writing goals

Daily Writing Check-in: February 2, 2019

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Words/Time: 49 minutes working on a new list of short-term writing goals. I also spent this time writing up short synopses for 7 different books that are in various stages of development, because I’d like to share a bit about them as I also share my goals related to them. My new list of goals will probably be posted tomorrow. If anyone is interested in the meantime, my story blog has some information that will likely make parts the synopses clearer.

Here is the official list of previous short-term goals, which are now all completed!

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. Read through “Pithea” for further necessary changes

Daily Writing Check-in: January 23, 2019

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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 21, 2018

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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

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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 3, 2018

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Words/Time: 29 minutes removing “NaNo fodder” from my 2018 NaNoNovel.

It’s not as quick as it sounds. I have to find the areas where I’d marked words for deletion during NaNoWriMo, then figure out what words exactly need deleted. I didn’t just strike through everything I didn’t want to keep, because it takes longer. I put an end bracket to mark a spot and moved on. So now I have to figure out where the bad words start so I can delete them. This is probably a confusing explanation, but the point is, it’s a lot of searching and then some reading.

I worked on the same thing yesterday, and removed 1000 words. Today I removed 356, and I’m only on pg. 37 out of 134. I did this as an early revision step to my NaNoNovel in 2014, and it seemed to go a lot faster. Then again, I didn’t track my time, but I still got it done in 3 days. Though I only removed 4000 words, and I’ve already removed more than a quarter of that in 2 days. At this rate, it will take me over a week to finish, unless I have time to fit more work in some days.

With NaNo behind me, I want to move forward with revising other works. I have left my writing sit (outside of November) for far too long now. Here are my short-term 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” 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. 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. I think that before I can move on to revising the next book, I need to make sure I don’t need to make changes to the first one. Plus, I think it’ll help me get back into the swing of things if the book that starts it all is fresh in my mind. It’s been so dusty lately.

dec 3

Granted, it’s not as exciting as filling the chart in November, but I’m glad to have somewhere to chart my daily progress. My goal works out to an average of (approximately) 20 minutes per day during the month of December.