The Finish the Damn Book Challenge

Welcome to the challenge hidingsun! And congrats on already making your goal for today. You're off to a great start!

And yay for getting some writing done, David! I'm sure that you'll be able to build up a daily routine again, since this holiday madness is over now.

Planning to sit down and get some words out tonight, because I've just been perusing the forums today.

Almondjoy said:

Welcome to the challenge hidingsun! And congrats on already making your goal for today. You're off to a great start!

And yay for getting some writing done, David! I'm sure that you'll be able to build up a daily routine again, since this holiday madness is over now.

Planning to sit down and get some words out tonight, because I've just been perusing the forums today.

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I love your username! Welcome to the Finish the Damn Book Challenge. I have been participating since I joined AW last week, and this challenge is a total godsend. It keeps me motivated, and moving, and I get excited when I see other comrades making progress in their writing. Good luck on your writing and accomplish your daily writing goals!!

A thanks and a goal met today...

ChristinaLayton said:

I love your username! Welcome to the Finish the Damn Book Challenge. I have been participating since I joined AW last week, and this challenge is a total godsend. It keeps me motivated, and moving, and I get excited when I see other comrades making progress in their writing. Good luck on your writing and accomplish your daily writing goals!!

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Thanks, Christina. I actually did what I was supposed to do today...Before hitting the message boards, I made myself write my minimum 50 words. it turned into 200, with some tiny editing in another chapter. I just have to keep thinking: I can do this, I can do this.

Glad you're reasching your goals, too. Keep at it.

Not quite 400 of the missing 1200 replaced. I had a visitor over this evening who didnt leave until nearly 10.30pm. It cut severely into my most productive writing time. It also prevented my boys from going to bed on time, or as close to bed time as possible.
After dropping many hints that fell on deaf ears, I finally had to be very blunt and tell him to go home lol.

Was very frustrating. I'm so exhausted after the festive season so I'm going to go hit the hay before going to the beach tomorrow with my lovely boys and my daddy-o.

French Maiden said:

Not quite 400 of the missing 1200 replaced. I had a visitor over this evening who didnt leave until nearly 10.30pm. It cut severely into my most productive writing time. It also prevented my boys from going to bed on time, or as close to bed time as possible.
After dropping many hints that fell on deaf ears, I finally had to be very blunt and tell him to go home lol.

Was very frustrating. I'm so exhausted after the festive season so I'm going to go hit the hay before going to the beach tomorrow with my lovely boys and my daddy-o.

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Last night I made the grave mistake of going to sleep at 2:00 in the morning, knowing I had to get up at 7:00 (facepalm) and I wound up getting up at 7:26. It's a good thing that it doesn't take my grandmother very long to get ready to go to adult day care. The bus picks her up at 8:00 and today it came at 7:53. The poor thing didn't have time to finish drinking her coffee. I felt so bad. But at least she was ready. I've been in and out of bed since because when I don't sleep enough the night before, I can't sleep enough the next day to recover. Thank goodness tomorrow I don't have to get up at 7:00. I am a day ahead in my writing, thus I did 12,000 words in one day, the day before yesterday, and that helped a lot, and I'm supposed to be at 72,000 words today. I got there yesterday. I am going to start my writing session at 5:00 PM today and since I don't have to get up early tomorrow I'll use the night hours to work. It takes me 3-6 hours to do 6,000 words depending on how fast I type, sometimes 1,000 words every hour, sometimes 1,000 words every half hour. But I'm not going to feel too bad if I don't do all 6,000 words today, because like I said I'm allowed to skip today since I am 1 day ahead. I'm just going to do the best I can.

Christina.

Thats all any one can do Christina.

French Maiden said:

Thats all any one can do Christina.

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I'm pretty confident I'm going to be able to pull this off because despite how late I started (5:00 PM, only 98 mins ago) I am almost done with my first chapter of the day. I'm going to write the second one around 8:00 PM, watch Dark Matters, and everything I haven't done yet by 10:00 PM, I will work on.


Christina.

Wrote again tonight. I'm finding some old garbage in this ms, which was written years ago. So, I wrote some new and deleted some old. I ended up netting 70 words for the night.

