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coffeeandcalligraphy · 4 years ago

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A chatty writing update | novels, short fiction, etc!

Hi folks!

It’s been a while since I last wrote an update on this blog! I thought it’d be fun to go back to basics, and just talk about writing. This post chats about: new plans for Feeding Habits, my newest novel, my short story goals & growing collection, along with process reflections.

(image description: a photo of green leaves with the text “writing update” in a white font written on top. /end image description)

Post starts under the cut!

General taglist (please ask to be added or removed)

@if-one-of-us-falls, @qatarcookie, @chloeswords, @alicewestwater, @laughtracksonata, @shylawrites, @ev–writes, @jaydewritesfiction, @jennawritesstories @eowynandfaramir, @august-iswriting, @aetherwrites, @avakrahn, @maisulli

What have I been up to?

For starters, I finished my second year of my Writing undergrad last week and got two of my final grades back today (A+ baby)! For anyone who has taken online university, y’all already KNOW, but this year was so difficult. Would not recommend! Really proud of myself to have gotten through this absolute rollercoaster of a school term and am excited to get into some writing. That leads us to:

What have I been up to (writing edition)?

2021 started off so fast. By the time January hit, I was so consumed in my new semester that I did not have time to write Feeding Habits (my novel). In the first few days of the term, I managed to write between class, until I could no longer keep up! Essentially, I did not write any of that novel until exam season (last week), where I did manage to get in about 3k words in ~4 days.

Feeding Habits

I’m currently drafting what I believe will be the last chapter of this book (chapter 10: Swan Song). This chapter is so bizarre for a few reasons. It begins the book’s third part and also marks the shift back into Lonan’s head from Harrison’s. I originally thought this part would be much, much longer, with at least another five chapters to go, but quickly realized the book’s content was nearly completed. In my 4 day 3k palooza, I hit 50k in the book (the word count goal), and couldn’t see myself extending past 60k. Since then, I’ve made the loose decision to write this final chapter as a ~novella. Here are a few reasons why:

1. This chapter is structurally very strange.

I unashamedly shift from present to past to present to past past, and so much more every 12 words. I mapped out the timeline on a sheet of paper, and there were over 20 shifts in scenes (the chapter is only about 4400 words at the moment). The fictive past is incredibly important to this chapter, more important than the present, and I thought it would make more sense to not break randomly for a chapter so I could upkeep the consistent inconsistency of the chapter.

2. The chapter is very abstract

This stems from the structural changes, but there are paragraphs in this chapter of the fictive present that are loosely based in reality. They’re more poems than they are factual paragraphs, and keeping them all contained in one place (so a mega chapter/ novella) would reduce the most confusion!

3. There’s not much left to cover

Like I said above, Feeding Habits is on its last leg, lol! I know exactly where the book needs to end up, which is very, very soon from where I’m currently at on the timeline. Swan Song should cover what 2-4 chapters would cover in terms of arcs.

Feeding Habits and I have a really weird relationship, tbh! When I realized a few weeks ago that it’d been over a year since I started the book, I realized I just needed to finish it. Not that I want to rush (because I’ve taken longer than a year to write a book in the past), but that in order to move onto another project, I’d like to put this one behind first. This book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and has reminded me there’s always a time to let go. This sort of scrounges up a conversation about letting this entire series go, which is certainly something I’ve been contemplating doing soon(ish). If this spinoff series gets a third book, that may or may not be the last Fostered book for a very long time (or ever)! There are many complex reasons to move on, but the main one is that I have other projects I’d like to focus on. This is not a definitive decision, but something I’ve certainly been thinking about!

Here are a few excerpts I wrote recently:

(TW: death, gore)

Dying feels like being a trout dangled out of water. Clinging to a hook. Mouth open. Scales iridescent in a final death cry. It’s like blood spurting up the knuckles, drowning out the flesh. It’s that moment on the long fall down when the clouds cup the body. Easy drifting. The sound a skull makes when it cracks is really just the afterthought.

(TW: death, gore)

Kill shot. Death blow. Coup de grace. Right in the heart. He feels it. The blood swelling, slicking his palms. He can do it. Reach into the cavity. Feel for the ribs. Part each bone. Then cup the humming heart. Stay there. Right. It’s never been easier.

Look at this PURE moment of Lonan holding a baby I CANNOT:

The grocery store was a fifteen-minute walk away. With Olivia clinging to his shoulder, Lonan was acutely aware that she could feel his heartbeat. Open valve. Close. Repeat. Hers pulsed right above his, a miniature drumming. The sky had bruised purple, misted with clouds. The evening air nipped his cheeks, so he made sure Olivia was securely fastened between him and his jacket. With wide eyes, she absorbed the drowsy suburbia, all its family cars pulling into driveways, all its couples heading back home after a sunset walk. When Lonan passed a young boy walking two golden retrievers, Olivia giggled, and didn’t stop, even after he’d spent fifty dollars on groceries and nearly the rest on a red Corolla marked with a MUST GO NOW sign outside a convenience store.

Let’s move on!

