fiction – Page 39 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

Goal Update 5/16

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Hiding and unhiding layers, effects, and masks in Photoshop
On Target or Behind: Hmmm…

How’s It Going:
Got another cover done. Maybe. Or I may look at it again tomorrow and realize something’s off. We’ll see.

I really didn’t want to spend this much time working on mockups. But I guess if I end up with something close, if not on the nose, all the hard work will already be done.

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 10, wandering through the Monastery
Where I am: Lesson 10, out of the Monastery, finished
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
I’m out of the Monastery! I came up with 43 SFRs (significantly less than my 75 scenes in the current manuscript), but I added a lot of new scenes that either fix or fill plot holes, make the story more twisty and interesting, and make the characters make more sense. And a few characters got cut completely. Not because they were bad (I genuinely love one by the name of Suki, who is loosely based on a friend of mine with a similar name), but because they were bad for this story. They don’t do anything important, and I can’t think of anything they could do that a more important character couldn’t. Nothing worse than a redundant stand-in for someone you actually have a reason to care about.

I also decided that using the real villain’s point of view was too revealing, so I’ll be tweaking them to a different POV or removing those, and adding scenes from a different character’s POV. Which will add a few things I tried to get across in first draft (poorly) in a much more interesting manner.

Most importantly, the reveal of the supposed villain doesn’t happen in the seventh freaking scene, and the real villain’s reveal is… actually a surprise. (He definitely wouldn’t have gotten away with it, meddling kids or not.)

The rest of this lesson involved making new cards for these SFRs, going through my old cards, and starting to work out what will be used and what will be cut. I decided to cut quite a few of the old cards, and everything else I’m hanging on to until I work through a couple more lessons. There’s bits and pieces in there that might be useful, but I’m not sure exactly what or how.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 10500 words
Where I am: 10706 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Welp, I finally hit my “what am I doing with this, where is this going, how can I possibly write an entire novel of this?” phase this week, which is usually about 5-10k words in. So I dragged out Lesson 10 of HTWAN, which helps with idea creation for what happens next. I sketched out a few things to keep me running for the week, but I’m gonna have to sit down and get out everything I can think of to keep me going for at least a couple more weeks. Then I can run through Lesson 17, which should generate enough to get me to the midpoint, or at least close.

Listen, I don’t know how I managed to write anything over 10,000 words before HTWAN came out. Holly’s a freaking genius. I can see why SYCU is such a mess…

Goal Update 5/9

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: I don’t even know anymore.
On Target or Behind: ????

How’s It Going:
I’ve probably spent way too much time on one cover, but I think it looks really good. Of course, I thought that about some of the previous ones.

We’ll see.

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 10, somewhere in the Monastery
Where I am: Lesson 10, 21 line for scenes (LFS) done
On Target or Behind: On Target.

How’s It Going:
No, I don’t know how many LFS I need to do. I just write them down as they come to me. This lesson takes as long as it needs to.

Onward.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 9000 words
Where I am: 9156 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Now we’re getting into the thick of it. Everything’s falling down around them, and soon I get to see just who these people really are.

Goal Update 5/2

How is it already May?

In unrelated news, I’ve finished one class, and I’ll be taking my last final for the other on Tuesday. Then I will have unlimited time to work on all this until I get called back into work. And when that will be, I don’t know.

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: At home, where else?
On Target or Behind: On top, or underneath?

How’s It Going:
You wanna know what the worst part is about Photoshop tutorials on YouTube? I’m using an ancient version of Photoshop, and everyone else is using Creative Cloud. Seriously, I’m probably the only person left on the planet still using CS2. Which means I don’t have a lot of the fancy shit in newer versions.

But I make do. (Because fuck Creative Cloud.)

I’m really taking my time on these covers, tweaking them, leaving them alone for a while, then coming back to tweak some more. Trying to get the feel right. I’m pretty happy with what I’m getting so far.

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 8 finished
Where I am: Lesson 8 finished, Lesson 9 finished
On Target or Behind: On Target (and now way ahead, woo!)

How’s It Going:
The last half of Lesson 8 is always fun. Pretending to be an angry reader and intelligently ripping the book to shreds in a 1-star review? Freeing, I’m telling you. And I forgot how simple Lesson 9 is. Which is good, I like forward movement.

I also think metal music is stimulating to my creative brain or some shit because that’s what I was listening to when I did Lesson 9. I wrote a LOT about what I wanted this book to be, what I learned, and what I want the reader to take away from it. Thank you, Periphery. I love all their stuff, but I was specifically listening to Juggernaut: Alpha, Juggernaut: Omega, and Periphery II. (Links go to YouTube playlists, for anyone interested.)

