ROW80 Round 1 - 18th Update

After my first week back at uni, I've realised that my ROW80 goals are going to need a major revision. There is a metric crapload of work to be done this year. My IT Research Methods subject has three assignments. And each of those assignments is the size of three assignments. Then there's my Multimedia Narratives subject, which, though it looks like fun, will also be a lot of work. I have drawn three of the five characters for the first assignment though:

(left: Queen Saranthi; middle: Captain Elindra; right: Pirate Emperor)

-These illustrations and more can be found on my DeviantArt account. End shameless plug-

(I've got a fair bit of backstory outlined for these characters. A tentative title for the story is The Cogs of War, and it will be a fantasy in the gothic/steampunk sub-genre. I'm considering using it for this year's NaNoWriMo project. Although I seem to remember saying that about another writing project not long ago... Oh well, I'll wait and see what story I'm in the mood for at the time :D).

And then there's work on my thesis itself. Over the course of the year I'll be churning out nearly 20,000 words for that sucker, which isn't going to leave much time for creative writing :( And that doesn't include the time spent researching my topic and developing my prototype for testing.

So; goal revision. My original goals were to have the prologue and first four chapters of Dark and Silent Waters completed and revised by the end of ROW80 Round 1, as I was hoping to use this as the prototype for my thesis. At this point I've completed the prologue and chapters 1 and 2 (chapter 3 is still around 75% done because I keep chopping and changing with it). Chapter 4 only consists of two or three paragraphs. In light of the workload I'll have this year, I can't really see myself getting much more done in terms of novella word count. After discussing my plans for my prototype with my honours supervisor, we agreed that it could be just as effectively created using only a chapter or two instead of five, and it would involve less work. Therefore my prototype will now only include the prologue and chapters 1 and 2. Since these chapters are more or less finished, all I really have to do is keep revising them until they're at a higher standard. This will give me more time for designing the interface/graphics etc for the prototype and actually programming the damn thing.

I'm not dropping out of ROW80; it'd be a shame to do so after how far I've come and how much progress I've made. And I love having this community of other writers slogging through their word count along with me. But my goals from now on will pretty much focus on my academic requirements. I have another writers group meeting in about two weeks, so I'd like to either workshop my completed/revised chapter 1 (my group members have only seen bits of it), or a bit of chapter 2 (which none of my group members have seen yet).

Judgemental Dog decides to try the 'puppy dog eyes' approach:

Click here to see how other ROW80ers are going.