Mandy and Cora

I said I wouldn’t talk too much about this project, but I just love it so much?? I wanted to share my SUPER early thoughts on drafting a novel, especially one that is SO different from what I’ve been writing recently. I talked about this before in THIS post, but the summary about this project is that it’s a YA contemporary novel! Can’t believe I’m writing YA again, it’s been so long, but I also think it’s going so well. Everything I’ve learned as a literary fiction writer has been a fantastic primer for transferring back to the genre. Admittedly, I have not written much, but I’m having a lot of fun diving back into a lighter project. This is the summary:

Cora and Mandy are identical twins who’ve always done everything together. But when Mandy decides to go to university out of province after graduation and Cora doesn’t, Cora takes this as an opportunity to “test run” life apart from her sister for the first time by spending the summer at her aunt’s house across the country.

I have come up with a few ~things since I last talked about this project, mostly how I’d like to structure it. As of now, I’d like the book to be structured super loosely. I’m really pulling on a lot of inspo from “We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour (which is SO good), particularly how “nothing happens-y” that book is. This project (which I still need a title for!!) will be structured in short chapters that cover something Cora does on her own for the first time (without Mandy). For example, a few ideas are “Flight”, “Lunch”, and “Groceries”. “Flight” is the first “chapter” (they’re really kind of vignettes) where Cora flies to her aunt’s house. I still can’t determine if this book will take place in Canada. On one hand, I feel like there will be a wider audience if it takes place in the US (is that just an assumption??? maybe?? someone let me know!), but also: don’t really care too much about an audience at the moment! It could also take place in Canada (So Ontario and British Columbia). But if it does take place in the US, I think it may take place in NYC and San Francisco. The problem is: I really don’t like researching lol, and while I’ve been to NYC many times, I will definitely write it wrong! Does this really matter on a first draft?? absolutely not lol, but of course I am already overthinking!

But back to structure: I am looking forward to seeing what this looser structure will do. This is a story that is solely around one half of a set of twins learning to be her own person (and ultimately that she doesn’t have to completely forget her sister in order to do that), and as a twin who KNOWS this feeling, I think this structure of her doing things for the first time is SUPER relatable.

I was worried it might sound silly/worrying to others who are not twins that Cora hadn’t done things like “lunch” or “groceries” on her own, but I feel this so much as an identical twin myself! Not that she hasn’t done anything at all by herself, but as a twin, when you do something without your twin for the first few times, at least in my experience, you notice. If any twins are reading this--weigh in!

This story is the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It definitely is an OwnVoices book! Usually, I avoid details that are remotely similar to me because they make me uncomfortable haha, but with this book, it’s all me, lol! The characters are all Guyanese, which is SO fun because I’ve been planning what they eat (my fellow Caribbean peeps know: the FOOD!), which is so fun (yes they have pumpkin and shrimp, yes they have roti, yes they have pera, yes they have mithai). Every time I’ve gone to dabble at this book, or even think about it, I get incredibly emotional for this reason? I don’t exactly know why. I think this is a story I just so want to tell, with the culture I love SO much that I definitely struggled to love as a child. This is reclamation bitchessss!

Not going to lie tho: the prospect of writing ~a book~ is kind of freaky! I’m going to make the minimum word count for this book pretty short (50k) and see where it goes from there. I think I will focus on this project this summer! Originally I was going to write a literary novel this summer, but I think this one’s calling my name!

Here’s a pretty rough excerpt:

Try. I remind myself that’s what I’m doing after the flight attendant fills me a disposable cup of Coca Cola and all I can think of is Mandy and I shoving Mentos into a bottle of the stuff when we were twelve. Just me, wedged in the middle seat between an exchange student heading out for summer break and a middle-aged woman sipping a cocktail, thinking of Mandy and I bursting whole oranges in a blender when we were bored one Winter break as the plane dips through a wave of turbulence. Mandy and I dying our hair neon green with highlighters (didn’t work—our hair is too dark) as the plane lands on the tarmac. Mandy and I arguing so loud last month, we both lost our voices as I lug my carry-on out of the overhead compartment and shuffle off the plane and through the airport, searching for Aunt Vel.

Short Fiction

I’ve written so much short fiction this year! I have a goal to write a short story a month (they can range in length, as long as 1 is “complete”), so my short story brain has seriously been soaking it all up lately. Let’s chat my month to month breakdown so far:

January:

I wrote four stories in January! The first is a flash fiction piece called “Shark Swimming” that follows a young woman who attends a shark swimming class after breaking up with her girlfriend. I wrote this story for a “test” workshop for my fiction class, and it was based off the prompt “think about something you’re afraid to do and make the character do that thing”. I’m not particularly afraid of sharks, but had been wanting to use the title “Shark Swimming” for AGES (literally since 2018).

This story is one of my favourites. It’s only about 900 words, but I think there’s something profound in how mundanely specific it is. The entire story doesn’t even see the narrator swim with sharks once; it actually takes place fully in the sanctuary’s lobby. But I really love this narrator. This is the first story I’ve written in second person in a while, though I felt really connected to the unnamed narrator. She struggles with accepting that she truly is a “boring” person, and there’s something about the final image that really gets me!

I’ve been submitting this around, though it’s been rejected a handful of times. Hoping I can secure it at a magazine one day because I really love it!

