The Finish the Damn Book Challenge

Well, I've just finished Chapter 5 of my WIP, which leaves me at 11K now. I'm starting to get to that point where I doubt myself and my abilities to write. I'm really trying to ignore my inner critic, but I know it's going to be hard. However, I am determined to finish this WIP; I want to finish it. Even if it is just to say that I finished it and I don't publish, I finished it.

I've been doing fairly well, trucking through the last few days. Today, I wrote around 1,300 words. My word count is now 17,000. It puts me on target to meet my goal of 20,000 by Sunday

Good job to everyone working hard.

Hey everyone Thanks for all the welcomes!

@andra I mostly just write. These are first drafts, so I don't go back on scenes, rewrite anything, etc. All I do is fix typos as I go along, but apart from that, I just keep going. I'll fix the other errors in my rewrite.

I'm now at +60k words in my The Sleeping Kingdom MS, and at +20k words in my Ghostslayer MS. That's another 15k in the first one since last week, and 6k in the second one. I'm hoping to finish The Sleeping Kingdom today or tomorrow. It depends on how long the characters want the ending to be. I have the feeling so much still needs to happen, but I want to wrap up soon.

I really hope I can finish this WIP soon. I'm thinking it might 20K, but I know. It might be just a little bit over that.

eternalised said:

Hey everyone Thanks for all the welcomes!

@andra I mostly just write. These are first drafts, so I don't go back on scenes, rewrite anything, etc. All I do is fix typos as I go along, but apart from that, I just keep going. I'll fix the other errors in my rewrite.

I'm now at +60k words in my The Sleeping Kingdom MS, and at +20k words in my Ghostslayer MS. That's another 15k in the first one since last week, and 6k in the second one. I'm hoping to finish The Sleeping Kingdom today or tomorrow. It depends on how long the characters want the ending to be. I have the feeling so much still needs to happen, but I want to wrap up soon.

Click to expand...

That's really impressive! keep up the good work!
Good luck Silver-Midnight. I hope you move on.

No writing for me today. Too tired from work

Still haven't written anything. (Hangs head in shame.) But congrats to all of you that have, and hang in there Silver, we've all been there before, multiple times!

Thanks Tepelus! You'll get something written! Don't worry.

970 words yesterday and around 1k the day before. I'm slowly getting there but now I'm at a point where I don't know what will happen next... what do you do in cases like that?

Ok, I'm back! I took a hiatus to revise my last novel (finished courtesy of FTDBC). I'm down to fine-tuning at this point and am getting ready to shop it.

So back to the rough draft of Loose Changeling. I'm setting a 1200 words/day goal and looking to finish by April 20.

Loose Changeling
64,586/90,000

Kamyara, I find it helps sometimes to just sit down and freewrite what I think happens next. Sort of a "then he does this, and then this happens, but wait, that's not going to work...maybe he does this instead...yeah..." and use that as an outline for my prose. Don't give up!

600 words yesterday night. Same problem as Kamyara I've got a window open where I'm just pouring out everything in my head. Hopefully I'll be able to excavate a worthwhile story direction from that. The good news is that I'm filling in a blank part of my outline, rather than trying to figure out where the hell this whole story is going.

I'm at 12K; I'm thinking this WIP is going to be somewhere between 20 - 25K. So, I'm almost there. Yay!

Woo! 13K on my WIP! Only 4 - 12K to go! (I'm really thinking this is going to end around anywhere from 17 - 25K.)

Kamyara said:

970 words yesterday and around 1k the day before. I'm slowly getting there but now I'm at a point where I don't know what will happen next... what do you do in cases like that?

Click to expand...

I agree with what most people have already said. Take some time to think about what logically should happen next. Free write it a bit or just jot down some notes. Write down anything that comes to mind.

For what it's worth, I've been in that position before. I actually ended up abandoning the story. The problem was that I didn't outline. Some people can pants it. I cannot. I need to know where I'm going and plan it out or I stop writing.

It doesn't mean I know everything that's going to happen next. My characters just threw a new thing into my story, but my main plot stays the same so it's easier.

Thank you all for your help I will try freewriting, never done that before because I always knew what was going to happen next.

I'm at 70k in the first draft of my novel, The Sleeping Kingdom. I'm guessing around 2-5k left. I'm hoping to be done with it today or this weekend.

Awesome work eternalised.

I wrote another 1,000 words today. That just leaves 1,000 to do tomorrow to reach my goal of 20,000 by Sunday.

Part of me wants to keep going today, but another part of me is ready for a break--I think that's the part that's excited to go see Hunger Games tonight.

Congrats on nearing your 20K goal, Kewii.

I plotted chapter 5 in detail and came up with some good plot points to add to the rest of the novel.

After a very exhausting day running a track meet, I found the time to make my goal.

I'm at 20,200 words.

I think tomorrow I'll take a rest.

Congrats, Kewii!

Wow. AW is dangerous! I meant just to post here with a word count and spent the last 20 minutes poking into interesting threads on the way. 0_0

I just passed 40,000 and I'm about 3/4 done. I can see the end from here, though it's very faint...

I'm so excited to see everyone's progress and to see newer faces! Good luck everyone!

Congrats everyone! Keep up the good work.

Write the last chapter! I'm at 110,000 words and need 2-3k more. It's sticking, and it's a bit of a 'fear of the ending' and a bit of the 'what if it's not good enough?' feeling creeping in my productivity drive.

Keep up the good work guys!!

I just did something that pretty much sucks.

I decided since I was going to write anything new today, I wanted to go back and fix the beginning of my story. I knew it needed to be changed.

So I changed it. My old beginning was about 1500 words. It's been replaced with 207 words. It's a better beginning and I'm happier with it, but it sucks because I'm now back under 20,000 words. I have another scene or two to add to my new beginning, but I hate going backwards.

I guess this way I can celebrate 20,000 twice?

Kewii, don't be depressed. You'll surely pass 20k soon. I think you shouldn't worry so much about the word count. Just write what you want. A shorter well-written story is always better than a longer, but less well-written, one. don't you think so?

I wrote 1000 words yesterday, but from another WIP.
does that count?
I just feel like I'm losing touch with my current WIP. The other one I'm writing is in my own language and it's so much easier to come up with the right words. I'm wondering if this is what's keeping me from writing seriously. It's just so much harder to be satisfied with my words when I write in English.

Good luck everyone!