November 2020 Challenge - Write Every Day!

Day 26- Happy Turkey Day to those who are celebrating. I managed to get 600 words in but they might not really count. More on that on my reply to April.

Second- Congratulations on the publishing. I hope they take the new cover.

Magnus- Way to go on the two sessions.

Ptero- Congrats on the the words. I wish I had access to some sourdough. I'm sure some bakery here has some but I haven't found it.

Chase- Grats on the editing. Good luck with your visit tomorrow.

April- I realized this year that at this point at least, I am not a novelist. Therefore I have decided to focus on short stories until I can build up my writing muscles. Most of What I write is just practice pieces.

That said, I have three things I'm working on. The first is a project is one that would be nice to publish someday, but I'm writing more for me. I've been working on it for about two weeks and it may turn into a novella.

The other two are more aimed at some kids I know. The long term one is a series of short stories of the LRPG variety based on their school. The short term project is taking a classic, public domain story and making it more accessible to the kids. That is what I spent my words on today. I don't know if it counts because it is mostly just updating and simplifying the story.

With the exception of the classic story, which I plan to finish tomorrow, I just write whatever story comes to mind. That includes some random days of just flash pieces. I really need to get my self organized and dedicated.

Sorry that was a bit longer than I meant it to be.

Day 25 - They took the new cover and I (after thoroughly looking thought it) approved the E-proof! 4 days until it's released!

Happy Thanksgiving to all in the US! I'm thankful for all you and this thread. As I said in a earlier post, this thread helped me get my butt in gear and publish Barney, Mr. Thomas, and the Alligator Creature.

https://ibb.co/nQvZGTJ

https://ibb.co/XSyBvnT

My typewritten replies!!!

Holiday drive-by. Just finished the assignment and sent it back. I may write later on.

Did anyone else listen to "Alice's Restaurant" this morning?

Happy Turkey Day!

Chase - that's some good editing you got done
April - knowing where one is going is most excellent - grats on the 365. (& I'm mental for the lentil ).
kara - congrats on the 650. (My WIP 2 is a short, and I find that very slow going. So much to pack in to a small space, without being obvious about it)
Moon - glad you got that resolved (and yes, this thread is is great. It's
what has allowed me to really grow a daily writing habit)
Daniel, congrats on the writing!
Ptero, nice work. (The local college station play native music all day)




Day 26


WIP 1 - reading & notes WIP 2 - added words
R/SC - bit o chores, chocolate & other nice treats
BP/$$ - more slow work unhoarding sentimental papers

You guys are crushing it. Woot woot! And I too am thankful for you.

I've done chapter 10. 44,800 words in, of 116,000 total.

Chapter 11 is a long one--about 10,000 words. So after I slog through that one, I should be near the halfway mark. Send rum.

XOXO

Day 26

Word Count 88

Dress Her in Chameleon - LBL editing.

Layla - Grats on added words

April - It’s always nice to know where you’re going. Congrats on the 365 words.

I came across what appeared to be a Kindle Create conspiracy theory. Yes. It seems Amazon uses KC to lock you into their publishing system. Uh.

karasunoyashi: That’s really interesting to see how you work—thanks for sharing! (And awesome 600!)

Second: Glad you got the cover sorted. It’s great that this thread has helped your publishing goals

Layla: Yay for tasty rewards for all that hard work. (I treated myself to a bar of chocolate yesterday too. There must have been something in the air.)

Woolly: Rum is on its way! I hope you like dark and spiced.

Cindyt: Are they talking about Kindle Unlimited? Cos that requires exclusivity.

I finished Chap 9, then realised it wasn’t really finished and needed to think up a new ending. Then I wrote 500 for a cheeky new project. About 1500 in total across both.

*Drive-by because I just woke up and can't think of anything intelligent to comment right now*

Day 26 - I did something I've never done before...I submitted a short story to a contest.

Day 27- Got in a little more than 350 words and finished the short project I had been working on this week. Tomorrow it's back to the main project.