The second story is “Joanne, I’ll Pray for You” which is actually a rewrite of one of my very first short stories (the first story I did not write for a class haha), “NYC in Your Apartment”. I LOVE this rewrite a lot, and also learned the original is not a very good short story! Revising this story taught me just how much I’ve learned in the 2 years I’ve been writing short fiction. Seeing the 2019 version versus the 2021 version side by side is fascinating because I essentially “gutted’ the 2019 version of its beginning and end until all that was left was the middle of the story (aka the actual story). AKA: this is the only story I’ve ever written with a hopeful ending and I cut out all the happy bits lol I am SO sorry (that arc is more for a novel or novella). That’s how this went from a 5k word story to an 1800 word story (my Submittable thanks me for this lol). A lot of details and scenes I included were more pertinent to a 3 act structure/novel, which of course short stories don’t often have because of their brevity. I love rambling about writing theory, and seeing that actually pay off is so fascinating!

(TW: trauma)

Like the original, this story follows Joanne, a woman in her early twenties, who spontaneously breaks up with her boyfriend. She claims the poltergeist haunting her drove her to this decision. The original draft focused a lot more on the traumatic events Joanne survives, but this draft really loosens them up. It focuses less so on the events themselves, and more on how Joanne’s life is affected. I found the details of these events were less important, and even sort of contradicted Joanne’s insistence she is being haunted. Instead, the poltergeist really takes more precedence in the new draft as a force Joanne doesn’t understand. That ambiguity, I think, is what the story truly needed.

I also centralized Joanne’s relationship with her boyfriend, Julian, here. Now don’t get me wrong, I really didn’t add anything to this draft. It was a matter of trimming the fat around it to leave the lean “meat” in the centre. But by removing that fat, I was able to emphasize what was most important here, and that was her relationship. Julian always played a really big role in the original draft, but I feel like his role as both a friend and partner to Joanne is much more emphasized since this draft literally is only two scenes now. Because there is less, there is more room for Joanne to reflect, which I’m happy about!

A final change I made was the setting and therefore the title. The original, which was “NYC in Your Apartment,” I couldn’t keep because I shifted the setting to Toronto (this is how I originally saw it, but in 2019 I just?? couldn’t?? write?? canlit??), and “Toronto in Your Apartment” sounded sort of gross LOL. The new title comes from a line in the story which I think is more relevant to the themes!

The next short story I wrote in January was “How to Spell Alpaca.” This one is super fun because I wrote it SO fast (in about 15 minutes or so). THIS is the writing update if you’re interested in learning more. I talked extensively about this one in that update, but some developments are that I dove into an edit a few weeks ago to really understand the core of the story. I’m still not quite there (this is just an intuitive feeling; I know not everything has “clicked), but I am really intrigued by the two mothers in the story, the narrator, and her newfound acquaintance, Violet. Both really struggle to understand their place as mothers (the narrator even declares she isn’t a mother anymore). The narrator, who is in her 50s, sees herself in Violet, who is much younger (~20s), and so she views Violet’s relationship with her daughter in a cautionary, yet mournful way, like she can see it will end up like her own relationship with her daughter, despite wanting the opposite. This is a really subtle story. I feel like if you blink, you’ll miss the message. But I think it’s compelling for that reason. It’s really a portrait of parenting and how to grapple with mistakes you may make that inevitably affect your children. Wow just unlocked the theme writing this lol.

The final story I wrote in January is “The Party,” which may be in my top 3 faves I’ve ever written. This story follows Aida, a recent divorcee in her ~40s. The day her divorce turns official, she moves into a new house and receives a party invitation addressed to the previous homeowner, yet RSVP’s anyway. At this party, she’s hoping to find some sense of noticeability, having struggled with being nondescript her whole life. Things seem quite normal at the party, until it gets bizarre.

I LOVE this story, y’all. Like “How to Spell Alpaca” it really delves into motherhood. Aida, our narrator, is incredibly hurt after her divorce. She now lives farther from her children she struggled to feel connected to in the first place, and doesn’t really know how to reignite her life. This party is a means to do that. This is the first story I’ve written that contains a “twist” which is strange because I really prefer stories that give us as much info as possible upfront, but yes, this one sort of twists.

February

I wrote one story in February, and that was “Protect the Young.” This title is SO changing when I think of a new one because it’s thematically incorrect, haha, but this story follows a woman in her late 40s whose daughter, Lindy, announces she is married the same day all their backyard chickens turn up dead. The discovery of dead chickens prompts our narrator to recall her ex-husband’s murder and the role her daughter may have played in his death.

I love this story so much! I think this would make a great closing for my short story collection. It just has that vibe! I wrote this for my second fiction workshop. I thought I had to hand in the story a week earlier than I had to, so I panicked and wrote this in one sitting! Little did I know, I did not need to do that lol but I’m very happy because this story is so fun. We get to learn more about Arnold (her ex), his relationship with Lindy, and how that translates to Lindy’s relationship with her new husband, Malcolm. I LOVE true crime (I listen to about 3-4 hours of case coverage daily), and this is my first “true crime” story. Because of that, I’m very sus of a few details that probably wouldn’t slide in actual investigatory work, so I’ll also be working on that in a revision. My professor also gave me a great suggestion that may alter the story’s structure a bit, though I look forward to toggling with it in the future.

