Joyful January - 500 words per day editing/writing - all genres welcome

Saoirse

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IT'S FINALLY 2021!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. Just a bit excited.

So, Happy New Year. Hope you all had a good holiday. Now it's time to get back to work.

How'd December go? Did you smash them goals? Or did you fall a bit short?

What are your goals for this month?
 

Saoirse

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I got my editing job done one day late - yesterday. Spent New Year's Eve working till 2:15am and wasn't done, so I decided to call it a night. The client was okay with it, thankfully.

I still have another to finish, and another book of his (the same client) to do. And then I might possibly be done with editing for a bit.

I would like to, if there's time (ha, ha):

Finish reformatting my sci-fi novelette and publish
Start on The Vanishing revision
Start writing poetry again

All of this is super ambitious, b/c I don't think I'll have the time or energy, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. Maybe it'll happen. :)
 

Horrorschach

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Greetings.
I'm new to the forum.
I've got a goal for roughly 500 words per day with some wiggle room to outline and brainstorm.
All genres welcome? Sweet. I'll be in the back of the room somewhere but I'll be sure to chime in from time to time.
Here's to a better year! *raises an empty glass*
 

lizmonster

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:Hi: Horrorschach!

Hi Saoirse! I hope you're doing well. Here's hoping we can settle into some normalcy for a while!

December was more productive than I expected and less productive than I hoped. For the last several days, I've been doing some outlining, trying to figure out some of my B plot issues for this book I've been writing for (checks calendar) four years. (FOUR YEARS.) Progress has been made. Words, however, have not yet been contributed.

So I guess January goals are:

1) Get some words in, and maybe build a decent foundation for this thing

2) ... I dunno. Not hate myself if I fail?

I have a book on sub that I fully expect to be rejected by everybody. Realistically it's too soon to expect any kind of feedback, but I do feel rather island-like right now.

Cheers to everyone! Let's have a excellent January, whatever our goals!
 
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Horrorschach

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Salutation lizmonster!
Got a couple of questions for you...trying to follow your response and I apparently have some gaps in my slang.
B plot? I assume it is some form of downgraded A plot. Is A plot some sort of main vein crux stuff?
When you say you have a sub what does that mean? To me, I picture the youtube subscribe button but that cant be right. Care to elaborate?
...Does your island have a dock? Why not throw a party?

Yesterday I managed to write 600+ words and most of them avoided the backspace button. I was worried that I would wake up this morning with nothing else to add to my story...but I was surprised to discover Santa (or is it Satan?) left me some gifts wrapped as ideas.
I am not sure if I will keep up the 500 word goal but I will certainly meet that criteria as I do outlines and bring more depth to my "Who" section. Do the words count if they are fleshing out my environment and characters...but not necessarily going to be included in the final submission?
 

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Hi Horrorschach! Well done on the words!

To answer your questions:

B plot? I assume it is some form of downgraded A plot. Is A plot some sort of main vein crux stuff?

The B plot is the stuff that's going on alongside the story's main plot. In my case, I almost always end up intertwining the two to enable the story's climax/conclusion. I know what I need this B plot to accomplish, but I've been struggling with the details. I'm not an outliner by nature - generally I just whack at stuff as I go - but this one needs a little more structure.


When you say you have a sub what does that mean?

It means I have a finished manuscript that my agent has sent (submitted/subbed) to publishers. I get to wait and see if anybody wants to buy it. Whee!

And the island thing is just a reference to how very isolating most of this process is. Sigh. Publishing is slow, but silence never feels good.
 

Horrorschach

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I see. Thank you for your answers.
So you have a message in a bottle floating out in publisher-infested yachts? That must be exciting!
It could be worse, you could be waiting for a COVID-19 test to come back.
You have potential success filling your sails instead of bad news eddies pulling you in circles.
If I were on an island with the word "HELF" spelled out in rocks I'd treat it as a vacation until the food and sanity run out.
After that its Lord of the Flies. Hopefully the flies never find you.
 

lizmonster

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LOL! Having been through all this before, I kind of wish I could be completely dispassionate about it. The truth is it's the best thing I've written so far, and that doesn't matter in the slightest. What happens will happen, and it's out of my hands now.

I'm following the conventional advice of working on something else while I'm waiting. What else have I got to do?
 

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Hi Everyone, Happy New Year!

In retrospect, December wasn't very productive for me. I've made several revisions to my query for "Paroxysm" and although further on than when I started, I don't think a useable query is anywhere in sight. What's more, I've found that querying has dampened my enthusiasm for writing in general. So as well as procrastinating about my query, I've also been procrastinating about everything else too.

Despite this, I have managed to do some work on my next project ("Exigent"). I've completed the opening scene and a bit more - as well as some outline stuff. Sadly, after being excited to finish editing and get back to actually writing, I have found it very slow going.

