Tag: Goals and Plans

Blarg.

I’ve got a bad case of writer’s avoidance.  It’s annoying.

I wrote 1,500 words in Bringing Stella Home today, and about 800 words of outlining.  That might seem like a lot, but when you consider how much free time I had today, it’s really not that much.  Blarg.

I’m all moved in to my new place, with my class and work schedule all worked out, my insurance paid for, groceries in the fridge, books on the shelf (or boxed in the closet–not much book space, considering that Ben’s already taken most of it!), etc etc.  I even went on a date last night–a really awesome one!  So it’s not like I can say “I had chores” and use that as an excuse.

Part of the problem, though, was that I didn’t have this particular section very well planned.  Without having a good macroscopic view of the novel, it’s hard to revise things right.  Fortunately, I took a step back today and planned out the next three chapters or so.  That should keep me going strong for a while.

Whenever I stop procrastinating and just write, I usually dive right into it.  It’s thinking too much about it before I start that really holds me  back.

So, no more thinking–just doing.

Tomorrow is the last Friday before school starts, and the last 100% open day I have before the craziness begins.  Here’s what I plan to do:

  • Cook chili (all from scratch–I’m soaking the beans tonight).
  • Pick up tupperware and a cutting board from DI.
  • Read and critique the stories for writing group.
  • Read required readings for Poli Sci 309R (or,  if not, at least on Saturday).
  • Go to the temple–gotta go to the temple before school starts.
  • Catch up a bit on the blogging backlog (and boy is it LONG).

Hopefully, in between all of that, I can knock off a chapter or two.  My goal: 4k words.  Gotta buckle down!

In related news, I got an amazing compliment from my friend Drek!  We were chatting online, and this is what he said:

Ben: Just remember you have to find a girl BEFORE you become an incredibly famous novelist, or you’ll never know if your wife married you for your money or your looks.

me: ha

ha

ha

no, I”m probably going to be poor and destitute all my life

working a day job

Ben: No way, I predict you’ll be a professional author within five years.

me: thanks

but will it be enough to make a living?

lots of bestselling authors still have day jobs

Ben: Eh, you’ll have more of a day “hobby” just so you can earn some play money.

me: perhaps

Ben: Anyway, see you on Saturday!

Thanks Ben!  I haven’t really thought of it that way (I don’t dare get my hopes up), but that would be awesome if things worked out that way.  That’s the  goal, in any case.  I just hope I can keep my head out of the water after I graduate!

Finally, I’ll leave you with some awesome Celtic music–part of the reason I haven’t been writing!

To write on vacation or not to write?

That is the question.

These last couple of weeks have been very unproductive.  I hate it.  Yeah, there have been reasons–moving apartments, sister’s graduation, coming home, etc.  Worthless excuses–I should have been writing more, and I didn’t.

At the same time, taking a break every now and again is very important.  Sometimes you just have to sit back and recharge your creative batteries–otherwise, you’ll overwork them and they’ll die.  What better way to kill your productivity than that?

I noticed, back at the beginning of the month, that I  needed a break.  I produced about 85k words each month in June and July, and I’ve been sloshing through the middle of Bringing Stella Home 2.0 for some time now.  Consequently, my creative brain seemed to  shut down about two weeks ago (or at least switched to power-saving mode) and I haven’t been writing at a consistent rate since.  Blargh.

So I know I need a vacation.  I’ve needed it for some time.  And now that I’m here in Massachusetts, heading to the cape on Saturday, I’ve got the perfect opportunity to relax and recharge my batteries.

Trouble is, if I stop writing altogether, will I lose momentum?  Will it take me another week just to get back into the story?  I’ve already lost so much productivity, it makes me feel disgusted.  I need to be so much further along in this story than I am if I’m going to meet my (self-imposed) deadline.

So, I’m wondering–should I write while I’m on this vacation?

Of course, I’m not going to spend eight hours a day writing full time, the way I have been for most of this summer.  I’m going to relax.  But should I set a modest goal of 1k words a day while I’m there?  I kind of think I should.

Don’t worry, though.  I’m going to take time off for fun as well.  I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a very long time!

As if writing weren’t fun enough already. 🙂

Oh crap

Dang.  I just looked at a calendar for the next two months, and it looks like I’m going to be busy.

