September 2020 Challenge - Write Every Day!

starry: Nice work. Glad the power’s back.

Chase: Great effort! If the ‘round’ idea was a good idea, I’m sure it’ll come back to you at some point.

Woolly: Sounds like you’re whipping that book into shape

sandree: Yes, I am also very basic with my Scrivener use! It’s good for organising though. When I used Word I had about 700 files for my series, and about 10 open at any time. I like your avatar!

Carrie: Excellent words! And hurrah for beating the funk

Layla: Yay the things!

Keithy: Excellent 1k. It looks like you’re making good progress from over here …

Morgan: Nice work.

Cindyt: Oh, yikes! Hope you feel better soon.

katfeete: Good to see you! Sounds like you’ve been busy

Second: Not to worry; your muse will enjoy the break I’m sure.

379 today. Was not in the groove at all. TFI Friday is all am sayin’.

Woolly: I bet it's really satisfying seeing those numbers go down
Sandree: Boy don't I know all about wasting time
Carrie: You just reminded me that I did NaNo once...somehow I completely blocked it from my mind. Now I have to go look at it
Layla: I hope your day was well
Keithy: Slow progress is still progress. We all can't be going fast all the time. You can't have fast without a slow to compare it to
Morgan: Good job on finding the 15 minutes
Cindy: Food poisoning is the worst. Be kind to yourself while you recover
Kat: Sounds like you've been super busy! Life gets in the way sometimes. Welcome back to the thread
Second Moon: I found time to write in high school by staying up super late, but then again I slept through a lot of my classes; I imagine you can't do that on Zoom! You can find a little bit of time to write during lunch or other times during the day. But if things are too busy, that's okay, too.
April: Looking forward to the weekend here, too!

17th: 1,185

Boy oh boy did I find ways to procrastinate. I was making myself anxious about how I won't write the future scenes good enough so I was finding all these other things to do instead. I now have scientific names for all my sapient species. I realized that having humans be of the genus Homo wouldn't make much sense if they weren't the ones creating the taxonomy...so they're Hetero sapiens instead. I only have the genus/species/subspecies for these things, except dragons are their own order, I still do not know where phoenixes diverged from regular birds, or how some species have magic and some don't. The only one I do is because it's Plot Relevant and discussed in a later book.

Oh yeah and I put some words into the WIP. Have the place to myself this weekend since roommate + bird are off for Rosh Hashanah.

Hi guys. Glad to see everyone's been writing away! I fell completely off the wagon, but finally I can say...

Day 18: 379 words

Keithy, hang in there. (I think you are still doing pretty good work fwiw)
Hello Morgan, hello baby. Congrats on the 15
Cindy, nice trifecta
Kat! Hello & congrats on finishing a scene
Moon, take care
April congrats on the 379
Chase, congratulations on the 1185
Hi Animad, good to see you and congrats on the 379




Day 18


WIP - added words
R/SC - went to ballet class! (First time in 5 years.)
BP/$$ - job 10 hours


(Day 17 follow up)
icedesperado - I have kind of a love/hate relationship with cooking. I would bake more and roast more but my oven is not working (I cut out the tldr part here...) I would cook cakes and custards too. Savory custard! (North African chickpea flour custard, wow) But because of time and money constraints, I have to cook like a machine, to make sure I have good food when I'm at work. Ah for the day I have a beautiful stove, and plenty of beautiful free time... I like making up my own recipes, too. Sorry for the ramble. I really love food

Greetings!

Katfeete—Congrats on your brother’s wedding and your daughter’s schooling and, goodness! Cut yourself some slack, girl.

Cindyt—Sorry about the food poisoning. I suppose this would be a bad time to tell you about my food poisoning plot twist…

Keithy—Good progress! Keep the faith.

