Tag Archives: writing method

Writing

Writing Log: Day 2 – Month 2

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Another busy couple of days. There hasn’t been much time to write but tomorrow will be a golden opportunity to really make some progress. I did manage to finish Chapter 2. I’m happy to be moving on from the more introductory bits of the story. I’m considering upping my daily writing goal soon. The 1k words a day was a good goal to start with but it makes writing a novel a very fragmented process. It’s pretty hard to really get back into the mindset of a particular scene after a day or two without writing. I might also try and make Monday through Thursday burst writing days were I just set a certain amount of time to only writing and see just how much I can get done.

 

Writing Log – Day 2 Month 2

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  13,124 words to date (700 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 147

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 2,074

Total Words This Month: 2,457

General, Life, Writing

Writing Log – Day 1 – Month 2

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s a new month and I’m pretty excited to see just how much I can get done in the next 30 days. I’m feeling fairly ambitious at the moment so I think it would not be completely unreasonable to have a tentative goal of finishing either all or 90% of my book this month. My official deadline is still June 15th, so the reality is I have plenty of time to wrap this up if I need it. Still, I find I am very impatient to have more books and stories completed. All of my research indicates that it is important not only to keep writing as much as possible, but to have a sizable body of works out there available. So I am eager to build up a library of things that I’ve written. It’s an incredibly motivating thought really: imagining the list of works I’ve completed, knowing that I have two or more whole series of stories to my name. I also have a lot of ideas that I want to try out. I don’t plan on limiting myself to any particular genre excepting that anything I write, I have to enjoy doing it. That leaves a whole mess of options open. Very exciting times indeed. 🙂

 

Writing Log – Day 1 Month 2

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  12,424 words to date (1,374 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 236

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 1,374

Total Words This Month: 1,610

Publishing, Writing, Inspiration

Writing Log: Day 5 – Month 1

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Only five real days of solid writing for this month. Not what I really hoped to make, but not bad either as I ease back into the swing of the writing process. Today was dominated by publishing concerns. I’m finally working on the print format for my first book. I’m looking forward to getting that done since my first book won’t be finished until the print and audio versions are done. Well, print is done and audio is in the works. For the print version I’m giving CreateSpace a shot. I’m also learning InDesign CS6. I went with a so-called “legacy” copy instead of the stupid subscription model so many companies are pushing now. It costs more up front but after the first year I’ll have saved a good chunk of change. At this point I’m just learning the ropes as far as formatting goes.

One thing that became evident immediately was that I should have worked out the print cover before doing the electronic. In the future I’ll simply clip the front print cover to be used for the electronic. Makes things much easier. As it is the electronic cover of my book will be changing a little to match the print version. It’s not really a big deal though since changing the electronic cover is as easy as uploading the new file. Welcome to the brave “new” world of self-publishing! This is definitely one of those things that has become infinitely more accessible thanks to technological advances. While a part of me wishes I’d been writing non-stop since high school (since I’d probably be sitting on a veritable mountain of stuff that I could now publish), I might have been horribly discouraged by the publishing system of yore.

I’m planning on putting a full guide together capturing all of my experiences with self publishing along with a quick reference guide. There are a lot of good sources of information out there, but they’re pretty widespread. Also, the specifics (like how to estimate your page count for print purposes) are buried in a mountain of more general information. A quick reference or cheat sheet would be incredibly helpful until I really get used to this. Once it’s all old hat I shouldn’t need the hours I’ve sunk into the publishing side so far for future books and projects. Still, I don’t begrudge the time. The journey itself is definitely worth the effort.

Well, today wraps up the month of March. I may have only put in 5 real days of work on my book, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. Today was particularly productive. I think I’ve found my flow again for the story which is very heartening. I’m looking forward to seeing just how much I can get done in April!

 

Writing Log – Day 5 Month 1 (Monthly Wrap-up)

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  11,050 words to date (2,269 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 495

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 12,144

Total Words This Month: 14,920

General, Writing

Writing Log: Day 3 – Month 1

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Day three of my new writing log and I’m getting more excited about the whole process. Again. This was definitely one of my goals but I am constantly surprised just how much I enjoy all of this. The writing itself is fairly hard work. Mentally anyway. The whole idea of writing an entire book is also still incredibly intimidating to me. I have an unfortunate habit of looking at the entirety of the work and thinking about just what it will take to finish. The “one day at a time” mantra was never so apt in my life as now. It’s also a huge divergence from the world we live in today. The world with everything coming fast and faster. Movies stream as fast as you can turn on your TV and find what you want to watch. Electronic books are instantly available wherever you happen to be. Even physical stuff can be ordered online one day and show up either next day or the day after. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the online shopping experience. Dealing with people in stores drives me a little nuts every time I have to go. But it does mean that this writing thing is very alien to my other daily experiences.

This is what I have discovered to far when it comes to my writing process (these are the things that I have found to be most important to my process and may or may not work for anyone else’s):

– Discipline is very important: This, along with motivation, is one of the most difficult things maintaining on a daily basis. As I greatly enjoy a multitude of activities when I am at home it takes a decent amount of discipline for me to tear myself away from a video game (World of Warcraft or Diablo 3 recently) to sit down and write.

– Motivation is equally is not more important: This one factor has probably been the single biggest hurdle throughout my life. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I have been going through as much of my old writing as I could find (easily find at this point). One of the things I came across was a journal that spans from halfway through 1997 through most of 1998. There aren’t very many entries despite this long time period. I wasn’t surprised though. Consistency has always been an issue with me because day to day, my personal motivation to do something like this waxes and wanes. Once I actually sit down and get into the writing mindset, motivation is no longer a problem 99% of the time. It’s getting myself to sit down and do it that is the trick. With my first book I used the task as a personal challenge to see if I could even finish a book. Now that I’ve done so, I’ve beaten that challenge. That meant that the doubts and inner critic came back in full force and have been plaguing me for some time now. This writing log is part of how I handle my doubts and annoying inner critic. It gives me visible proof of my daily progress, and that is something that greatly helps with my motivation.

– Simple goals: This was something I’ve learned through this whole process. It is so very important to keep your daily, weekly, and even monthly goals both simple and reasonable. This goes back to the short, medium, and long term goal planning we probably (hopefully) all learned in school at some point. This is very true with writing. My current daily goal for fiction writing is the same goal I had writing my first book: complete at least 1,000 new words each day while taking at most one day off each week from writing.

– Writing must be a habit: This ties in with everything else but is certainly worth mentioning. For myself, I have to make writing a daily habit. I need to be thinking about it during idle times, when I’m bored, when I’m in bed about to fall asleep, in the shower, wherever. If I’m not doing this, I lose the thread of the story I’m writing. I have to spend valuable time re-reading what I’ve written to get a clue as to what should happen next. This is both frustrating and boring. I’ve discovered that if I just stay on top of my writing, even if I don’t hit my writing goal for the day, the story stays fresh enough that the next day I can pick up where I left off without missing a beat. Plus, making writing a habit helps reinforce that whole discipline thing. Bonus!

That’s about it for now. If I can think of more I’ll add it to the list.

 

Writing Log – Day 3 Month 1

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  8,246 words to date (1,497 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 818

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 9,340

Total Words This Month: 11,476