#ROW80 Week 9: Priorities

Last week, I made it a goal to write a draft climax for Conkers. That, I’m happy with. The 2,400 words I wrote isn’t a complete climax, but it’s more than I would have done otherwise.

However, other things fell behind. I only wrote four days out of seven, and put off my reading until the last minute — turns out the book was too long for that to work.

On the bright side, writing the climax has given me a clearer idea of where I am with the story. There’s a lot in it that I haven’t written the scenes to establish yet, but that will be a lot easier to do now I know what needs establishing.

My reflection this week was going to be about the combat scenes I wrote. But having seen Beth Camp’s post on the same topic, I think I’d better read through the fight-scene resources she linked to first.

For other writers’ #ROW80 progress, see the linky list.

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#ROW80 Week 8: Plain

My progress this week of #ROW80 (other people’s progress) was fairly average.

I wrote five days out of seven, got another 900 words written on Conkers, and started reading a new book. That puts me behind my goals, but not by much.

Reflection

I haven’t been getting good word counts on Conkers for a while. While the research project is, sort of, an excuse, I think there’s more to it than that.

I feel as though I’m approaching a good stopping point for the plot; it may just be wishful thinking, but I think I can finish the first story arc within a year of starting it.

But I’m not getting any closer to that point.

I keep writing scenes ahead of the main plot, and introducing side stories that will take their own time to finish, and haven’t really got closer to the climax than I was a month ago.

That’s not for lack of thinking about it; I’ve been making plans for Conkers for most of the month, and just not carrying them out.

I suspect the problem is that I’m too focussed on the plans, and afraid to write it in case it falls short of them. In which case, the solution is to just write something, and worry about it once the scene’s typed up.

That can be my extra goal for this week: write a draft of the climax of Conkers

Good luck and happy writing!

#ROW80 Week 5: Measurements

My progress on the Round of Words in 80 Days (other participants) this week was small, but meaningful.

I wrote six days out of seven, but only managed about 700 words, probably because I was trying to write a blog post for the research project, which apparently involves much more work for the same word count. I’m counting it as a success anyway, since the blog post is nearly finished.

While I didn’t do reflection, nor read physical books, I did finish reading the prologue to Erfworld. (Erfworld is actually a webcomic, but the prologue is prose.) I was particularly impressed by the way a change of viewpoint was used to hide the true nature of the villain even after one of the characters joined her.

Good luck and happy writing!

#ROW80 End of Round 3: Mediocre

I’m not really happy with my progress this round of #ROW80 (linky). I planned to focus on the harder things, but it seems like I just did fewer easy ones.

I had five goals for this round: write 1000 words of narrative weekly, write something non-narrative each week, do reflection weekly, enter a poetry competition, and read four books I hadn’t finished last round.

The writing goals, I did meet. I ended up writing 11,900 words of narrative in the 80 days — slightly more than a thousand every seven days. I also wrote something non-narrative almost every week, and entered three poems in a competition.

Reading wasn’t so lucky: I finished only one of my goal books, and half-finished two, then changed my goals and read one unrelated book. Overall, I did about half what I aimed for.

Reflection happened just under half the time. Not an improvement on last round, but not much worse, either.

I think my biggest mistake in this round was not keeping myself engaged with my goals. I aimed to write less, and to read fewer, less interesting books. That meant I was working on my goals less frequently, and losing focus on them in the intervening time.

The biggest success was probably Conkers. I feel like I’ve made meaningful progress with the characterisation, and the plot is starting to pick up speed.

Good luck, and see you next round!

ROW80 Check-in, Week 5

Here’s my linky for this week.

As it turns out, my optimism on Wednesday was justified. I didn’t manage to write on Saturday, but for once was home on Sunday, so that wasn’t a problem. Since Wednesday, I’ve written two sonnets (about 200 words total), and 1,100 words on my main story. That puts me at around 2,400 for the week; 300 words ahead of the 2100 I needed to catch up.

Excluding sonnets, I’ve now written around 9,500 words. That’s more than half the 18,000 words I’m aiming for, at less than half-way through ROW80.

That’s not to say I couldn’t be doing better, though. I’m following a pattern of alternating good and bad weeks, and while that does mean I’m writing regularly, it also suggests that I could write a third as much again if I apply myself consistently.

ROW80 Check-In, Week 3

This has actually been a pretty good week, right up until I ran late getting my check-in post (and linky) up.

I got another 900 words written on Friday, making a total of 2300 or so for this week. Given that I was 400 words behind on Monday, that puts me about 400 words ahead now, at the beginning of Week 4. The total word count of story (excluding poems, etc.) is a bit under 6300.

If I keep this up I might even hit my goal (12,000 words) early. I’m considering changing to editing if that happens, but we’ll see.