November Challenge - Write Every Day

Day 5 of revisions and uncovering a couple of plot holes. Yeesh. Got lots of work ahead of me, haha. Hope everyone has a wonderful day, whether you're plugging away at that WIP or taking a rest.

Wrote 5 more pages tonight, including my fight scene because I actually remembered to take it with me last night. Had a lot of good tips and reminded me I really need to plan my fights before they happen. Ah well, that's what editing's for.

Can't believe there's only 2 weeks left in the month ;_; Where has the time gone?! Do I have to mug Father Time or The Doctor to get it back?

Still under the weather, but on the upswing. Last night I managed 1,100 words, and while that was a really good writing session for me, it did not make up for the two days I did not write. I am going to try and really knuckle down over this coming weekend as next week we are hosting the holiday and have a good deal of other things planned as well, so it will be a busy week. Even if I didn't manage the "write 6X a week" goal that I set out with, I still want to end this month having written more words than I did last month, and I believe I still have more than 4,000 to go.

Later today I'm going to attempt to catch up on this thread a bit. Hope everyone else is doing well!

An early finish today, but I have done ~700 words and completed the "Escape with Alika" chapter (total ~2700 words.)

There is one more as yet untitled chapter to write in this plot thread which I will probably start Monday.

Sending good wishes to those struggling with aches, pains, colds, etc.

Slacked it yesterday. I only wrote 500 words.

It's okay. I was going pretty heavy and, at least, I wrote something for the day.

I'm going to do better for this weekend anyway.

Started the third draft, properly (i.e. the rewriting everything, changing it back, and changing it again part ).

Magnus...Nice to hear that you're still working, even if you haven't had much time to check in. Keep at it!

Layla...Glad you managed your 3/3 yesterday. If you're not sure if housecleaning is your thing, maybe keep trying to find something that is first, but keep that idea on the back burner, just in case. What are your interests?

peartree...Sorry you had some bad news and that you're not feeling well again. Hang in there.

ktzeee...Good luck filling in those plot holes--hoping you find some creative ways to do so.

thereeness...Glad you were able to finish your scene and get five pages in. Good job!

Keithy...Nothing beats finishing a chapter--other than finishing another one. Have fun working towards that goal on Monday.

DanielSTJ...500 words is a good session in my book. Nice work.

Raindrop...that's great. I love editing my work much more than I enjoy getting the first draft out. Have fun re-writing!!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. I still feel like crap, but I'm functioning. Plus I managed another 900 words tonight. I believe I have all my important plot points figured out and I think the rest of this draft is going to move along nicely. I still have hope of hitting my goal of finishing it by the end of the year.

(((hugs))) peartree, hang in there
Hi Pisco, good to see you
Whoa - we're on page 8!
ktz - hope those revisions go good
reeness - 5 pages, nice work!
DL - 1,100 words. Great work
Keithy - congrats on the 700
Daniel - 500 is nothing to sneeze at, tho
Congrats on starting that 3rd draft, Raindrop
(DL - I'm currently looking for digital design work - production design mostly, since I'm self-taught. But I'm also working on an instructional design and a web-design portfolio)


Day 17: 290 words. I'm happy about that, because I was really tired, and I could have just quit at any moment.

Got contacted by four recruiters today. I worked hard on my marketing material(see below*), and will change my resume to reflect it. My goal is to respond to all those recruiters with my new material.

I put plastic over two windows in my room, and folded towels on the gaps in the floor near my desk where cold air comes in.

3/3

*I'm looking for alpha testers! If you have ever wanted to learn Japanese, check it out:
http://brightplover.com/japanese/
(Some of the language ^ of the first page is for hiring managers who will be looking at my portfolio. Jump thru the link for the first lesson Please PM me with questions.)

Got 6 more pages done tonight. Getting deeper into act 3. There's a castle (farm) to storm, a baddie to beat, and a day to save! ....Oh if it were only that easy XD

thereeness - sounds exciting!! Hope you have a blast!

Layla - 4 recruiters?! I'm impressed you got any writing done at all. That is crazy. Best of luck with the job hunt!

D.L. Shepard - That is fantastic!! Glad to hear you got so much done, whoohoo.

raindrop - on my 2nd draft, and totally right there with you on the changing everything thing. It's annoying but I know it'll make my novel that much stronger in the end.

I managed 5,000 words somehow last night (don't ask me how, I feel like I barely changed anything) and am excited to immerse myself into this fantasy world again today. Will have to resurface at some point to study for my accounting exam on Monday, but I should be able to make good progress. Here's hoping. Happy writing, everybody!

