Daily Writing Check-in: January 24, 2019

Words/Time: 40 minutes reading through “Pithea” for any changes that later-written stories may force in the book that started it all.

I got through 27 pages, getting me to page 64 out of 510.

I should mention that I have taken to changing the draft to Comic Sans during revision, because of a post on the NaNoWriMo Facebook page last month. They shared this tweet, and I thought I’d try it for myself. I do find that the words are a lot easier to read, so I’m going to stick with it. But this makes the document a lot longer. “Pithea” is 380 pages in 12 pt Times New Roman.

Daily Writing Check-in: January 23, 2019

Words/Time: 53 minutes finishing draft 3 of “Pursuit of Power,” followed by 20 minutes starting through what will hopefully be a final final draft of “Pithea.”

I got through the last 39 pages of “Pursuit of Power,” making broad changes in advance of heftier structural changes I will start on in the future. This finished goal #3 in my list of short-term writing goals that I have been working on since the end of NaNoWriMo in December, and I have already sent the draft to my friend to read. (*fingers crossed that he likes it*)

Now I am moving on to goal #4:

1. Remove NaNo fodder from 2018 NaNoNovel, put scenes into Scrivener while I still remember my ideas

2. Make Aeldrim not be dead in “Pithea

3. Revise “Pursuit of Power” enough to be readable by a friend.

4. Even though I did declare “Pithea” finished a few years ago and sent it off to a couple of publishers, writing that I have done since then has led me to make some changes to it already. Changes like aging most of the characters up 3 years and un-killing a character (see #2 above). I think that before I can move on to more fully revising “Pursuit of Power,” I need to make sure I don’t need to make more changes to the first one. Plus, I think it’s necessary to refresh myself on the book that started it all.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 30, 2018

Words/Time: 1 hour, 2 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

Most of that time was spent working on an item in my second list of things to revise, the same item as yesterday. While trying to add some glimpses into the personal life of my secondary main character, I had to make a small edit to my timeline. I realized that she thought of the main character as too young for something he wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure he was really young enough. I tried to change his age, but that didn’t really work out.

In dealing with this issue, I realized that the secondary main character is too young, considering that she was younger than some of the side characters in “Pithea” that she’s definitely meant to be older and more experienced than. So I aged her a bit.

Then I added in one of the scenes I wrote as writing practice a few years ago, which I think is great for the story. Tomorrow, I’ll add another scene (and probably play with the timeline a bit more).

goal tracker 12-30

I doubled my goal of time spent working on writing this month!

Daily Writing Check-in: December 29, 2018

Words/Time: 44 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

Most of that time was spent working on an item in my second list of things to revise. The plan is to add in some glimpses into the secondary main character’s personal life, since she is not shown in that way very much so far. I’ve already written a scene or two that I can include, but for the first one, I have to get the area where it’s going to go ready. This involves once again comparing a scene that is in both “Pursuit of Power” and “Pithea,” and figuring out how much of it belongs in which book. This is where I will continue tomorrow as well.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 28, 2018

Words/Time: 49 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

Most of that time was spent finishing item 3 in my list of difficult things to revise, finishing revising the scene that I moved over from “Pithea.” That got me through 6 out of 8 items on the list. The other 2 I am saving for later.

Next, I am starting on a new list. While I was working on the items from my list of things to fix during this revision, I came up with some more things that needed to be done, and wrote them down for later. Now I’m starting on that list, which currently has 16 items on it. Today, I fixed the 1st and 4th items on the list.

After I’m done with this list, or perhaps before I’m completely done, I’ll read through the entire draft again to find any other glaring issues that need fixed before I’m willing to let anyone at all read it. There are a few items on this list that might better be fixed while reading through the draft, rather than trying to find all of the places the issue exists by skimming or jumping around.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 27, 2018

Words/Time: 51 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

That time was spent on item 3 in my list of difficult things to revise. This entailed copying & pasting a scene from “Pithea” into “Pursuit of Power,” because it turns out it really belongs there. However, the scene was written from the perspective of the wrong character now, so I’m making edits to help with that. I got sidetracked by trying to answer a continuity question that maybe isn’t important in this early revision.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 26, 2018

Words/Time: 58 minutes doing some early revision of “Pursuit of Power.”