March

In March, I was really on a Criminal Minds kick lol. I’ve been watching this show since I was seven (oops), and dove into a rewatch since it hit Disney+! This story, “Where to Run When the Lamb Roars,” is very clearly Rachel watching 5 episodes of CM a day. Oops! We follow 14-year-old Astrid as she and her older half brother kidnap a young girl to sacrifice for their yearly ritual.

I knew a few things going into this story, but the main thing was that I did NOT want to show any details of a potential murder (if one even occurs). I really wanted to keep all of those elements off the page because this story is not about those events, but about Astrid’s relationship with her brother. They are a murderous duo, with Astrid actually being the dominant partner. I wanted to explore that. I knew her brother, Fox, was more of a submissive partner in their team, even when he used to do this same thing with his father when he was much younger (chilling!), and so it was a task to explore how this young girl’s desire for violence works. The end actually comes right before the story starts, one could say, but I like it for this reason. It really made me contemplate the story by the time I finished it, and helped me examine what it really was about versus what it appeared to be about.

April

(TW: sexual content, non explicit)

I was so busy this month! Who knows if I’ll write a story last minute, but I did write one story this month called “Five Times Fast.” I wrote this during a “writing sprint” that was being hosted at a flash fiction workshop I recently took with one of my favourite writers ever, K-Ming Chang. I learned so much from this class, and am so happy I came out of it with a draft! This story is just over 300 words, so the shortest flash I’ve ever written, but I’m really happy with it. It was based off the prompt “describe the last time you or your character was naked.” In this case, the narrator has a “friends with benefits” relationship with Ricky who works at a laundromat. This story highlights a moment in this relationship (and also Ricky’s goofy personality lol). I really like it! Hopefully I’ll submit it to some magazines soon.

My short story collection

Very briefly I wanted to touch on my short story collection which I’ve titled “She is Also Dead.” I’ve been meaning to make a blog post on this, so look out for that in the coming months, but this collection is already at around 35k words (about 14 stories so far). The collection also surprisingly has a solid amount of flash fiction which is kind of fun! There’s definitely a range here, which is what I personally love in short story collections.

I feel very professional now that I have a ~collection chart. This is her:

(image description: A chart with the title “She is Also Dead.” It is broken into four columns: Story, Status, Word Count, and Published. Entry 1 - Story: Slaughter the Animal. Status: Revisions, Word Count, 3982, Published: N/A. Entry 2 - Story: Joanne, I’ll Pray for You, Status: Polished, Word Count: 1809, Published: N/A. Entry 3 - Story: Primary Organs, Status: Published, Word Count: 2342, Published: The Malahat Review. Entry 4 - Story: Faberge, Status, Polished, Word Count: 619, Published: N/A. Entry 5 - Story: The Wolf-Antelope Will Not Come for Us, Status, Polished, Word Count: 1556, Published: filling Station (forthcoming). Entry 6 - Story: How to Spell Alpaca, Status: revisions, Word Count: 1327, Published: N/A. Entry 7 - Story: Blink Twice for Final Judgement, Status: Polished, Word Count: 6572, Published: N/A. Entry 8 - Story: The Species is Dead, Status: Published, Word Count: 1208, Published: Minola Review. Entry 9 - Story: Shark Swimming, Status: Polished, Word Count: 907, Published: N/A. Entry 10 - Story: The Party, Status, Polished, Word Count 2339, Published: N/A. Entry 11 - Story: Fig, Status: Polished, Word Counter: 947, Published: N/A. Entry 12 - Story: Protect the Young, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4128, Published: N/A. Entry 13 - Story: Where to Run When the Lamb Roars, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 2174, Published: N/A. Entry 14 - Story: Phantom Limbs, Status: Revisions, Word Count: 4844, Published: N/A.) /end image description.

This order is DEFINITELY not permanent (at this point whenever I write a story, I just fit it randomly into this chart lol), and some of the info is outdated (for example, Slaughter the Animal is now polished!!! thank god!!!). But just an idea of what I’m thinking of including.

This is the summary so far:

In SHE IS ALSO DEAD, characters are pushed to act on their gravest impulses. A small town turns murderous when their local invasive species, the Janices, begin dying. A child struggles to understand her mother’s suicide. A college dropout who insists she’s being haunted by a poltergeist unexpectedly breaks up with her boyfriend. A mother acknowledges her daughter’s murderous tendencies after her backyard chickens mysteriously die. A young girl caters the funeral of a girl rumored to be killed by a wolf-antelope. A newly-divorced mother RSVP’s to a bizarre party she was not invited to, and a murderous brother and sister upkeep their yearly tradition of abducting a young girl. These stories follow characters who navigate death, violent desires, womanhood, and loss, both self-imposed and otherwise.

This is also so subject to change as I may pull and add stories to the collection!

I think I’m going to leave this update here for now! I’ve written TONS of poetry too, but I honestly ~hate my poetry right now lol, so! Hope you enjoyed this chill rambly update. Hope writing has going well for you all! All the best!

--Rachel

#writing #writeblr #writerblr #amwriting #writingupdates

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clevercatchphrase · 4 years ago

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2020 Year Review~

2020. Pretty unique year, don’t you think? It’s the first year since 2002 to have only two different digits in it. After 2022, this won’t happen again until 2111. Yep. Absolutely nothing more interesting than that.