Back to normal: 1515 words written and 536 words edited yesterday.

Keep goin' everyone! : D

Drive-by. So tired. (Worked one part time job in the morning, it's 10:30, just got home from the other part-time.

Very low count day - wrote some handwritten lines for one of my (still just on paper) stories.
Saw a friend who is a programmer - he looked at my site - gave me some great feedback - just on the way it appears - he didn't try the content yet, but - if people stop based on the interface, they'll never get to the content.

2/3

swimming… swimming

thereeness...Yes, if only these characters would take the reins and write themselves. Our lives would be so much easier for sure. Nice job on the 6 pages.

ktzeee...5,000 words is awesome! Good luck on your accounting exam tomorrow.

DanielSTJ...Great job! Keep at it.

Layla...I knew you were looking for the digital design work for your main career, but I meant that maybe even your part time gig should be something you enjoy, if you don't think you'd like cleaning. Do you have other interests that might serve well for something part time, or maybe a favorite place to shop where you could get discounts if you work there part time?

I'm moving along really well in my novel for a change. Wrote another 1500 words yesterday. One more session like that and I will have beaten my word count from last month. If I keep this up, I will definitely finish the first draft by the end of December like I had hoped. Now, to just keep that momentum going with the holidays coming. That is my next challenge.

Everyone's doing so well, you're an inspiration!

Layla, in particular -- your schedule is nuts. That you find the energy to write anything at all is an achievement. Like running a sprint right after a marathon.
Shepherd, way to go!

Draft 3: I've now revised 12 scenes out of 60. I'm hoping to revise / rewrite one or two more by the end of the day. That's 19,500 words, which hopefully means my final word count will be close to 90k. A lot more than my initial 75k! That's my big fault: at times, my writing's so tight that you couldn't thread silk through it. I wish I could say the same of my forum posts.

Hi DL - yeah. I was feeling a moment of weakness or something.

So, I have a part-time job in retail, but I'm using savings to fill the gaps. I got another temp-part time gig over the holidays.

I tried putting up signs for teaching Japanese, but nobody responded. But maybe if I can get course organized - maybe I could even try to pitch it to companies. I really do enjoy teaching languages.

Raindrop - It was just that one day. (I'll have another one like it on Friday - & maybe one more, then that's it.) But because my situation is really stressful, I'm always really happy any time that I can actually add some words to a WIP.

Day 19: WROTE! 15 handwritten lines (the WIP is called "Tell The Ferryman")
Rsvppd two recruiters
Called a housemate candidate, made an appointment for her to come see the place.

So, I've hit my 3 of 3, so I'm going to check in. Maybe I'll get a little more done, but I'm ready to check in now.

Layla - I know some Japanese since I live here, and I'll take a look at it if you'd like some design input.
Raindrop - great job with those revisions!
D.L. - I hope you are on the upswing for good now!
Daniel - keep those words flowing! Your pace is crazy good.
ktzeee - best of luck as you get into the plot holes and continuity!
Keithy - keep you your good pace!

I didn't do any writing the past 3 days because I had a job interview! Saturday morning at 7 AM due to the time difference between Japan and America, haha. I spent Friday preparing and Saturday afterwards finally getting some much needed rest (worked 13 of 14 days, was exhausted) and then on Sunday we had to clean the house hardcore because we've just been so busy lately to really do it. I'm back at it a bit today as I wrote on my train commute in, but my other free time at work I spent putting my materials together to send to the job in hopes of proceeding to the next phase. Been a productive weekend, just not with writing. I've given up hope on NaNo but will still continue to write what I can during November because it's a great first chunk of the manuscript done. Only 10 days left, good luck everyone!

D.L. - whoohoo! Keep the momentum going! There are still plenty(ish) of days left in November

Raindrop - that's quite a word boost, congrats!!

Layla - it's awesome that you're managing to write in between all the chaos. Major props!

heykatydid - whoaaaa it sounds like you had a busy weekend. Sometimes real life must come first :/ I'm hitting exam season so I totally get it. Hopefully you'll find more writing time this week now that you've taken care of pesky business

Right now I'm at 75k for my WIP. Took the day off writing yesterday to focus on exams. I'll crack down again tonight and tomorrow, hoping my novel will eventually hit 90k as I revise, focus on character development, world building, etc. Sounds like everyone is making great progress. Hats off to you all for making it work despite crazy amounts of real life obligations. 10 days left in November, let's crush those goals!

