ROW80 Round 1 - 16th Update

This has been a busy week for me. Anyone who follows my pointless ravings on Twitter will know that I've spent the last few days working on my novella outline - again. A while ago I cracked it because I'd found a massive plot hole, and though I'd slaved over it for a few days to come up with a plausible alternative, what I had was still a bit crap. I had decided to leave it for the time being because I couldn't think of anything better, but I was never happy with it. And then on Thursday, while I was making paper aeroplanes out of other bits of my novella (don't ask), an idea struck me. It was something quite simple, so simple that I'm surprised I didn't think of it earlier (I think it was my writerly muse screwing with me). With a few adjustments, all my characters are now where I want them to be, when I want them to be there, with plausible reasons for their presence. The changes have meant that substantial parts of what I had written have to be rewritten or scrapped entirely; this is annoying, but probably better for it to happen now at 20,000ish words than at, say, 50,000 words. Based on what I've written so far, and my outline revisions, I'm also thinking that my novella may end up being a novel, albeit at the lower end of the scale (I'd estimate at this stage that it will end up at around the 70,000 word mark.

Though I didn't get chapter 3 completely finished, I have started writing chapter 4. Ideally I want to have my prologue and first three chapters completed and fairly polished by this time next week. I'm back at uni on Tuesday and I'm planning to use the first part of my novella in my sample prototype for my thesis, so that gives me more incentive (stress) to get it to a reasonable standard.

I've also more or less abandoned those two short stories I started a few weeks ago. I've kept what I wrote, but my inspiration for them kind of ran dry as quickly as it appeared (exactly as predicted). I may one day return to them, but they're pretty far down the priority list.

Judgemental Dog shouldn't get his hopes up:

See other ROW80 updates here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 15th Update

On Monday I managed to show that my innate talent for hurting myself in idiotic ways has in no way faded; not five minutes after dropping a full frozen-solid tub of ice cream on the middle toe of my foot, I managed to trip over my dog as he snoozed in the doorway of my room, accidentally kicking the corner of my cupboard in an attempt to stop myself falling. Even the doctor admired my determination in making sure my toe was properly bloody broken :D Luckily it didn't require plaster, though, so I can hobble around as normal, just slightly grouchier than usual.

Haven't got as much writing done this week as I would have liked. I continued revising chapters 1 and 2, as well as filling in more bits of chapter 3, which is now almost complete (I'm hoping to have the first three chapters more or less polished by the time I go back to uni next Tuesday). I think that, before long, I'll have to sit down and just do some research on medieval European history, circa 900-1200AD. While in some ways it's better to just write the first draft to get the story out, research be damned, there are some bits that I'm finding increasingly difficult to work on because I just don't know enough about the time to write about it convincingly. However, research during first draft will be at the bare minimum level, just so I can (hopefully) avoid the most glaringly obvious mistakes; the rest can be fixed up later.

I've also made a character sheet for Dark and Silent Waters, mainly so I can stick it to the wall beside my desk and feel productive. And I've started doing character sheets for my fantasy trilogy, Exile; I know I'm not meant to be touching that series at the moment but I was in a character-sheety type of mood :P

I think Judgemental Dog means business:

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 14th Update

Time has been good to me (mostly) since the last check-in, but it still hasn't been smoothe sailing. My insomnia reared its ugly head again so between Tuesday and yesterday I had no more than five or six hours of sleep, so you can imagine what sort of mood I was in - and I have a short fuse at the best of times ^_^

Writing has been a bit two-steps-forward-one-step-back the last week or two. On Friday, however, something awesome happened. I reached 20,000 words on my novella :D Since then I've kept plugging away, and I'm now at just over 21,000 words (so bring on the energy drinks).

Yesterday I workshopped the last bit of chapter 1 with my writing group. I've already revised it based on the feedback I got, and it's given me some good ideas for the main character's back story. It was a good session; the other writers have some really good stories going so I can't wait to see more of them.

Overall, it's been a good week :)

What do you think, Judgemental Dog?

Click here for other ROW80 updates.

ROW80 Round 1 - 13th Update

Most of this week's progress was made last night and today. Monday was spent working or visiting my nan in hospital, while yesterday was just one of those days where everything decides to interrupt you as often as possible.

I did continue editing chapters 1 and 2 a bit, but I also got stuck into writing some more of chapter 3. I think a lot of the cutting and revising I did in the earlier chapters has helped chapter 3 to flow a lot easier. Since I'd been subconsciously turning over various plot points in my mind, when I came to starting on the new section, I found that I was able to just barrel along through several scenes instead of my usual method of agonising over every sentence. I'm glad that I've at least got something written though; as the saying goes, you can't fix a blank page. Chapter 3 is about half finished now, so hopefully I can get most of it done by the next check-in.

As far as taking notes on journals for my thesis goes; didn't get any done on Monday, but I met my daily goal both yesterday and today.

No, Judgemental Dog. It is not.

