wordwhacker

This might be a project you'd be interested in, given your "chapter a week" idea:

National Novel Writing Summer - Writing a 50K (or more) novel between June 1 and August 31.

I'd wanted to post a story for today, seeing as how I'm trying to get something turned out every week. But nothing has made me want to write it.

So. Prompt me.

What should I write about?

Thanks to the_bookshelves, I might actually start using this journal again! Gasp, shock!

In case anyone isn't in the know (though you're all on my cassaclyzm friends list, I think), I've been sort of insanely busy lately. Coupled with the fact that I don't have internet access at home, this has translated to exactly zero productivity in the "writing/editing" department. Yeah, I know, excuses, excuses.

Anyway, with the_bookshelves as inspiration (and to make it easier to spur her on, as requested ;-), I'm going to make a valiant attempt to produce something to post each week. Maybe a short story, maybe a chunk or chapter of a longer story or script, maybe an old story that I've put through the grinder and finally edited into a more readable state. No wordcount goals, and I reserve the right to suck mightily. Criticism of any kind would be great, so long as you don't make an effort to make me cry. If you're not up to that, though, then just a comment saying that you read it would make my day. No, really, it would.

Everything will be friends locked at Lj-cut for her pleasure your convenience.

Well, I said I wasn't going to give up the ghost - and I'm not. Not quite, anyway. I had planned on getting a triumphant burst of editing speed last night, as the night at work was promising to be a quiet one. What I got instead was a five hour panic-driven madhouse at work, which left me so drained afterward that I was having trouble concentrating on knitting, for crying out loud. That's a sign, right there.

So instead of being on top of my game, I find myself behind it. Reaching 50 hours this month is an awfully long shot. Throw in Easter obligations and friends moving, and I'm almost ready to throw in the towel.

Almost.

I'm still going to take a swing at it, but I think I'll revise my goals somewhat. If I manage to hit 50, by golly, I'll be thrilled. So, my new goal is to hit 30 editing hours by month end, and to have a finished second draft by April 15th.

It looks like peace and quiet is on the menu tonight, thank god, so I think I'll put on some music, close down my infernal web browsers and get to work.

All right, Cass. No more LiveJournal for you until you do some gosh-darned editing. It's a slow night. You have a long way to go. I think we know what I'm talking about. Capice?

Editing has been slow; I'm restless after having been stuck at home for the past few days, and getting myself to sit down for an hour in front of a computer screen is a challenge. I'm determined to make good use of this week off work, though. I got an hour in today, and I'm aiming for another hour or two tonight.

I've come up with a completely different approach to the third chapter of my story, which originally had a lot of prose padding (which has since been deleted - there's something theraputic about hitting the delete key, I think.) The re-write of the chapter is going to take some planning and a fair amount of writing time in and of itself. I have a rough outline ready, but I think I'll wait until I have one of those days when "editing" sounds really boring and "writing" sounds neato-cool.

So as of 07:42, I have actually completed 2 hours of editing during the course of my shift at work. Not only that, but I've gone through all of my prose right to the end of Chapter 2. It's still not perfect (*cough* will it ever be?) but it's tighter, more direct, less wandering. I'm actually pretty happy with the first several chapters of this draft, and I don't see them needing a hell of a lot of work - at least, not until I have a more stable complete draft to work from and assess. I may decide later that I need to bulk up Casey and Paul's school time, for instance, so I can ground them in that environment before having all hell break loose. I can easily see that happening, in fact. But for now, it's good. I'm doing a microscopic pass for now. I'll do the macroscopic pass later.

This isn't the stuff that's going to need the REAL work - that comes later, from when I hit rock bottom in NaNoWriMo terms and just needed to write, write, write, even if it killed me. Well it didn't kill me then, but it's got a good shot at it now. The padding is rampant, the direction is... not there, the focus is similar. A series of fairly reasonable events happens, but it's nested in sloppy prose and bad planning re: the physical locations and the "random alien" obstacles.

Actually, that's a good way to look at it. In the original version, the aliens were obstacles, nothing more. They need to be a living, breathing, thinking menace. And that's going to take a lot of work to fix in the prose (though the characterization is coming along well enough in the "behind the scenes" sense, which is a relief.)

I should probably forgo the hour of writing I was going to do over tea this morning (considering I have about a million other things to do, like clean and cook and... and... and...). But I don't wanna. I wanna get a walk in, and I wanna be a snooty tea-drinking writer. So there.

Editing. More like, "re-working from the ground up". But that's a form of editing, right?

( ... Right? )


Progress: 01:00 / 50:00


I'm settling in for an hour of editing... with any luck I'll update again before the night's out. If I, y'know, actually edit any.

First, I just spent a ridiculously long time going through the archives of this journal and un-friends-locking most of the locked entries. I can't really remember why I bothered to lock them to start with. From this point on, only my fiction will be under friends lock - you know, just in case I ever get any of it published.

And when you're done laughing, you might notice that I've joined a few writing communities. (Okay, so you probably wouldn't have noticed, but I'm making a lousy attempt at transition, here.) I'm on the hunt for writing prompts so I can try to wrangle myself into some sort of writing schedule. I'll leave these drabbles unlocked so I can link to them from whatever communities spawn them, all the while using LJ-cuts for your pleasure.


Yeah, who can tell that this post is just a thinly veiled vessel for procrastination? I can, I can!

I'm in procrastination mode.

I have "Splintered Soul" open, in front of me, in a word document. The page is split vertically down the middle: the original story is in the left-hand column, and the rewrite - currently only a few paragraphs long - is on the right. I have a notepad open with themes and bits of info that I need to introduce, expand on, etc. The only wrong with this picture is that I'm not writing anything.

Instead, I'm making a journal entry about it, or browsing forums, or getting stomach cramps at the mere smell of the McDonald's breakfast my co-worker has just brought back from across the street. (Well, okay, that last part isn't really my fault.)

Go awaaaaay from LiveJournal, Cass. You know you can do it. C'mon. Make me proud.