Ptero- Good work on the... work. Thanks for the introduction to the song. Given my father's love of that sort of music, I can't believe that I haven't heard it before.

Layla- I agree about it being tough to write short works. All of October was spent writing a flash/short story a day. It really taught me how to concentrate on the main subject. I still have a lot to learn though.

Woolly- Way to go on this chapter and good luck on the long one.

April- Way to go on the 1500 words. Also, you're welcome, although the real insight is that I can't work on any one thing to long or I get very self-conscious.

Second- Woot! Submitting to a contest sounds fun. I really want to try that some day. Maybe I will make it a resolution to not enter a contest next year. That should pretty much guarantee it happens.

Woolly, nice work getting ch 10 done
Cindy - 88 is really great!
April, congrats on the 1.5K and the cheek
Moon - waaay to go!
kara - nice 350!
Magnus - sounds great . (I'm like that with word counts - it can really get to me)


Day 27




WIP 1 reading & notes WIP 2 added words
R/SC - errand at the hardware store
BP/$$ - the sentimental paper unhoarding work continues

Day 26 - about 200 words longhand. Mostly I ate and watched movies.

Same for today. I spent the afternoon watching one of the DVDs I got from the library, and will probably watch another tonight before frantically scribbling some flash before bed. It's a holiday weekend, so everybody cut yourself some slack.

Second Moon - Good luck in the contest! Just getting up the guts to enter is a major win for a lot of us.

Layla - thumbs up to that college station. Playing Native music on Thanksgiving--that is so cool.

Day 27

Word Count 171

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - Wasn’t going to have a table of contents, but since KDP requires one, I pulled the old one out of my Deleted Files. I figure part pages and chapters look better than just chapters.

Dress Her in Chameleon - LBL editing. Refigured my chapter pages vs. part pages and scanned over to Chapter 44 where I took up the texts edits. Except for inserting the Table of Contents, I’m done with formatting.

Moon - Good luck with the short story contest!

Layla - Progress!

April - I’m talking about Kindle Create, which is an interior formatting tool for ebooks and paperbacks. If you don’t want to use it once you’ve uploaded your Word file, then don’t us it. Simple as that. You can also delete the book on your dashboard if it comes down to it. What’s conspiracy got to do with that? Jings!

Not enjoying the vibe here AT ALL all over the site so I'm bailing on this place until further notice.

Day 27 - I moved a short story collection to Google Docs.

Is anyone else Christmas shopping already? Normally I wait until the last week or so, but I found a sale on music boxes online and ordered two for my little sisters.

Cindyt - I write short story collections so table of contents are a must for me. However, I think table of contents are great in novels, too. Particularly if the chapter names are humorous or clever. I always loved how Diana Wynn Jones named the chapters in Howl's Moving Castle. All the chapter names start with "In which..."

Ptero - It took a lot of guts to submit the story.

Magnus - Writing everyday is a great habit.

Kara - It was hard to find contests that weren't over already. I entered the contest with three days till the deadline.

Doing a drive by today.

Day 28- Got a little more than 400 words in today. Hope everyone's weekend goes well. Just a couple more days to push through for this month.

Second: Good luck with the contest! (I haven’t started shopping yet but I’m going to get a list together tomorrow.)

karasunoyashi: Congrats on finishing the project.

Magnus: Yeah, I only roughly count now, and I do so at the end of the day. I much prefer to think in scenes or chapters. You’re doing a great job building the habit.

Layla: Very good work all round.

Pterofan: Any good films to recommend?

Cindyt: Ah I see, thanks for explaining. Seems 2020 is the year of mad conspiracies (Yay for words and formatting!)

I spent most of yesterday doing mailing list stuff, which was a bit of a pain. Did a bit for Chap 9 and 10, realised that Chap 9 need rewritten completely … added a sentence or two to the new project … drank wine.