ChristinaLayton said:

I love your username! Welcome to the Finish the Damn Book Challenge. I have been participating since I joined AW last week, and this challenge is a total godsend. It keeps me motivated, and moving, and I get excited when I see other comrades making progress in their writing. Good luck on your writing and accomplish your daily writing goals!!

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Thank you Christina!! Almondjoys are quite yummy, are they not? And thank you for the welcome! I think having something to hold me up to is going to help me SO much. And I also love cheering others on, so I think this thread and challenge is going to be great for me.

Didn't have a chance to get anything written today, because I spent the day playing around and doing the Scrivener tutorial. I got the 30 day trial, and will hopefully buy it with a 50 % coupon if I really like it. It's a bit confusing right now, but I haven't finished the tutorial yet, so hopefully it'll make more sense once I'm done with it!

ETA: Congrats Christina and David for getting some words written today! Keep up the great work!!

So far I've gotten 3,000 words down. I am calling it off for the night 'cause I am tired and I don't wanna wind up feeling like crap the whole day today because of lack of sleep. Tomorrow I'll try to do my usual 6,000 daily words plus the other 3,000 for today that I couldn't do. Oops, I mean today, Thursday, ha, ha. Yes, I like Almond Joys. They're one of my favorite candy bars. The other ones are Hershey's and 3 Musketeers. As a little girl I used to love Snickers and it would be the only candy bar I ate. Now I don't like them that much, but I do take one when someone gives me one. I like their ice cream bars better. Wouldn't it be awesome if they made some Snickers ice cream bars, the ice cream inside, chocolate, too? Mmm, I've always been a total sucker for chocolate. It's the most amazing thing nature's ever created besides men. We are beautiful, but I will forever be grateful God created men.

ChristinaLayton said:

It's the most amazing thing nature's ever created besides men. We are beautiful, but I will forever be grateful God created men.

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Haha, laughed out loud at this.

Life would be pretty dull without them.
They're fun to look at, fun to watch do stupid things (The Jackass crew - LOVE them boys), the only time they're not so fun is when they leave their skid mark jocks for me to wash or dont agree with everything I say

I had a much needed 2 hour nap while both the boys were sleeping. I'm hopefully all revived and ready to get writing and finally make up these lost words and then some. If not - Berocca.

French Maiden said:

Haha, laughed out loud at this.

Life would be pretty dull without them.
They're fun to look at, fun to watch do stupid things (The Jackass crew - LOVE them boys), the only time they're not so fun is when they leave their skid mark jocks for me to wash or dont agree with everything I say

I had a much needed 2 hour nap while both the boys were sleeping. I'm hopefully all revived and ready to get writing and finally make up these lost words and then some. If not - Berocca.

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Skid mark jocks for you to wash - That was funny. I always forget the time Jackass is on. Moreover I thought the show had been over for years.

Yeah, men are amazing. I mean it all depends on the kind of person you are, sure, there are bad men, good men, bad women and good women. What I mean is I love the way men are built. Their bodies are beautiful and amazing. Hell, I'm in love with one right now, Adam Lambert. This is weird because my love for Adam is not a lustful love, but I say I'm in love with him because I love him and admire him so damn much, and every day he seems to get more and more amazing and gives me 2,000 new reasons to admire him. I just love the guy, but when I fall in love with a celebrity, it's always a non-lustful kind of love. You admire them so much that next thing you know, you're in love.


Keep me informed on your beautiful boys. I'm sure you're doing a great job writing, being a mom, being a daughter--I'm your fan. You really are amazing. Right now I'm going to start a writing session, do the two chapters I was supposed to do yesterday that I couldn't do, and later in the day, work on today's three chapters.


Christina.

Today's goal met and then some...about 300 words for ch 12, which is the bane of my existence right now. So, now I'm off to exercise, my other goal for the new year. A strong body for a strong mind.

Keep the faith, friends.

ChristinaLayton said:

Skid mark jocks for you to wash - That was funny. I always forget the time Jackass is on. Moreover I thought the show had been over for years.

Yeah, men are amazing. I mean it all depends on the kind of person you are, sure, there are bad men, good men, bad women and good women. What I mean is I love the way men are built. Their bodies are beautiful and amazing. Hell, I'm in love with one right now, Adam Lambert. This is weird because my love for Adam is not a lustful love, but I say I'm in love with him because I love him and admire him so damn much, and every day he seems to get more and more amazing and gives me 2,000 new reasons to admire him. I just love the guy, but when I fall in love with a celebrity, it's always a non-lustful kind of love. You admire them so much that next thing you know, you're in love.


