August 2020 Challenge - Write Every Day!

Day13

Word Count 142

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - After my internet went down a few long days ago, I copied and pasted Chapters 15 & 16 to WORKS and started editing and writing new draft and just began Chapter 17 today.

April - WTG!

WGough - Good luck on the radical restructuring!

Woolly - Good luck on those chapters. Speaking of length, Chapter 16 has less than 1k words. That’s all right, but I’m going to see if I can add about fifty or so more important words.

Layla - Me want cookie

Keithy - That’s some wowzer word counts! The biggest thing I’ve researched was an antique car: 1959 black cherry Chevy Impala ragtop. I’ve mostly been in a dead heat between bombshells. One send Billy rushing to reactivate into DEADco (Drug Enforcement Administration & Dade County federal black bureau).

Chase - Awesome word count. I hate killing characters, but them’s the breaks as Dave Robicheaux says.

The Second Moon - WTG on word count!

ice - Howdy!

Day 14 - 0 words, but I did scrap one of my WIPs. I just wasn't in love with the MC or the setting. But my mind is always thinking of new stories so I will probably have a new idea in a few days.

Keithy: So exciting about release dates! All your hard work is paying off.

WGough: Good luck slaying the beast!

Layla: Mmm cookies! Sounds like you had a busy day.

Woolly: Better is good!

ice: Enjoy your stay in the 1k club There's plenty of aircon in there.

Cindyt: Great job with words and revision

Second Moon: Becoming overly attached to ideas that aren't working can really hold you back, so great job for moving on and knowing that other, better ideas will shortly come your way Out with the old and in with the new.

No words so far today. Real Life has dealt a really horrible blow and I'm half wanting to write so I can escape and half wanting to sleep for a month. Anyway, I'll maybe tap away at chapter 7 tonight. If I'm gone over the next few days, assume I am sending all the best writing wishes!

Things have changed!

I was barreling along on the third book this year; I had just topped 170K words in the past five months and suddenly... I had a revelation. I think I now know how to approach the revisions to what I've written this year, but I need to do some research to get there. I have been consuming a book a day and I may continue for a while. Then, depending on how I feel, I will either jump back into Book Three or begin revisions. Right now, I am kind of thinking I will do the revision as I think it is necessary and will improve the writing substantially.

Anyway, that is my overdue update. The hardest part about learning a new thing is that I don't know what I don't know! Suddenly realizing that I needed to delve into psychotherapy, existential dilemmas, and dream interpretation was not what I was expecting, but I know for certain it is what I need to be doing right at this moment.

Congratulations to all of you making progress on your interesting and diverse works. I am not going to lie—there is a big part of me that really wants to just dive back in and keep writing. But this is where I need to be for now.

Keep the faith!

Second Moon: As you'll soon see I don't always have a consistent 1k lol
Taylor: Ah, finding time, the one real struggle
Ice: helloO! Good start already. Also I'm in Nor Cal, too, we'll see how the heat turns out
Animad: good work on 400 words
April: I'm sure you'll figure something out!
Keithy: Oh no dysentery! I've played enough Oregon trail to know where that's going
Gough: Ergot poisoning? Sounds interesting
Layla: Cookies Sounds like my kind of self-care
Wooly: That sounds like quite the task. There's definitely chapters I'll need to be breaking up in editing


Fashionably late again, 61 words yesterday. I started training for a (temp) second job and it was very tiring. I really take for granted how technically literate my coworkers are. But alas, we live in a society and I need to build up some savings for future medical procedures; the pay/opportunity was too good to pass up. So things might be slow for the next few months?

ice desperado: Congrats on the 1K club.

Cindy: I have a short chapter like that--I kind of like it, just for how oddly short it is.

Second moon: Good to be able to scrap projects. Sort of freeing, and the writing itself is good for its own sake, right?

April-- Oh no! I hope life turns around and goes good soon. Positive energy, incoming!

Carrie, Hello!

Chase: new jobs (and learning) are so exciting. Good luck.

