The Finish the Damn Book Challenge

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ap123

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Is this the guilty section? :flag: This was not meant to be a day off.

I didn't even open my WIP today. I blogged this morning, and the post kind of sucked everything out of me.
 

ChristinaLayton

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Is this the guilty section? :flag: This was not meant to be a day off.

I didn't even open my WIP today. I blogged this morning, and the post kind of sucked everything out of me.



No. It's not bad to take a day off, even intentionally. We all need to take our eyes off that computer screen or that notepad every once in a while. :)


almost 8000 words on "1319" so far, and i'm hoping to do 3 chapters on "Sleepwalker" before I go to sleep today. Hoping to get to 150,000 words starting from 141,300.
 

ChristinaLayton

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I got up, from 141,300 to 150,056. That's over 8,700 words on one WIP alone! :D



Now I'm gonna freshen up to do 2 chapters on my second WIP. Today I'm going to bed late. :D
 

ap123

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No. It's not bad to take a day off, even intentionally. We all need to take our eyes off that computer screen or that notepad every once in a while. :)


almost 8000 words on "1319" so far, and i'm hoping to do 3 chapters on "Sleepwalker" before I go to sleep today. Hoping to get to 150,000 words starting from 141,300.

Thanks Christina! :) Your progress is amazing, are you happy with the way the story is going?

Also, do you use speech to text software? If you do, I'm curious which you use.
 

AKyber36

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Progress for short story: 2,702 words. 117 words, and the scene's moving right along. The characters started talking in my head, and the dialogue stuck. Yay!
 

ChristinaLayton

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Thanks Christina! :) Your progress is amazing, are you happy with the way the story is going?

Also, do you use speech to text software? If you do, I'm curious which you use.

No. The only thing that helps me be so productive is my characters' constant nagging. :ROFL: I am a 30-wpm-person, and at that speed as long as I don't get distracted I can do 900 words every thirty minutes. I just write more and more and more according to what my darlings want to do. They're in total control. I just type. I don't use speech to text software. I tried it once when I was 21, but I'm not going to get into names because I don't want to give bad advertising, in other words hurt sales instead of helping them but it just didn't work out for me. After days of training the software, it would still type the wrong words and every time someone would say something in the background, it would type it too. Like my sister and my grandmother were conversing, and my sister started laughing and it typed, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..." and after laughing my ass off, literally, for like a half an hour, I deleted everything I had tried to type with it, and started over with my wonderful fingers. Besides, I don't want anyone to hear what I am writing. I don't want anyone to see it until it's in print, someday. :) Yeah, I won't use that software until my hands are no longer of use, (God forbid) and I will wait to work when I'm alone.

Progress for short story: 2,702 words. 117 words, and the scene's moving right along. The characters started talking in my head, and the dialogue stuck. Yay!


I love them little darlings! Tell them I said hi! :) I love when characters control the story. :)


So I did nearly 5,000 words on Sleepwalker last night and after I'd decided it'd be 10 chapters long, it's gonna be 30 chapters, and I'ma try to do two chapters per day, but with so many chapters the word count doesn't count much. I type in Notepad so I don't have to worry too much about word count. :)
 

benluby

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ugh. Only a few hundred words over the last few days, and today was pretty much shot in the foot. Spent ten hours on set playing a dead alien in purgatory in makeup.
No pay, but lots of fun. Plan on writing tomorrow!
 

ChristinaLayton

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Less than 300 words away from 156,000 words, yall, but the resolution came along faster than anticipated so shortening first-draft W/C to 170,000.
 

AKyber36

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I love them little darlings! Tell them I said hi! :) I love when characters control the story. :)

Told them, and they like it. :D So much so, that they helped me finish my slower transition scene by jabbering meaningfully on, haha.

Short story WIP progress: 2,989 words. 287 words for tonight. :)
 

ap123

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Thanks, Christina. I've heard the software has improved tremendously over the past couple of years, and I've been looking for recommendations for my daughter, thought you might be using one. :)

Ben playing a dead alien sounds like it could be a lot of fun, plenty of opportunity for scene planning ;)

Good work, AKyber!

