Opulent October - 500 words per day writing/editing - all genres welcome

Saoirse

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It's October, and the beginning of the 4th quarter of the year.

Where on EARTH did the year go?

Anyhoo, how'd September go? Met your goals, or fell short?

What are your goals for October?
 

Saoirse

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For me, it's been an uphill battle trying to balance work with writing. I haven't been very successful. Things are ramping up, and it's do or die time.

I need 20k on The Vanishing to get back on track for my deadline, which was pushed back a month.

I have a copyedit to do.

I have 2 editing jobs to finish.

And I have another coming very shortly. And none of this is counting my usual VA/author assistant work. Back when I started three years ago, I had very little editing work and used the VA work to fill in. But both have expanded tremendously, which is awesome, but now I need to juggle everything and try not to drop anything while juggling another set of balls....

So, yeah, perseverance and all that. And maybe a stiff drink.
 
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BlackKnight1974

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October! Already! How is that possible?!

September was okay, I didn't get as much time as I would have liked on my edit due to being very busy in my day job and doing things for our new house (probably shouldn't complain). I hit my page count, but I'm still languishing north of 300k words.

Hoping to finish the 3rd pass of editing by the end of the month, then it will be the first beta reader (eek!). A colleague of mine is a former school teacher and has offered himself up as a willing victim - hopefully I won't get detention...

Good luck everyone - hope you all have a great month.
 

onesecondglance

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Hello everyone!

I'm just back from a short holiday after meeting my deadlines last month. I am officially no longer a student, which I am pretty sure makes me an "unemployed bum". I am fortunate to have enough saved to get me to the end of the year, so I need to make the most of that and try and get this book finished before I go back into work.

This month's target is to re-write the opening chapters so they chime with the 40k I just handed in, just so I have a body of work that doesn't self-contradict halfway through, then to write 10k of new stuff.

Best of luck to everyone else with their goals.
 

Zan75

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Salutations everyone,

Hard to believe we're already a week into the month.
SAOIRSE - Best of luck with the workload
BK - Looking forward to hear what your friend has to say
OSG - Hope you enjoy your "bumming", congrats on wrapping up school

September was more productive month for me. Fell a little shy of 7k words added to the story. I'm happy with that. Going to keep my rolling goal of 5k for this month and see where I get to. It's starting out alright, but a good deal can happen between now and the end of the month.
 

aggieamy

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I'm new here but am excited to join in.

I'd like to get through edits for my current WIP so I can clear the decks for NaNoWriMo. I've probably got about 30k words left but the ending needs a ton of work so it's slow going.

Also on the October to-do list is to finish the outline of what I want to write next month.
 

Zan75

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Welcome aboard AggieAmy :hi:

Best of luck with the edits.
I haven't decided if I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year or not. A great many things going on. Hmm, decisions decisions.
 

lizmonster

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I have spent the day not changing three small things in the first chapter. Of a revision I should've started weeks ago.

I am so very, very stuck.
 

Zan75

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LIZ- Best wishes for becoming unstuck. I do hate those moments.

Progress has been a bit slow this last week or two. Getting some things accomplished so not a total loss. Not sure where my word count stands.
 

Zan75

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Not much new to report.
How's everyone else doing?
 

BlackKnight1974

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Decided there were a couple of changes I wanted to make before passing it to my Beta - so I'm working through my 4th edit.

Sooner or later I am going to have to bite the bullet and do something...
 

Saoirse

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::pokes head in::

Holy crap I've been gone awhile!

Welcome aggieamy!

Hugs and commiserations to all.

Work has eaten my life. And I'm almost to halfway on The Vanishing, but those 3k to get there? SO SLOW. So far that they are almost on another planet. I keep promising myself I'll try to write every day, but then something urgent comes up and it's 12am and I'm falling asleep and it's another day I didn't write...although I have technically written this month more than the past three months (thanks BlackKnight, your spreadsheets are so helpful! It's nice to see all of that data in one place).
 

onesecondglance

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Finally, some progress to report. Of my two monthly goals, I've finished the first (rewrite the opening bunch of chapters). Now I just need 10k of new stuff and I'll be on track for the month. Just 10k, he says, as if it's nothing...

:hi: Saoirse and BlackKnight! Here's to a strong end to the month.
 

BlackKnight1974

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Glad to hear that someone is making some progress!

OSG - hopefully you'll get close enough to the 10k to feel happy.

Saoirse - glad the spreadsheet is useful, I'll try and get the sheets for November and December done over the weekend. If anyone else wants a copy, let me know.

Keep pushing everyone - the hard work will pay off!
 

aggieamy

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My edits are going slow. I got some unhelpful advice from some BETAs but it was my own fault for using BETAs not familiar with my genre. It's a dual timeline mystery (think Kate Morton but without the six figure publishing contract) and they recommended getting rid of the 1946 portion because they'd never seen a book written like that. Um ... it is a thing ... ah well. Off to find another BETA or two.

Glad to hear that someone is making some progress!

OSG - hopefully you'll get close enough to the 10k to feel happy.

Saoirse - glad the spreadsheet is useful, I'll try and get the sheets for November and December done over the weekend. If anyone else wants a copy, let me know.

Keep pushing everyone - the hard work will pay off!

I'd love a copy of the spreadsheet! Thanks so much!
 

Zan75

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:hi:
Happy Halloween everyone. I hope the end of the month is treating you well.