I want to get Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home polished and ready before World Fantasy 2009, but it’s going to take a lot of work.  Genesis Earth is almost there, but Bringing Stella Home is going to require a HEAVY rewrite.  I’m in the middle of that now.

I’m currently about 25k words into the rewrite, with between 100k and 110k words to go (I think…could be more).  I want to finish this by the last week of September / first week of October.  That leaves me three working weeks in August (I’m taking off a week for vacation at Cape Cod, though I will probably write a little there as well) and five weeks in September.

But really, once school starts again, I’m not going to have much time available to write.  I’ve got two capstone papers I’ll be writing, a ccouple of poli sci classes to take, and to top it all off, I’ll be taking a 400 level English class where I’ll probably be writing a DIFFERENT novel–holy cow!  September is going to be a CRAZY month!

How the crap am I going to juggle all this?

Well, I figure if I write 4k minimum a day in August, I can get between 60k and 75k of Bringing Stella Home knocked out before school starts.  It’s going to be tough, but it won’t be significantly more than what I’m already writing. Definitely doable.

That way, I’ll only have 35k for September, which comes to a meager 1k  per day.  Considering that this is revision work, which tends to go a bit quicker, I  think I’ll be able to handle it.

But 65k in August…can I do that?

Well, in June, I wrote a grand total of 81k, and in July I wrote 85k.  Most of the stuff in July, too, was revision work that I counted differently, excluding passages that I’d recycled from the previous draft.

Considering this, I think I can do 65k in August, even with a week’s vacation.  I’ll probably even write a bit on the break, maybe 1k/day, just to keep some momentum.  We’ll see.

But, just as an aside…81k?  85k??  That’s more than the novel I worked on my entire freshman year of high school!  And I did that…in just a month?  That’s encouraging!

Maybe I’m finally getting toward the tail end of my million crappy words.  If that’s the case, maybe I’ll finally write my first good word before too long.

🙂

Genesis Earth 3.0 is almost finished!

Yeah!  Only five more scenes to go!

I love revising.  Every time I finish a scene, or a chapter, or a draft, I look back and think “man, this is so much better than it used to be!” Later, maybe, I look at it and say “okay, it still needs work,” but to know that I made something good into something better, that’s satisfaction!

My self-imposed deadline for this draft is this weekend.  I’d like to finish it tomorrow, but if all else fails, I’ll finish it on Sunday.  Shouldn’t be too hard.  I’ve done a lot of work to get this far, averaging about 2,200 words a day.  The ending is a lot trickier to fix than the beginning, since I’m much better at beginnings and middles than at endings (not as much practice), but it’s coming along.

Yesterday, I wrote about 3,500 words in this beast.  It felt so satisfying at the end of the day!  Finishing up another chapter, knowing that I was right on target.

Today, for some reason, I haven’t been able to get into the writing mindset, but that’s not too bad.  I spent some time looking over the last three or four chapters, making spot edits, re-arranging a couple of the chapter breaks to make them more coherent, etc.  Chapter organization is still a challenge for me, especially towards the end of a project.  Hopefully, I’m doing it better in this draft than the last one.

Today is Pioneer Day, a holiday in Utah.  I’m spending the afternoon and evening with family, so I probably won’t do much more writing today.  Maybe another scene sometime tonight, but that’s okay–the way I’ve re-arranged it, the chapter I need to revise for today needs just one more scene to be complete.  I’ve been working hard these past three weeks, and I’m looking forward to having a fun holiday with family.  The break will probably help me to write better, anyway.

So, that’s how things are looking from here.  In the meantime, I’m getting psyched up for my next big project: revising Bringing Stella Home and getting ready to start something completely new in the fall.  Once Genesis Earth is finished, I’ll be able to commit more creative space to those projects.  Looking forward to it!

Refocusing

If you’re a regular of this blog, you may have noticed that I took off the statusbar for Ashes of the Starry Sea 2.2.  I’ve decided to discontinue that project for the foreseeable future, while I work on Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home.

It’s not that I think that Ashes doesn’t have potential, or that I can’t rewrite it.  It’s just that I don’t want something good to keep me from doing my best.

