi re-write, although I feel like I’ve hit a little bit of a bump in that. So Owen’s going to have a look and hopefully point me back on track. I will need to have a good look at the treatment for it as well and see if that shakes anything loose.
I am working on my first piece of FanFic as well. This is something I’ve not really done before but am really enjoying it. I know it’ll probably never see the light of day but I’ve learnt a lot about writing, in particular structure and character motivations. It’s really shown me that I need to do more work developing my own characters and their motivations.
Right, that’s all for now. I’m off out to be social in a short while. Tomorrow though I’m aiming for a productive morning of work.
Peter Germany's World 