Anyway! It’s time I reflect on my 2020, look back on my yearly goals and rant about things that happened to me this year. I made a post like this last year, where I went over my 2019 goals and talked about what I accomplished and what I didn’t, and it’s only fitting I do the same again this year. Read more under the cut for a random stream of consciousness ramble!

So, first things first, let’s look at my 2019 goals;

Finish paying off that last student loan

Put more stuff on my redbubble

Illustrate my own fan fics

Sew at least one stuffed animal

Make an enamel pin

Read one new book a month

Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make

Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch

Boost my patreon

Paying Off My Last Student Loan: Going down the list, I am proud to say that I FINALLY paid off all my student loans! (and not a moment too soon. The last payment I made was literally days before the first quarantine rolled out). It took me roughly 4 years on my part-time paycheck to pay off all my loans, and once I finished, I had no money to my name (literally; I had less than 1k as emergency money in case of car troubles or health issues). Heck, I’m STILL living at home as a save up for a place of my own. Finally paying off all my student loans DID activate my secret 2020 new year’s resolution, which was to adopt a cat! I did this too, literally a week later! She is the best thing that’s happened to me this entire year and I love her so much and she is the snuggliest cuddle bug I’ve ever met. I’m so happy she’s in my life now~

Put More Stuff On My Redbubble: ah ha ha ha… I thought I did this, but then I went and checked, and it turns out-! I did not. I made art I intended to go on my redbubble, but haven’t put there yet. They are all drawings of some OCs from a game I want to make, but because I haven’t progressed on making the game this year, I never got around to putting more stuff related to it on my redbubble. At the time of writing, there are 7 days left in December, so I guess I could go and put it up on my redbubble right now, but without context on where the characters are from, there wouldn’t be much point, now would there?

Illustrate My Own Fan Fics: Another goal that I was so stoked to actually do… and then just didn’t. Gee, I wonder why I couldn’t find the energy or motivation to do it this year? Truly a conundrum. (Hey, you know what? If Ghost Switch counts as a fan fiction in a visual form, then I am doing GREAT on this goal. 2.5 years in, 1 of ~4 arcs done, and still going steady~)

Sew At Least One Stuffed Animal: Okay, I have a valid excuse for not doing this one. I even knew which stuffed animal I wanted to make, and had the pattern drawn out and everything, but I had no money for materials because I had just paid off my student loans. And then, by the time I did have enough money again, quarantine was in full effect and I couldn’t go out to the fabric store. I’m still trying my best to stay out of public places even if the rules are laxer now, because I don’t want to catch the plague even if everyone in my goddamn city thinks and acts like the problem is over already. Even if they’re all wearing masks, even if they’re staying 6 feet apart, I still don’t want to risk it. I will stay inside until health experts give the all clear, and when that day comes, then I will buy some fleece and make a plush.

Make An Enamel Pin: I ACTUALLY DID THIS ONE. TWICE! Halfway through quarantine, I was feeling anxious and depressed about my job and how they were planning to have me work with the public despite climbing infection rates and positive covid cases. I didn’t quit then, but in a desperate move to try and become self-sufficient, I went to madebycooper and made two enamel pins based on some butterfly dragons I drew last year. They’re on my etsy store now! I even went out of my way to open a P.O. box just to start a small business! I haven’t sold a single pin yet, and I’m actually really nervous to sell my first because I don’t trust the efficiency of the postal system thanks to the actions of the GOP that really screwed them over this year! (If you would like to see my enamel pins, click here!)

Read One Book A Month: I did this! With dragon books I bought a couple years back! In fact, I read FOURTEEN dragon books, and still have more books for next year to read! The 14 books I read this year were:

The Hive Queen

The Poison Jungle

Wings Of Fire Legends: Dragonslayer

Dealing With Dragons

Searching For Dragons

Calling on Dragons

Talking to Dragons

The Bronze Dragon Codex

The Brass Dragon Codex

The Black Dragon Codex

The Red Dragon Codex

The Silver Dragon Codex

Dragon Strike, and

Hatching Magic

To be honest, I had read The Red Dragon Codex years ago when it first came out, but completely forgotten what it was about. I remembered liking it, and I knew the reading level was on the lower side, but the whole dragon codex series was pretty good! So far, the Silver dragon codex was my favorite, and black dragon codex was probably the worst! Hatching Magic was also really slow and bad and had plot points that went nowhere, but the book was written in the 80s, so I don’t know what I expected. The Dealing with Dragons series was very charming and great for the most part, save for one line in the last book that really rubbed me the wrong way, and all the Wings of Fire Books go above and beyond in this third arc. The second legends book could be a little tighter, though (sky and wren are the best duo and I want a book solely about them, but I honest to god do not care about leaf and ivy’s stories.)

Write one Page of any story every day/ complete at least one fic: I… did this? Okay, I kinda cheated near the end of the year. I was keeping up the one page a day thing for the first four months, but then the world went to shit and my schedule and habits got disrupted and I fell off my good track record. I completed 7 out of roughly 12 one-shots I had planned for this year (my goal WAS supposed to be one short a month, but… you know how it happens) I kept trying to catch up on this goal all year, but the days kept piling up…. Until November hit. I managed to write over 250 pages for Nanowrimo, and I consider this goal a win. 365 pages of fiction in total, which averages out to about one a day~. SHUT UP IT COUNTS.

Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make: Another goal I didn’t have the mental energy to commit to this year. Truly a mystery to where all our willpower went in 2020.

Fully Finish Scripting Ghost Switch: still haven’t done this one yet! The Snowdin arc is completely planned, but I just haven’t gotten around to getting the other areas. I’m not worried, though. I know all the major plot points I gotta hit, it’s just weaving them together in a way that flows nice is the final task. I’m not too worried though. I don’t expect to finish the Snowdin arc for another year and a half, at the bare minimum.

And my last goal of 2020, Boost My Patreon. I did this at the beginning of the year, but then very intentionally stopped about a third of the way through. It didn’t sit right with me to tell you guys to donate to me when suddenly EVERYONE was financially strained from layoffs or being furloughed. I told my patrons the same, and if you ever need to stop donating to me to take care of yourself first, then by all means, please do. I would feel much better knowing you’re using your money to see yourself fed and housed instead of given to me (where it is pretty much only used to buy gas for my car, honestly)

Welp! That was all my goals for 2020! I achieved 4 out of 10 goals plus 1 secret goal! Pretty much the same ratio as last year, but now this time I can blame all my failures on the pandemic! I don’t feel so bad about myself anymore~

ON TO 2021!

I have 11 goals for the new year, again some rolled over from this list, and some from even older years. They are, in no particular order;

Read 12 new books (roughly 1 book a month)

Finish the first draft of 2019’s Nanowrimo project and rewrite it

Script TDV

Finish Scripting Ghost Switch

Build A Comic Buffer

Sew 1 Stuffed Animal

Finish 1 Song Comic

Make another Enamel Pin

Finish 2 short original comics (this one counts as 2 goals)

Finish the 5 remaining one-shot fics

Now to go into depth on each one, more for my own sake, really. I want to know exactly what I have planned for each goal this year, and sometimes just looking at a short list doesn’t capture all the smaller details.

1)Read 12 new books. Same as last year! I The only difference is I might not be able to make it all dragon-related books. (I try my hardest not to buy from amazon anymore, but half-price-books doesn’t always have the obscure stuff I’m looking for)

2)Finish 2019’s nanowrimo project. If you read my 2019 year reflection, you’ll notice I said I wanted to do some original writing. And I did! The story I wrote for nanowrimo back then was a story I’ve been toying with since 2017, but it was only last year I finally got pen to paper. Now, you may find it odd that the keyword says “finish”. You may think, “but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for nanowrimo?” and to that I say, WRONG! I wrote 50k words for nanowrimo, but the draft was only about halfway complete. I was kinda discouraged about what I had written last year, because I didn’t like how it was coming out, but I did manage to get it half done. Now it’s time for me to bite the bullet and just finish the thing so I can finally revise it and make it into something I DO like. (It’s still gonna be hella long, tho. That’s what I get for trying to write an epic fantasy, I guess.)

3)Script TDV. TDV is the abbreviation of the game I want to make. I… still need to do so much for this project OTL… In addition to getting the story solidified, I still need to draw art and game assets, and learn how to code for it, both of which are no small task. I keep having some sort of new year’s goal related to this on my list, and every year I just don’t hit this one. Will 2021 be different?

4)Finish Scripting Ghost Switch. (Or at the very least, get the waterfall arc completely written out). I have a plan to break this down into simpler steps, by focusing on just one arc for a month or two. Every major arc has 2 to 3 parts, broken up by flashbacks, and if I can just finish one section a month, then I should have the entire thing scripted by the end of the year. It’s not a difficult pace, but seeing if I stick with it will be the real challenge, as it is will all my goals it seems.

5)Build a Comic Buffer: I’m actually working on this one right now! Since I paid off my last loan and got a new job this year, my current Patreon goals are kind of out of date. They had all been centered around me paying off that last loan, and working towards full-time employment, but those are both completed now! So instead, I would love to get to a place where my patrons could read pages at least a week ahead, and to do that, I need to build a buffer. And since I’m working 5 full days a week now, I can’t afford to fall behind. But you can’t fall behind if you constantly stay ahead! I would like to have… a 10 to 12 page buffer. That’s roughly 3 months’ worth of pages to always have on hand in case I get swamped with work, or something. Right now I currently have a buffer of 3, which will cover me for half a January, which is better than not having anything at all, but still not the best. (ultimately, I would love to have a buffer so big, I could queue them up for the whole year. Wouldn’t that be something?)

6) Sew one stuffed animal: same as last year. ASSUMING the plague gets under control in 2021, I don’t expect to get to this goal until the summer at the earliest.

7)Finish 1 song comic: I have 7 song comics planned. One is a gift, one possibly for wandersong, one is a collab that’s currently in the works, but I’m waiting on a friend to do their part before I can continue mine, 2 are UT related, and 2 (well, technically 3, but one is the collab) are KH related. It’s one of the UT ones that will probably get finished, if I’m being honest. It’s completely story boarded, and now I just need to ink and color it. I would like to get it done for UT’s 6th birthday, since I made a song comic on the fly for the anniversary this year, and it was fun, and I’d like to do it again! So, look forward to that next september~

8) Make another enamel pin: I have a dolphin design I’d like to make because dolphins are cute, if not little murder machines. (need to save up some expendable income first, tho. THESE THINGS AIN’T CHEAP TO MAKE.)