Ashes, in its first incarnation, was very much a practice novel.  It has potential, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get it publishable.  In the meantime, I’ve got two other novels that are much better–much more workable.  I don’t want them to be any worse because I’ve diverted too much attention toward something else.

When I wrote Ashes two years ago, I cringed at the thought that this was going to be just a practice novel.  It was my magnum opus, the best thing I’d ever written!  Well, since then, I’ve written a lot of other stuff that is much better.  I’m able to let this baby sit on the back burner while I polish the better stuff.

(baby…back burner…okay, disturbing image)

In unrelated news, I had an AWESOME story idea today at Leading Edge!

Ever read the Illiad or the Odyssey? Didn’t you think that the Greek gods were just so petty, with their stupid feuds and their dumb wagers?  Did it disturb you how they toyed around with humanity, ruining people’s lives just for sport?

Well, imagine this: an ancient Greek Van Helsing who slays gods instead of vampires!

Yeah, man!  That’s gotta make for some interesting story material right there!  The godslayer…the man who dares to challenge fate and takes up arms against the forces of the universe, slaying the immortals, overpowering the omnipotent, and outwitting the omniscient.  Sounds like…like Richard Dawkins meets Sparticus. =P

Anyway, that’s the idea.  What’s your take on it?

Fistful of words

I’ve recently developed a taste for Ennio Morricone’s music. My writing process these days consists of me sitting down and watching this youtube clip:

After that, I’m all gunned up and ready to work!

Holy crap, today I sent out the first three chapters of Genesis Earth to the other two editors from the BYU Writers for Young Readers conference. What a rush! I spent a couple hours writing a chapter by chapter synopsis, rushed out a couple cover letters, bought $4.81 in wood pulp for both copies of the work, headed on over to the BYU Bookstore for the envelopes and all, and voila! Sent ’em off!

We’ll see what comes of them–probably more form rejections. It’s funny how when you print something off to send it out, it seems ten times worse than you remembered.

Well, I sent it out anyway. With writing, good things never happen to those who wait.

The question in my mind is now: does that synopsis count towards my daily word count goal? Because I only wrote 1,072 words in Genesis Earth 3.0 today (nothing in Ashes, sadly), but that synopsis was upwards of 2,800 words and took up a good chunk of my normal writing time. Eh, I’m counting it.

In unrelated news, I saw Star Trek the other day. Found it entertaining, but wasn’t very impressed. Too many holes that stretched the believability.

<spoilers>

For example, in the beginning, Kirk’s wife goes into labor during the evacuation and the child pops out…like, five minutes later? Or the red, fleshy monster on the ice world: no visible fat, no fur…how does that thing stay insulated in such a hostile environment? Or the Romulans drilling to the core of the world to create the black hole: why don’t they just create a black hole on the surface?  Gets the job done a lot easier.  Better yet, when Nero realizes that he’s gone back in time and his home world hasn’t yet been destroyed, why doesn’t he save his people instead of avenging himself on the Vulcans? Or…you get the point.

</spoilers>

I was never a big Star Trek fan growing up, though (except for Star Trek Voyager–I loved Voyager!). I can understand how the nostalgia would make a lot of people enjoy the movie. And really, it was very pretty–the graphics were great. Lots of action. It was entertaining, just…not as good as everyone makes it out to be, IMO.

I could say more, but that’s enough for tonight.  Have a wonderful Sabbath!

Quick update

Haven’t been writing as much in Ashes these past few days. With my new goal, I need to be doing about 2.5k per day in that work, but things have slowed down considerably. I need to rekindle some excitement for this project.

I will finish it–I’ve made the goal, set the deadline, and determined that this will be one of the big three projects to get ready in time for World Fantasy 2009–but I’m working on the hard parts now, the long and tedius middle. The emotional roller coaster has begun, but I’ll hang on and see this out to the end.

It will probably need another extensive rewrite, however, before World Fantasy. Don’t know when I’m going to slip that in.

But even though I only got about 1,838 words of writing in today, I finished reading through Genesis Earth 2.0 today and completed the 3.0 draft revision notes! I’m WAY excited to work on this project! My goal is to complete it within the next two weeks. It will be a very hard, very intensive rewrite, but I’m psyched up and ready to do it!