Only 1120 for me today but I got to the big scene that I’ve known was coming and Howie’s pontoon boat was blown to smithereens. (The casualties have not yet been tallied.) I also got kind of sidetracked by NaNoWriMo stuff. They send out mail with a lot of very cool links to other writing groups and sites. I learned a little about Discord (which was brand new) that a lot of NaNoWriMo folks are using for their groups. It looks like fun. I have also noted that writing workshops have, unsurprisingly, all moved online and I’m toying with the idea of attending one or two this fall and winter. The prices are lower for most of them and, of course, there’s no transportation or lodging cost. It occurred to me that this was really an opportunity I might like to take advantage of. That’s all for today. Happy writing!

Day 18
~30 minutes on the WIP. Which is now complete. Badly in need of revision, but complete.

Cindy: Nice work!

katfeete: Welcome back! Sounds like you've been busy!

April: Still got some words!

Chase: Nice wordcount!

Animad: Welcome back! And nice count!

Layla: Hello! Baby says hello! (Not really, he's too little. XD) Yay words!

Carrie: That's not a bad count! And looking into NaNo and workshops is research!

@Layla: Oooh savory custards sound amazing! I love hearing about other peoples' loves for their hobbies. I'm sorry your oven is not working, but it sounds like you make plenty of delicious things anyway! Enjoy your latest creation for me

Day 18
246 words

RBG died. I just couldn't today.

Day 18

Word Count - 645

Research -

• What brand of cheap booze smells like rubbing alcohol. McCormick's vodka (according to a chick on the NeoGAF Forum).
• How are restraints fixed to a hospital bed. They are attached to something under the bed.
• What kind of car did Starsky and Hutch drive? Gran Torino
• 1985 TV show that aired at midnight through the week. I couldn’t find one past 10:30. So what? I need one at midnight because that’s when the full moon rises. Welp, I remember Starsky and Hutch reruns being at around 11, so I jumped the time to midnight. Jail me.

Dress Her in Chameleon - Busy work

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - Billy finally wakes completely from the coma to find his wrists restrained and the killer in a corner. Said killer goes “Boo!” and leaves, continuing his game of cat and mouse.

ice - We must have been on the same train. I was afraid to write Chapter 27, but almost got dragged into watching TV clips of Starsky and Hutch. Gah. But I finally got into it and am quite pleased.

Morgan -

April - I wasn’t in the groove either but I hit it.

Carrie - Go ahead. Lol.

Layla - Yeah for added words.

Chase - Me too!

April & Animad - 379 is good when things aren't going well.
Chase - being in the 1K club isn't procrastination
Morgan - ah, competing something is very nice. I doff my hat.
Cindy - great research. Starsky and Hutch used to air much earlier than that in the UK when I was there.

my progress

Wrote 386 words on Dustworld.

non-writing.

I need to de-squeak the stairs.

Day 18 - 0 Words I did school work all day. Maybe I'll get some BIC time today.

1182 words! Had pretty much the whole day to myself and used it wisely.

Animad: Welcome back!
Layla: I'm glad you were able to get the ballet class working out! I hope you had fun!
Carrie: Be careful with Discord. Each "server" can have a ton of different channels, which can be different conversations, and it can easily turn into a time suck to keep up with it all. I don't use Discord anymore because of that (which is rough because one of my friends works there and keeps bugging me to use it!).
Morgan: Congrats on finishing the WIP!!!
Ice: Take care of yourself <3
Cindy: The nice thing about cheap booze like that is it's good for removing paint spills (much cheaper than the Tamiya paint thinner! lol)
Keithy: Radioactivity is so cool. An easy way to "show" that it's around is to have people get sick...but now you have people who have radiation sickness. Which might not work very well if you need your main characters to do things.
Second Moon: Hope you find some time this weekend.

18th: 314

Ended up spending Way Too Much time working on the timeline of when stuff happens and converting years from one calendar to another. So now I know when exactly the book is published in-universe (~4,100 years after the events in question). As a part of editing I'm going to have to move a few things around (birth years, mostly) so having this big document to look at is very helpful for me.

No second job work today since things are winding down, so I'm hunkering down with some Chinese food and Japanese beer and gonna get some good writing done today.

Greetings, September writers!

Morgan—Congrats! I don’t think I know what you’re writing but I am impressed that you can pick up and write for less than an hour at a time. I think it takes me about an hour to figure out where I was.