9 and 10) start and finish 2 original short comics: I’ve got some comic ideas I want to do, but I need to get them written out first. I don’t think either would be too long. Each maybe a couple “episode’s” length, if envisioned on a website like webtoons or tapas. They’d both be heavy in allegory, but not overly drawn out (hopefully)

11)And lastly, Finish the 5 remaining one-shots I had planned for this year but never got around to. I’m going to try to write one every other month. Pure self-indulgent shipping fluff. If I finish these 5, then maybe I’ll ask other people for more prompts and ideas, which I’ve never done before. We’ll see how it goes~

Also, Like last year, I’d like to look at everything that’s happened to me this year, though to be honest, I’m not sure how much I remember/how accurate it’ll be. God, I don’t even remember what January was like. Who was I back then? Who were we all back then? I guess I’ll start my yearly retrospective in march because, heh, god we ALL know what started happening in march.

Firstly, I paid off my last student loan! Then a week later on March 18th, I drove half an hour out of my city to adopt a cat and I love her and it was the best day of this year for me. Spring break is just beginning this weekend, but the attendance at the zoo is shockingly low this year. Apparently, a lot of people watch the news, and they’re all taking precautions about social distancing. I wasn’t too disappointed. Fewer people at the zoo, the easier my job is for me. I was looking forward to getting some free overtime on spring break, since I’m broke after paying off that loan, and I’m a cat parent now and have a furry child to feed. Monday rolls around. My manager calls me and tells me that the zoo is going into lockdown until further notice. I worry for the birds I take care of, but understand it’s for everyone’s safety.

For two months I sleep in and watch way too much YouTube. I join a couple writing discords. I have nightmares about my birds escaping their enclosure and I dreamed one of the security guards I really like at the zoo gets covid and has to go to the ER. I woke up really upset.

I started and finished BBS for the first time. I also replayed and finished KH2 final mix for the first time. It had been about 5 years since I last played KH2 before my PS2 died, and it was like coming home~ I also finished tearaway, and played and beat Ryme for a second time (which I can’t remember if I did that last year, but it was a fun experience regardless)

Mid-June, and I’m allowed to start going back to work, be it on reduced hours. The zoo is still closed to the public, but I’m loving it! I get to work with full-time keepers and do full-time keeper things. It’s so much fun not having to deal with the public. August starts to creep up and there’s a rumor that the zoo will be opening to the public again, which I’m not stoked about. I don’t want to go back to standing in one exhibit all day, talking to guests who don’t listen to the rules or to me. 2 of my younger coworkers (who had both only been there a couple of months) get chosen for full-time positions, while I get passed up which really pisses me off. My other 2 coworkers quit when they think we might be reopening because they cannot risk catching the virus due to at-risk family. I am now the last keeper in the interactive bird exhibit.

I keep working, the zoo slowly opens, but with me as the only interpreter in our interactive bird exhibit, we can’t open because I can’t run the entire exhibit by myself. So my exhibit stays closed. September comes and goes, and then October starts. Now there is more serious talk of opening my exhibit before the end of the year because the zoo expects to bring in larger crowds for the Christmas lights event in November/December. I ask if I get hazard pay or health insurance since I’m doing full-time hours until they hire more staff. They say no.

I immediately start searching for a new job feeling incredibly indignant/hurt/slighted/insulted/used/abused/ALL the negative feelings at my job. I had been there for 4 years, but never got a chance to work full time, while the two newest hires who had only been there 2 months both got moved up. I can’t help but feel they were holding one mistake I made two years ago against me and never wanted to give me a chance. (that, or they knew I was reliable when it came to showing up for work in such a volatile position that sees a lot of new faces, and they didn’t want to bother going through the process of hiring someone new) I don’t want to risk my life working around guests who don’t wash their hands and don’t properly distance. I don’t want to gamble with my health when they won’t offer me health insurance because I’m part time.

Mid October, I get an interview for a full time job and get hired on the spot. I peace out at the zoo 2 weeks later, literally 3 days before they planned to open my exhibit to the public. It was a close call for me to escape before they opened to the public (and pettiness was only partially the reason I dipped out so close to opening). Sorry new hires who are now in charge of the bird feeding exhibit. I taught you the best I could in the short time I had. If the managers are struggling with what to do with one less person, I can’t say I feel bad. I can only hope they delayed opening/closed you down again for your own safety. You are not lightbulbs. I really hope the higher ups stop considering you as replaceable as one. Will I go back to the zoo to visit? Probably. But not for a year at least.

I started my new job the very next day after I quit the zoo, and have been there ever since, (which isn’t that long yet, tbh. Christmas day was my 2 month anniversary). It’s full time, but it’s also a small business, and everyone’s hours this year have been on the short side due to the plague. I understand, though. They don’t want us to work if they can’t afford to pay us. Everyone is nice enough, though some people smoke and it’s hard to avoid them with how frequently we have to go in and out, and I really don’t want to get lung cancer, sorry not sorry, please and thank you. Also, with such a small team, gossip is certainly harder to go undetected, so it’s a relief knowing people don’t talk behind one another’s backs.