I love revising. Drafting is when you start from scratch, with nothing but your ideas to work from. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “this is crap, this is crap, THIS IS CRAP AND I SUCK AS A WRITER!” Revising, on the other hand, is when you start with something on the page; something that needs a little (or a lot) of work, but at least you have something besides the story in your head to work with. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “it’s so much better now, it’s so much better now, IT’S SO MUCH BETTER NOW AND I AM AN AWESOME WRITER!” That’s the way it works for me, at least.

So I am very excited to start Genesis Earth 3.0 tomorrow!

In other news, I’m starting a writing group with some serious/semi-serious writer friends here in the Provo area. Gosh, this deserves its own post. More on that later.

In still other news…I totally forgot. Blegh. Need sleep.

Oh, and here’s a cool song I found. I love anime…why didn’t I study Japanese?

Oh, and I remembered what I was going to write about! I talked with an academic advisor today, and I have enough credits to finish up my Poli Sci major and graduate in April by doing an internship in Washington DC or Scotland! More on that later, for sure.

Anyway, the LRC is closing and I have to go to bed. Gnight!

Goal shift for Ashes

These past few weeks, I’ve been killing myself trying to write Ashes of the Starry Sea. I’ve made some good progress, as you can see on the sidebar.  Today I broke 200 pages.  Not too bad.

However, the pace has just been killing me.  4k words per day is something I can do…but 4k words per day on the same project?  It’s burning me out.

What’s more, to keep up the pace, I’ll have to put all my other projects completely on hold for the month of July.  That, or write MORE than 4k per day, which would be excruciatingly painful.

So I looked at my calendar tonight and figured that if I pushed back my self-imposed deadline for Ashes to the weekend before school starts, I can cut my daily wordcount in that book in half.  2k per day in Ashes–not bad.  That I can do.

What’s more, with the other 2k, I’ll have enough room to work on my other projects, Genesis Earth 3.0 and Bringing Stella Home 2.0.  I’m starting to get really excited for those, very motivated.  For Bringing Stella Home, I’m practically chomping at the bit.  I want to make that story shine!

Inshallah, juggling two projects at a time will be helpful, not harmful.  During the school year, when I was juggling work, school, and writing, it didn’t work.  Now, however, with writing the only major obligation, I’m hoping that two projects will help keep my creative mind fresh, if that makes sense.  When I get burned out on Ashes at 2pm, I can switch to Genesis Earth and work on something that excites me.  When I get burned out on that at 9pm, I’ll be excited about Ashes again.  Etc etc.

Besides, if I want to be a professional writer, project juggling is an important skill I’ll need to learn.  Inshallah, I’ll get it to work this time.

Wow!  If all goes according to plan, I’ll have all three novels finished and polished before school starts at the end of August!  July to write Genesis Earth 3.0, August to write Bringing Stella Home 2.0, and both months to finish Ashes of the Stary Sea 2.1.  Yeah!

In other news, Charlie finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson and reviewed it on her blog.  I was also reading Warbreaker, but about 200 pages in found that it just wasn’t working  for me.  I’ll probably finish  it someday, but for now, it’s on hold.

I hate to say anything bad about it, since Brandon has been something of a mentor to me (and his Mistborn books are some of the best fantasy that I’ve read!), but I shared many of Charlie’s complaints with the book.

The biggest thing, however, was the way he fell into long, frequent info dumps about the world.  Every time, I felt that it stopped the action and jolted me out of the story, like reading a college textbook.  The world was okay, but the way he presented it just didn’t work for me.

That, and the way the characters acted.  When Siri got carted off near the beginning to be the wife of the God king, the fact that she hardly showed any fear or anxiety about have sex with the guy just threw me out.  She was just like “oh, well,” and was nervous about everything else EXCEPT for the sex part.  From then on, I had believability issues with her character.

Finally, let me just say that when I write my steampunk flower novel, I want to make one of the characters a Circassian janissary.  I just think it would be really cool to put a Circassian in the book, as either a good guy or a bad guy (or, more likely, a grey-area guy).  If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out the video below:

Breaking 20k/7day and a new apartment

Today I broke 20k words for the running seven-day total.  According to my records, the last time that total was over 20k was Monday, June 8th.  Despite the fact that I moved into a new apartment today, I managed to finish with just over 4k for the day.

