Weekly Challenge - Any takers?

Drascus

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The daily challenge threads look fun but between working full time, a 9 year old, and an 18 year old, daily is just not realistic for me. Neither homework help nor Tuesday story-time are expendable. :)

Is anyone interested in a weekly goal thread to keep ourselves on track? Much like having a workout buddy has helped me get to the gym, I'd love to see people pushing at weekly goals to help keep me motivated!

I'm planning to re-start a novel next week after going back to the drawing board on a couple of my characters.

My goal is 6,000 words per week. I plan to keep track of weekly progress as well as overall progress.

The goal is to have a first draft done by the end of August. That puts me at about 60-72k words, which is about right for YA contemporary fantasy. If it ends up smaller, then that just gives me more cushion.
 

The Eighteenth Letter

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Hello Drascus

Is the weekly challenge still up for taking? I am kind of new as an active member to the community, but not new to writing. I would be happy to take you up on this weekly challenge.
 

Drascus

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Hello Drascus

Is the weekly challenge still up for taking? I am kind of new as an active member to the community, but not new to writing. I would be happy to take you up on this weekly challenge.

I totally missed the notification for this reply, sorry that I'm replying two months later!

I'm still on my weekly challenge and I'm actually cruising above 7k words per week, so I'm pretty excited about it.

I would welcome you, Rilind, and anyone else who is interested in a weekly challenge. Between a full time job, kids, and everything else in my life there are days where writing simply does not happen, but I want to make sure I write consistently nevertheless.

I'll start posting to this thread and please, if you feel that you want to jump in, daily writers or no, please do!
 

Drascus

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Last Week's Work: (I don't have daily numbers for each day of the past week but will start tracking them)

Week of 9/7: ~7,000 words

Monday: Wrote a little
Tuesday: Writing, World-building / Research
Wednesday: Nada
Thursday: Nada
Friday: Wrote a little
Saturday: 5.5k words!
Sunday: Research / Plotting
 

The Eighteenth Letter

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Good to hear from you

I just want to give you an outline on some of the things I am working on, so that when I post them, you can get an idea of where it fits in.

Pantheon is my main work at the moment. Apart from a writer I am also a photographer, and this is my current project, a fotobook, where there is as much fiction as photography.

For the second half of this year I set myself a goal of writing one short story for the last sevens months of the year. I have two more left to write. If you are interested, I would be more than happy to share them with you, and also read some of your work.

I also write at least an hour a day, but this writing is more just to exercise the hand and page. I write because i fundamentally enjoy putting pen to paper, literally. This stuff I don't know if it would be useful to share because it doesn't really follow any long structure or at times makes sense. Its an exercise of letting things be written down on the page rather than worrying about what is written. I find the exercise potent against being trapped by writers block. Also, like I said, I just basically enjoy writing with a good pen on good paper.


I look forward to reading about your work, hearing about your process and see how things are developing.
 
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Drascus

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I do a good chunk of "practice" writing similar to what you describe, writing for fun and to hone my craft. Maybe a quarter to a half of my output each week is stuff that doesn't add to any of my current projects, but rather is an exercise to try out a new voice, or style, or just for fun and to keep writing.

My current project doesn't have a real working title yet, but it's a 19th century alternate Russia in what I call a "Runepunk" setting, i.e. technology based on magic principles. It is intended to become an adult fantasy novel that will be queried for traditional publishing.

My other big project, currently on hold, is a total re-write of my first novel, Forbidden By Blood. Beta reading uncovered issues that lead me to want to totally restructure the plot. I'm excited to get to that one but want to keep up my momentum on the current WIP.

I'd love to see your short stories, or writing of anyone else who jumps into this thread. Please send me a private message if you would like my email address to exchange writing samples.

Thanks for replying, and welcome!
 

The Eighteenth Letter

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Sure, it would be great to have other people jump on this. If you don’t mind it would help out if I can post the stories here. They are really not that long. I think the longest I have is about 1500 words. It would help rack up my post numbers. Without just blatantly posting on random things I am finding coming up to 50 posts a little slow, and would love to start my own thread.

