ROW80 Week 11 (really 12): Uncharted

(Other ROW80ers)

This wasn’t a momentous week.

I wrote two sonnets, and typed up my existing notes from the re-read of Conkers. And those still aren’t as organised as I would like.
While I did get some new insights into the characters, I didn’t get the clear lists of character possibilities and story issues I was aiming for.

Maybe I wasn’t going to.

I did start Conkers to be a learning experience, and that implies mistakes along the way — omelettes and eggs and all that.

With that in mind, I’ll use the last few days of the Round to focus on my next best option: try writing some stories in only dialogue (or with none at all), to get a better feel for how actions and dialogue fit together.

My concrete goal for the rest of the round is just to write each day.

Good luck and happy writing.

Update: The numbering actually is right (i.e. this is the Week 11 post). I got confused by the fact that I post my week summary on Monday of the following week, so my Week 11 post comes out on the first day of Week 12.

ROW80 Week 10: Landing

This is my 10th update for ROW80 this year (other people’s), and also a bit of a milestone for Conkers: I finished re-reading the first draft yesterday.

For this week, I want to organize all the notes I took during the re-read, and try to get a clear picture of what I want to change when I start re-writing.

Putting that in specific goals:

• Write or edit (or prepare for the Europe trip) at least five days this week
• List the different personalities I’ve used for each character (so I can pick a consistent one).
• Make a list of issues I want to fix in the next draft

I don’t really have anything else to report. Most of my other writing days were spent on travel stuff, and I didn’t finish reading any (other) books.

Good luck and happy writing!

Victory or Nothing!

Within my moment, all the world will change:
Past, be to Future, just as Night to Day.
O natural things, accept you will be strange,
Once nature's dusty rules are thrown away.

O space, renew, through to the Earth's own core;
Atom and atom, mote and mote, replace.
O substance of the Now, be now no more,
And all your risen symbols, now deface.

All stars and planets shall wink off, and on.
One fearsome instant, bare the blind abyss,
Then shine once more. But as they never shone,
For all their past, I have reduced to this.

A newborn time, where history's pages tore.
Now I can try again for HIGHEST SCORE.

ROW80 Week 9: Unremarkable

For me, this week of A Round of Words in 80 Days (other participants) has been pretty much average.

I re-read a page or so of Conkers each day, and did the three pieces of other writing I’d aimed for — poetry, some new scenes in the Conkers world, and an email I needed to organise the overseas trip.

Having read two books last week, I didn’t need to do any more reading to keep up with that goal.

And that’s all I have to report.

Good luck and happy writing!

ROW80 Week 8: Turning

After Week 8 of this Round of Words in 80 Days (linky), I’m starting to think I’m focussing too much on my WIP.

In Week 3, I made it a goal to re-write a chapter by the end of the round. At the rate I’m going, I think I have to accept that won’t be happening.

The only editing I got done this week this week was the re-reading each night, covering a total of ten pages (and 700 words that weren’t printed out yet). Since the scene I wrote up last week was the last one still on paper, that was enough to meet my goals.

But if I’m meeting my goals that easily, I should be aiming higher.