ROW80 Week 12: Other shiny things

Almost my last update for this round! (And almost my last linky.) What happens this week will decide whether I meet my goals or not. And it actually will be the deciding week, since I’m just shy of both goals:

I wrote three sonnets this week (around three or four hundred words), another scene in my main WIP (850 words), and a scene in the new WIP (600). Being away on the weekend wasn’t as much of a problem as I’d feared; I was also away from my usual distractions, and had plenty of new things to use for inspiration.

All that writing adds up to 1800 words or so. I did aim for 2200 words for this week, but then I did another 400 words while working on my reflection last week, which means I’m fully caught up from last week.

I’m also apparently closer than I thought to my whole-round goal. I must have been miscounting something, because when I checked today I got a count of over 17,000 words. That means I could still finish my eighteen thousand words this week if I get a good amount of writing done on Tuesday. For both this and the weekly quota, I need around 750 words.

Regardless of whether I manage that, I can claim at least one success this round. In the spirit of focussing on the positive, I need to remember my original goal was to write in my ongoing setting, and my new WIP is a step in that direction.

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ROW80 Week 11: A Low Ebb

Here’s my ROW80 linky for this week.

I didn’t make any progress on my WIP since last week. I did do about 600 words of other writing, though: half sonnets, half the start of a new story. At this rate, I don’t think I’ve got much chance of meeting my goals for the round. As of last week, I’m at about 14,300 words, so I need another 3700 to meet my whole-round goal.

Since I ended this week 700 words behind, I need 2200 words to keep up with my week-by-week goal. I’d expect to manage that, except that I’ll be away for work on the weekend, and I doubt I’ll get much writing done.

Nonetheless, I think I’ll aim to get those 2200 words done by the end of the round next Wednesday. That will give me 1500 words per week over that week-and-a-half period, and put me pretty close to the eighteen-thousand-word goal I originally chose for the round. With luck, I can put most of those words towards my WIP;  I’m only two or three sessions away from tying off a story arc, which would be a good spot to set it aside for a while.

The Straight and Narrow Wall

I wanted to post a sonnet for the Ides of March (the anniversary of Julius Caesar’s death), but I couldn’t find the one I thought I had. So here’s one that at least starts with someone dying.

The tomb is sealed, the lord of Darkness slain,
The sound of funereal dirges dies away.
The victory of Good is now made plain.
In years to come they'll celebrate this day.

I was a villain's captive; now I'm free.
I held for evil hate; now I must ask
What in this world of good is left for me,
When all the things I knew are decades past.

I did learn things beneath an evil throne:
From where the minions come, and why they serve;
How best to bury flesh and blood and bone;
Against the end, what must stay in reserve.

I'd hate to harm the world as it harmed me,
But there's no harmless choices I can see.

ROW80 Week 9: Recovering from a Stop

I’m not writing anywhere near as much as I was last week, but I am getting back into the swing of things. I only wrote 2 sonnets during the week, but then spent Friday evening writing a 2000-word comparison of grammar checking software. It’s not the kind of thing that could really lead anywhere — mostly just complaining about things the spelling checkers got wrong — but it was writing.

In addition, I did get nearly 900 words on my WIP on Sunday. Overall, this puts me at about 2,100 words of varying quality for this week. I definitely want to do more on my WIP, but that’s a number I can be happy with.

Before I go on to reflection, here’s my linky for this week.

If you’re going to rescue the world from evil rule,
you have to start somewhere.

(No ROW80 update today, since I haven’t done enough writing.)

I'll wander Dreamland's roads, and here abide.
I'll learn to live alone, and from the start.
With all that failed once now cast aside,
I'll only own the beating of my heart.

I'll take my loves and losses as they come.
I'll not naïvely wish for what can't be.
I only ask things even out in sum.
That in the dark, hope won't be lost to me.

I'll meet my share of nightmares, and of knaves.
I know there's nowhere left they have not been
But still, hope lives while any flame yet waves.
Someday the ashen hills can sprout with green.

I'll give my soul another chance to heal.
Perhaps I'll soon move on to what is real.

ROW80 Week 8: Hurtling to a Stop

After a few good weeks, I’m falling behind again. All I’ve written since Wednesday is a sonnet. That puts me at around 2,200 words for the week, or around 1000 if you ignore the philosophy-related stuff.

I was away this weekend, but this time, I don’t think that’s the problem. Even though I didn’t get any writing done on Friday, I could have got lots done on Saturday. And the thing is, I did — just not on this project. I did some research for one of my other projects, finally got around to doing some programming, and was distracted mostly by things I thought were somewhat worthwhile.

In other words, the problem now is that I’m applying the habits ROW80 taught me to other projects. I remember someone else in ROW80 blogging about the importance of doing multiple projects (sorry that I can’t remember who; I’ll edit in a link if I do). Unfortunately, most of my other projects at the moment aren’t really writing-related, so I can’t easily transfer my goals over to them.

I could change my goals, but I do still really want to finish this story; it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I want to prove to myself that I can follow something like this right through to the end (or at least the End of Part One).

I suppose I’ll keep trying to work on my WIP, but accept that I might be doing some of my 1500 words on other projects for the next few weeks.

Good luck and happy writing!

PS: Here’s my linky for the end of Week 8.

PPS: No reflection today, since I haven’t done the writing to reflect on; and I need to get to bed.