Me: I slogged through a bad chapter. not sure why I marked it as bad... I mean, it was bad but not BAD bad, just sort of sucky. So I plumped it up a bit, played with immersion and cleaning the chapter and scene arc.

That leaves two or three more bad chapters to work on, but not today.

Keep cool!

Day 14
Researched ergotism in the Middle Ages. I'd advise skipping the pictures. Made Chicken Tinga tacos. Reading Oryx and Crake. For the first time. Don't judge!

Layla: Revision deserves cookies!

Woollybear: Congrats on better! It's as long as it needs to be. Way to pace!

icedesperado: Another stellar day, 1K! Think cold thoughts.

Cindyt: Way to work around. Nice word count!

The Second Moon: It takes wisdom and not a little courage to scrap a piece. Brainstorm time!

April: Sending you all the good thoughts. Hope things are better for you soon!

Carrie: Congrats on the major revelation!

ChaseJxyz: Congrats on the job. Way to beat the page!

Woollybear: Sucky but not BAD, bad. I like that I know exactly what that means.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Woolly, sounds like some great progress
ice, congrats on the 1087. Our heat seems to have abated here. (Thin crispy almond cookies. Tha noms!)
Hey Cindy - it’s good to be back on line for real, right? Congrats on the 142
Enjoy that skip day, moon
April, much feels.
Chase, congrats on those 61 words on a tiring day
nice work, woolly


Day 14


WIP - added words
R/SC - chores & errands
BP/$$ - job, 6 hrs

Cindy - always good to get something done on a difficult day.
Second Moon - good luck with the thinking of a new project!
April - oh, that sounds bad news. hope it's OK, or as OK as it can be.
Carrie - nothing wrong with a good revision. I've done a few...!
Chase - good luck with the new job (and well done with the 61 words)
everyone else - well done, keep it up.

Today’s progress

548 words done on Dustworld.

Read through another chapter of Demon Hunter. There are some issues here that need addressing.

About the Christmas time travel idea, I was thinking about "A Christmas Carol", and how it's basically it's a time travel story. so why not?


keep swim swims

Cindy: I'm glad your internet is back up!
Second Moon: Scrapping is hard, but sometimes for the best. I'm sure you'll think of something even better soon.
April: So sorry to hear things have been rough. I hope they improve, or in the very least, you find solace in your writing.
Carrie: Sounds like exciting changes! I wish you the best of luck!
Chase: Hello neighbor! It's been rather toasty today, but we closed the blinds and hunkered down in front of fans and the AC and it's actually been alright. I hope you're staying cool, too!
Woolly: Bad chapters are rough. I feel you. Hopefully the bad chapters lead to good if not less-than-bad chapters for you.
Gough: Oryx and Crake has always come heavily recommended and is still on my to-be-read-list, too! No judgement here.
Layla: Eat one of those almond cookies for me! They sound divine. I'm not much of a baker but in about a month I'm going to go ham on making all the chocolate chip pumpkin bread.
Keithy: I never thought about A Christmas Carol that way. You're right, it is like a time travel story!

Day 14
1138 words

Passed 70k tonight. I've been truckin' but if I don't pause to plot out the last arc of the book, I'm gonna hit a wall. Hoping to spend some time doing that this weekend.

Hi guys! Hope you're all having a lovely weekend so far.

Day 15: 1,000 words. I'm trying to push on with this manuscript, which I've been struggling with. I'm extremely invested in it, but I keep getting stuck. You have no idea how much this thread is helping me to stay on track, so thank you so much to all of you.

icedesperado - congratulations on passing 70k! That is no mean feat!

Day14

Word Count 344

Research - Info about the old Chinese stance of shooting an arm up and pointing at somebody just before they make chop suey out of them. I saw Brandon Lee do it to the great Bolo Yeung in Legacy of Rage, and I had a scene where Billy Estrella uses it. (Billy’s dad was a Hong Kong dragon and his mother was a Beverly Hills blond cheerleader. Look what happened to Billy. He passes for Spanish in the big dope towns.) Anyway, the search engine tuned in with covid 19 and the security of Chinese products. I’ve had the virus pop up even when I was searching for something entirely different.