Keep me informed on your beautiful boys. I'm sure you're doing a great job writing, being a mom, being a daughter--I'm your fan. You really are amazing. Right now I'm going to start a writing session, do the two chapters I was supposed to do yesterday that I couldn't do, and later in the day, work on today's three chapters.


Christina.

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Jackass has been over for quite a while, there are still re-runns on foxtel (australian satelite payTV), I 've got the DVDs when I'm feeling a bit low to give me a laugh.

I agree, they are amazing. Some them are awe inspiring.

Thanks Christina, I do my best I too am going to settle down for some writing.

So far, I've been able to reach the 78,000 words total I was supposed to reach yesterday and I'm well on my way to 80,000 words, then 82,000 words, and finally the 84,000 words that I am aiming for today. Somehow, when one's not under the spell of MDD, one's able to write much faster. Before, finishing 6,000 words every day used to take me all my waking hours and having to steal a few hours from the early morning. Now it's a breeze. I do it in 6 hours or less. It's still early, 2:00 PM, so I'm crossing my fingers I'm going to get to my 84,000 words total. For having started this WIP on Dec. 15, 2012, my cousin's 32nd birthday, I find I'm churning down these words pretty damn quickly. I estimate this thing is going to take me 19-20 days to finish, and that's unbelievable to me, because the shortest time it's ever taken me to finish a 120k word novel is a month. Wow, I am on a roll. Keep us up to date on your progress, David, French Maiden, and Almondjoy. I feel like we're becoming best friends already! It's astounding what a challenge can do when people participate in it. Friendships are formed.

Christmas is over, and now I have 1 week off to finish this damn thing. Got in about a thousand words this morning.

Current word count: 53,158
Goal: 60,000 by 12/31/12
New Minimum: 1,400 words per day

ChristinaLayton said:

So far, I've been able to reach the 78,000 words total I was supposed to reach yesterday and I'm well on my way to 80,000 words, then 82,000 words, and finally the 84,000 words that I am aiming for today. Somehow, when one's not under the spell of MDD, one's able to write much faster. Before, finishing 6,000 words every day used to take me all my waking hours and having to steal a few hours from the early morning. Now it's a breeze. I do it in 6 hours or less. It's still early, 2:00 PM, so I'm crossing my fingers I'm going to get to my 84,000 words total. For having started this WIP on Dec. 15, 2012, my cousin's 32nd birthday, I find I'm churning down these words pretty damn quickly. I estimate this thing is going to take me 19-20 days to finish, and that's unbelievable to me, because the shortest time it's ever taken me to finish a 120k word novel is a month. Wow, I am on a roll. Keep us up to date on your progress, David, French Maiden, and Almondjoy. I feel like we're becoming best friends already! It's astounding what a challenge can do when people participate in it. Friendships are formed.

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Christina, you are doing FANTASTIC! You need to keep up the fabulous work!! I'm confident you'll be able to hit 84 K today, at the speed you're writing at today. Your novel is going to be finished so quickly!

And I feel as if we're becoming fast friends as well! It is so great to have such awesome people cheering me on. =)

KawaiiTimes said:

Christmas is over, and now I have 1 week off to finish this damn thing. Got in about a thousand words this morning.

Current word count: 53,158
Goal: 60,000 by 12/31/12
New Minimum: 1,400 words per day

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Hi Kawaii! 1,4 K per day is definitely a solid goal, and I'm sure you'll be able to easily do that. Congrats on already getting some words in this morning!

So Scrivener is totally set up now, and I'm going to play around with it a bit more before I FINALLY start writing. It's about time! I haven't written anything in far too long.

80,944 words so far. Getting there. I plan to go to sleep at 10:00 PM tonight because I have to get up tomorrow at 7:00 AM again, but yeah, right now it's 5:44 PM. Only a little over 3,000 words left to do. I can't believe how quickly I'm finishing this thing, but I strengthened my writing muscles when I started doing my handwritten novel on Nov. 7 of this year. I had to push that one aside just for a little while to get working on this one and focus, and it paid off because the end of the first book is so close i can smell it. When I'm done with this volume I'm going to write up the main points in the sequel that I've daydreamed about ahead of time and start typing my handwritten novel just to see how many words I've really written so far.


