Auspicious August - 500 words/editing a day, all genres welcome

onesecondglance

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August is upon us! Dear lord, who would have seen that coming.

So! How did you do last month? What are your goals for August? And what are you going to reward yourself with?

Check in for progress, support, commiseration, and counselling. I stocked up on pastries, so help yourself to a danish on the way in...
 
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onesecondglance

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*yoinks a pain aux raisin*

I wrote over 11k last month, which is nice, but not as much as I'd hoped for, and not as much as I need to do if I want to get this draft finished by the end of the year. BUT I have deadlines coming up in September, so I have to focus on hitting those before I can get back to just writing forward.

This month's goals, then:
- Write at least 4k in the first half of the month (w/e 18/08)
- Buff up 35-40k of the book in the second half of the month, ready for betas* in September

Reward for hitting each goal: I dunno, maybe another danish.


* not really betas in the proper sense; for a start, this is a chunk from the middle of the book. But I'm handing in what the course requires, and it makes sense to get some extra eyes on it. I'll save my "real" betas for when I've actually got a complete and readable draft.
 

BlackKnight1974

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*scoops up an apricot crown and defends it like a one-armed convict*

July was okay, after reaching the end of my edit of my WIP, I returned to the start to continue my adverb and the "stating the freaking obvious" cull. Page progression = good. Word count = not so good:

48431150926_92c92fd0b5_b.jpg


Plan for August is to finish the first "proper" version and save it for my vanity. Then I need to start trimming again with a view to making it a two part.

After that, it might be beta time - I'll need to do something before I even consider the thankless hell of queries and rejection. I wouldn't be surprised if I started my next project before I do that...

However, that's not for August - good luck everyone, please excuse me while I return to gorge myself on the pastry delights that OSG was kind enough to provide...
 
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lizmonster

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July saw me starting to query! Yay! August will see more of that. I'm actually itching to send out more, but I feel like it's too soon to gauge the effectiveness of the letter so I should wait. And refresh my inbox every five minutes, of course. :D

August? I need to get back to Series Book 4. Would like to have a finished draft by November so I can draft Series Book 5 (last one!) for NaNo. Which means for August, I need to get (quick calculation) about 50K. I can reuse at least parts of earlier drafts, but it's been so long since I've touched this book and I've had so many more thoughts I'm going to be doing a lot of rewriting from scratch.

And of course I've had a short story idea creep in, which is my brain's way of procrastinating without admitting it's procrastinating. If real life can back the heck off a bit for August, though, I might be able to get a draft of that as well.

Whee! Go team! :e2cheer:
 

BlackKnight1974

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Well done OSG and LizMonster on your flying start to the month!

So far I've edited out another 3k words - plenty more to go though!
 

Zan75

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I see everyone is off to a good start. Congrats.

Last month I fell short of my 5k target. I'm going to try again this month. Fingers crossed.
 

Saoirse

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::flies in and ganks a cruller::


Okay, I swear it was July just yesterday....

All kidding aside, I did okay. I ended up lowering my Camp goal to 10k and made it! By the skin of my teeth. I've also got several editing jobs still in progress. I have a short story to finish that was due on the 1st.

This month I'd like to finish that story and get at least 10k on The Vanishing. And maybe carve out some down time between editing jobs.
 

Westie

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Well, my July zoomed by, as have the few years since I've been on this forum. Actually, a lot has changed since I was last here (pastries!), including putting my "own" writing on the back burner for a variety of reasons. Now, though, I'm back at it.

So far this month, I've dug a completed crime/mystery MS out of cold storage and am working through a re-write. I'm a much different writer that I was 10 years ago, so I'm hoping this is a good thing - the MS got several partial and a few full requests before, and many agents were amazing with their written feedback. Now that I've had considerable time away from it, I'm able to see the MS through the reader's eyes and I see EXACTLY what the agents kept pointing out.

Goals for the month:

1) Finish the re-write.
2) If the MS ends up significantly different, consider sending out queries again. The characters are very well entrenched in my brain, but it may be time to put them back on ice - permanently. I'll make that decision once the re-write is done. If anything, doing the re-write is getting me back into the writing routine.
3) Flesh out the idea for a completely different story idea that's been raging through my brain. I'm very excited about this one.

Ahhh.....it's good to be back.
 

Zan75

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I realized today that summer is drawing to a close - sigh.

Saoirse I feel like I should be congratulating you for being swamped with work.
Westie - best of luck with your rewrite, I hope it turns out better then expected.

I cleared twelve hundred words this week and am pressing ahead.
 

Saoirse

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Zan75 - Thank you! :D

Westie - Welcome! Good luck with your goals for this month.

