At about six p.m. I have officially finished my first draft!
Now the fun begins!
I’m as mentally exhausted as I am excited. Time for a celebratory cocktail and some NFL.
Also now I can get back to browsing your blogs. Terribly sorry for my prolonged absence.
Cheers!
m
Almost done with the first draft
I have to hand it to the NaNoWriMo challenge. Other than when I reinjured my ankle and wallowed for five days in my pain and stupidity, I’ve actually written every single day.
Some days it’s only a couple hundred words, but it’s given me a good building block to get something written every single day. Even if I’m not sharing it here, I am getting it done!
Will definitely need the help from my partner in crime cleaning up the “battle” scene. It’s not really a battle, but there’s a bunch of chaos and @jaybederwehl is very good at chaos!
Today was an incredible day. Almost 4k words!
Can you give me a “Hell yeah”!
Thanks!!
Anyway…. I’m a little fried now. So I’m going to stop here for the day. I’ll bring my notebook into the house though and maybe get some notes down.
I will finish the first draft by the end of the weekend!
HELL YEAH!
Have a fantastic weekend!
m
While I cant say I’ve written every day since Nov 1, I can say that I have done close to 8k words.
AND…. I can see my way clear to the end of the book…
YAY!.
Okay. That is all for now. I am hand scribing this evening and getting back to it while I have some ideas.
Woot woot!!
m
I am going to do it!!! Well, once I get my registration completed. My page won’t load so I can’t actually create a password.. but still!
Yes. I shall persevere!
The workday is done!
I am nomming on a salad.
I have already elbowed Mr Bederwehl @ https://feloniusinsult.com. Maybe we can entice him to participate as well.
If you’re not sure about what I’m referring to, check it out here… https://nanowrimo.org/
Now to figure out why the page won’t load, every other freaking page does.
Ugh.
m
Well… I thought about writing, I did. Truly. I even found a trajectory of sorts for the remainder of the plot…
However…. I wrote about 2.5 sentences. Total. That’s not including the 1.5 sentences I wrote today.
Ugh.
BUT… there’s always a but isn’t there- I did get to spend some awesome time with a couple of the kids. I haven’t been able to do that since I decided to break bones.
Good news is I got my kid fix and my kids got the mom fix.
That to me is a win.
And by the by… the photo in yesterday’s blog and today’s blog (I try not to reuse) is a natural rock cropping in Baja. If you look closely or not so closely it looks like a profile to me.
Meet Dave. Dave will be introduced in book 2. Dave is real.
Gonna try and tap the keys and get a page or two done.
cheers!
m
The first time I ever heard about this was a couple of years ago. My coworker did a presentation on it for our group.
Imposter theory, what a concept. Fake it ’til you make it…
It sent floods of shivers up and down my spine. I don’t think there was a single word in that presentation that I didn’t either agree with or identify with.
I’ve seen some memes with that premise as well.
It’s a real thing, yessiree.
So…. If I don’t actually ever finish my book (glances at the taskbar with the document pinned) then I won’t actually fail, because I’ll never know.
Avoidance is easier.
Not the right choice, but yes, so so so much easier.
That said it’s time for me to get on the downslide of finishing this dang book!
I’ll come back tomorrow with a report on progress.
It’s Saturday! yipee! no paid work to be done. I have my laptop, full size keyboard and a day to do nothing but write!
Big Dreams, yes indeed. I realized when yapping with @jaybederwwehl yesterday and informing him of my “big day” of writing. On a side note, I did tell him my current page count so there would be no cheating. Anyway, I realized that I really don’t have a good direction for the second half of the book.
The main characters introduced thus far have broken their huddle, but are looking toward the sidelines waiting for the next call. Of which I really don’t have. There’s bits and pieces, but some of my lightbulb moments of mental plotting have fallen by the wayside and it is very fragmented and doesn’t feel well planned.
So I think I’m going to reread my last chapter (hopefully I won’t scrap it as poo) and see if I can get my gist.
I just realized that I do have some writing paper in here, so I can handwrite some ideas. FANTASTIC!!
I was not looking forward to hopping 100+ feet to my office on uneven ground.
Have a spectacular day!
m
While I’ve been semi-good at semi-regularly posting blogs. I have let the manuscript get away from me. Ten pages in two weeks is hardly an accomplishment. Granted I know that research is part of the process, but I am my own worst enemy when it comes to pushing forward. Call it block if you will, I just call it avoidance at present. There is nothing physically or mentally keeping me from clacking the keys (as evident from the blog post).
The local fire has be a bit preoccupied today. I am in no danger of having to evacuate, but friends’ have had to. I left the house yesterday to head to the shelter to foster a pup or eighty until they can get back to their normal, and the car died on my road.
I got it started again, but didn’t feel comfortable driving it and having it not start with a few unknown puppers in the vehicle with me.
So I got the truck back up the hill and decided that imbibing a few hard seltzers was a good consolation prize.
However, please note in that equation- I did not go back to writing.
I do need to buckle down and get clacking.
How do you all cope with avoidance?
Writing can be rote. For me it needs to be. Just slacking on these last two days has made me both jittery because I didn’t write anything and chill because I gave myself an out prior to the weekend.
So what i learned about myself is that if I give myself an out, I will gladly take it. AND if I take a mere glimpse in the way back machine, that is exactly what I did for the last decade. Regardless of the various excuses I came up with, I left the craft.
Now I know two days isn’t a trend, but it takes a conscious effort before something becomes rote.
Now I just need to add some pages to the manuscript.
Cheers!
m
Ironically, I do need corrective lenses, but that’s not what this post is about. Today I shall enumerate on my opinion of the value of a writing partner.
When I started the aforementioned novel that is still sitting in my documents folder back in 2008, I had written some short stories of the erotic nature and had received some positive feedback on them. Namely that they were “hot”. Which, as will most forms of erotica/sexual content- that’s what it’s supposed to do. Yay, score one for me! Now I wanted to take that ability and insert it into a novel. I came up with my premise, had my two main characters, three actually. I already had my best supporting character up front and center.
I wasn’t married at the time, and the kids were either already out of the house, over 18, or in bed at a reasonable hour (8 pm) because they were still in grade school. This left me plenty of time to clack at the keys after they went to bed.
So one night I had this idea and started typing. I sent off a page to @jaybederwehl and he said… keep going.
So I did.
This was back when instant messaging was more of a thing and an immediate response to a message was born. Jay and I would write a paragraph, come up with an idea, consider a what if, send it off to one another and continue typing away.
When something worked, we said so, when it didn’t- we said that also. We’ve had eyes on each other’s projects almost from the start and all the way through the process of the book (or books in his case). We developed a working strategy, if we received something to review there are facets to that:
I can’t tell you how many times Jay brought me back on track, or liked an idea but suggested maybe it should fit elsewhere (and he was right) or something just didn’t fit.
Thankfully Jay and I had already been collaborating on ideas, bantering about writing, the process, the dreams, the fame (hence the dream part). Taking our collaboration one step further was a fairly easy process especially considering we’re on opposite sides of the US.
Still though, having someone look at your baby and critique it is HARD! Even after nearly twenty years (Jay, we’re getting old) I still watch my inbox minute by minute for him to send his comments back. More importantly, I listen to those comments.
That said, my husband still hasn’t read my current manuscript- I’m too chicken for his feedback at this point. That would be like jumping off that cliff in the picture above.
Four eyes = good
Six eyes = not ready for
m
Marina Skynnar- Author 