Outcast

Weekly Writing Update: August pt. 4

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Sunday: 52 minutes freewriting from prompts
Monday: none
Tuesday: 1 hour, 45 minutes at writing group
Wednesday: none
Thursday: none
Friday: 1 hour, 30 minutes working on cover & other publishing things for “Pithea”
Saturday: 35 minutes working on cover for “Pithea”

This week wasn’t the most productive for me, but it was an important week for several reasons. I went to the writing group at my local library for the first time all year, and from that came a very exciting, though also very scary, opportunity. I’ll post about that more later. I’ve made some official decisions on what I want to do with my completed novel “Pithea,” which will start with making a few small changes, which will be the last.

Wednesday and Thursday, our internet was down, which shouldn’t have prevented me from working on the novel I’m currently revising (“Outcast”), but it did. I’ll be diving back into that, while simultaneously working on those final changes to “Pithea,” this week. I’m excited to see the results in next week’s writing update.

Weekly Writing Update: August pt. 3

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Sunday: 1 hour revising “Outcast”
Monday: none
Tuesday: 45 minutes revising “Outcast”
Wednesday: 50 minutes revising “Outcast”
Thursday: 1 hour, 6 minutes revising “Outcast”
Friday: none
Saturday: none

Most of the time this week was spent either putting revisions into the computer or writing a couple of brand new scenes. Friday and Saturday I hit a low point, and just didn’t feel like there was much point in working on it. I think I’ve shaken that off, thanks to some time spent praying, talking to my husband, and eating tacos (not all at the same time), though I think today’s writing time is going to focus on some freewriting just to shake out what’s left of the depression.

I’ve also noticed a sudden desire to go back to the writing I was doing a few years ago about the two weeks my dad was in the hospital back in September of  2016. I started writing it during NaNoWriMo that year, but it was pretty rough–maybe a little too soon. After I finish this draft of “Outcast,” maybe it will be a good change of pace for a while to work on this instead of more revision. Or maybe I’ll do both.

Weekly Writing Update: August pt. 2

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Sunday: 58 minutes revising “Outcast”
Monday: none
Tuesday: 1 hour, 30 minutes revising “Outcast”
Wednesday: 1 hour, 30 minutes revising “Outcast”
Thursday: 1 hour, 9 minutes revising “Outcast”
Friday: 1 hour, 12 minutes revising “Outcast”
Saturday: 1 hours, 3 minutes revising “Outcast”

I’m approximately 90% of the way through this draft, though up ahead is a good amount of rewriting and new scene writing, so that will take a while. When I get to end of the revision, I will evaluate the word count, which I expect to be a bit low. I was dreading possibly having to figure out how to add filler, but now I’m confident in my ability to brainstorm and come up with quality additions (rather than fluff).

Weekly Writing Update: August pt. 1

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*See announcement about blog title at bottom of post.
Sunday: 1 hour, 21 minutes doing writing practice from 2 prompts
Monday: 1 hour, 5 minutes revising “Outcast”
Tuesday: 43 minutes revising “Outcast”
Wednesday: 1 hour, 16 minutes revising “Outcast”
Thursday: 1 hour, 4 minutes revising “Outcast”
Friday: 30 minutes reviewing outlines for 2 other Pithea books
Saturday: 1 hours, 12 minutes revising “Outcast”

Friday I needed a break from “Outcast,” especially after some stresses from the day. I started thinking about NaNoWriMo and wondered what I might write in November. I have a few Pithea books that need redrafted and a few that need revised. But for NaNoWriMo, I prefer to go the traditional route of writing a brand new novel from scratch. That really only leaves me with one option right now–a book that I have a preliminary outline for that takes place after the 7 that are on the list in the above link. So instead of working on “Outcast,” I took some time to read over the outline for that book and refresh my mind on it, as well as the book that comes right before it and will have a lot of connection to it. It was a nice break from “Outcast” revision, while still keeping my mind in the same space.

I won Camp NaNoWriMo, on Tuesday, July 30th, which is just so much less exciting than winning NaNoWriMo proper. Oh well, it’s coming soon! Anyway, I finished the month with an average of 1 hour, 15 minutes worked per day, which makes sense, since the 1st half of the month, I worked 90 minutes per day, and the 2nd half of the month I worked 60 minutes per day (plus some extra to make up for getting behind in the 1st half).

2019-Apr Camp Winner-Facebook-Cover

*Now for an announcement! My blog has been titled “Keeping Procrastination at Bay” since I started it 5 years ago. The original purpose of the blog was to give myself a semi-public location to hold myself accountable to working on my writing. In the last year or so, and especially the last month, it has evolved to a point where I only post weekly updates on my writing work, because I’d rather post things that people can actually get some use out of. I realized this week that the blog title makes no sense anymore. I changed it to “A Journey of Words” because I’ve added reading posts to my writing posts, and overall, words are a big part of my life, and my blog, now.

Weekly Writing Update: July pt. 4

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Sunday: 1 hour, 23 minutes revising “Outcast”
Monday: 1 hour, 12 minutes revising “Outcast”
Tuesday: 1 hour, 12 minutes revising “Outcast”
Wednesday: 1 hour, 4 minutes revising “Outcast”
Thursday: 1 hour revising “Outcast”
Friday: 1 hour, 14 minutes revising “Outcast”
Saturday: 1 hours, 2 minutes revising “Outcast”

I spent over half of this week putting changes from the first half of revisions into the computer, partly so I didn’t have to do the entire story’s worth later, and partly so I could get an idea of how many words I’d added. It wasn’t many, but a few thousand is better than going down in word count.

