ROW80 Week 7: Distraction

Here’s my linky for this week.

Although perhaps I should be, I can’t say I’m happy with my progress. I spent most of it reading an online superhero novel called Worm, which was the digital equivalent of unputdownable — I got so wrapped up in that that I didn’t get anywhere with any of the physical books I’m reading, or get my reflection done.

I could arguably count it as my reading for the week, but part of the point of that goal was to spend time away from the Internet. And I haven’t finished reading it yet, anyway.

However, I did try to examine how the story kept me enthralled, as I have been with books. Like The Traitor Queen, Worm cuts away from scenes at moments of suspense, using extra viewpoints and timeskips to break up the first-person narrative. This even applies to the long-term plot: the characters never get a real chance to relax, so I could never go away from the screen and imagine they were safe.

Consequently, I spent most of the time I wasn’t reading thinking about situations in the story. A lot of those raise questions about the place of supernatural powers in society, which particularly interests me. It’s also enough a part of my WIP’s that I was reluctant to work on them, but it did give me a new perspective on one of my other ideas, which I wrote about 1,200 words of background for.

I also managed 470 words on Conkers (before I started reading Worm), and four or five hundred words of miscellaneous poetry (two sonnets, two other poems). That makes a total of 2,100 words for this week, putting me at a total of 12,400 for the round so far. I may yet equal my word count from last round.

So, really, this isn’t that much worse than other weeks from a ROW80 perspective. I’m just frustrated because reading Worm took up all my non-ROW80 free time. Not that it isn’t worth reading, mind you! I just would have preferred to go through it more slowly.

Good luck and happy writing!

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