M/T/S Challenge, Feb. edition

ToddWBush · Feb 8, 2010

Ken Hoss said:
I still hope to hit my goal of 60K by the 15th, though it looks like I may have to wipe out most of what I did over the past couple of days. There may be a major issue with a scene I wrote while my MC was at the DEA offices. I have to check with my DEA friend to see for sure, but I have a feeling it's all wrong. Ces't la vie.

So what if it's wrong? Figure out how to correct it later. It's fiction. Sometimes you have to bend things that can't be bent just to make a scene work. That's what the "Everything that's wrong in this novel falls squarely on my shoulders..." sentence is there in the acknowledgements.

kaitie · Feb 8, 2010

Todd...no offense but I'm going to have to make a chart without you just to so everyone else isn't just a little squiggly line at the bottom of the page. :tongue

That's just sick. In a good way of course, but sick.

Ken, my vote is as long as it's not something that bears heavily on the plot, just keep going and you can always change it up later.

Ken Hoss · Feb 9, 2010

Todd, kaitie, thanks for the advice.

I read over it again, and while it may have a few things wrong, it isn't something that can't be fixed later. It does have some bearing on the plot, but not in a big way. Here's where I have the issue:

Kelli managed to convince this agent, Farnsworth, to bring his inside man in for debriefing. She needed to find out who was after her and her partner. The day after he, Farnsworth, did this, the undercover was found dead. She gets called in to DEA HQ by Farnsworth and is taken to see his boss. His boss is pissed about what happened and terminates the operation that Farnsworth has been running for three years. (This is the gray area.) In light of this, the big boss gives her the green light to go after Carlos, the gang member who has been working as a CS for the DEA and Farnsworth.

It's a pivotal point in the story. She has been after this guy Carlos since the beginning. He's a suspect in at least 7 homicides, but she hasn't been able to touch him due to his relationship with the DEA.

But like you say, Todd, sometimes you have to bend things to make a scene work. And this not only made the scene work, it gave my MC the break she was needing.

ToddWBush · Feb 9, 2010

kaitie, that's fine. I understand.

Ken, I'm glad your scene is working. Your story sounds GREAT!!!

CheekyWench · Feb 9, 2010

I feel so inferior. :flag:

heyjude · Feb 9, 2010

Ken Hoss said:
The day after he, Farnsworth, did this, the undercover was found dead. She gets called in to DEA HQ by Farnsworth and is taken to see his boss. His boss is pissed about what happened and terminates the operation that Farnsworth has been running for three years. (This is the gray area.)

I'm not sure I'd buy that he'd deep-six the entire op b/c he was pissed. Now if the undercover was irreplaceable, if the whole op was blown b/c of his death, that I would buy.

Ken Hoss · Feb 9, 2010

heyjude said:
I'm not sure I'd buy that he'd deep-six the entire op b/c he was pissed. Now if the undercover was irreplaceable, if the whole op was blown b/c of his death, that I would buy.

Well, I didn't go into all the details here. Suffice to say that due to the death of the UC, the operation is blown anyway. The boss is pissed at Farnsworth for breaking protocol and pulling the guy in for debriefing. (This is a BIG no-no during an ongoing operation.) It's not pivotal to the story, but I suppose I could add something to the effect that Farnsworth gets his butt chewed out and is placed on suspension. BTW, the boss did assign a new agent to the case and is having him start up a new op. (Which would take some time to get another man deep into the organization.)

Would you buy that?

heyjude · Feb 9, 2010

Yep, as long as it's clear the op is inoperable, so to speak. Ha, I kill myself.

Ken Hoss · Feb 9, 2010

heyjude said:
Yep, as long as it's clear the op is inoperable, so to speak. Ha, I kill myself.

"Our top story. A mystery writer in Flordia was found dead this morning. Apparently she was the victim of a bad pun." :tongue

kaitie · Feb 9, 2010

LOL!

Nothing for Kaitie today. Marathon this morning, felt like complete crap afterwards (still do...might not have managed to dodge that bug going around the teacher's office after all), and then did some reading for a friend instead. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive. Requiring I actually get some sleep!

CheekyWench · Feb 9, 2010

Probably not going to have much in terms of big word-age today. I'm going back through my last book and adding here and there to fill it out more... I doubt if it will total up to much.

Ken Hoss · Feb 9, 2010

kaitie said:
LOL!

Nothing for Kaitie today. Marathon this morning, felt like complete crap afterwards (still do...might not have managed to dodge that bug going around the teacher's office after all), and then did some reading for a friend instead. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive. Requiring I actually get some sleep!

Hope you feel better soon, and keeping my fingers crossed you dodged that bug going around.

Well, wrapped up chapter 24, and a total of 363 words so far today. Not great wordage, but it's nice to close out another chapter. Going for lunch now, and hope to start the next chapter when I get back.

Good luck and good writing all.

EDIT: Added another 279 to start chapter 25. Total so far is 642 for the day. Slowly but surely.

HistorySleuth · Feb 9, 2010

Wow! Todd's goin' great guns a blazin'! :guns:

Don't be so hard on yourself Cheeky, any progress gets you to a finished WIP! Look at me, not a lot of words lately, but I'm still doing something that improves my story.

.... and Shussssssssh! Don't tell anyone I'm home alone today ... and only one dog too!

