novels – Page 37 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

Goal Update 6/13

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
On Target or Behind: On Target… ish?

How’s It Going:
I broke down and bought a printer. I’m tired of waiting for all this virus bullshit to blow over so I can use the school library, but apparently they’ve gone full online for fall too, so idek if the library is gonna open any time soon. Of course, I could use the public library (I think they’ve reopened?), or the UPS store (which is more cost effective for printing a lot of pages at once), but an affordable laser printer here at home is… even cheaper in the long run and more convenient. And no page limits. Plus, you know, I can print out my worksheets instead of hand-writing them. And dad can print stuff when he needs it, yadda yadda.

Anyway, it showed up Tuesday (after I spent way too long staring at the UPS tracking map where you can watch the truck drive in circles around your house but never actually get there), and I had to follow some cryptic-ass IKEA instructions to take all the paper and tape off. But I figured out how to get the software and drivers without a CD drive (because who has a CD drive in their laptop anymore, right??? pro tip, the internet is awesome), and managed to print a test page. By then I was tired of messing with it so I waited until Thursday to figure out how to get it to work over the network (so I don’t have to take my laptop in the other room) and print out my final draft so I can go through and make my edits from Matt’s notes.

But after printing everything, having to reorder the pages because I forgot to flip up the paper catch thing so everything fell on the floor, then hole punching almost 200 pages (single sided! but I made the font and line spacing smaller than the standard manuscript format) with my dinky little binder punch that only goes through about 3 pages at a time… I was actually sweating a little so I’ll leave starting the edits for tomorrow. Idk what it is about sitting at the kitchen table to do stuff but I get so hot for some reason.

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 13, somewhere halfway, fuck if I know
Where I am: Lesson 13 finished; Lesson 14… getting there
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Turns out, as I was trying to work through my conflicts… I realized I’d already done this in the process of straightening out my plot, just in my own way. No reason to do the work twice. (I swear I’m not trying to rush these!)

So I started on 14, the first of the two time lessons. Pretty simple, really, just tedious and annoying. But I want to avoid the issues I had with SKoS involving time, so I’m really trying to do the work here. Although, most of my problems were between scenes, which is really where Lesson 15 comes in, but because so much of this is either getting reworked or completely rewritten, I need to have my in-scene time down too. It’s just… not the most fun part of this.

I want to cut! Where’s my scissors emoji…

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 16500 words
Where I am: 16725 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
If I thought I went dark before, uh… let’s just say this is not a happy story at all. But for some reason I like writing this kind of thing, because this week went really well.

I’m morbid, what can I say?

Goal Update 6/6

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: Ho hum.
On Target or Behind: ????

How’s It Going:
Posted my covers Sunday, after some last minute tweaks.

The response was… unexpected, even though I had a bad feeling about this title from the start. But I felt like I had to try to do it justice, since it was the highest voted in my title polls. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really mesh with the genre or my cover images.

That said, I’m fairly certain I nailed at least one image, and maybe have a couple of choices for the font. Now to take the best of what I have and the titles I’ve decided might work best (pretty much 2 out of the original 7) and… decide if I want to test them against each other on a cover or just go with my gut.

Either way, we’re getting there!

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 11, finished
Where I am: Lesson 11 finished, Lesson 12 finished
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
It’s a royal mess, but I think I finally got my plot nailed down. At least I like what I have so far.

Lesson 12 is for ironing out characters, which… considering the work I’ve already done on the plot and scenes, was cake. Not a lot of characters left, to be honest. Makes it easy on me. See what I meant by some of these lessons being short?

So I’ll start Lesson 13 tomorrow, which involves making sure I’ve got all my conflict present and in line. Lessons 14 and 15 will be about time (and hopefully easier to manage in this story than SKoS), 16 is about consistency, and finally I’ll be at 17, the write in. I’m so ready.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 15000 words
Where I am: 15029 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Not super. Monday was a bad day, idk why, but I just… did not want to write. But I powered through anyway, got a little over my absolute worst-case minimum words (which is 400), and moved on. Some days it be like that.

Wednesday was a little better, but I struggled for words again yesterday. I hit my weekly goal though, and that’s what matters.

So here’s something from Wednesday, when I was actually getting stuff I liked.

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.

“We can’t bury him anywhere,” Carly said, following the same train of thought. “Shit.”

“Maybe if it was off in a far corner of the property, and we fenced it off or something.” Jillian had paused to think, one dishtowel-wrapped hand inside a glass. “Do you think bleach would do anything?”

“Probably not. Too bad we don’t have any hydrochloric acid,” Carly added with a laugh.

Jillian grinned. She knew there was a reason she liked Carly.

Carly rinsed off the last plate and handed it to Jillian. As she dried her hands, she turned to face Jillian, staring through her. “But we do have fire.”