Day 27 - maybe 200 words, 150 for sure. As predicted, I ended up frantically scribbling right before bed, this time in the tiny, pocket-sized notebook so the estimated word count may be iffy.

I haven't done anything yet today. I only stopped in to answer April's question. The four DVDs I picked up are all movies I've seen before. Of the four, I'd pick Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the best of the group. This was my second viewing, and the animation blew me away even more so than the first time. The story's no slouch, either. I think it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature the year it came out, and deservedly so. Today I'll be watching the last one, American Graffiti, which I haven't seen in years. Before George Lucas made Star Wars, he filmed this tribute to his teenage years in car-obsessed Southern California, set just as the Ozzy-and-Harriet '50s gave way to the turbulent '60s. Keep an eye out for child star Ron Howard in his first adult role, and a pre-Han Solo Harrison Ford as a street racer. The real star is the soundtrack, made up entirely of rock and roll songs from the era. It lost the Best Picture Oscar to The Sting, and I still haven't forgiven the Academy. I'm not being paid to write these reviews, by the way. Your viewing mileage may vary.

April: Congrats on 365+1500 words
Kara: Even "practice" words are words, you're still working on your craft and learning things
Second Moon: Congrats! And good luck!
Dainel: I've never seen that before! Very cool
Layla: Congrats on words
Woolly: Nice progress on editing
Cindy: I do not have a very good opinion of Amazon and the things it does but I don't think they're doing that with KC lol
Magnus: That's awesome to hear I'm glad it's working out
Ptero: Enjoy your weekend!

Day 26: Didn't do any writing stuff, but did do some reading. Enjoyed a chill day
Day 27: Edited chs 16-20. One of them was really short, though! I needed more pens/highlighters so I popped into a few stores and picked up some stuff for other hobbies, too. It wasn't busy out at all, though lots of people buying TVs at Target, of course. I have the place to myself so I put Spotify on the TV and just did editing the rest of the day. I talked to my sister a bit, too, and discovered that she's also faceblind and we had the same reaction to the reveal that the bad guy in this game was faceblind and that's why he did all the bad things. Even if you put someone in someone else's clothes you'll notice the hair is different! Or the voice! Gosh

I have returned! I apologize, everyone. I wasn't feeling well but then the sweetest April Swanson cheered me up!

I'll be posting replies first then onto some more typewritten replies.

Alas, until nigh!

Ptero, congrats on the 200 (I let the day pretty much happen as it would yesterday. It was nice. ps - if you're feeling it, you can listen - scroll down to Thursday, the 'Powow' started at 12:00, stopped at 8:00 https://zbconline.com - pps - if your browser won't cooperate - I just edit .m3u to .mp3 and it plays nicely...)
Cindy - congrats on the editing & words
Moon - sounds good
kara - congrats on the 400 on what sounds like a busy day
April, sounds like irons are in the fire
Chase, congrats on the work, and on taking a day off
Magnus, glad to hear about a nice session
Aloha Daniel!




Day 28


WIP 1) reading & notes WIP 2) added words
R/SC - home-made butternut squash soup for dinner
BP/$$ - job 5 hours

Day 28

Word Count 131

A Deadly Spill of Scarlet - I’ve waffled with using a table of contents for this novel and had finally not to use one. But because the KDP ebook requires it and I don’t like the look of one with just a list of chapters, I reinstated the original with the part titles and shelved it on my files.

Dress Her in Chameleon - LBL editing.

Moon - I love table of contents for the dramatic effects that hook the reader.

Chase - I have an acquaintance who published her first book with createspace and has any number of children’s books with KDP. She’s an odd bird, and I would think we’d hear any complaints far and wide. Not to say they are perfect. I’m aware of the cons, but I don’t trust the other lot. Sounds like a great day for editing.

Layla - Grats on added words.

April - Yes, and my love of them has grown into distaste. Good luck on rewriting Chapter 9.

https://ibb.co/TLzmnmL

My typewriter replies!

Good work everyone! We're NEARLY there!