Dress Her in Chameleon - Edited Chapter 50. New wordage

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - New wordage.

April - Writing is always a good escape for me. It’s forcing myself to look beyond my troubles and just doing it.

WGough - I had to look at those images, didn’t Ew.

Woolly - I’ve fixed a fair share of bad chapters. I fixed most. My first Native American scene is a prime example, but I hate reading it because of the bad memories.

Layla - It does feel good. Congrats on adding words!

Keithy - I’d go for the time travel.

Ice - My interest never waned. I wrote most days. I just didn’t report here for a couple of months and then my internets went down.

Day 14 - 1,236 and I finished the 1st short story in Vampire Loves Sunling. This is the first adult short story I've ever truly finished, so yay me.

I would comment all of of your amazing writing feats, but I think I need to get some coffee (AKA writer fuel) first.

EDIT: I'm back. I got lemonade instead since I needed to take my daily medicine and I've learned the hard way that if you choke no your pills with coffee it hurts. Anyways...Good job, everyone. I can't see what your feats are in the "edit your post" screen but I'm sure you guys did wonderful.

I had trouble getting on AW the other day and just now. So, if I fail to check in, that's likely why.

Keithy, congrat on the 548 & everything
dang ice, that’s some great work! Keep it up
Animad - it’s a great thread, isn’t it? Congrats on your 1500
Cindy, congrats on the 344 and the research
Moon, congrats on the 1236
(Hang in there, Cindy!)






Day 15 - it’s cold* today (68F this morning) I’ve had to wear sweats & a hoodie & I”m thinking I need another layer… There’s also a baby cardinal eating the seeds I left out, just a few feet from me


*ok, that’s relative. But I feel cold after the the horrible heat we had in July & the first half of August




WIP - added words - and research - cross-dressing as a man or boy. The most convincing one I saw was a woman dressed as a taliban.
R/SC - made myself a nice dinner
BP/$$ - job, 6 hours

icedesperado & Animad - in the 1K club, a sign of hard work done.
Second moon - same for you! Mind out with those pills.
Cindy - don't worry, you did good.
Layla - hmm, cross dressing in the Taliban. That sounds kinda dangerous.

my progress today (half day)

178 words done on Dustworld.

Read another chapter of Demon Hunter, and my eyes were drawn ahead to one of my favorite chapters...

Keep swimming

Day15

Word Count 760

Dress Her in Chameleon - Transferred 12 chapters to a different dock. Edited Chapter 50. Did some other stuff like changing a character’s name and profession. Discovered I left out most of another chapter, so I had to copy it off the last draft and stick on. I must have been asleep at the wheel or had some kind of tech prob.

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - New wordage. Billy, a man who has never been in love, who has a history of one night stands, realizes he is in love with Carolina. I can’t decide how that’s going to consumate. In the early 71, my parents dropped me and a boyfriend off at a theater to see Erich Segal’s Love Story. And from this film my Billy story was born. It went through version after version as I matured, but in all but one, Billy and Carolina married, had twins, and she died of leukemia. They may have a life together after this first book in the series ends or she may decide not to be with him. Her daddy is a televangilist and she wanted to be a missionary in Haiti before a monster took her innocence. So, she may want to take that calling up again. If so, she might come back to him in a later book. I won’t know until I get there.

Moon - Awesome word count and WTG on finishing the short story.

Layla - Stay warm!

Keithy - Congrats on 178 words!

14th: 742 words
15th: 2,442 words

Internet went out mid-evening on Friday, right after I finished more training. Only came back this afternoon. I was still able to write but couldn't look up words/do research; I put a dictionary/thesaurus app on my phone and got it set up to work offline so that'll help in the future. The thing that really got me is that I have a running list of things to do in editing in Google Keep and there was no way to access that...so I started another list in another place. Too many lists in too many places, the eternal ADHD problem.

