plan

Daily Writing Check-in: July 1, 2019

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

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.

2019-camp

Daily Writing Check-in: June 21, 2019

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Words/Time: 2 hours doing research into what I need to prepare for book submissions, in the publishing process.

I’ll be honest–this was a rough day. I worked on a cover letter for one literary agency, only to realize that I am going to have to spend a lot more time on a particular section for the proposal than I can do right now (competitive titles).

I don’t know how many of you out there have gone through any of this, but it’s overwhelming! I will probably not post every day, so long as my only real “writing work” involves working on book submissions. I will check in now and then, and continue to post Writing Wednesday posts. I also want to do some freewriting now and then, so I don’t get too bogged down in this area, and miss out on the fun of actual writing for a long time. With any luck, I may even be able to post some Monday Moments along the way.

But for now, this is my focus, in the time that I have to devote to writing work (which is a small part of my day).

For those of you out there who have submitted your book to publishers or agents before, or who are working on it now, or even considering it soon, please feel free to share your thoughts, tips, concerns, even just reciprocation.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 18, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hours, 45 minutes reading through “Pithea.” for any further changes to be made to the final draft.

I finished reading through the book, making changes that make the story even stronger. I spent the last 15 minutes copying scenes into Scrivener so that it would be up-to-date there. This completes goal #2 in my current list of writing goals. My new list contains only one thing: Submit “Pithea” for publishing.

Then I spent hours reading through blog posts about submitting a proposal to a publisher or an agent. Though I have done this before (a tiny bit), it’s been a few years, and I want to try to understand it better. It all gave me a bit of a headache though, and I’m not sure how I will ultimately proceed.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 17, 2019

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Words/Time:  2 hours, 20 minutes reading through “Pithea.” for any further changes to be made to the final draft.

I am through page 379 of 467. I have actually found a few smallish, but glaring, plot holes that were missed during previous revisions, including a hefty, year-long revision by 2 of my sisters and myself. It doesn’t surprise me that we missed them, because of how long it took us to get through the book. Details were forgotten. But I am surprised I missed them in the 2-3 times I’ve read through it since then. I’m just glad I caught them now.

I’m into part 4 (the final part) of the book, and based on the average pace I’ve read this time through, I should be able to finish it in about an hour and a half. I expect to be done tomorrow.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 16, 2019

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Words/Time:  2 hours, 16 minutes reading through “Pithea.” for any further changes to be made to the final draft.

I am through page 244 of 467. I made a few small changes, including changing the timeline just a smidge. I’m a bit more than halfway through the book now, and estimate another 3.75 hours to finish it. I’m going to push myself the next few days to try to get it done in 2-3 days, but real life may flood in and slow me down.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 15, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 24 minutes reading through “Pithea.” for any further changes to be made to the final draft.

I am through page 101 of 468. I did make a few small changes, and changed the name of a character ever so slightly.

My pace today was a page a minute, so at that pace, it will take me approximately 6 hours to finish the book. That will most likely take anywhere from 3-7 days. After that…it’s time to delve back into the scary world of publishing.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 14, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour working on the “final” revision of “Pithea.”

I worked on the one larger change, which was also basically the last one on the list. That took up most of the time, and now I am giving the story one more read-through to make sure I didn’t miss anything related to the things I changed. I am on page 16 of 468. I’m guessing this will take several days, unless I find a lot of time to spend on it in the next few days.

After this, I will begin to look into publishing options. I have a starting point in mind already.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 13, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour, 30 minutes working on pre-writing for Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy, as well as beginning the “final” revision of “Pithea.”

I finished the character interview that helped me basically hash out more than half of the main plot of this book. And I can’t believe it, but I think I do have enough further ideas for this storyline for a 4th book in this arc.

This has led me to think that I don’t necessarily want to think of this arc as a trilogy (or tetralogy, as the case may be) within the greater series. Instead, maybe they should just be part of the series that happen to coincide more directly with each other than some of the other books.

I then went on to finish the early outline for this book (which still has no name, but I haven’t really put much thought into it yet either), and wrote down the ideas I have for the follow-up book so I don’t forget later. That ended goal #1 in my current list (which only contains 2 goals).

1. Plan Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy

2. Final revision of “Pithea” – All of my writing goals this year have been for one final goal: to know what, if any changes, future book drafts may force in “Pithea,” so I can get those things changed now, before attempting to publish this book again. I want to make sure it’s exactly what it needs to be, as book 1 in this series of books. I do have a list of things that I want to change, and one of them will possibly change the structure in such a way to make it more marketable.

Though I now have ideas for another book at the end of the current list of Pithea books (+1, because the book I just finished outlining isn’t even on that list yet), it’s just going to have to fit into what already exists in “Pithea,” because I can’t put off revising and going forward with trying to publish it. Any longer, and it’ll just feel like stalling. So today I started on what will hopefully be a final revision to “Pithea”, at least regarding changes prompted by me, rather than by someone else like an editor, and look into publishing options.

Daily Writing Check-in: June 11, 2019

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Words/Time:  35 minutes working on pre-writing for Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy.

I continued the character interview that I’ve been working on for several days now. I thought it would be done before now, but big questions keep coming up that have to be solved for this plot to work out. I answered a bit more today, but still need to work out a bit more. I’m ironing out the details for a Big Escape, and trying to find the balance between too easy and so hard it’s unbelievable they escaped. But the escape is not necessarily the climax I thought it was going to be anymore, so I don’t think it has to be as grand as I had imagined.

I considered doing no work today, because I’m tired from another morning of VBS. But I knew it was important to at least get some work in, especially since taking even a 1-day break when I’m struggling so much to get the plot out can easily lead to a long hiatus, which I do not want!

Daily Writing Check-in: June 10, 2019

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Words/Time:  1 hour working on pre-writing for Book 3 of “Pursuit of Power” trilogy.

I did a lot of brainstorming on the issue that came up yesterday. I’m slowly making my way through the huge questions I’m facing. I also discovered what would have been a huge plot hole in the outline I have so far, so had to fix that, which involved further geography lessons of the region in which this story takes place.

I answered some of the more pressing and complicated questions and got back to the character interview I’ve been working on, only to come up with another question about how to proceed. I’ll tackle that tomorrow.

I’m volunteering as a crew leader at my church’s VBS all this week, so I have to get up early every morning and spend 3 hours with a group of kids. It wipes me out every year.

On the plus side, my job, which I quit 2 1/2 months ago but have been following through on some projects since then, is finally really winding down. I am looking at no work, outside of possibly answering some questions, for the rest of this week. Hopefully the extra time (which will admittedly mostly be spent on catching up housework and relaxing) will afford at least a little extra writing time, and will help me break through these issues.