Check out the progress of other ROW80ers here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 12th Update

This has been a slow week as far as writing goes, but I have done a lot of editing. Though it doesn't feel like progress, I know that it needed to be done pretty badly. I think as far as actual word count goes, I've probably cut out as much I've written. Some of what got scrapped (mostly from later chapters) was rendered obsolete by changes I'd made to my plot, while other bits were just removed because they were rubbish. And there were one or two scenes that took up a page or two but which I managed to get down to just a few paragraphs. Chapter 2 is now almost complete (all that remains is a small scene in the middle), though I have to go back through it to fix some inconsistencies. I have another meeting with my writing workshop group this Saturday, so I'm going to submit the funeral scene from the end of chapter 1. However, a lot of other members of the group have already submitted pieces for workshopping so I don't know if we'll get around to doing mine (I don't mind though; I workshopped last month so I don't want to take time away from someone else who hasn't workshopped yet). Over the next week I'm going to try to finish chapter 2 and revise it (or at least some of it) and make more progress on chapter 1 revisions.

I haven't included my word count tally this time, because the total hasn't really moved much from last time. Hopefully this will be the week I reach 20,000 words.

In other news, I managed to get my subjects for Honours this year sorted out. I've also made a bit of a headstart on researching for my thesis, but I still have a lot to do. As a result, I will be appending an academic requirement to my ROW80 writing goals, and that is to read at least three journal articles each day (and make notes from them if they are useful).

For those of you who don't know yet, Judgemental Dog is now on Twitter! He wants to inspire/intimidate you into getting more work done. Follow him. Let him cast his judgemental stare over you. Do it. You know you want to.

Judgemental Dog shows us where his priorities lie:

ROW80 Round 1 - 11th Update

I remember saying that, provided nothing disastrous happened, I would reach the 20,000 word mark of my novella sometime this week. Though nothing disastrous did happen, it was still one of those weeks where life just decided to get in the way every time I wanted to write.

I spent most of Monday with my nan, since I had to take her to the hospital (just a last checkup before her hip replacement surgery today, which I have since heard appears to have gone well). While I was waiting with her, we started discussing an old story she had been toying with many years ago, which she had compiled notes for and even written a few chapters of before abandoning it to literary oblivion. Without giving too much away, it's a crime story with the potential for a lot of black humour. Since I'm busy with Dark and Silent Waters, I've contented myself with writing a very basic plot outline, as well as a few random notes for it (I seem to be doing that a lot lately). I've decided that it would make a good project for NaNoWriMo 2011. My nan regretted that she had never done much with the novel, since it was an interesting and original concept (I must admit, I've never seen a similar story in books/movies/TV etc), and thought that if anyone had the power to bring the tale to life, it would be her reclusive writerly granddaughter. As she said, "I've got the idea out of my head now, so it can rattle around in yours for a while." Thanks, Non.

One thing's for sure; I certainly won't run out of story ideas in this lifetime (or the next).

Tuesday was eaten up by work, because I had to do a double shift (ah, the joys of being short-staffed when a big catalogue is launched), and I've spent most of today trying to sort things out for when I go back to uni in a few weeks (still trying to finalise my subjects and topic for my thesis in IT/multimedia). Since the last check-in, I've probably written no more than 500 words or so. However, the next few days should be a lot quieter, so I'm hoping I'll get more done; not sure if I'll hit 20,000, but I reckon I'll get close to it.

Meanwhile, Judgemental Dog suffers from abandonment issues:

See how the other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 1 - 10th Update

As I briefly mentioned in my last update, while going over my novella outline and map earlier in the week, the idea for a short story drifted into my head. After having a whinge about it getting in the way of my novella, I dashed out a few hasty scenes of the short story, wanting to at least keep the idea for a later time. Then I opened my novella document and stared at it for a while.

And then I had another short story idea.

Once again I typed out the ideas and scenes I'd thought up, pounding away at my keyboard like a monkey on LSD. As with the first story, I got an almost complete (albeit dodgy) first draft before abandoning it and returning to Dark and Silent Waters. That was on Thursday. Since then, I pretty much haven't touched the short stories, but I have been flying through more of my novella. Chapter 1 has had a good shake-up, with some unnecessary crap cut out and other bits moved to later chapters, where they're more relevant (and to alleviate the too-many-characters-introduced-at-once syndrome). I've also made some good progress on chapter 2, filling in more of the previously abandoned scenes. I also think I've managed to bring a lot more tension into it, which is a big step forward.

Here is my updated word tally thingy:

Dark and Silent Waters
Prologue - 804 (complete)
Part 1
Chapter 1 - 5,674 (complete, but will be cut down during revisions)
Chapter 2 - 3,821
Chapter 3 - 786
Chapter 4 - 0
Part 2
Chapter 5 - 513
Chapter 6 - 933
Chapter 7 - 1,777
Chapter 8 - 1,991 (complete)
Part 3
Chapter 9 - 852
Chapter 10 - 0
Chapter 11 - 0
Chapter 12 - 1,240
Epilogue - 1,373

Total - 18,902

The Watch Tower - 666

The Fallen City - 883

Though completing the short stories would be nice - and they are fun for me to look at my novella world from another angle - my main concern is the novella. Providing that nothing disastrous happens between now and then, I think that I should be able to reach the 20,000 word mark by the end of the week. This will fill me with feelings of warm fuzziness and so on, and will incite me into the celebratory consumption of much chocolate and alcohol and possibly another Doctor Who DVD marathon.

Victoria was hit by severe storms on Friday and Saturday as a result of the massive cyclone Yasi in Queensland. This caused flash flooding across some of the Melbourne suburbs, and though my small town escaped the worst of it, parts of it were still under a fair bit of water - including our street and property (luckily the water didn't get into the house though). After seeing his back yard turned into a swamp, Judgemental Dog was not impressed:

For other ROW80 updates, click here.