It looks like you're all making progress! Yay! I am severely deficient in Potassium, I found out, which is wreaking havoc with my productivity (the main symptom is fatigue....along with the fatigue I already have from my chronic illnesses). So that's been really fun. /sarcasm

Going to try to get stuff done anyway, as always.
 

onesecondglance

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I guess I should update on the month's progress... I'm a hair shy of 5000 words for the month so far, which is ahead of target, but somehow doesn't feel like it. Weird.

Welcome to new and established folks alike and hope you're pushing forward.
 

BlackKnight1974

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As we crest the midway point for the month, I've already hit my pages edited target, which is good. Unfortunately, the word count isn't coming down as fast as I hoped.

All the characters have a part to play in the story. To remove one would spoil the balance (well, that's what I think, but I would, it's my story!)and I don't want to butcher any of their back stories, a fair few of them don't make it to the end and I don't want them to be cardboard cut-outs.

I'm getting pretty bored of editing (started the end of January) and I'm wondering whether I should rewrite the opening, think about drafting a query or perhaps give in and start work on my next project (although I said I wouldn't until I'd finished this one). I could take a look at finding some beta readers to get a second opinion, however I certainly can't justify spending what it would cost to pay someone to edit a 345k long manuscript!
 

Zan75

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Still cruising along. That's about I can say.

Saoirse - feel better, sending positive thoughts
OSG - Well done, best wishes for the second half of August.
BK - don't burn yourself out. Still thinking two books or eyeing a trilogy?
 

BlackKnight1974

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BK - don't burn yourself out. Still thinking two books or eyeing a trilogy?

Thanks for the support Zan! :)

Unfortunately, due to its structure, the story won't easily split into three parts. I've only been looking to make it into a two part because of it's length. There is a fairly substantial reveal/event just after the midway point which would probably be the most obvious splitting point (it also sees the end of 4 of the secondary characters). The reveal is hinted at throughout and would bring the first part of the story to a satisfying conclusion. The second part would follow the aftermath with the final pieces of the jigsaw and major twists not revealed until near the end of the story.

I'm not currently helped by the fact that I have spent almost the entire week at work writing technical policy documents - it's sapped me of any motivation to spend time in front of a computer screen! I'm going to try to do some over the weekend and perhaps rewrite the opening - which I am still not happy with. I have a couple more days at work of document writing, hopefully when that has passed I will start to feel more motivated!

Hope everyone has a productive weekend and starts the drive towards the end of the month. We're approaching the last third of 2019 and I don't know about everyone else, but by the end of the year I intend to have started my next project (and hopefully racked up a few rejection letters for this one too!)
 

Zan75

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Another week finished, added about 1500 new words. Pressing onward, one word at a time. :tongue

BK - I think a week writing technical policy documents would sap anyone of motivation to write...anything...ever again :)
 

lizmonster

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August goals have changed, and I need some accountability, y'all.

I've got an R&R on my current manuscript to do. I figure if I focus I might get it done in six weeks (say, somewhere in the first week of October).

But focus is not my strong suit these days. Yikes.

For now: I've got my notes, and I've got Prospective Agent's notes. I've been doing some brainstorming, and I have more to go, but I'd like to get through everything by next Monday the 26th. By my estimates I'm about 20% through what I need to do.

I'll post updates. We'll see how it goes.
 

onesecondglance

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You can do it, Liz!

My goals have changed a little, too. After a lot of thinking about my outline, I realised I kinda have four - up to maybe even six - chapters to write to make up the submission I want to hand in. That's around 10-15k new stuff. ARGH.

Best get the head down...

Keep going, everyone!
 

BlackKnight1974

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Well done Liz - sounds promising, hope you can manage to stay focused!

I'm still writing technical documents during the day, only a few left to do now - but it does sap your motivation to do anything!

Final push everyone - if not now, then when? :)
 

Saoirse

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:cheers everyone:

I'm plugging away a line edit job. I'd already done a developmental edit, so this is the last step before publishing. It's been intense. I hope to be done soon.

On other news, I am officially done with my foot doctor. She said barring any issues, I don't need to come back. I'm still in the orthotic until I am 100% pain free, and then I am to wean off of it. Feels like an eternity since I had my surgery, but it's only been five months. Time flies.
 

lizmonster

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Bravo on the healing, Saoirse!

I figured a few things out today. One big problem I just...undid. Funny how a lot of the answers I'm finding involve ideas I had in place in earlier drafts.

Next up: some medical research. Should be entertaining if nothing else.
 

onesecondglance

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Good progress everyone, and wonderful news on the foot, Saoirse.

I clocked 4k this week, which is okay, but I'm not saying I wouldn't have liked more. I just couldn't get going today in particular. Just three hundred more words would have taken me over 10k for the month, but they just wouldn't come. ANYWAY. Still a few more days left in August, still time to hit your goals...