Jillian paused with the plate in her hand. “Do you think that would work?”

Goal Update 5/30

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: Still working on covers
On Target or Behind: Where am I even going again?

How’s It Going:
I finished the fourth cover for this last potential title, but I’m holding off posting them to the forums. Why? Because I want to look at them one more time in a couple of days, especially the one I finished Thursday, and really make sure they’re the best I can manage right now and in line with what other covers are doing in the genre right now.

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 11, finished
Where I am: Lesson 11, rough plot fixes done, still need to finalize outline
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
My stupid index cards finally showed up on THURSDAY. (Well, okay, the neon ones I use for my Focus Outline got here Wednesday, but the ones I needed for this Interweaving Threads lesson got here Thursday.) They shipped last Friday, took an unnecessary and extended loop around the DFW area including some small town I’ve never heard of before, ending up in the same place they started before coming to me. In the meantime, between Dad and I, we’ve had TWO other Amazon Prime packages show up just fine via USPS. IDK WTH they were smoking with these index cards. But they’re here and I was able to finally do some heavy plot work.

It didn’t take long to thread these together after getting everything made up (I already had what I was going to write on the cards typed up), but it was a lot of brain work, so I’m going to leave working out the final kinks in my outline to next week.

Yes, this puts me at 3 weeks for this lesson, but this is important, and I’m easily ahead on this. Current projection at 2 weeks per lesson has me finishing at the end of October. Even giving myself an extra 2 weeks for Lesson 17 (the write-in) and Lesson 21 (the type-in) would have me finishing by Christmas. And I’m fully expecting some lessons in between to be short, from my experience with SKoS.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 13500 words
Where I am: 13624 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Didn’t get as much out of Lesson 17 as I’d hoped. And I haven’t tried the Interweaving technique on this yet, since I only just got the cards and I like to focus on actually getting my words in.

But. This week was pretty good. I went dark. Considering the subject, that was to be expected. And most of my stories get dark. But this, idk, this felt like the beginning of something even darker. It’s actually a little funny, but… maybe that’s just my dark sense of humor.

I like it.

Goal Update 5/23

Going a little crazy here. Probably eating too much. School semester’s over (has been for a couple of weeks, but I never mentioned it… and yes, all A’s again). I finally got to see my orthodontist again yesterday, so my mouth hurts. I paid for a whole month of World of Warcraft back in the middle of April and I let it run out a few days ago, really really really hoping I got called back into work. Gave up last night and bought another month. Don’t get me wrong, I’m making bank off unemployment right now (seriously, what is even happening in this country right now?), but I am… so bored. I want to go back to work. Says the guy who loves being at home…

Sure, I could go get another job right now. (Retail… blech.) But I really like working at Enterprise. I like (most of) my coworkers. I know it’s not saying much, considering the other places I’ve worked, but it’s literally the best job I’ve ever had. I want to go back to work there.

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: Let’s be real, I easily spend hours on these covers on any given day
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Been fooling around with different tricks to basically do the same thing.

Fun times.

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 11, somewhere; this one’s hard to track
Where I am: Lesson 11, staring really hard at index cards
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Lesson 11 is all about reworking the plot and subplots.

Unfortunately, this is where about 50% of my problems with this story are. Even more unfortunately, this lesson leaves a lot to be desired on HOW to rework these things. At best, I’ve realized that the middle of the main plot is completely absent from my Focus Outline. Just. Poof, not there. It’s all subplots. Magic.

However, I also have HTWAN at my disposal, which has a bonus lesson at the end: Interweaving Multiple Story Threads in Big, Complex Novels. Now, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a big OR a complex novel (…yet), but I do have multiple characters with their own little conflicts and I need to figure out how to weave them all together. Without forgetting about anyone. Or cheating. Or handwaving. Trying to use this lesson has proven complicated in more ways than one, but hopefully I can figure SOMETHING out. (I did post my issues on the forum, hoping someone else might have some insight.)

Only, I was getting low on colored index cards and had to order some more. Because everything is easier with index cards. So I tried to get as much done with what I had as I could before they got here. (Because like hell am I going to Walmart right now. Although I think I got the ones I have at Office Depot, but idek if they’re open right now.) They were supposed to be here yesterday, but USPS is doing something weird with my packages and idk what is happening or where they are right now. I’m hoping they show up soon.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 12000 words
Where I am: 12053 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Fun fact, looking back at the Interweaving lesson, I realized that it would be good for coming up with ideas for this story while I’m writing it. Imagine that. Using a HTWAN lesson for actually writing a novel. Hm.

Only, again, index cards. (And I’m lazy and didn’t want to make my own out of notebook paper.)

So I think I’ll work that into what I’ve already planned for next week. Or… whenever those cards get here. They couldn’t come soon enough, cause this week’s been kinda hit or miss.

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…