The frequently reader of my blog might notice the shiny new word count meter over on the sidebar. Goals don't work for me. I just don't think about them really unless someone reminds me. *coughSarahcough* However, at least during Nanowrimo I was thrilled to see my progress bar go up and up until I hit my goal. So the progress bar is back and the idea is that it will continue to go up.
The goal of 130k total words isn't definite, it might take more or less to actually finish but I think that's a fairly good guess for at least the first draft. The second bar you see is for weekly progress. I'm starting with a weekly goal of 5000 words per week, which is less than 1000 per day. I figure doing a weekly word count is going to be easier to maintain than a daily one. If I do somehow manage to maintain a 5000 words/week pace then I will finish the first draft in 12 weeks.
This should help me keep on track and stop me from going any further down the "hobby writer" path. Hobby writers never actually finish books, or if they do it takes many years. I don't want that. All forward progress! :)
Also, completely off topic to this post those of you who are fans of Robert Jordan really need to check out Brandon Sanderson's latest blog post about him. It's really moving and well done.
Showing posts with label Brandon Sanderson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brandon Sanderson. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Peach juice and other things
So I just dripped peach juice down the front of my shirt. I think I'd be more upset about it if that peach hadn't been so delectable. I've been on a bit of a peach kick lately, i think because it's summer. I even bought some peach scented lotion and body spray last week. It smells exactly like the peach ice cream I used to make with my family at the beach.
What does this have to do with my writing you ask? Absolutely nothing.
Sadly I have little news to report in the writing department. I haven't written so much as a sentence since Wednesday night and even then I only added about 600 words. I have, however, become even more of a Brandon Sanderson fangirl this past week. Which is funny because I still have yet to fully finish any of his novels. I skimmed the last third of Elantris and I'm still slowly reading Mistborn: The Final Empire.
He's been posting a free e-book on his website and I hadn't really looked at it until this weekend. He does something *super* cool here, not only is he posting a free book of his but he has been posting each draft version. Which means you can compare (using the MS word compare function) version 4 with version 5 and see exactly what line edits his editor asked him to make. I took a brief glance at version 1 and compared it with version 5 for fun. It's like night and day difference, red lines everywhere. It gives us aspiring authors a realistic view of what fiction looks like in the humble beginnings, even for published authors. He also has some really great columns on his website that made me seriously want to be his best friend. Especially the one on The DaVinci Code.
Okay so now that I've embarrassed myself with my fangirl tendencies I'll move onto a different topic. So I'm planning on finishing the "new" chapter 3 this weekend. I really want to have moved on from this beginning by the time I go out of town Tuesday. Since my reorganization of the beginning the rest of the book has fallen neatly into place and I feel tons better about where the book was going. It's interesting how sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to fix problems that happen much much later. I'm not at all remotely interested in editing the original first several chapters anytime soon. Frankly that will be a huge task, one that I'm not looking forward to at all. I think i might just end up rewriting chapter 4 which was the original chapters 1-3 that i have since smooshed into one. It's not (too) terrible but it no longer fits with how I've changed things. Anyway I'm not going to bother doing that for awhile, just thinking about editing my extra moody Rafe chapter(s) makes me cringe.
Once chapter 3 is finished I will move back to where I left off at chapter 16. It's kind of nice to have 16 chapters fully completed (if in need of heavy, heavy editing). After that it should be smooth sailing as far as plotting goes. Assuming the writing goes smoothly I hope, I just might see the end of this book before the end of the decade. After that? Who knows. I'll think about it when I get there.
What does this have to do with my writing you ask? Absolutely nothing.
Sadly I have little news to report in the writing department. I haven't written so much as a sentence since Wednesday night and even then I only added about 600 words. I have, however, become even more of a Brandon Sanderson fangirl this past week. Which is funny because I still have yet to fully finish any of his novels. I skimmed the last third of Elantris and I'm still slowly reading Mistborn: The Final Empire.
He's been posting a free e-book on his website and I hadn't really looked at it until this weekend. He does something *super* cool here, not only is he posting a free book of his but he has been posting each draft version. Which means you can compare (using the MS word compare function) version 4 with version 5 and see exactly what line edits his editor asked him to make. I took a brief glance at version 1 and compared it with version 5 for fun. It's like night and day difference, red lines everywhere. It gives us aspiring authors a realistic view of what fiction looks like in the humble beginnings, even for published authors. He also has some really great columns on his website that made me seriously want to be his best friend. Especially the one on The DaVinci Code.
