The Finish the Damn Book Challenge

Spell-it-out said:

Hi everyone,

Looks like I'm gonna be taking a break from this thread for a while....finished the first draft of "The Angel of Death".
I had hoped it would reach 100,000 words, but it fell short by some distance. I tried to stretch it, but I knew that was the wrong thing to do. So, I've typed "The End" a few hours ago.

Gonna put it away for a month or so before tackling the second draft. Thanks to everyone on this thread - Ap123, Christina(the machine ), Anna, FrenchMaiden, Almond and all the others I'm failing to mention.

I'm not gonna leave you, I've just no need to post my progress for a while.

Best of luck to you all, and thanks for the kind words over the last number of weeks.

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Congrats darl, what an achievment! Feel proud!

((((((French Maiden)))))))

Having a child with a life threatening illness sucks, to say the least.

I'm glad you were able to do some writing, and that it felt good. <3

Sometimes you won't be able to write because of being consumed by what's going on with your son (emotionally and/or literally), but try to write when you can, because you still deserve to be you, and have your moments where and when you can.

Peace and Prayers,

French Maiden said:

It has been close to forever since I've written anything at all.
I find it really difficult on the lead up to my son's scans (which will predict our whole future) and on top of that I've had some major emotional obstacles to overcome. My friend's daughter passed away at age 13, after suffering 4 years with bone cancer. A friend's son relapsed with muscle cancer after 20 month of being in remission and my friend's 16 month old baby relapsed with leukemia. All I can say is cancer sucks, especially childhood cancer, which is what my son has.

So on a more positive note. I wrote, I actually put my fingers to the keys and typed out 950 words and it felt amazing.

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You have my sympathies. Having been there myself (diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma late '11, given the all clear July last year) I know how rough it is. Good work on the writing though.

New to this challenge

i have a goal of getting to the end within 2 years - although i don't have a time limit on the writing of the first draft i am expecting 16 000 - 18 000 words and have written 2832

So 2832 /17000

it is getting difficult already

it's a semi autobiographical fantasy play
basic girl meets boy story - hoping to get enough interest in there to entertain for 90 minutes in the theatre

I think that doing something on the play first thing instead of going on the internet is a great aim

I would like to set myself a minimum of 1000 words every week - and hopefully get some courage to write a few thousand over the course of a week occasionally again in the not too distant future - if i can keep the ideas coming of course

research will still be a lot of the work of this - also reading watching and story planning counts as work

anything that gets me off my arse is great

French Maiden, I'm so sorry to hear about your son. Everything in life becomes more difficult in a situation like that.

Clouddog, welcome to the challenge. I hope it helps you complete your work.

My update: Finished chapter 11. Expect to polish off chapter 12 by the end of the weekend. That will get me to the one-third mark on the manuscript.

So I've just drafted my sixth chapter ^_^ going to try and draft and seventh tomorrow, as they interlink.

I have decided that instead of reworking and editing this copy of the manuscript, I am going to rewrite it. So I am currently writing the skeleton of the manuscript, adding in all the details, conversations and events, but leaving the real polish until the rewrite.

This should hopefully speed up my writing since I won't be spending weeks on a chapter, but mere days, or even hours!

Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I get a bit stir-crazy when scans are getting close.

I've written another 2000 words. By golly it feels good to be writing again.

Thanks Krystal thats really sweet.
He had his 6th birthday party last night. It was a star wars themed party at an arcade.
He often tells me I'm the best Mummy in hte world. Simply because I can draw a picture, or bake a cake, or wash his clothes. But it means so much to hear him say it.

Congrats on the words.

In 2 days I've done nearly 5000 words. I'm feeling very pleased with this.

French Maiden- let us know how the scans go. God knows they aren't especially pleasant (my particular 'favourite' was the PT scan), but you never know- it could be good news. I've always been sceptical about the power of positive thinking, but my mother found it comforting during my fight.

Welcome to the fray, clouddog. Good luck.

Well, having had no internet for the past three days, I haven't even been able to do uni work, so I had no distractions. As such... I finished my novel. First draft, at any rate. but finished.
Going cold turkey on AW though... *shudders* It's good to be back.

thepicpic said:

French Maiden- let us know how the scans go. God knows they aren't especially pleasant (my particular 'favourite' was the PT scan), but you never know- it could be good news. I've always been sceptical about the power of positive thinking, but my mother found it comforting during my fight.

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Finally. Someone who thinks the same as I do!! I believe in being realisticaly optomistic. I can have hope, but I know and ready myself to the fact that our chances arent great, far from great, actually.

Another 1000 words last night and yet to do my session tonight. The boys are about to go to bed, so as soon as they're asleep my session shall begin.

French Maiden, wishing you lots of words and lots of luck for the little fellow. My husband goes in for his second chemo treatment on Friday--the waiting is the second worst. Not being able to take the whole thing on for them is absolutely the worst. Don't forget to look after yourself too.

Thanks Obc. Good luck to you and your husband on his treatment.

I found chemo very reasuring, yes it made my little man sick, but it was active treatment and there was something working to keep the monster at bay. Not that it did much, but it was more psychological.

I only did 400 words tonight. But I did shift a couple things around and change a couple little things.

I'm off to start a new book I've been waiting 3 weeks for!

Mainly typed today (and queried more agents for a previous project), but finished chapters 12 and 13 over the past three days, so that could be worse!

Another 2000 words today. I managed to write while the boys were outside playing with the dog. Over summer it was almost impossible to write while they were awake for it was just too hot for them to be outside. But now the weather is cooling down again, it's lovely.

I'm just under 1/3rd of the way through my first draft, having finished my draft of chapter seven yesterday I added some little things here and there, but I'm saving most of the fancy detail for my rewrite.

Currently lost in a book called Metropolitan, which is slowing down my writing But I'm hoping to get back on track soon!

So I haven't been around in a while, but I have been writing lately, which is good, I suppose. =)

Currently at 65 K for my novel. I originally thought it would be done by 80 K, but now I'm thinking it'll be finished around 100 K. I'm going to be rewriting this anyways, so I'm not really concerned about much besides just getting my ideas out.

Written 560 words so far, but hopefully I'll bump that number up to at least 3 K by the end of the day. I've just had a busy day so far. Since I'm on spring break, I've been trying to write as much as possible, because without school, I have SO much extra time.

I can't write anything right now. Thoughts and prayers for French Maiden's son are uppermost in my mind. I'm in a research phase and will begin my sixth book when I'm compelled to.

JBClemmens said:

Thoughts and prayers for French Maiden's son are uppermost in my mind.

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Thank you, I appreciate it

810 more words and I'll be at 10k.

French Maiden said:

810 more words and I'll be at 10k.

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Keep going- give those words what for!

Almondjoy, keep up the good work.

As for me... well, I have the internet (and thus can freely feed my AW addiction freely) back. Finished the full rough draft of my novel (might have mentioned it already. Alas, memory eludes me) and have been letting it simmer while I work out why I don't much like the last chapter.

Woohoo 10k in a week! Thats a personal record for me!