Overdue update

Hey, internet. It's been a while. More than a year, but things have been busy.

Take heart, though, in knowing that I'm still writing, even if I'm not writing about writing. Or, at least, even if I'm not doing so here. I’m on Twitter, too, but though I talk about writing there, it’s hard to say anything substantive with that cotton-pickin’ 140-character limit. That's not a problem here (unless things have changed while I was gone), so I hope that means I'll be around more often.

Surprisingly, I’ve been writing a lot, of late. With finals coming up, I should be writing less, not more. But some things need to get written, even with deadlines looming on 3 separate projects. Besides which, it’s an hour on the bus each way, 3 times a week (four, next term) and writing is easier to do than drawing when the bus is in motion. In recent months, some of the best stuff I’ve written was on the bus, I think, even if some of it was in a fatigued, semi-conscious state.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing by hand. I don’t know if this is because it removes temptation (it’s too easy to check e-mail, or Twitter, or any one of a dozen webpages “for a second”.... it’s never just “a second”), or because it’s easier to progress without the weight of 400 pages on my shoulders, but it’s working. I tend to shift from one to the other anyway, but this time, it’s taking longer to shift back to the computer. Not that I’m complaining. I enjoy writing by hand. It’s a little more visceral than clacking away at a keyboard.

Story’s going places I never expected it to turn, which is always fun, even if the turns themselves aren’t that enjoyable (I’m killing off characters that I like, that I didn’t expect to kill, and that I don’t WANT to kill, but what’re you gonna do? That’s the story).

I’m not setting deadlines anymore. I always had trouble keeping them; even more so now that I’m in school. Now, I let things progress as they will. Oddly, they’re progressing faster than they did under a self-imposed deadline.

Beyond a vague notion and some half-formed ideas, I still don’t know where everything’s going. This worries me, but I guess that’s part of the fun, as well.

That’s all for now, I suppose.

Until next time,

Cris.

Unfortunately, a half-day. . .

With the fall term coming to a close, I have big projects due that I've hardly begun. There is one due on Thursday that I've only done some precursory work on, and I really have to focus my attention on it for the next few days. Which means that things like writing have to take a backseat for a while.

But I don't want to neglect it entirely, so today, rather than not write at all, and rather than try for ten thousand words, I'm going to try for 5. It feels a stunted amount; I usually have to struggle and push my way through several thousand words before I really get on a roll. 5K feels like I'll be cutting out just as I get into the swing of things. It feels like a compromise that leaves no one happy, but today, it'll have to do.

Well, it's not a concrete deadline. If I'm really going smoothly, I'll keep going until things are played through to the end. The 5K limit is really the limit if I'm struggling to keep going, which happens from time to time.

I just hope it doesn't happen today.

 

Wish me luck.

Cris.

 

Tally-Ho...

Getting a late start today because I had to, among other things, put the Christmas lights onto the house.

But I'm ready now, and I'm going at it full-steam... or... you know, full-steam after a slow and shaky warm-up plagued by false starts and loud, indecisive puttering. (I've about milked the train analogy to death, I think.)

My beginning word count for Scamper is 110,128. My goal, therefore, has to be 120,128, and this has to be done in the next 24 hours (still technically in one day, though not all on Sunday).

Today's title says it all, I think: Tally Ho.

 
 

 
 

Cris

Mission. . . Accomplished? Sort of?

Well, despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to write 10,000 words yesterday. Having started the whole thing at 3pm, it was too hefty a goal to set; I was up until 5 in the morning (again, it's a damned good thing I don't have school today, or I'd be well screwed), but even so, I fell asleep at my keyboard. Which was a bit cool, actually. It's not something I've ever done before, and of all things, this made me feel most like a writer. Strange, isn't it? It wasn't the 9,300 words I wrote, or the editing, or the new scenes of characterization that added a depth to secondary characters that previously had no depth. . . . it was the falling asleep that did it for me. :P

Well. All was not lost.

As I mentioned, I did write 9,300 words, and that's nothing to scoff at. Today, when I woke up, I sat myself before my computer, cranked out the rest of my goal, and now, my word count rests comfortably in the six digits, at 100,214. Awesome.