Not quite as productive as I'd hoped over the last couple of days, waylaid by a migraine, but still forward motion.

I'm at 23,600. Sadly, the dirty laundry pile can no longer be ignored.
 

Almondjoy

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I haven't been around here in a while, I think I needed a little break from writing. =) But I'm back now and ready to really crank some words out! I've been so busy during the weekdays though, so it's going to be a challenge to squeeze in writing time during the evenings.
 

ChristinaLayton

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I decided to finish my first draft of my current WIP at a little over 160,000 words. The ending was a little weird, but i have a friend who's a writer who beta-reads my work, so she'll hopefully tell me if I know what I'm doing or not and if this is even a story and then I'll show my draft to other betas because I have NO idea how to revise and polish.
 

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I've been so busy during the weekdays though, so it's going to be a challenge to squeeze in writing time during the evenings.

Hi Almondjoy, just do what you can, when you can!

Great weekend by everyone, needless to say, Christina, wow as always.

Starting the week with 62,200, aiming to break the 70,000 by friday evening.
 

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And I'm first back in the evening :D

2,200 on my WIP today and 540 words on a flash fiction piece, so a productive day overall despite being half broken up with a back injury from sports yesterday.

Hope your day is going well.
 

ChristinaLayton

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Told them, and they like it. :D So much so, that they helped me finish my slower transition scene by jabbering meaningfully on, haha.

Short story WIP progress: 2,989 words. 287 words for tonight. :)

Excellent. Curiosity killed this cat. I've been wondering what their names are. Excellent progress! :hooray: :Trophy:

Thanks, Christina. I've heard the software has improved tremendously over the past couple of years, and I've been looking for recommendations for my daughter, thought you might be using one. :)

Ben playing a dead alien sounds like it could be a lot of fun, plenty of opportunity for scene planning ;)

Good work, AKyber!

Not quite as productive as I'd hoped over the last couple of days, waylaid by a migraine, but still forward motion.

I'm at 23,600. Sadly, the dirty laundry pile can no longer be ignored.


I heard after a few hours of training, Dragon Naturally Speaking can practically type what you say exactly how you say it and many writers use it for their novels, some because it's faster and easier and others because other than that they'd have no choice but to hire a typist because they have excessive pain in their hands due to certain conditions like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or rheumatoid arthritis. It's a great tool, but since my hands are healthy, thank goodness, I use my hands, and like I said, I'd only resort to that tool when my hands can no longer do the job for me, and I hope that day is millions of miles away. :Thumbs: You're doing a great job. :Trophy: for you, too.


I haven't been around here in a while, I think I needed a little break from writing. =) But I'm back now and ready to really crank some words out! I've been so busy during the weekdays though, so it's going to be a challenge to squeeze in writing time during the evenings.

I know you can do it. Press on and you'll persevere. Here's a :cookie: to motivate you.

Hi Almondjoy, just do what you can, when you can!

Great weekend by everyone, needless to say, Christina, wow as always.

Starting the week with 62,200, aiming to break the 70,000 by friday evening.

Yep! You go! :)

And I'm first back in the evening :D

2,200 on my WIP today and 540 words on a flash fiction piece, so a productive day overall despite being half broken up with a back injury from sports yesterday.

Hope your day is going well.

That's epic.

I've not been posting, but plodding through my WIP anyway :) Pushed past 23,000 words last night (though the story has gone all surreal on me!).

Congratulations.


The word I bolded on there, thanks for the new word I just learned. Usually I learn the meaning of a new word by how it's used in the sentence. :)

3,894/5,000 words on the second installment of my LGBT series, and I started it this morning at around 4:00 AM.

Writing a new chapter of Sleepwalker.