Icedesparado—The RBG news took all the wind out of me last night. I went to bed early and decided that the news was not going to help me and all I could do was write. So, I wrote.

Cindyt—What? You are not a fan of NaNoWriMo? I dunno. It sounds like a fun thing to do once. We shall see!

Keithy—A little squeak in your stairs isn’t all bad! How else will you detect ghosts?

Starrystorm—Excellent words!

Chase—Most of the NaNoWriMo groups seem to have moved onto Discord this year. I don’t know if it’s in reaction to the change in the website or it’s just a general preference. I like that it’s easy to scan and fast. (The speed of this site causes me to multi-task while waiting for pages to load!) I take your warning seriously, but I’m generally usually good about time management. It’s just exciting to me that so many folks are writing at once. I like that energy!

I had a big day today and finished Chapter 12 with 2910 words. It was a challenging chapter as the entire thing happens at once, from nine (yes, nine!) perspectives. So, that was an interesting challenge and one I thought would be best to do in one sitting so I could keep track of it. I am now exactly one-half of the way through my third book this year and I pleased with my progress. I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Day Nineteen

Yesterday was a loss, but knocked out another scene today, complete at 770 words. It was missing because it needed to happen for the story-world to feel grounded but didn't have a real effect on the plot, but once I made myself buckle down it was fun and pretty easy, so yay.

--
April: :wave: 379 is definitely good enough for a Friday.

Animad: Welcome back, fellow "oops"-er!

Layla: Ooof, I feel you on that love/hate thing. I really enjoy cooking but coming home at 5 after a long day's work and having to face another hour on my feet is really killing the love. Trying to do better with prepping stuff or at least setting up a menu on Sundays. Thank god I have a working oven -- we live on baked goods, I dunno how you're doing it.

Morgan: OMG, the wonderful, much-anticipated finish line! Congratulations!

ice: Yeah, that was me yesterday. I saw the news and my heart just dropped out of my chest. Didn't sleep well either, so I have officially decided to go vote next week, donate money to the closest Senate races and then avoid the news for at least the next week, because... there's just no way this is going to be good, only "mildly less bad", and stressing over something I can't fix is just -- I just can't any more.

Cindy: Cheap booze research is now officially my favorite research and I need an excuse to do some

Keithy: The boards in my hall squeak but I kinda like it that way. Lets me know when my daughter's trying to sneak up on me, or sneak to her room. Gotta take what advantages you can.

starrystorm: Woo, 1K club!

Chase: Yeah, I keep having to fight the urge to get sucked into more worldbuilding. It's so shiny and fun! Especially compared to actually writing! Surely I'll use it somewhere!

Carrie: Dang, NINE perspectives. I'm too chicken to try more than two! I agree Discord can be a time suck if you let it, but on the other hand the last time I did NaNo I joined a server that was doing regular word sprints and I got a lot of words done with those. Like most tools, it's how you use it. (Twitter, on the other hand....)

I skipped yesterday due to being distraught for the normal reasons and also for family reasons and might do drivebys for the rest of the month. Migraine the past 24 hours.

Four more emotional flags staked into the story. (four arc-threads woven in--the central questions the characters are wrestling.)

Made some progress September goals 1 and 2 too.

Keep swimming and stay cool.

Morgan, nice work on the double-time, and the finishing!
ice, congrats on the 246. I had similar reaction...
Cindy, congrats on the 645 & the research
Keithy, nice work!
Hello Moon
Starry, sounds like a good day
Chase, congrats on the 314
Carrie, well done
kat, congrats on the 770
woolly, take care




Day 19 - it was *cold* this morning.


WIP - added words
R/SC - went swimming, even though it's only in the 60. Very sparkly day. I've been working on the butterfly and I 'got' it last week.
BP/$$ - did some repairs so I got some clutter out of the way that way, job 4.5 hrs

Day 19

30 minutes on the WIP, v. 2

And thank you everyone for the well-wishes.

icedesperado: I hear you. Good for you for getting some words anyway.

