500 Words Challenge

Daily Writing Check-in: April 21, 2016

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Words/Time:  627 words of free writing, continuing what I started yesterday, a scene showcasing Leahna and her relationship with her family, which is usually pretty strained. It ended up being a lot more involved than I ever expected it to be. Whether I continue it tomorrow or not, I can’t say. I’ll be working for probably around 12 hours tomorrow, so when I come home, I can’t say what state my mind will be in. But having a scene to jump back into is better than starting something from scratch, so who knows.

I’m letting this free writing (which  might actually turn out to be producing scenes that will work very well in the actual novel) ease me back in after my break. I remember that my revision is stalled at needing to figure out how to start the novel (after the prologue) with the narrator, rather than forgetting that he exists. Until I can figure that out, the revision will go nowhere, but at least I’ve got something to do.

Daily Writing Check-in: April 19, 2016

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Words/Time:  566 words of free writing. Before I stopped writing for a while, I was planning to focus on one character during free writing time for a while, to try to draw them out a bit. Some of the characters in “Pursuit of Power” aren’t as developed as I prefer. Back in February, I started with Leahna, the secondary main character in the novel. I’m going to stick with her for now, and today’s writing started with me asking her the question, “What do you really want me to know about you?” This was because, as I mentioned once before, though she has a very big role in the novel, she’s been mostly one-dimensional so far. I think she comes across as being nearly flawless, so I let her ramble on a bit about that today.

Daily Writing Check-in: February 21, 2016

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Words/Time:  455 words of free writing about the main character of “Pursuit of Power.”

I’m trying really hard to pull myself back into writing, since I’ve been doing even less than I’d anticipated (which was already less than normal for me) for the last few weeks. It is mostly because of the new job, but also because I think I was more burnt out than I realized after finishing the revision on my first novel. Trying to dive right into the next one was unwise, and instead of taking a break from revision, while still writing every day, I just…didn’t want to write or anything like it, at all.

But I also work for the weekend, though in a backwards way than most people. My new job is on Friday and Saturdays. Sometimes I feel like all week, I’m just trying to keep everyday chores and things caught up, so when the weekend comes, it’s as easy on my family for me to be gone for 2 days as possible.

On the plus side, though, the job is so much fun! If it wasn’t, this would all be pushing me to a point of exhaustion that could lead to horrible things. In fact, my bosses are planning to create a shortened-length escape room (normal length is 60 minutes, this one will be 15) to set up for one evening during a fundraiser at a local independent theater. I’ve come up with a lot of ideas for them, in the theme they’re planning, and they’ve asked me to help them plan out the room sometime this week. More work, but it’s just this week, and I loveloveLOVE the idea of helping to create an escape room. I was hoping this might be a possibility someday when I started working there. If it goes well, maybe I’ll get to help with their next full room.

Daily Writing Check-in: February 11, 2016

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Words/Time:  525 words of writing practice with a prompt.

I’ve decided to put off revision for a few weeks while I settle into a new schedule, with me working every Friday and Saturday. It affects the rest of the week, if only because I have to budget my time differently, not having those two days free. Two days ago, I realized there were some big things I need to figure out before I can really dive into my first full revision of “Pursuit of Power,” but I don’t have the focus I need to figure them out.

I’m going to keep up free writing as best I can for the next few weeks, now and then focusing that writing on how to solve some of these issues. The biggest issue is how to start the novel. When I wrote the first draft, I forgot to write it with my narrator, a man who is writing from 10-15 years in the future, compiling accounts from different people involved in the events of these stories. Writing from his POV doesn’t actually change a lot, because he’s not in much of the story, so it still reads like 3rd person. However, right off the bat, I have to find a way to introduce him, and it has me stumped.

I also want to do some free writing with specific characters in mind, focusing on a different character for several days at a time. I found this helped me while revising “Pithea” to get into the head of some side characters who weren’t very well-developed. Though I’ll probably start with the main characters.

All of this I hope will give me better perspective on the story as a whole when I am ready to revise again. And I’m still writing, just not on my main project.

Daily Writing Check-in: February 9, 2016

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Words/Time:  1 hour working on “Pursuit of Power.” Most of that time was spent copying & pasting the entire story into Scrivener, one scene at a time. My next revision task has been trying to figure out how to get an important plot to start sooner. In the image below, the red is the main plot. The blue, though is an important plot line that will carry into the sequel to this novel. It’s also the catalyst that makes the red plot go where it needs to go. But there’s a lot of red at the beginning (which is mostly just my protagonist growing up and being positioned where he needs to be when the blue plot starts).Scrivener scenes PoP
I have two ideas for how to go about getting that blue to come in sooner, and I’ll probably have to incorporate both of them. I’ve already taken the first 3 or 4 blue scenes and spread them amongst the early red. And I may try to condense some of what happens in the red. It may not all be vital to the story, though so far, it seems vital enough that I can’t condense it much. But that’s always the problem with revising your own story.