Sincerely
Chris.
 

ap123

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Good to see everyone moving forward.
Thanks for the info on Dragon, Christina! :)

About 1000 words yesterday on Frag Hag, and I've got an idea percolating for a new short. :)
 

ChristinaLayton

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Fantastic news: I have a beta who accepted reading and editing my first draft of 1319 and I'm already taking notes of their suggestions and I am going to have a second draft the first time ever! :)

Almost 8,000 words of 1510, the sequel of 1319, only sequel because the story's already been told and I have to get back to my Birds of Prey series. :) The only reason why 1319 has a sequel is because I imagine Shane and Sauli's kids wreaking havoc and I had to write that, too. :)
 

ap123

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Fantastic news: I have a beta who accepted reading and editing my first draft of 1319 and I'm already taking notes of their suggestions and I am going to have a second draft the first time ever! :)

Awesome, Christina!
 

ChristinaLayton

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Last night I stopped at a total word count of almost 8,000 words because I became too tired, so at 10:00 PM I went to sleep. Then my characters started nagging at me again around midnight, so after a 2-hr rest, I got up and worked on it some more from midnight to 3:00 AM and did the over 2000 words I have to do. Now I am reading and posting on AW because it motivates me to keep writing and I learn so much by reading. Ready to start a new session and reach 15,000 words before I go to sleep tonight. :D


ETA: I had three crazy dreams last night in those two hours.

1. I was flying on a small airplane, and when we were about to drop on the ground, the door opened and I bumped against this trash bin and knocked it over dumping all the trash to the ground. A police woman came up, picked up the trash, and when I turned facing forward, tried to hit me on the head with the trash bin, but missed. I stared at her and told her, "What the fuck?" And then I woke up.

2. A four-legged lady was coming toward me. And then I woke up.

3. Adam Lambert, his boyfriend Sauli Koskinen, who I named one of my MC's after in my series, and I were in a car. It was nighttime and the car was stuck in a ditch. Then Adam killed someone random, but I didn't see him kill him or her, and then we ran away. I remember asking Adam what we would do if someone got our license-plate number and he said, "Who's going to write my license-plate number down right now? Nothing's gonna happen. Stop bitching." And then we continued to ride until it was daytime and when we were crossing a bridge, I woke up.


And guess what? Those crazy ass dreams turned out to be my characters nagging at me. So I got up, wrote some more and when I went back to sleep, no more crazy dreams.
 
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Did 3,540 words today, broke the 70,000 word mark. Delighted with that, as the last few days have been trickier than usual, having to pull some words, but back in the grove.

Great work to everyone, especially Christina - I don't know how you do it!
 

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Got in 354 words tonight on the short story. 3,343 words so far to date.

Christina: Talking about dreams - I had one last morning, just about (I'd say around 5-6 am). I was in a warm comfortable bed with some big guy and he had his arms wrapped around me while lying on my back. It was the most comfortable dream sensation I ever had. I could actually feel the gentle pressure of his embrace. And then my dream went into some weird side tangent about some boy drawing with ink and brush, and my art supplies were at home. Weird. :tongue
 

ChristinaLayton

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Dang, I almost hit 10,000 words for today alone, so close. But I did hit a total word count, from 10,360 to 19,250 in one day. I'm satisfied. I'ma go get me a :e2cookie:
 

ap123

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WIP: Frag Hag
Goal: 85,000 words by June 1.
Current: 29,100 words
Daily goal: Still squishy at the moment, trying to get back into the discipline.

I'm very happy with the progress I'm making. I had a great (for me) writing day today, about 1600 words. My plan is to really push myself throughout February.

I've also got a short story idea that's been knocking around in my brain, I've been making a few notes, but don't want to lose the focus on the WIP.
 

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Great work ap123.

On the short story brewing inside - a few days ago, I got stuck with my WIP. Flicked over to a flash fiction piece that was bubbling inside...did first draft of that, turned back to WIP and found my way a lot easier after tuning out for half an hour.

Had to skip yesterday due to a busy day farming, but reached a personal best on my WIP today, 3,650 :) So, at 74,000 for the weekend, until monday.

Have a great weekend all.
 
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