I would enjoy getting a taste of some of your Runepunk writing. I am an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader, in the broadest sense. So yea, post it up, or you could send it by private message, or to my email. (you can find it on my website)

Later on today I will post one of those short stories. I would be interested to see how you read it and what you think
 

Animad345

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I've been struggling with daily due to work pressures, so I'd love to jump on here!
 

The Eighteenth Letter

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Hey guys

This week has been a bit of a struggle. I’m finding that every now and then these current circumstances pull me to deal with things that takes away energy from getting some writing done. I wrote but minimally this week, more free writing than work on Pantheon. Don’t think I wrote more than 2000 words this week.

I wanted to share a short story I wrote, as part of my goal for this half of the year which was to write seven short stories in total. Let me know what you think.






James is reading a book, sitting on his wooden chair in the corner of the living room. To his right, a long Persian window, a couch and coffee table against the far wall, adjacent to the hallway door down at the end of which is the only bedroom in the house. The kitchen, a pragmatists relief, is built along the wall facing the window. The ensemble makes the living room feel peaceful and homey, a good place to wallow in the warm light of the midday sun and let the mind and body rest, tender to the flock, enjoy the book you’re reading, or just watch the dazzle of the sun.

James can’t remember why, but the book says the sun isn’t real.

It’s about an ordinary house, arranged like so, built in an everyday neighborhood, under this everyday sun, with an everyday man living in it, the protagonist, Tim. Unfortunately, the author takes certain liberties to Tim’s detriment, liberties which make the story intensely fascinating.
He lives by himself, for the most part, and James thinks for the most part because Tim is heavily entangled in a relationship with another character, the antagonist, who lives with him but who is not… really… there. There is no exposition of the antagonist, no physical presence, no descriptive mannerisms nor timbre of voice. Only numerous pages of dialog neatly bowed in quotation marks.
James finds the story utterly captivating, and Tim, a riveting protagonist.
Tim is intellectually sharp, quick witted and with an avid tenacity for discourse. The discussions are endless, one after another, between Tim and the antagonist.
It only makes sense, in balancing things out, the author writes Tim as emotionally irrational, with an innate tendency for the chaotic and what can at best be described as out-of-body attacks. For all James knows the antagonist could just be a figment of Tim’s imagination, although the author never says as much.
Coming back from the warm light of the midday sun, James rests his eyes on the cover of the book and thinks, I wonder what he’s doing.