ETA: I couldn't upload an avatar with Adam Lambert, but I just had to flail about how adorable my avatar is. I love Taz, even more when he's smiling.

Finally got some words in today, after finally getting everything set up on Scrivener. Wrote 560, and hoping to get some more before the day ends.

Almondjoy said:

Finally got some words in today, after finally getting everything set up on Scrivener. Wrote 560, and hoping to get some more before the day ends.

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Good job! 560 words in one day is quite an achievement. I have some good news and some bad news concerning my piece.


The good news: I am less than 2,500 words from finishing my daily work. I've been distracted and worked a little slow when nighttime fell, but it's 7:35 PM and I plan to go to sleep at 10:00 PM, so I still got plenty of time, 2 hours and 25 minutes.

The bad news: I accidentally took my book in a direction where it would've made a very-interesting twist, but it ultimately would've made the novel non-publishable no matter the quality of it. An agent would've gotten to chapter 41 and immediately rejected it. I won't go into the details, but yeah, that mistake caused me to delete 1,000 words that I'd already written. I was almost done, but right now I am scraping that and changing one of my supporting characters' conundrum to one that's not that great and shock inducing, but at least it won't cause my novel to be automatically rejected based on an avoidable mistake. I didn't even realize what i was doing. Just wow.


Well, I am still pushing on. Tomorrow I expect to get to 90,000 words. Yay.


Christina.

My last writing session wasnt as successful as I had hoped it would be, I only added another 200 words to my lost 1200. I steill have another 700 to go *sigh*.
It's just so freakin' hot here, I cant sit and not feel like I'm melting. I'm going to get on my laptop and sit in front of the a/c tonight while I write. Hopefully that will make me more productive.

I agree Christina, it is lovely to have people who understand what it is to write, and to support you and cheer from the side lines.
I dont have that within my family/friends circle here, so it's nice to be able to come online and be among like-minded people.

French Maiden said:

I agree Christina, it is lovely to have people who understand what it is to write, and to support you and cheer from the side lines.
I dont have that within my family/friends circle here, so it's nice to be able to come online and be among like-minded people.

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That's shocking. Usually when you tell a friend or a family member you're writing a book or a short story, they get excited. They're like, "Ooh, can I read a little bit of it?" Or every time they see you, the first thing the ask besides how you're doing is how your book is coming along. It is disheartening to know that your own family doesn't support your dreams. One's family is supposed to be one's biggest cheerleaders. I hope they change their minds when you become a published writer and start earning money from it, giving you credibility as a true author. I have faith that it'll happen, and I advise you do the same. Don't give up on your dreams.

Christina.

ChristinaLayton said:

That's shocking. Usually when you tell a friend or a family member you're writing a book or a short story, they get excited. They're like, "Ooh, can I read a little bit of it?" Or every time they see you, the first thing the ask besides how you're doing is how your book is coming along. It is disheartening to know that your own family doesn't support your dreams. One's family is supposed to be one's biggest cheerleaders. I hope they change their minds when you become a published writer and start earning money from it, giving you credibility as a true author. I have faith that it'll happen, and I advise you do the same. Don't give up on your dreams.

Christina.

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Thanks Christina, thats really sweet.

Although I got to my total intended word count one hour later than I'd originally planned, I did it. I currently stand at 84,036/120,000 words!! :cheer:

Put the screaming baby to bed (THANK GOD) and got another chapter done. I may try to write a bit more before going to bed, but if not I'm at least glad I made it to where I did today.

@French I am blessed to have a handful of people who think it's cool/cute/interesting that I write. However, I will tell you that it's only a handful and most of them didn't think much of it until just this year when I finally had something published "for real". And about 2/3 of those people who are sort of supportive still haven't bought my book, or even read a free copy of it when it was offered. Don't give up on your family/friends. Some of them will come around eventually - and those who don't might be holding out because they're embarrassed that they don't have anything creative in their own lives.

Current word count: 54,318
Goal: 60,000 by 12/31/12
New Minimum: 1,400 words per day