I'm actually getting something useful done. I'm using yWriter5, never used it before, but it is working out well for outlining (I don't think I could do the whole story in it though.) So aside from doing the chapter/scene synop, I can drag and drop my characters in the scene list then look later and see if its balanced or I mentioned someone once and never again, same with locations, things like that. Anyway, I noticed as I've been doing it I needed to add some things as I thought of it, so I I got my WIP open in another window editing parts in (although I don't want any majoring editing right now.) I'm multitasking.

So I may actually have words to add to the challenge today, besides outlining.

Edit: Word count so far today - 753

CheekyWench · Feb 9, 2010

HistorySleuth said:
Wow! Todd's goin' great guns a blazin'!

Don't be so hard on yourself Cheeky, any progress gets you to a finished WIP! Look at me, not a lot of words lately, but I'm still doing something that improves my story.

.... and Shussssssssh! Don't tell anyone I'm home alone today ... and only one dog too!

I'm actually getting something useful done. I'm using yWriter5, never used it before, but it is working out well for outlining (I don't think I could do the whole story in it though.) So aside from doing the chapter/scene synop, I can drag and drop my characters in the scene list then look later and see if its balanced or I mentioned someone once and never again, same with locations, things like that. Anyway, I noticed as I've been doing it I needed to add some things as I thought of it, so I I got my WIP open in another window editing parts in (although I don't want any majoring editing right now.) I'm multitasking. So I may actually have words to add to the challenge today, besides outlining.

Thank you

That's how I'm thinking right now. And actually I've written a few more scenes to sneak in to explain a lot more that was left out originally. I've had beta readers say they want to hear more about x,y, and z, so I'm filling in now. It's currently on the short side, right around 55k, so I'm looking for ways to get my story out - more - to round it out to an average length.... shooting for at least 70-80k. I have six main characters, so it should be easy to do more back story & interaction.

Eddyz Aquila · Feb 9, 2010

1609 words for today.

Brings my total for February to 8727 words.

ToddWBush · Feb 9, 2010

2,605 today. Great numbers for everyone!!!

Ken Hoss · Feb 9, 2010

Got another 275 tonight. Not that great, but better than nothing. Brings my daily total to 917.

Damn, Todd is kicking butt. Way to go, Todd.

Good job everyone!

ToddWBush · Feb 9, 2010

Another 2,520, so that brings my total today to 5,125 for the day. I'm turning this from adventure (which it still is) into a quest-style thriller... and that makes me smile, I got to say.

Aphotic Ink · Feb 10, 2010

CheekyWench said:
I feel so inferior.

Oh, don't!

Honestly, I haven't written anything since... Uhm. Before the wedding and the huge work document thing[1]. I think Saturday? Or maybe Friday? I don't even remember. As people here told me, sometimes you can just have a dry patch.

And no, not my wedding. If it was, I wouldn't worry about it.

ETA: And I have to say, reading this is an inspiration. Congrats to everyone.

Love and coffee,
Frances
---
[1] I totally can't count this; my job on it is formatting and making it XHTML Strict/TBS/CLF compliant. Lots of fiddly bits, no writing.

kaitie · Feb 10, 2010

2,424! And it would be more except I'm going to color the next picture for class (I told three kids I'd do them) and watch a scaaaary movie while I do. But seriously, that was even an easy 2k, which makes me even happier. I love it when it's easy. I'm totally into it now and I'm hoping I can pull off the same amount tomorrow. We'll see. In any case woohoo!

Ken Hoss · Feb 10, 2010

kaitie said:
2,424! And it would be more except I'm going to color the next picture for class (I told three kids I'd do them) and watch a scaaaary movie while I do. But seriously, that was even an easy 2k, which makes me even happier. I love it when it's easy. I'm totally into it now and I'm hoping I can pull off the same amount tomorrow. We'll see. In any case woohoo!

Wow, kaitie. Great wordage. You got to love it when the words flow!

Hope I get get some out today, but work, (dirty four letter word), might get in the way.

kaitie · Feb 10, 2010

Scary movie wasn't scary after all. Fun, but not scary. Oh well, I'm really hard to scare. :tongue

Eddyz Aquila · Feb 10, 2010

2113 words today! From 78020 to 80133!

And with that, I have passed the 80000 word mark.
And 10000 for the February challenge.

CheekyWench · Feb 10, 2010

Eddyz Aquila said:
2113 words today! From 78020 to 80133!

And with that, I have passed the 80000 word mark.
And 10000 for the February challenge.

CheekyWench · Feb 10, 2010

Torrain said:
Oh, don't! Honestly, I haven't written anything since... Uhm. Before the wedding and the huge work document thing[1]. I think Saturday? Or maybe Friday? I don't even remember. As people here told me, sometimes you can just have a dry patch.

And no, not my wedding. If it was, I wouldn't worry about it.

ETA: And I have to say, reading this is an inspiration. Congrats to everyone.

Love and coffee,
Frances
---
[1] I totally can't count this; my job on it is formatting and making it XHTML Strict/TBS/CLF compliant. Lots of fiddly bits, no writing.

I'm actually okay with it. I just wish sometimes I had the drive, the time, and the story in me long enough to write that long.
I've got two young kids, one who is with me all day, so it's hard for me to sit uninterrupted and inspired that long. lol

M/T/S Challenge, Feb. edition

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