My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Blah
On Target or Behind: Pluh
How’s It Going: Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
It’s slow, but it’s going.
GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU
My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks (except L17 and L21, which get 4 weeks min)
Where I planned to be: Lesson 17, 13 scenes done
Where I am: Lesson 17, 7 scenes done
On Target or Behind: Behind
How’s It Going: I did a dumb and forgot to work out how many scenes per day I should be doing before I started. Because I’m definitely giving myself at least four weeks for this. So with 51 scenes, I should be doing 4-5 scenes per day. Which I did not do. Whoops.
I may take an extra week or two for this one. There is a LOT of rewriting going on, and writing fresh words takes me… well, a lot of time. Most of the scenes I’ve already done are completely new. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up writing half of the final story during this, because it’s a disaster. But I like where it’s going.
GOAL 3) SURVIVAL
My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 24000 words
Where I am: 24579 words
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Almost to the midpoint, yay! (I got a little carried away this week… I should not enjoy tormenting these guys this much.) I should have just enough material to hit 25k, and then I’m gonna do the midpoint lesson from HTWAN.
Honesty hour here: I have no idea how this one will end. Like, none whatsoever. Not even an inkling, like I did with Krasnaya. Most of my ideas run out at the midpoint, and I only have some vague thoughts about afterward.
My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: Eh
On Target or Behind: Eh?
How’s It Going: I managed to finish up plugging this into a calendar on Sunday and uh- I’m laughing cause not only was Matt right about the stuff he caught, but I realized I made some dumb errors that he didn’t catch. Small stuff, really. One of the characters having class on a Sunday is probably the biggest. And I doubt anyone would catch that on first read (or even be super bothered if they did), but I need to do some other work on that chapter/day and it’s an easy enough fix that I’m gonna fix it anyway.
I didn’t get anything done on Tuesday. Monday I got a new stainless steel archwire on the top half of my braces, and I have one stubborn tooth on the bottom that they had to put in a spring spacer for, so Tuesday was very painful and I couldn’t focus on anything, even with a steady supply of ibuprofen and benzocaine. Me and mouth pain do not get along.
I did get to this on Thursday though. Although at this point I am… really winging it. I have no idea how to do this, because it is nothing like revising first draft. So far, I’m taking each problem I find in order and working on it throughout the whole book before tackling the next one. While this helps keep the consistency, it’s possible I might miss something, as opposed to going through the whole thing in sequence and fixing everything I hit (where I would be more likely to forget something instead). A thorough read-through when I’m done will hopefully minimize issues, but… I haven’t even gotten to overhauling Keziah and this is already a lot of work.
A lot of work that probably should have been done in revision. But, you know, live and learn.
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 16 finished
Where I am: Lesson 16 finished; Lesson 17 has begun
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Well, I finalized my outline and laundry list on Sunday, and meant to start the write-in on Tuesday, but like I said above, that didn’t happen. I did take a few moments on Wednesday to print out my laundry list and gather up my file folders and loose leaf paper so I was ready to go Thursday.
My first scene is a brand-new scene (i.e. it does not exist in the original manuscript) and I think it went well. I’m having to flesh out one character that barely exists in the manuscript and creating another that was only mentioned in passing. I like what I got, but I’m definitely looking forward to actually cutting into what’s already there, starting with my next scene, which was the original beginning.
GOAL 3) SURVIVAL
My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 22500 words
Where I am: 22747 words
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Getting some interesting stuff. Another decent week, despite everything.
Okay, no, for real. It cannot be July already. How did this happen?
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: Uhhhh
On Target or Behind: Questionable
How’s It Going: Apparently my time issues will continue to haunt me. *lays down on the floor*
I think I’ve finally figured out a system that works for me (thanks, SYCU), unfortunately, that is not how I did things the first time with this one. I used a combination of Scrivener and Aeon Timeline (and winging it), and I’m having issues with both of them right now. I’ve managed to mostly get over the learning curve on Scrivener, but now it’s giving me hell with the latest update not wanting to install and it telling me it can’t register or something. I can still force it into trial mode, but it’s a royal pain in the ass. As for Aeon Timeline, number one, I don’t know what happened, but I was pretty sure I had a paid version gifted to me the one year I managed to win NaNoWriMo. Now it’s telling me my trial is over and I have to pay $50 for it. Which really isn’t bad if I can’t figure out how to get the serial code somewhere, only my number two is… I hate using it. It is so complicated and I don’t really understand it. Number three, all the information on time that I had is stuck in a file I can only open with Aeon. Woo hoo.
So, I get to go through and reverse engineer what I did so I can put it in my calendar format so I can figure out what the hell I’m doing here.
Yay.
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 16, roughly halfway done? These are hard to measure sometimes, jesus
Where I am: Lesson 16, uhhh, almost done? Hopefully?
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: And this is why I love Holly’s method, kids. Lesson 16 is about consistency, making sure you keep everything in mind that you wanted to fix during the write-in. Which includes making what Holly calls a Laundry List, basically a list of everything you want to remember to fix that you keep close by for easy access while doing the write-in. (Easy, right?)
Thankfully for me, this includes going through ALL of my notes, worksheets, notecards, etc, looking for anything I might have forgotten before now. (You know what, maybe this list should be started at the very beginning of the process, adding to it as I go along. Hm.) Anyway, I realized I still had a handful of white notecards (i.e. original first draft scenes) that I still liked and wanted to use at least part of, I just didn’t know how or where when I was transferring everything to the neon cards (my final outline). A couple of them were easy enough to just tack on to existing neon cards because they fit in perfectly, but then I had a couple of others that were a little more difficult. I didn’t have scenes that already pertained to them. But at this point, I can see how much I love them, how good they could be with a little tweaking, and the depth they would add to the story with proper placement, so I know I have to work them in somehow.