Daily Writing Check-in: February 8, 2016

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Words/Time:  638 words of free writing to try to develop a secondary character, and 37 minutes of revision, working up a possible prologue for “Pursuit of Power.”

Despite my beliefs that my little vacation from writing would still result in some free writing being done now and then, that didn’t happen after the first day. The truth is, once I step away for a day or two in favor of just being lazy and relaxing in the evening, it’s just too easy to not go back. That’s why I normally try to do at least a little writing work every day that I have any time for it. Without the habit, I’m lost.

In the end, the break turned out to be a really helpful thing. Not because I got any clarity in my writing, but because it was relaxing to just not worry about it for 10 days. I thought often about what I’d be doing when I got back to it, but I didn’t have any grand epiphanies or anything.

But the main reason it was helpful is because it kept me from stressing over whether I could get to my writing work or not this last weekend, when I had a huge change in my life. I started a new job. This is a pretty big deal, because I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. I already work for my dad, but I work an average of a day a week, and I take my kids with me. This will be the first job outside of my home/family that I’ve had since before my almost 14-year-old son was born. The job wasn’t sought out, but was offered to me, and it will be part-time out of necessity (because I do still have 2 kids to take care of and homeschool during the week).

I’ll be working as a game master at an escape room company, which means I’ll be behind the scenes running the room when groups come in to play. For as much fun as playing a room is, watching others play it is the next best thing. I honestly can’t believe I’m going to be paid to do something so much fun.

My first day was last Friday, which was right when I was ready to start back to writing. I was set to work until around 11:30-12 at night, though, which is pretty much the end of my normal writing time. So I just extended my writing break until the end of the weekend. From this point forward, I’ll be working most Friday and Saturday evenings, so my writing time on the weekend might be severely limited in the future. But I’ll still have time the rest of the week, and it’s worth it for a job that promises to be a blast.

Daily Writing Check-in: January 29, 2016

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Words/Time:  512 words of free writing. A minor character in “Pursuit of Power” actually just disappears about a third of the way through the novel. I never planned for him to even be there; he just showed up while I was writing. And then there was nothing for him when things started picking up (because he wasn’t meant to be in the book), and so he just slipped away. I’m going to allow that, but I wanted to give him a reason to slip away, which I’ll include in the story now. That’s what I wrote about today.

My updates for the next week will look different and may be sporadic. My husband suggested tonight that I take a week off from writing. He thinks that I’m beginning to stress too much over how long it takes for me to get to my writing time each night. He’s not exactly wrong, but I told him that taking a break from my writing isn’t necessarily going to alleviate stress, since it’s something I enjoy so much. So I’m meeting him halfway. I won’t plan to work on my revision work every night for the next week, so I’m not upset when normal family issues threaten my writing time. But if I do have some time after kids are in bed, I will still do a little free writing.

He thinks of it as a week-long vacation from my writing “work” that might help me de-stress, but I don’t see how it will change anything for after the week is over. However, since it’s only a week, I’m agreeing to it. Who knows what’ll happen.

Daily Writing Check-in: January 27, 2016

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 15 minutes listing out the rest of the scenes in “Pursuit of Power” in Scrivener. While doing that, I realized my timeline wasn’t entirely accurate in some areas. I hadn’t referenced the timeline while writing, apparently, and I’d made the first part of the timeline many months before writing the first draft. I had to make some decisions about whether to change the dates in the timeline or to change it in the story. I could have saved that work for when I start reading soon, but it was bothering me.

Scrivener scenes PoP

This is my novel in a very boiled down, zoomed out, and color-coded sense. The different colors are different plot lines. The red is the main plot. The purple is the one I need to work on most. It may seem unimportant and worth deleting entirely, but it’s the personal life of the secondary main character. I always found it difficult to remember to include what was going on in her life throughout the story, and when I did, it seemed like a waste of time. So I need to spend some time figuring out what about her life is important enough to include, and the best way to slip that in here and there.

Daily Writing Check-in: January 26, 2016

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Words/Time:  45 minutes revising “Pursuit of Power” during the writing group meeting at the library. To start the real revision, I’m writing out a list of scenes and color coding them by plot line. I’m also tagging them with the characters who are involved, and may add setting to it later. Hopefully this will help me to make sure my subplots are tight (and worth including) and that there aren’t random plot strands that shouldn’t be in the story.  It’s also giving me a chance to re-familiarize myself with the story as a whole before starting to read.

I was going to do this on paper with a pen, and then highlight different plot lines with different color highlighters (I got the idea for this here, but the rest of the process I do in a different order or a different way). But at the library, I didn’t have a pen, only a pencil (which wouldn’t work well with highlighter). So I figured I’d see how it worked in Scrivener. Once I figured out how to color code it and how to add characters to each scene that could be grouped later, it went pretty well. And I can see the whole story board at once, which is nice. I got through about half the story today, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to finish it tomorrow.