I then went back to revising and am now about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the draft. When this draft is done, I’ll likely go back through and read the entire thing at a quicker pace, since I added several new scenes, get my story structure and scenes straightened out, and then see if I can recruit the TCSTB to be my first beta-readers and get an idea of where the story stands and how much work it needs. It’s been quite a while since we revised “Pithea” together though, and we’re all in very different places in our lives, so I don’t have any illusions about the possibility of us working together intensively like we did then. But I still highly value their feedback.

I was able to get caught up to par for Camp NaNoWriMo, making up the deficit I had going into this week.  There are 4 days left now, so I’m confident of a win (maybe even a slightly early finish).

2019-camp

Weekly Writing Update: July pt. 3

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Sunday: none
Monday: 1 hour, 25 minutes revising “Outcast”
Tuesday: 1 hour, 15 minutes revising “Outcast,” as well as writing up some character profiles for the same book
Wednesday: 1 hour, 10 minutes revising “Outcast”
Thursday: 1 hour, 11 minutes revising “Outcast”
Friday: 1 hour, 7 minutes revising “Outcast”
Saturday: 1 hours, 13 minutes revising “Outcast”

I’m through half of this revision of “Outcast.” I am now putting the changes I made on paper, and the new scenes, into the computer, so I can get an idea of what kind of word count I’m up to. The first draft was not long enough for this type of novel, so I’m hoping the extra scenes I have planned will fill it out. But I am pretty sure it will still be a little short, and I’ll have to brainstorm some more content.

On Monday, some changes to my evening routine made me realize that I wasn’t going to be able to continue with a goal of 90 minutes per day for Camp NaNoWriMo. So I did the math to figure out what to change my total goal to, in order to keep the first 14 days at 90 minutes, but have the rest of the month with a goal of 60 minutes per day. This leaves me a little behind still, but I couldn’t keep the pace of 90 minutes, behind or not.

2019-camp

Weekly Writing Update: July pt. 2

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Sunday: 1 hour, 30 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Monday: 1 hour, 34 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Tuesday: 2 hours revising “Outcast.”
Wednesday: none
Thursday: 1 hour, 41 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Friday: 1 hour, 38 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Saturday: 3 hours, 40 minutes revising “Outcast.”

I’m just past 1/3 of the way through this revision of “Outcast,” based solely on page count. This week contained a lot of writing new scenes, so I didn’t go through pages as quickly, but made a lot more progress than it appears.

I am just about caught up to where I should be for Camp NaNoWriMo , only 13 minutes behind. I worked extra on Tuesday, since I was already behind, and then couldn’t work on Wednesday, due to feeling utterly terrible and going to bed really early. Saturday I worked off and on whenever I could throughout the day to try to catch back up.

And more importantly than anything else, I am really enjoying how this story is shaping up! It has long been one of my favorite completed works of mine, and it is only getting better and stronger as I revise.2019-camp

Weekly Writing Update: July pt. 1

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Tuesday: 1 hour, 30 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Wednesday: 1 hour, 33 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Thursday: 2 hours, 30 minutes revising “Outcast.”
Friday: none
Saturday: none

This week’s update is a bit shorter than they’ll be in the future, since I started tracking it on Tuesday, and normally it’ll start on Sunday. I’m about 1/4 of the way through this revision of “Outcast,” based solely on page count.

I set my average daily goal for Camp NaNoWriMo at 90 minutes. Because my husband and I were gone Friday & Saturday to celebrate our anniversary, I worked extra on Thursday to get ahead. I thought I might still do a little work through the weekend, but I didn’t. So I’m a little behind now, and probably won’t work any extra today, because I’m tired from the weekend. (I’ll be happy if I hit 90 minutes tonight.)

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Daily Writing Check-in: July 1, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 40 minutes revising “Outcast.”

I have spent much of the last week dealing with a major sinus headache, so I have done no writing work, and neither have I worked on publication submissions for “Pithea.”

Camp NaNoWriMo started today, and fortunately, I am headache-free this evening. I have set my goal at a lofty 90 minutes per day of revision on “Outcast.” I also have plans to continue working on publication for “Pithea” outside of that.

And here’s a big announcement–this will be my last daily writing check-in. I started this blog in 2014 solely as a place to keep track of my writing work, so I could hold myself accountable in a semi-public location–silly reason, maybe, but it really helped for a while. In the time since then, I have enjoyed adding content to my blog that is actually worth reading (by people other than me), and I want to start to focus more on that.

From this point forward, I will post a brief update on what I did over the last 7 days only once a week, because I don’t want to drop that completely. But I don’t want to focus on it anymore.

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Daily Writing Check-in: April 27, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 20 minutes working on the new outline of “The Seeger Book.”

I’m nearing the climax of the outline. I also added a little to the timeline for this story. And then I decided it was important to know what day of the week it should be in the story on the final day. That led me to realize that it was going to be important to know what day of the week it was during a lot of my stories, especially the ones that involve the War Games, which are played on the weekends.

“Outcast,” which ends right as “The Seeger Book” starts,” gave me a starting point, because I know what day of the week that story starts on. But rather than just count forward to find out where I’m at with this book, I decided to make my life easier in the future, and made up a calendar for this year of the series of Pithea Books. I can refer back to it any time I need to. And when working on books that take place before or after these 2, I can always use the same method to make up a calendar for those years.

I found some time in the afternoon to work, which helped a lot to increase my chances to finish Camp NaNoWriMo on time. I think I have a real shot at winning after all (I’m down to just under 3 total hours left on my goal).