That time was mostly spent fixing items 6, 7, and 8 in my list of difficult things to revise. It was nice to get through a few in a short amount of time, considering how long some of these items are taking.

I have now completed 5 out of 8 difficult revision items.

I also went on to work on item 3 on the list, which required me to take a look at some scenes in “Pithea.” That book runs parallel with “Pursuit of Power” in some places, and originally I had intended to just go ahead and show intersecting scenes in both books, but from different characters’ perspective. However, I’ve recently decided that that would be a bad idea. For one thing, some of these parts just mean a lot more to the plot of one book than the other. So for those, I’ll just delete the scene from the book it’s less important for, either summing up what happened, or hinting at it and leaving it unexplained.

One of these scenes was left fairly unfinished in “Pursuit of Power” when I first wrote it, but it needs to be in that book. Tomorrow I will work on moving the scene from “Pithea” to “Pursuit of Power,” which will take a bit of work, because it’s from the wrong character’s perspective right now.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 21, 2018

Words/Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes, finishing item #2 in my list of short-term writing goals, and starting on #3:

1. Remove NaNo fodder from 2018 NaNoNovel, put scenes into Scrivener while I still remember my ideas

2. Make Aeldrim not be dead in “Pithea

3. Revise “Pursuit of Power” just enough to be readable by a friend who is interested. I have hefty revisions planned for the structure of that book, but it will take a long time, and they won’t affect the overall story of this world, just what goes into that book. So before I dig into the major work that was part of my recent absence from writing, I want to just make it readable.

4. Read through “Pithea” for further necessary changes

Finishing #2 took me over an hour, but I think I have removed all references to the aftermath of Aeldrim’s death. Now he gets to live and drive everyone crazy in future stories (which will mean I have to write him in to some drafts, but that’s okay. Writing him is a challenge and requires me to step out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing).

As for #3, I have to be careful here. The revision of this book contributed to my almost-3-year hiatus from writing. I am not looking forward to figuring out what I have to do to make this book work. But even just making this post, and re-reading my plan for goal #3 led me to realize that I’m doing too much right now. The plan is just to fix it up the way it is, make it readable, not make it “work.” I will keep the small amount of changes I made on the way to figuring out a better plot line, but instead of continuing down that path (for now), I am going to dig out my list of bigger changes that need made before I am comfortable letting anyone read it.

This friend who is going to read it was instrumental in getting me to where I am in writing these stories, and I know he will enjoy the story for what it is, even with the scenes that I will eventually deem unnecessary to the story (or just having the wrong focus). I look forward to hearing his thoughts on this draft.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 20, 2018

Words/Time: 397 words and 1 hour of work, starting on item #2 in my list of short-term writing goals:

1. Remove NaNo fodder from 2018 NaNoNovel, put scenes into Scrivener while I still remember my ideas

2. Make one obvious change to “Pithea” that is not actually a huge change for that book, but will affect future books a lot. Basically, a side character dies for no real reason, and I’ve realized that future books would be much better if he lived. So he’s going to not die, but because his death did allow a minor plot point to happen that still has to happen, I have to first brainstorm how to make that plot point happen anyway.

3. Revise “Pursuit of Power” partially

4. Read through “Pithea” for further necessary changes

I have the most difficult parts of the change made, but now I’m following rabbit trails while trying to make sure I catch and change any details that are different with the un-death of this character. I tend to get caught up when I go back and re-read my stories that I haven’t read in a while. I’ll try to pull myself away and get through this item quickly.

Daily Writing Check-in: December 4, 2018

Words/Time: approx. 45 minutes working on goal #2 from my post yesterday.

Though it’s 2nd on my list, and I definitely haven’t finished #1, I went to the writer’s group meeting at my local library tonight. I didn’t want to pack up my laptop, which I would have needed for goal #1, so I decided to start the brainstorming I needed to do for #2. And it worked! I know how to make the change work now, though I’ll leave the actual work for later. I have it all written out if I have forgotten about the plan by the time I get to it.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but with NaNoWriMo over, I am making it my goal to do some sort of writing work for 20 minutes every day. I am using the goal tracker on the NaNoWriMo website to keep track of my work. I will also post here every day that I’ve done some writing work. It’s helped me in the past to maintain the habit, so I hope it does again.