You should have seem me at the library at 11:39 pm.  I was sprinting. “Just let me finish this scene, just let me finish this scene!” Didn’t finish it, but I only have another 500 words left.   I’ll use it to help get me back into the  zone tomorrow.

Momentum is so important for me as a writer.  I can plow through long chapters and difficult scenes if I know I’m making progress.  Once I get bogged down for a couple of days, it doesn’t matter how exciting the next scene is; it’s going to be painful.  Once I’m up to speed, though, the book practically writes itself.

According to my records, in the 2+ weeks since I started Ashes, I’ve only surpassed 4k on three days.  That’s not good.  I should at least be hitting 3.5k every day through July in order to finish this beast by August 1st.  If my momentum is running steady at 4k, that will be much easier.

I don’t have too many interruptions planned for July–no conferences or major trips.  That’s…good and bad.  I need to get out of Provo.  I can feel it.  But…blegh.

Fortunately, I’ll be getting out tomorrow, touring some ghosttowns with Charlie and some of her friends.  I’m REALLY looking forward to that, and have been for some time.  Man, it’s going to be awesome! I’m going to check out a whole bunch of Western music from the LRC, and we’re going to have a picnic, and it’s going to be great!

In other news, I moved into a new apartment south of campus.  It’s pretty nice and spacious, and since I only have one other roommate, I’ve got a private room.  His name is Brett, and he’s from Colorado.  As of this week, he’s an elementary ed major; even though he could graduate from the Marriott School in April, he realized that that’s not what he wants to do.  He’s also engaged, to a girl he met in his freshman ward.  They’re both RMs now, which is pretty cool; kind of like my parents, they kept in contact through letters and stuff.  She’s in Atlanta now, and they’re getting married in August.  He seems like a pretty cool guy; I think we’ll get along.

Church meets at 8:30 am in the JSB.  Hehe…unless I bring a snack, I’ll probably end up sleeping through most of the meetings.  It’s going to be nice, though, having the rest of the day to do stuff.

Dragging behind a bit

My writing slowed down significantly during the Writing and Illustratin for Young Readers conference a week ago, and it hasn’t really picked up at all since then.  For my seven day totals, I’ve only been averaging between 17k and 14k–that means, on average, I’m doing about half what I want to be doing.  Blah.

While I haven’t been writing a whole lot, however, I have been doing a lot of outlining.  It looks like I’m going to be throwing out a ton of scenes, putting other scenes in different chapters, and adding whole new scenes in places where I previously didn’t have any.  Yikes.

In other words, I’m in the process of completely reconceptualizing the structure of this novel–taking a few steps back and looking at the entire project as a whole.  It’s taking up a heck of a lot of time right now,  but hopefully it will help the rewriting process to be more successful.  After all, if I try to stumble through without a clear idea of what I want this story to be, it’s just going to be a waste of time.

But if I’m going to finish this draft before August 1st, I need to pick up the pace.  If this draft runs up to 150k as expected (and at the current rate, it could easily go over), I need to do just under 22k per week.  That means, if I do anything less than 3k per day over the next six weeks, I’m going to fall behind this deadline.

The deadline is entirely arbitrary and artificial, but still, I want to keep it.  Keeping deadlines is a writing skill I want to train myself to do, and I think it will help me out tremendously down the road.

So the goal this week is to pick up the pace again and get the seven day totals back up to 24k by next Sunday.  It’s going to be something of a psychological struggle to get the momentum up again, but it’s something I know I can do.  Inshallah.

In the meantime, I’ve been putting together some awesome ideas for a steampunk novel.  Things are starting to gel for my next big project, and I’m getting REALLY excited.  I still have an enormous amount of research to do before I can begin (like, tons of research), so I won’t get started just yet, but man!  The ideas in my head are hot, I can feel it!

I know I’m speaking in vagaries…but to make up for it, I’ll leave you with a link to this wicked awesome steampunk picture I found the other day. Seriously–how cool would it be to be this guy??


Steampunk Airship Pilot by ~homarusrex on deviantART