Hooray for AW being back. Felt weird to not do a status update, almost as weird as it feels when I try to go a day without writing.
And speaking of not writing, day 13 was 1,745 words (or 2,052 counting the stuff I wrote after I lost that data… and I guess technically those words should be ascribed to one day or the other, but probably not both because at least some of the effort was effectively duplicated).
The 1,745 was just during the standard session. The early session was just a quick attempt to write what’d been lost (although I went into more detail) and then I skipped the late session despite being under even my quota, since I was just really exhausted. It was a conscious choice, even if it’s one that puts me further behind on the whole.
The second story still needs another two passes, particularly since I’m not changing much each time. It probably needs some work on the prose, but the timeline is too short at this point to really workshop it or anything. I’ll do what I can, and then roll the dice. As it stands, it might just be rejected for not coming close enough on theme.
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Day 14 was 2,537 words.
Day 13 I did a bunch of skipping ahead in the narrative. I’d have a small amount of scene, jump, small amount, jump. Day 14, I filled in some of the gaps (when I wasn’t distracted – I had some serious focus issues early on).
I’m not sure I necessarily liked how some of it turned out, given that I had a very different vision for some of the scenes. The only thing I’m still onboard with was changing where one scene was set, because it makes a few things feel less contrived (although there’s *still* a contrived feeling with how the timing works out). And, of course, the new content doesn’t necessarily line up perfectly with day 13’s additions.
Still feeling a little under-enthused by book 8. Partly because the most interesting plot thread may arguably be the ghost just going around killing people (and making bad jokes about it), which isn't something I could just have on its own anyway. If I wound up heavily revising, I'm thinking I wouldn't use the ghosts as POVs mostly to play up the menace where even the more benevolent spirits arguably have an unsettling edge. And as much as I try to make one particular spirit more sympathetic, it's hard to get around some of his behavior... then again, if American Horror Story can get away with character portraits of borderline villains, I might not be *entirely* off the mark.
Otherwise, I also went ahead and submitted that second short story. I feel like it may have a little further to go and probably would have benefited from some second opinions, but unfortunately silly little me didn’t think to use the SYW forum in advance of an announced AW forums update. While I thought the fix would be faster, that’s really on me for not planning better. And, honestly, I should get in the habit of soliciting feedback for my short fiction before submitting them, and it would be a better way of testing the waters with SYW (or I could just bug one of my critique partners, but I’m behind on one of my latest exchanges and don’t want to feel like a jerk).
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Moon -- Why'd you call it quits on YA?
Taylor -- I'm also reeling from a bad night's sleep. I had about 6-7 hours collectively which is way too much for me, so my head has been fogged as a result. ((And to your previous response where you mentioned writing things on paper first, I have abysmally bad handwriting (and I write much more slowly than I can type) which is why I just stick to a screen for everything; in this case, the issue was that I somehow didn't save the document before taking a break, which I imagine just came down to being tired).