If you take the living room as a reference, Tim’s bedroom was at the other end of the house. It was built along the same wall as the kitchen, with only the bathroom and a short corridor separating them. Right in front of the bathroom there was another bedroom, about the same size as his, and that was it.
His was modestly furnished. A double bed, a short night stand and a small studying table by the door. On sunny days like this he would lie in bed, his head hanging over the edge, with the curtains drawn, and watch the sky. The days he could let go for long enough, he would sail adrift on the seething blue ocean. Those moments were islands of peace and tranquility from his daily caregiving routine, and today, he let himself wallow in the wonder a little longer before getting up, which had to be soon. There was Dr Steins appointment at 1pm.
Tim wondered if the other bedroom door was open, whether he was already sitting in his wooden chair in the corner of the living room reading his book.
Whatever the answer, Tim kicked the bedsheets off resolutely, closed the curtains, put his clothes on and headed towards the living room.
“Good morning,” he said walking in, making for the kitchen.
“Good morning Tim.”
“What are you up to?”
“Just enjoying the day. Isn’t the light beautiful?”
“Yea, it’s nice,” he agreed, filling the kettle with water and sinking two pieces of bread into the toaster. “There are no clouds in the sky. Its super clear.”
“How wonderful. Did you sleep well Tim?”
“I feel rested, so I guess I slept well.” He waited for his toast. “I've been lying in bed for the last few hours looking at the sky.”
“Splendid.”
The toaster clacked. Tim smeared butter on both pieces, turned around and lent his body on the kitchen counter. “When did you wake up?”
“Oh, I don’t sleep Tim. I have no need for it. We’ve talked about this before, no?”
There was an imperceptible pause in Tim’s eyes as he bit the toast. Well I guess we’re starting early today, he thought to himself. Every day was held together by a thread, and the question was not if it would unravel, but when the unraveling would begin.
Avoiding the thread, Tim asked, “Did you hear the thunderstorm last night?”
“Yes. It was quite a spectacle. I felt as if in a dark sepulture.”
“It woke me up at one point,” Tim said, taking another bite of his toast. “I thought about checking up on you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment but that would have been unnecessary. I was reading a book quite fitting for the occasion.”
And another bite, “What were you reading?”
“A work by Thomas Aquinas. Do you know of him?”
“I think so. He’s that monk philosopher from Italy, no?”
“Quite right. He was a 13th century catholic philosopher who contributed greatly not only to the dialectic of monotheism, but also to western philosophy as we know it.”
“Something like that,” Tim replied neutrally, comforted by seeing the thread go untouched.
“There are some verses in the work which Aquinas dedicated to one of his teachers, the monk Bernadino, and the doings of the last few years of his life. The monk downed the robe of a hermit and retired himself permanently to his room in one of the Vatican’s towers. Posing no threat either to himself or others, he was left in peace, his recluse understood as the final part of his lifelong spiritual journey. In his last few months, he stopped admitting people to his room, and took meals inconsistently. All that could ever be heard were long hours of conversation balanced out by days of dead silence.”
“Aquinas was deeply touched by his teacher, and in trying to make sense of his spirit, he wrote, “Spiritual salvation lies in hearing that which cannot be heard.”
Ok, Tim thought, we have to start the day now before he sinks too far into his story. He turned and placed the butter knife in the sink, the butter back in the fridge and grabbed his last piece of toast. He walked across the living room into the soft midday light, in front of the wooden chair, crouched down on the floor and placed his hands gently over the cover of the book.
“James, listen to me,” he said softly. “You’ve got to stop reading so much and try to sleep more. Sometimes you let these stories get into your head to much. Remember what Dr Stein said about believing the books you read? Now, go get ready. We have our appointment with him at 1.”
Rising to his feet Tim took the last bite of his toast and headed back down the hallway to get their coats and shoes.

James smiles.
He stops reading, his eyes drawn to the soft light casting shadows over his hands. The room breathes peacefully again.
Tim is such a fascinating character, James thinks to himself.
 

Drascus

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Hey Animad345, welcome to the challenge! However much you're able to get out in a week is great! We're here to set goals and try to reach them, but it may not happen every time.

Rilind Modigliani, 2,000 words is 2,000 words, grats on getting something done.

This week was amazing for me in terms of my goal.
I'm trying to hit 7,000 words a week.

This week I got 12,556! About 5k was on my main WIP, the rest was on side projects or writing exercises.

Daily breakdown is:

0 Monday
2,217 Tuesday
3,984 Wednesday
1,213 Thursday
1,290 Friday
3,852 Saturday
0 Sunday
 

Drascus

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Happy Monday all!

I had a great week last week for writing, and I hope you all did as well.
Clocked in at 12,505 words! Still demolishing that 7k goal, though I guess we'll see how long that lasts. :)

Here's an exerpt from my WIP that I wrote this week that I think is fun.

-----

Bolting to his desk, he grabbed a piece of paper and set his quill scratching across it.

“Zinev, what are you doing?” Lidruversha asked, leaning over to peek at the paper.

“Writing a letter so that if we die, the old man knows what happened,” Zinev said.

“Are we doing what I think we are doing?” Lidruversha asked.

“Take off your skirt,” Zinev said.

“Hmm, sounds fun, but that’s not what I was expecting,” Lidruversha said.