I have, officially, about 30% left to write in my novel. I'm almost done with act 3, which means I can move on to act 4, the Final Act (yes, it needs caps XD). Wrote 6-7 pages tonight, but had to stop because they confronted a Minor Bad with whom they have History, and I needed to concentrate on what he was saying and not what the idiots over the phone were saying. Ah, Mondays. But it's now my weekend, so once I get my chores done, the writing time is aaaallllll miiiiiine, mwuahahaha.

Hope everyone has a good few days and keeps trucking even through Turkey Coma Day!

Layla...Well there's nothing wrong with cleaning. It's good honest work. But you seemed hesitant, at least here on the thread, so I thought maybe you wanted to keep looking. Glad you at least have the retail gig to help slow down the savings drain. I so hope you find something permanent soon. It's been a long haul! Good luck.

heykatydid...I feel like I am on the upswing for this one. I am getting so close to that final scene, I can taste it. I write very lean first drafts, so I will have a good deal of editing and reshaping ahead, but for me, getting that first draft down is much harder. Editing and playing with words is so much more fun! Good luck with that job interview. Hope you get it!

I managed another 600 words yesterday. We are hosting Thanksgiving here, and then we are painting two rooms over the holiday weekend, so I do have a busy week ahead, but as long as I get in another 2K total for the month I'll be happy and still on track.

heykatydid - yay for the job interview! Fingers crossed.
ktzeee - I'm glad you didn't forget to revise for your exams, XD.
thereeness - Mr Final Act likes its caps, it's a well-known fact!
D.L.Shepherd - Don't splatter paint on the turkey. (I just jinxed it, didn't I? Sorrrrrry!)

My word count is still going up up up. It's very satisfying. I scrapped a scene and replaced it with a brand new one. It was nice going back to that clean, fresh page feeling for a change! My characters had fun with it, anyway.

Raindrop...Well we are starting painting the day after the holiday, so as long as it only splatters on the leftovers, all is good. Glad your count is going up and you are enjoying changing things up!

I added another 400+ words today, and I crossed 45K. Finally feel as if I'm getting there.

Nothing much over the weekend - it was the wife's birthday, so too busy with a party.

But... 944 new words today, and another 400 lifted from the discard file - although this needs work.

Hats off to Layla and DL Shepard for writing amongst the chaos.

katy - hope the interview leads to good things - & I'd love to get feedback
ktz - it's getting a little hard. So many things.
congrats on the progress, reeness!
& congrats, Raindrop on the upping word count!
Keithy, nice work with the 944!

Day 20: Wrote 2 handwritten lines in the morning, then got a bummer of an interruption; managed to write 91 digital words when I got home at 10:30.

took a language test for a job (that took like, 1.5 hours I think), filled an online app - then went to the retail job - where an old friend (who is really successful and an interesting person) came in to shop & I got some good information, ways to think about things from talking to him

2/3
So tired. Sleep now.

Layla - definitely! I'll hit it tomorrow, I should have a bit of downtime at work as Wednesdays for me are slow days.
Keithy - still movin'! Great job!
D.L. - lean first drafts are still first drafts, and at least it gives you a great foundation to get those edits off of. I hope you can get the final sprint to the end!
Raindrop - that clean feeling of a fresh page is an oddly satisfying one, isn't it? Congrats!
ktzeee - real life unfortunately is a pain right now, and it's the worst timing haha. I have exams to write coming up, which is a time suck, and then grading... sigh...

Thanks for all the well wishes on the interview! After I sent in my materials, I got an email the next day saying I'd moved onto the next one, so now I'm working on setting up a video of my teaching in a class this week (a lot of work around with my school and privacy laws). I'm really hopeful as they've been super fast with all the responses and I really hope they like me and it's not because they are just desperate and have no one else. Because of this, I've been really busy with work stuff and haven't had much writing at all. I think I've only gotten about 800 words down in the past two days. BUT I finished up the last round of editing with my novella coming out, and I hope I get the cover soon as I'm super excited to see what they made for me.

Good luck everyone!! We're nearing the end of November.

Keithy...Hope you and your wife had a nice celebration! Good job getting those words in yesterday too!

Layla...Two out of three isn't bad with, especially with all you have going on. And wow, that was some long test! Hope you get yourself some rest!!

heykatydid...That's great that you moved on to the next level of interview. Fingers and toes all crossed over here for you!

I also managed about 800 more words, but with that said, I don't how much more writing or online time I'm going to have from tomorrow through Monday, but if I can't get any more writing done until Tuesday, I refuse to be upset with myself. It still gives me three more days next week to beat my word count from last month, and I'm close enough that I think I'll make it.

For those who celebrate it, have a Happy Thanksgiving! For those who don't, keep on keeping on!!