With my general funk and my day job about to get busy again, I'm realistically hoping for somewhere between 2K and 4K words in January. Anything more than 2K will be a win.

Anyway, enough of that - Have a good January everyone, and if it isn't good, then I hope it's lucky :)

Lizmonster - I thought the "Island" reference was a nod to Simon and Garfunkel ("I have my books, and my poetry to protect me")? :)
 

lizmonster

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Wow, but January has lasted eons, hasn't it?

I got some words in today, amazingly enough - 1,741. But I'm now thinking I should be working on the other book, which somebody might be able to sell someday. I wish I could get some focus and maybe produce more words a day, and then I could write both. Hey, at least it's distraction!
 

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Hi everyone, late to check in. Hope you're all having a more productive year (!!!) than I am so far.


Liz, that's a great word count. Nice work!
 

lizmonster

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Got a few more words in today - 792. After none yesterday.

I have so many ideas. Four books and a short story. And I can't seem to get unclogged. Sigh.
 

lizmonster

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Shockingly, I actually wrote words today. 930. Not half bad. Still processing a lot of emotions, so we'll see what happens to my productivity when the wave hits.
 

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Well done on the progress, liz! I hope that wave is a warm, refreshing feeling and lifts you up.


Since my last update I finally finished edits on the last book, got a bunch of timeout/no responses and one personalised rejection (on partial, not full), ran out of all fucks, and got a decent way into an outline for the next book (which is actually a rewrite of a previous first draft).

At the point of said depletion of fucks-to-give, I realised that even if my last book never gets published, it's not going to change the way I write, nor the stories I want to tell. Those stories, told in that way, are what I want to write, and even if no-one else likes them, I'm still going to write them. I'm stubborn like that. Embracing that stubbornness has helped me get my arse in gear and actually crack on with stuff. This attitude will likely crumble in the face of the next rejections, when suddenly I realise that I do want the approval of my peers and I am desperately hollow and bereft without it, but until then I'm going to try and make hay. Also beer. I am going to brew some more beer next week. That definitely is something I do for just myself, because in this pandemic I'm literally not allowed to share it with anyone. So I brew the things I like and enjoy both the process and the consumption.

Hope you're all hanging in there, and may you also be blessed with stubborn determination.
 

lizmonster

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Sorry about the R(s), Richard. It's so frustrating. You've got something good; it's just a matter of bashing through, and bashing through is such an ordeal.

Speaking of bashing through - I wrote 2,035 words today. I'm not sure how this is going, but I'm trying not to look at it too hard until the complete draft is done. I always end up rewriting the beginning anyway, right?
 

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I can't believe we're a week away from the end of January. With lockdown, I don't really leave the house and with my job currently as busy as it is, the days are just bleeding into one.

Sorry to hear about the rejections OSG, I haven't actually got to that yet (although I am sure I will!). I've parked querying for the time being, because, even though I haven't started submitting yet, it's already my least favourite thing about writing. I will return to it, but I'll probably wait until the weather improves before I start openly inviting rejection. It's interesting what you say about writing for yourself, because that is exactly how I feel. I do it for my own enjoyment and whilst I'd like other people to enjoy my writing, it's not the reason I do it. I'm not expecting to ever be able ditch my current career for writing, so it's not the end of the world if I end up self-publishing to an audience of single figures.

Instead of querying, I'm currently beta-ing for someone, who is reciprocating, so we'll see what the feedback is like this time. I'm also on course to hit my word target for this month (which is a lot closer to your daily word count, Liz!) so that's something.

Anyway, good luck everyone and much like I hope OSG's beer turns out - stay strong and safe :)
 

Saoirse

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::cheers everyone and stubborn determination::

I'm still alive and working. Haven't written but I did buy covers for a trilogy I will be writing again. If you guys remember Covenant...that's book 1. The perfect cover came along, and with premade covers, you can't wait or it'll get sold to someone else. I asked the cover artist if she could make it a trilogy and she said yes and what she came up with was PERFECT. And cheaper than if I'd gone with custom covers. So maybe that'll get my butt in gear to finish book 1 and write books 2 and 3.

Still working on the same manuscript, got another editing job for February. I want to start writing this coming week, so that's the plan, come hell or high water. I need a bit of stubborn determination myself. ;)
 

lizmonster

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Saoirse - congratulations on finding the perfect covers! It's not so easy, I'm finding, to get what you want. I'm considering spending a stupid amount of money on a cover, which likely won't matter to anyone but me. :)

Did ~1400 yesterday, and 2132 today. Not yet at 20K, but I might hit that by the end of the month. The goal is to finish this draft by the end of April. I'll need to have better momentum than I've had over the last few weeks, so maybe we could avoid some coups for a while, okay?