Cindy: Words and research, nicely done.

Keithy: Good work! How does one desqueak stairs?

The Second Moon: Aw. Hope today was better!

starrystorm: Nicely done!

Chase: Words and worldbuilding and plans for more, nice!

Carrie: Damn, nice wordcount! My WIP is a science fiction short story, just a bit over 3,000 words. So yes, color me impressed! But I am hoping to build up to longer/more productive days.

katfeete: Nice work!

Woollybear: Sympathy, and commendations for getting back to it.

Layla: Yay words! Brrrrr swimming!

Morgan: Congrats on the time well spent!
Layla: Swimming sounds so refreshing right about now!
Woolly: Migraines are the worst, I hope you feel better
Katfeete: Thanks friend. I hope we both get some better sleep tonight.
Carrie: Way to channel your energy into something that helps <3
Starry: Grats on 1k club!
Chase: Chinese food sounds great. Enjoy!


Day 19
2,019 words

Day 19 - 234 I'm really trying to force it but I'm never in the mood to write.

ice - Way to hit the 2K club

Morgan - I'm assuming v. 2 means "version 2"?

Layla - "Sparkly Day" is a great way to describe a day at the pool.

Woolly - Sorry about your bad day.

Katfeete - I need to buckle down more

Carrie - Wow! Nine?

Chase - I hope I find sometime today

Starry - I need to use my time more wisely.

Second: It’s hard to write when you’re not feeling it, so great job getting those words.

ice: Excellent 2k. I’m in Scotland but I was gutted by RBG’s death too. It’s hard not to be worried about the future.

Morgan: Nice progress on the WIP.

Layla: Excellent day! Butterfly is so impressive. When I swim I don’t even get my hair wet …

Hugs, Woolly. Take care.

kat: Great work getting that scene. And thank you for voting!

Carrie: I love Nano! Haven’t done it in years but it’s great craic. Tremendous word count—you’re really knocking them out.

Chase: FWIW I think timelines are invaluable so that was probably time well spent.

starry: Excellent! Relax in the 1k club

Keithy: Have you tried fairy liquid?

Cindyt: Excellent job getting those words. Hopefully the groove will return to us both

My laptop charger died (read—exploded) and so I couldn’t write yesterday which was such a darn shame. Anyhoo, no excuses for tomorrow so it’ll be back to the new shiny. I’m giddy with excitement.

Hey guys, just stopping by to let you know I'm still alive.

The Second Moon: Aw, enjoy your time in school. It gets worse.

katfeete: At least you got a scene done. Take it as a positive and add to it.

Cindyt: 371 is good. Lighting a cigar? Got to trim the end first?

Keithy: chin up, the progress won't always be slow.

Carrie: 2850 is a lot. Well done, and good luck on finishing on time.

Woolybear: You're very good at finding unneeded words. Helped me a lot on that one chapter, and I've become more aware of them since then. I appreciate the insight.

As for me, I hammered three books until I think my copy edit hammer broke and I had to quit for a while. I've started another story, but only have a couple hundred words so far. The way it is beginning, I'm getting a distinct Tomb Raider feel from it, but it will shift focus soon to a long quest, rather than a simple treasure grab.

Early Greetings!

Kerry—Have fun on the new thing!

April—Sorry about the charger explosion. I haven't had anything explode on me since I lived in Nigeria, but I managed to witness a number of things exploding from power surges there, some at close quarters! I'm glad you are okay.

Second Moon—Maybe you need a deliberate day (or two) off? I need to give myself permission to step away occasionally. Today is one of those days.

Icedesparado—I sometimes wonder if writing actually “helps” anyone but me. Certainly, in these times it is hard to see. But at my core I believe that making art in my small way actually is the best thing I can do. It is not fast. It is not dramatic. But I think I am making a tiny change for good and I hang onto that.

Morgan—I think what you are doing is amazing. I have so many friends who claim they will write “later.” You are doing it now, doing it with the time you have, and doing it daily. Hats off.

Layla—Swimming at 60 degrees?! You are hardcore. I am a total baby. I love to swim but the water has to be something like bathwater for me to do it.