Cue me running back to my calendar of scenes to try to figure out where to put these rogue scenes. And realizing I might still have a plot hole. *headdesk* (And this is also why I like using pencil a lot more than Holly does.) But this is good, really, because I want to do the work here, so I have a good working plan during the write-in, and so I don’t have as much to do after I run it past an editor. My ultimate goal is to not have to do anything after running it past an editor, but ah. Dunno how realistic that is. I can try though.
GOAL 3) SURVIVAL
My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 21000 words
Where I am: 21171 words
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: It was a decent week. Nothing spectacular, but not bad either. Although I feel I ended on a high note because I started setting up some of the issues my guys will have to work through before getting to the midpoint.
My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Don’t ask
Where I am: I have no clue
On Target or Behind: ????? Profit???
How’s It Going: Haven’t quite gone through all of Matt’s notes yet, but there’s a lot to unpack here.
So far, Keziah – one of the angels – needs a complete overhaul. And I mean complete: dialogue, actions, personality, and purpose. As is, she’s completely useless as an angel and as a character, and it’s really obvious that I’ve written her that way to keep her from being a deus ex machina. (Which is a good thing, but my execution was poor.) But I don’t want to take her out. That may or may not kill me, but Matt gave some good suggestions for fixing her, so I’m gonna try. But it is gonna take some work. Okay, a lot of work.
Probably the next biggest issue is some of the world mechanics I got sloppy with, and now I have to track them down throughout the book and fix them. More annoying than anything. Thankfully I was mostly consistent with the words I used, so a lot of the hunting will be easy to do with a quick word search.
Other than that, there’s a few places where I need to either expand a scene, or insert critical detail that’s going to take more than just tweaking a word or replacing a line. Weirdly enough, that’s gonna be easier than it sounds.
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 15, finished
Where I am: Lesson 15 finished, time worked out
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: I think I’ve managed to work out a believeable timeline, shifted some scenes around for maximum effect, and… that leaves one more lesson before write in.
GOAL 3) SURVIVAL
My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 19500 words
Where I am: 19610 words
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: Monday sucked. I didn’t know what to write and stalled out. I gave up after several hours of trying with only a couple hundred words to show for it. Wednesday I managed to hit my word count for the day, despite spending most of the day out with friends. (We had fun though!) Yesterday was alright too, but my scenes are getting shorter. I’m several thousand words away from what I’m planning for my midpoint, so, not good. I may just throw my hands up and just go with it. That’s what revision is for, right?
Though, I do have a couple of ideas to torture my characters before the midpoint. Maybe I’ll make it.
Snippet, snippet, who’s got– oh, I do.
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.
Just as she was checking the furthest camera from the shelter, Jillian heard a scream from that direction. Worried it was Carly, who’d gone out to tend the garden, Jillian hopped back on the ATV and followed the sound. As she neared it, though, it occurred to her that Carly wasn’t really one to scream in danger, and at least had her pistol handy, but Jillian heard no gunshots.
The closer Jillian got, the screams became more guttural, fainter. They had an almost wet sound to them, as if whatever it was now had blood in its throat. She finally broke into a clearing and found the source of the noise: a large doe, gone quiet now, blood gushing from her throat, the muzzle of a coyote the size of a semi-truck clamped around it as it dragged her into the trees. One of the coyote’s ears was twisted in her direction, but it otherwise paid Jillian no mind, the rest of its focus on its fresh meal.
My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: About halfway through marking up the MS from Matt’s notes
Where I am: In over my head
On Target or Behind: Uhhhh?
How’s It Going:
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 14, finished
Where I am: Lesson 14 finished
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: This is such a pain in the ass.
On top of that, after finishing Lesson 14, I read through 15 and realized it doesn’t cover what I thought it did. (Come on, the last time I looked at it was… years ago?) Which suddenly made my time issues with SKoS make so much more sense:
There’s nothing to guide me through working out plot arc time or overall time.
How much time is between this scene and the next? How far should this plot arc spread? A week, or two? A month? And how long does the overall story take? A year? Ten? I’ve done some preliminary thinking on this already, but I think I really need to take stock of what’s happening and when if I want this to work. And then nail it down.
As for what Lesson 15 is actually about… it’s really more about structure, playing with time, and finding the best beginning for the story. The techniques to test this won’t take long, thankfully. (And now that I’ve read it again, I remember how it gave me the amazing beginning for SKoS, so I definitely want to at least try some of these.)
GOAL 3) SURVIVAL
My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 18000 words
Where I am: 18301 words
On Target or Behind: On Target
How’s It Going: This week went well. Got some neat stuff, I think. I’ve always found it hard to torture my characters, but I think I’m getting better at it. Which means better writing!
So… here’s a snippet.
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.
Brandon looked around the room pointedly. “Does it look like they’re here?”
“Smartass,” Aaren muttered as he hauled himself back to his feet and went over to the sink. It was no shower, but it would at least be cold. He lifted the handle of the tap, but nothing came out.
“Runs off a water pump down to a well; won’t work until I turn on the generator,” Brandon said, unpacking their supplies.
Aaren was ready to pop off a snarky, “Go turn it on then,” but a piece of paper on the table beside the sink caught his eye. He picked it up, trying to decipher the elegant but hard to read script.
“What’s that?”
Meilo Zaborowski: Author 