Fun fact: The lyrics to Periphery’s Scarlet (link to YT, lyrics in the description) weirdly fit this story. I promise it’s not intentional. Ignore the video, though… Actually, you know what. Don’t.

On to Lesson 10… and the dreaded Monastery. Yes, you read that right. And it’s just about as much fun as it sounds. (I still prefer it to Lesson 7, though!) As it is the Monastery, the next post or two will be sparse until I’m done.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 7500 words
Where I am: 7629 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Got a little carried away, but I just can’t stop myself some days. It’s so much fun! And I love these characters already. In fact, I just introduced one during my Friday stint, and she is interesting. I’m excited to see where it all goes.

I think I’ll give y’all a snippet of this new character, whose name right now is Carly.

NOTE: The following material is a copyrighted excerpt from raw, unedited first draft, which may contain typos and spelling or grammar errors. Please do not point out corrections or make suggestions as I will not see them during revision. Please do not quote this material, as it may not survive to final draft.

When the checker had finally scanned and bagged the last can, he tallied up her total. Carly pulled out some cash, quickly counting what she had left. It would be enough for one more store.

Once she was free from the checker, cart now full of double bagged cans, she shoved the cart away and out the door to her car. The trunk and backseat of her Passat were already full, a piece of cardboard shoved behind the seats to prevent the mountain of cans from flying forward over the center console.

She unloaded the cart into the floorboard of the front passenger seat, stacking them until they were level with the seat, then stacking them across.

One more store was probably about all her car would be able to handle too.

Goal Update 4/25

Goal 1) Publish SKoS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Somewhere in the void
On Target or Behind: -shrug emoji-

How’s It Going:
Taking my time working on covers. That’s pretty much it at the moment. This thing’s kinda on the backburner right now until I can get my hands on a printer. (I’m also patiently waiting on the friendly forum-mate who offered to read it to finish. He did check in to let me know he’d read the first couple of chapters and loved it so far, and apologized for taking so long. I knew he was busy with his own revision and family right now, so it was a nice surprise to hear from him.)

Goal 2) Revise SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 8, finished with Themes worksheet, Triage Synopsis, and maybe the Triage Theme
Where I am: Lesson 8, finished Themes worksheet and halfway through Triage Synopsis
On Target or Behind: I’m actually a little ahead already, so On Target

How’s It Going:
This lesson is pretty straight-forward, but involves some thinking. The synopsis is taking longer than I thought, but I’m getting some ideas on how I can change things for the better.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 6000 words
Where I am: 6049 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:

Goal Update 4/18

Goal 1) Publish SKoS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Uhh…
On Target or Behind: it is a mystery

How’s It Going:
I started going through Matt’s notes and putting them in comments on my manuscript Google doc… and realized I have no idea how to do an editor’s revision. (I mean. I can guess. But.)

The more I look at it, the more I really want to do it on paper. So I guess it will have to wait.

As for covers, I’m down to the last of my winning batch of titles to do initial mockups for. I’ve been doing some more research, watching a lot of YouTube videos, really investigating what’s been done and how. And I think it’s really just gonna come down to tweaking it until I get it just right.

I’ll be sure to let everyone know when I get there. /s

Goal 2) Revise SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 7, through chapter 9
Where I am: Given up on Lesson 7, reading through Lesson 8 to prepare for next week
On Target or Behind: On Target, I guess?

How’s It Going:
Ah, the world triage lesson. This is actually the one lesson I gave up on halfway through and just skipped when I was doing SKoS because it was so tedious and annoying.

My opinions have not changed. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, in this world and in the SKoS world, mostly everything is the same as real life.

I tried. I really, really did. I know this will be important to know for later revisions (Krasnaya is set on a completely different planet). But the first worksheet was driving me crazy, so I moved to the second and kinda modified it a little. It was slightly more redundant, but made more sense to me and used less paper. But it was just as tedious, so I finally just gave up.

I also think part of my issue is I can’t print anything right now; I’m doing all these worksheets on notebook paper… as in, writing out all the questions and THEN my answers. And this involves a lot of paper and a lot of writing.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 4500 words
Where I am: 4559 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Listen, no one can understand how happy this is making me. I feel really good about this story. It’s actually pretty difficult to stop myself when I hit my daily goal when all I want to do is find out what happens next! I love it.

Which is more than I can say about SYCU right now. But I digress.