“I have an extra pair of trousers and a belt that will fit you well enough,” Zinev said, “You can’t go sneaking into that building in a skirt.”

“Is this always the way you fantasized about getting me out of my skirt?” Lidruversha asked, dropping the considerable amount of pleated fabric to the floor.

“No but I think I like this better,” Zinev said, stealing a glance at Lidruversha’s underclothes. More than a glance, perhaps. After finally realizing that she was staring at him with a hand on her hip, he returned to writing the letter.

“How long a letter are you going to write anyway?” Lidruversha asked, rummaging in the wardrobe in the corner of the room.

“It’s taking a surprising number of words to keep us from looking stupid,” Zinev said.
 

The Eighteenth Letter

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Hi everyone.

It’s a Saturday, but for me Saturdays are like Mondays. Had a week where I had to pay attention something else other than writing. It didn’t let up much, so I didn’t get to much writing done, in quantity of words so to speak. Did a few drafts of a short prose I was working on, about 300 words more or less, but that was about it.

Drascus, nice work on the 12,000-word week. It feels good to over achieve. By the way I dig the excerpt. The only thing I would suggest is to remove the filters, he said, she said. Your dialog flows really well which makes it implicit who is talking. Nice dude.
 

Drascus

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Thanks Rilind! I'm not sure how I feel about ditching the dialogue tags, they're pretty well ingrained in my style. I guess that means I'll have to do a writing exercise without them or with a minimal amount and see how that goes!

Congratulations on the writing you got done, even if it was a small amount. Little victories are still victories, and life certainly happens.

I'm posting late this week due to being on vacation through yesterday.

I didn't write on my vacation at all, I actually rested, which was a little weird. However I did manage to rock my writing leading up to the vacation, and had my best week so far.

Total for the week of 9/28 was 14,421 words. I may look at increasing my word-count goal to match my current output, but we'll see what the upcoming holidays do to that plan.

I'm also getting a blog up and running, where I will post writing exercises, notes on my progress, and book reviews. Starting next week I'll include a short excerpt and a link to the full post for a blog entry from the previous week.

Here's to keeping our writing momentum going, may all your weeks be fruitful. :)
 

Drascus

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Good morning and happy Monday! This last week was lower than the weeks previous in terms of total word count but still well over my goal. I managed 11,036 words for the week of 10/5.

I also launched my blog this week. I'm trying to get 3 posts done a week, one commentary on my writing process, one workshop piece, and a book review.

Here's an excerpt from the last workshop piece, a spooky story I'm calling, "The Funny Old Door"

Once a month she could take her little red boat out to the mainland and buy her groceries. She could talk to the shopkeeper with the big black beard named Sam, and pet the fat orange cat named Dave. Sam would compliment her long blonde hair, and Dave would lick her hand. Eliza would thank them both, and return to her island on her little red boat.

Today's blog post is here: Just Keep Writing.

Thanks again to everybody in this great community, and good luck on your own journey and goals!
 

Drascus

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Hello Absolute Write, time for another update on my weekly challenge. Today's blog post is here: Progress, Revolution, Heartbreak. Check it out and/or the other stories and book reviews there.

This week was a rough one for me, especially at the beginning. I'm really grateful that I started this challenge because I could have let myself stop around 4 or 5k for the week, but I really wanted to have a good report to make today.

I pushed myself, and managed to get to just over 10k words for the week!

Best of all, most of that work was in my current WIP, taking our heroes of alternate-Russia from uncertain political circumstances to full blown civil war, and closing out the first act of the book. The manuscript now sits at over 40k words and is roaring into the second act with some quality relationship shenanigans.

Finally, a brief excerpt from the book, the two characters in the scene have just kissed for the first time.

“That was… Ruva, I, I don’t know what’s happening,” Liora said.

“I know what’s happening,” Lidruversha said. “I just kissed a beautiful and very enthusiastic woman.”