Okay so now that I've embarrassed myself with my fangirl tendencies I'll move onto a different topic. So I'm planning on finishing the "new" chapter 3 this weekend. I really want to have moved on from this beginning by the time I go out of town Tuesday. Since my reorganization of the beginning the rest of the book has fallen neatly into place and I feel tons better about where the book was going. It's interesting how sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to fix problems that happen much much later. I'm not at all remotely interested in editing the original first several chapters anytime soon. Frankly that will be a huge task, one that I'm not looking forward to at all. I think i might just end up rewriting chapter 4 which was the original chapters 1-3 that i have since smooshed into one. It's not (too) terrible but it no longer fits with how I've changed things. Anyway I'm not going to bother doing that for awhile, just thinking about editing my extra moody Rafe chapter(s) makes me cringe.
Once chapter 3 is finished I will move back to where I left off at chapter 16. It's kind of nice to have 16 chapters fully completed (if in need of heavy, heavy editing). After that it should be smooth sailing as far as plotting goes. Assuming the writing goes smoothly I hope, I just might see the end of this book before the end of the decade. After that? Who knows. I'll think about it when I get there.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Better get moving!
So I spent the weekend at the Froeschle Farm with most of Daren's cousins and all of his aunts and uncles on the (you guessed it) Froeschle side. Anyway back in December I promised Eli and Paul a draft of The Blood of Renatus whenever I'm finished. Eli especially is an avid reader of all things-especially fantasy-and it was nice to talk about my book with someone in the family that wanted to hear about details and who cared about the fantasy aspects. So pretty much the first words out of Eli's mouth to me were "So how's your book coming along? You promised you'd email me the draft remember?" Yes Eli, I remember!
I had to explain that I stopped working on it for a few months due to some unfortunate and fortunate happenings in life. Mainly the whole apartment collapsing fiasco and the subsequent house buying funness. There is nothing like a push from someone other than your husband or best friend truly interested in what your doing to make you feel motivated. It felt good to have someone ask me about it who I know isn't asking simply to make conversation. I also introduced him to Brandon Sanderson while I was down there as I'm STILL reading Mistborn. So hurrah there! :)
In other news, I nervously emailed the wonderful George RR Martin today. I've had a few (brief) messages back and forth with Brandon Sanderson before but that didn't make me any less nervous to contact the illustrious Mr. Martin. I guess I shouldn't be nervous about that kind of thing but to a fan of reading and writing and all things literary it's the same thing as talking to a movie star. If (hopefully when) he writes back I'm pretty sure that's one email I'll never delete.
Also I wanted to mention that Daren and I watched No Country For Old Men on Friday. Now I'm not going to write a review nor will I post any spoilers. All I want to say is that this movie ranks only slightly above The Fountain. This is not a good thing. The Fountain was arguably the worst movie I've ever seen. That includes all of the horrible, cheesy kung-fu movies from the 80's that I love to watch. Seriously...why in the world did No Country for Old Men win Best Picture?
I had to explain that I stopped working on it for a few months due to some unfortunate and fortunate happenings in life. Mainly the whole apartment collapsing fiasco and the subsequent house buying funness. There is nothing like a push from someone other than your husband or best friend truly interested in what your doing to make you feel motivated. It felt good to have someone ask me about it who I know isn't asking simply to make conversation. I also introduced him to Brandon Sanderson while I was down there as I'm STILL reading Mistborn. So hurrah there! :)
In other news, I nervously emailed the wonderful George RR Martin today. I've had a few (brief) messages back and forth with Brandon Sanderson before but that didn't make me any less nervous to contact the illustrious Mr. Martin. I guess I shouldn't be nervous about that kind of thing but to a fan of reading and writing and all things literary it's the same thing as talking to a movie star. If (hopefully when) he writes back I'm pretty sure that's one email I'll never delete.
Also I wanted to mention that Daren and I watched No Country For Old Men on Friday. Now I'm not going to write a review nor will I post any spoilers. All I want to say is that this movie ranks only slightly above The Fountain. This is not a good thing. The Fountain was arguably the worst movie I've ever seen. That includes all of the horrible, cheesy kung-fu movies from the 80's that I love to watch. Seriously...why in the world did No Country for Old Men win Best Picture?
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