Finished ch 27, which means I'm 62% done! And now on 28. I had to ask my friends what earthquakes felt like to make sure that I was remembering it right; I've been here in California about 6 years now and almost all have been 4s in the middle of the night, so my ability to remember them isn't the best. I also changed the formatting to the standard manuscript layout since might as well and oops! That added 164 pages to the document. That's quite a lot. But I also seeing that big pagecount is nice, it makes me realize just how much I've written this year. It's kind of crazy.

I know it's hot in a lot of places in the US right now so I hope everyone is keeping cool!

Animad: Great job!
Cindy: Way to keep writing even through all the internet issues! They've been doing rolling power outages in California; I'm really hoping we don't lose power this week.
Layla: 68F feels cold to me these days too. It was 100 again today here, oof.
Keithy: Congrats on 178!
Chase: Congrats on 2k+ words and getting to 62% done!!

Day 15
1,670 words

Got a little bit of plotting done today, too, though not as much as I'd hoped. I'll try for more tomorrow.

Day 15 1,265 words.

Yes, 1k!!!!

I might not get more done today (16th) because my little sister is going to turn 18 tomorrow and were are going river tubing today to celebrate. Although, we've had horrible, rainy, long trips before I hope today is better. BTW, 18! She's turning 18! She's an adult! How time flies. Granted I'm turning 21 next month, so I could say the same thing for myself.

Layla - Aww! Baby cardinal!

Keithy - Good for Shana

Cindy - I love it when I can pinpoint where my ideas come from.

Chase - Yay for 62%

ice - I don't think I've welcomed you yet. Welcome!

Finished marking up my mystery draft but I think my writing time is about to fly away. We’re sitting my in-laws’ dogs while they make some final arrangements with moving and mother-in-law recovers from back surgery. We might be at this for a month. Another vote in favor of hardcore plotting.

Hey gang, thanks for all the well wishes. Quick drive by here to say I had to redo opening chapters AGAIN and ditched the outline because outlines kill my brain. Anyway, 2535 written.

Drive by-

Super hot here, very melty and miserable. Hope you are all surviving.

About 3/8s of the way through this month's goals.

Keithy, congrats on that 178
Congrats on the 760, Cindy
Chase, great work!
oof indeed ice. Congrtats on the 1670
Moon, congrats on the 1265! (That time just keeps flying)
Taylor, nice work . (give the dogs a cuddle from me please!)
April - way to keep at it
Woolly - hang in there.


Day 16


WIP - added words
R/SC - chores
BP/$$ - job 7.5 hours

Ice: 1.6k is still a really good wordcount
Second moon: Have fun with your sister!
Taylor: If that's what you can do with your time, then so be it. Even if it's not a word counter going up it's still work being done!
April: Great job on 2.5k
Wooly: awesome progress! Stay cool
Layla: keep it up


16th: 2,456, tho I might write more, idk how much longer I'll stay up because of the heat

I got woken up by a thunderstorm so that was cool (the bird did NOT like that). More T storms tomorrow maybe? It's still Very Hot here in the SF Bay and I had to be on a 4 hour phone call for job training today...but I'm done! Could start working tomorrow, theoretically.

As for writing, got to move several characters to a new location that they'll be at for the rest of the book (a royal palace). Gotta a tiny bit distracted "researching" clocks/timepieces used in ye olden times, but I'm also not sure why a King who lived 10,000 years would really care how many seconds/minutes/hours have passed. I always make things hard for myself w/r/t world building, like "how would the world look different if you could see UV?" or "what are foods [kind] can eat but not [other kind]?" A lot of the questions are unknowable so I have to figure them out myself, but I know So Much about UV fluorescence and single crystals and piezoelectricity and birds in general. What am I going to do with this deep knowledge of the cranio-facial hinge of birds and they're multi-piece jaws? Who knows...I just really want to go to the crystal store in Berkeley and buy some crystals (and maybe some amorphous mineraloids) cause I've been looking at too many pretty crystals.