WoolyBear—Awww! Take care. I wrote next week’s column about aches and pains and I have nothing like migraines to complain about.

Katfeete—Congrats on knocking out a scene and double congrats because you weren’t enthusiastic to start. You get double word count points for that IMHO. Yeah, I think nine POVs is a record. These books do not have an omniscient POV (except for a few sentences in the prologue—don’t ask me why!) so everything is learned through the characters’ eyes and, of course, the assumptions they make about one another are invariably wrong. Usually, this is great fun and quite simple. Only when I get a lot of characters in the same place at the same time is it a challenge and that is what happens whenever there is a major climax in the story so those scenes take a lot of concentration but when they work, I think they are terrific fun.

I’m calling it a day!

I gave myself the day off the book today, I wrote a column and edited yesterday's work a bit and will shortly head over to my SIL’s for more reading. So, 600 words in total and that is perfectly fine. A funny line came to me, just as I was falling asleep and, once again, the light-up pen saved it! You should all have light-up pens. And I should get a commission!

Carrie: 9 perspectives definitely sounds challenging! And you're right, doing it in one sitting was probably the right choice to keep track of it.
Kat: Glad that the writing was fun!
Woolly: Be kind to yourself, I hope your migraine goes away soon
Layla: I don't think I could make myself go swimming when its that cold out!
Morgan: Good job
Ice: Congrats on the 2k!
Second Moon: If you only do it when you're in the mood then it might not happen very often. I tried doing that that way and nothing ever happened for a very long time.
April: EXPLODED? Oh geez, I hope there wasn't a fire or anything like that.

19th: 5,772 words

The villain has been beated, time for everything to get resolved. Also 11 pm pantsing brain pointed out that this was the one time I'd be able to include a sex scene, so that's happening. I haven't decided what sort of vocabulary I am going to use or what would fit best with the tone/voice of the rest of the book so. Interesting challenges ahead!

Day 19

Word Count - 133

Research - I line to my Note From the Author about my using literary license with midnight airing of the Starsky and Hutch reruns. I do know for sure they air in the early 80s because used to come home from work at 4 pm and take a four hour nap so I could stay up to watch em.

Dress Her in Chameleon - Spot edited Chapters 25 - 27 & the first interlude.

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - Billy is still confused after waking up from the three-week coma. He sees an albatross carry Carolina off in its beak, obviously hallucinating. But the killer wearing a white death mask in the shaows is real.

Keithy - The series did air around 10 pm on Wednesdays and then switched to Saturdays in the USA. I’m using the reruns.

Kat. WTG on 770 words! I don't drink, but

Morgan - Doubling your time, are you? WTG!

Carrie - My books are too long for NaNoWriMo.

Layla - Congrats on Added words.

Chase - Well, working on timelines is important. I try to do stuff like that between writing sessions, but sometimes I’m drawn in.

Second moon - last time I had a blowout I eased back into it by writing something completely unconnected to anything else.
Starrystorm - excellent 1K club entry there!
Chase - nothing wrong with worldbuilding. For fantasy writers, it's another form of research.
Carrie - oh that is a mighty total! Well done. But 9 perspectives? Oh my.
Katfeete - the first few sentences are the worst. Then it flows.
icedesperate - now that is big amount of words done.
April - good luck with the laptop.

Yesterday: nothing - too busy de-squeaking the stairs. They were so bad that you couldn't talk over the noise they made. What I did was fill them full of screws and nails. Much quieter. Once we get the new carpet on them should be fine.

Today: read through some of Demon Hunter third draft, rephrasing things. Getting there!

I also noted that I need to name the device/weapon in Dustworld. It sorta controls weather etc.

non-writing

listening to Bach and Mozart while I read/write.

---

It's also about 2 years since I took my mother to live in a care home. I remember standing by the office door and seeing a noticeboard with thank you cards pinned to it, and I realized that there was only one way she was coming out of the place. Facts have a way of creeping up and slapping you in the face. She passed on new years day this year and I am grateful that she did not have to endure CV-19.