“Wait, please,” Liora said. Her limbs trembled with the desire to pull Lidruversha close again, or tear her dress off, or pick her up and carry her off. “I have to think about this. I have someone I’m seeing. You’re engaged, I don’t know–“

“You know the engagement is a formality,” Lidruversha interjected.

“So if I wanted to court you publicly you’d break it off?” Liora asked. Lidruversha sighed and turned her head away. “I understand, it’s complicated, but Ruva, that means what we just did is complicated too.”

“You’re calling me Ruva now,” Lidruversha said huskily, stepping off the flower box and up close to Liora.

“That is the least of the liberties I would like to take with you,” Liora said, carefully putting her hands on the small of Lidruversha’s back.

“This is not the way I wanted to start courting you,” Lidruversha said, “but that duel unexpectedly intense. I um, never had that reaction to watching people fight before.”
 

Drascus

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It's Monday and time for another update. I had my birthday this week and I think getting over 10k words with that going on is great!

I did decide to slow down a bit on the blog posts, cutting down to twice a week instead of three times a week. It's been great for motivation but was reaching the point that it was slowing down my primary project.

I posted the short story that I wrote this week over in Share Your Work, in SFF (Witch's Firstborn) and I'll also post a small excerpt that I like from my WIP.

“Just because many people marry as a business transaction doesn’t mean that all relationships at court are nothing but that. Love, real love, is not just a feeling. It is a choice to lay your soul bare to someone else. If they do the same for you, then your love will be unbreakable and the world will have to remake itself around the two of you. Your court positions will fall into place.”

“But how do I know who to… commit to that way?” Liora asked.

“You don’t,” Kombur said gravely. “In order to join with someone in true love, you have to give them the opportunity to utterly destroy you.”

“I – I don’t trust either of them that much,” Liora said. Just the thought of it made her hands clammy.
 

Drascus

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Last week was rough. I managed to clear 5k words, but that was it.

I also decided to change the setting and do some more research / planning for my WIP, which means that project is on-hold. Lots of roadblocks this week!

That's okay! I'm moving ahead with a different MS I have ideas for while I wait for research materials to arrive. Going to see if I can keep my momentum up going into the holidays. :)
 

Drascus

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Another rough week (the election!) combined with my wife's birthday did not leave me with a lot of time. I was under 3k words for this week.

However, this week is already looking better. Here's to ramping back up!
 

Drascus

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Ramping up has occured! I didn't get any blog posts done this past week, but I still beat my weakly goal. Just over 8k words last week.

I'm excited to get back into full swing, hopefully this week. I can say that the last two weeks were certainly a learning experience on momentum. The struggle to get back to blocks of writing time was real and it was way too easy to stop.

Here's hoping this week beats 10k again. :)
 

Drascus

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I managed to write four days last week, and got myself up over 10k again. I'm on track again for my larger goal that is about six months out.

I'd say my lesson from this week is not to underestimate the effect that stress has on your ability to write. More importantly, not to beat yourself up when you're stressed and having trouble writing. It just compounds the problem. Taking some time out to recover and spend extra time with my family has really helped me get back on track.

I'm roaring ahead on my new manuscript and excited to see what I can manage this next week!
 

Drascus

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Woah, I'd be down but this is intense! Lemme try!

You don't have to write 10k a week! :) It can be whatever amount fits into your schedule.

I'm just not able to write every day, so instead I set a weekly writing goal. Whatever your number is, I'm happy to help you stay on track with it.
 

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You can of course do as you like, but I'd just like to say that you're very welcome to join the monthly Write Every Day! thread even if you have weekly goals. The main purpose of those threads is to help people establish a writing habit and while writing every day helps do that, writing whenever you have time is fine, too. :)
 

Drascus

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Thanks Magnus! I think I'll stick here though. :)

This last week was busy, I thought the holiday would let me get more writing done, but instead I spent time with my family. Not sorry that I did that!

Only got about 3.5k done last week, in a single day of writing. In other good news, my WIP is up over 20k words, so I've got some real steam going there and act 1 is done!