It feels weird to say it. By many accounts, that's a whole book (80-125K is the size of a lot of general fiction, I'm told). If you're going for a Brandon-Sanderson-esque epic, then 100 thousand are just your first steps on a larger journey. That dude writes books around 250-400,000 words large. And good that he does; I've read every one of his books, and they're all fantastic. He pulls it off. I'm not sure I could.

Which is why I'm aiming for somewhere around 200-250K for Scamper. That, too, is a hefty goal, but I'll get here. Hell, I'm nearly halfway there already.

This was a lot of fun; frantic writing, damn the internal editor, just keep going and going, not always producing the greatest work (though a lot of it was pretty good, I daresay), but always producing.

Yesterday's epic goal was inspired by the need to reach, for the first time ever, a word count of 100,000. But I'm beginning to wonder if I couldn't make it a regular thing, where each weekend, I aspire to write 10,000 words in a day. A NaNoWriMo Light, if you will (only not really, because if I do it every weekend for a month, I'll have 40,000 words, which is just 10K less than the goal for NaNoWriMo.)

I'm excited about this. It's a hell of a prospect, I think, and I look forward to giving it another shot this weekend.

 

 

Wish me luck.

Cris.

Today’s Goal:

As of this writing, my word count for Scamper is at 90,627. When I started writing earlier today, it was at 90,100, give or take a few words (I've been doing a lot of re-reading, a lot of editing, but not writing a lot of fresh material).

I'm excited at the prospect of reaching, for the first time ever, 100,000 words, so today, I write, and I won't stop until that goal is accomplished. =)

(It's a good thing I don't have school tomorrow, because I'll probably be up pretty damn late.)

 
 

Wish me lots (and lots and lots and lots) of luck.

 
 

Cris.

Disregard previous post

Well, I've rewritten that missing scene, and at the risk of sounding full of myself, I think I did pretty damn well. The characterization's not as strong, but there are parts that are better than before. Setting the scene, and a bit of foreshadowing that didn't exist in the previous version. Better still, I managed to string together five or six strings of a few paragraphs each into one 5-page scene. In all, I wrote around 1500 words today, and though the scene's not quite done (there's an action sequence I'm putting off, as action's not my strong suit), it's a good start. Better, even, than what I originally had for Part Two, where things happen too fast, and I head, in the very first chapter, into a situation that shouldn't come around until well towards the end of this section of the book. It's not bad writing, what I had before, but it throws Scamper (and the reader) into the thick of things before they're ready, and I wasn't quite prepared to that yet.

So, oddly enough, losing that scene ended up working out for the best.

Who'd've thought?

 

Cris.

*tired sigh*

I wrote a scene a few months ago. It was a couple of pages long, and an interesting addition to Scamper, and how he interacts within a group. It characterized someone who, previously, didn't really stand out from the other, minor characters in the group, made him a more rounded person. It wasn't a perfect scene, but it was a good one.

Long story short, I lost the scene.

It's not on my old computer. It's not on my new computer. Not on any of my three flashdrives. It's not on paper (I don't think), and not a part of any of the 30K (or so) word documents where I keep the scenes that don't yet fit in, or that I've cut out.

It's just gone, and this kills me, because I'm convinced that this 5-page scene would be a great way to enter Part Two. There are other ways to do it (I've tried and scrapped at least a half-dozen distinct ways), but I'm convinced this scene would be the best way.

If only I can find it. =/

I can always rewrite the scene, of course, but I'm always dubious of this. Rewriting a scene from memory is a tricky thing. I am, in essence, writing an outline of a scene, going by what I remember. The little flairs of inspiration, the turns of phrase, the characterizations, are gone. They won't, experience has taught me, come around a second time.

So back up your work, kids. Back it up often, and in multiple places. Two places on the same computer doesn't count. Invest in a flashdrive (or three). Use CDs. Or, if you can't afford any of these, just print out your stuff, and store multiple copies in different places.

Now, I'm going to try to recreate inspiration.

Wish me luck.



Cris.