I participated and beat my 4th nanowrimo in a row, I made TWO apple crisps on thanksgiving, and made baklava on Christmas and both of these recipes were my first time making them, and they both came out adequately! I voted the first day of early voting, and I did an art trade/collab with two of my friends for my birthday! (normally we would have done monthly “art days” where we get together and do art projects for fun because we’re adults and we can spend our time together however we want, but the plague said otherwise this year) We drew pokemon and it was fun! (hopefully I can show you all the results soon. At the time of writing, I’m still waiting for the last two colored parts to get back to me)

I reached 100 pages on my undertale comic, and finish the first arc out of…! (im not sure. It’s either going to be 4 or 5, I haven’t decided yet)

Over all, I managed to stay healthy as far as I know. I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be this year, but then again, who was? (don’t answer that. I don’t need that kind of comparison in my life right now)

Will 2021be any better? Honestly? I don’t think so. Not right away, at least. Just because a new year is about to start does not mean the slate is completely wiped clean. The change of the calendar year doesn’t magically make all our current problems disappear. Covid will still be here and cases will still climb when January starts. Small business will still be strained when the month rolls over, police will still go on murdering innocent civilians and getting away scot free, amazon and disney will still be monopolizing all consumer goods and media, and I can’t help but feel like there’s an impending shit show about to go down on inauguration day. I do hope things will get better, though. It’ll be arduous and unpleasant, but I do hope things will improve, because sometimes hoping is all you can do.

Good night.

#long post #new year's resolutions #year review #year retrospective

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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Are you taking part in nanowrimo this year? If so do you have any tips?

As much as I still long to achieve nanowrimo someday, I don’t think this will be the year. I’m averaging about 500 words of fiction a day right now, handwritten, so it would take a miracle to get me to a place where I can triple that, realistically giving up my journaling in the process for much faster touch-typing. Nanowrimo is a challenge for me at the best of times. During 2020? Ehhh, unlikely to happen lol

The closest I got was around 30k one year and I got that far largely because I:

Had a very detailed outline prepared ahead of time. I did a lot of planning before November hit so that there was never a day where I was struggling to figure out what I needed to write. Even if I wasn’t sure how to craft the next scene I still had plenty more outlined to turn to

I had a project that I was really passionate about at the time. Thus, it was no hardship to put all my creative energy towards it for a month straight. That doesn’t often happen for me. I’m a multitasker at heart and could easily produce 1,667 words a day if it was across 3+ projects... but a single novel is much harder. So definitely choose something that you think you can sustain that passion for

I was diligent about setting aside time to work, usually at the end of the day. That meant I was writing even when I was exhausted and just wanted to watch TV, browse social media, etc. So again, if you’ve got a full schedule be prepared to use a lot of your free time writing. (Unless you’re blessed to be a fast writer, which I am not lol.)

Have some kind of support system, online or offline, to help motivate you. I had friends interested in the story and the act of them asking about it helped kickstart me whenever I was feeling unmotivated. Holding one another accountable for goals can help too

Be prepared for numerous Real Life Things to pop up that interfere with the challenge. This might mean that you suddenly have a weekend where you’re writing 3000k+ words, it might mean that you have to give up on hitting 50k completely. Don’t beat yourself up over it! I’ve done it numerous times :D

As much as I love the culture of nanowrimo - the “Yeah! You can do it! Get that novel draft done!” energy - as the years go by I’m finding myself disliking how easily it can turn into a pressure, rather than a fun event. It should be fun. So I suppose that’s the best tip I can give, coming from someone who’s never actually finished it: so long as you’re enjoying yourself you’re in great shape, even if you’re not meeting the minimums you’re “supposed” to hit. But if you find yourself overly stressed about it, treating your writing time like an awful chore you’d rather avoid? Avoid it! Change your goal to a smaller number. Set the project aside entirely. Write someone else. Whatever you need. There’s a difference between “Challenge yourself” and “Make yourself miserable in an effort to achieve the frankly insane goal of 50k words in a single, already stressful month.” Nanowrimo should always be the former 👍

#writing #nanowrimo #Anonymous

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tcheschirewrites · 4 years ago

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Hey, are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Have you ever? And what was your experience like? I'm considering it but I feel so intimidated because I know I won't be able to commit to it wholeheartedly. Lowering my expectations and pacing myself would seem like the perfect solution but work kills my creative brain cells by the seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of November I've only written half of page of alien language. Any advice? Also does Nano have to be a new project?

Oh man, Nano. I’m well familiar with Nano, and I’ve participated a few times (to varying degrees of success). This got very long, so I’m putting a cut.

The first time I attempted Nano was in 2006 for my novel Seerking. I had heard about it from a friend who was in an LJRP I was in, and she encouraged me to try it. I was still in high school at the time, and very frankly I did not have the dedication necessary to complete it. I got a lot of worldbuilding complete, but very little writing. I got about two pages of prose, and three notebooks of character and setting history, as well as a fairly detailed outline. I still have all of this.

The second time I attempted was in 2009, for a story that is based heavily on the Iron&Wine song ‘Boy With a Coin’. I got a little bit further, but I got stuck in a few places. I think it’s because my idea was bigger than my life experience, and I also got stuck in a lot of small details. Additionally, my first Word document (where I got about two chapters in?) was destroyed when my laptop’s hard drive just straight gave up on life - I did buck up and rewrite quite a bit, though it didn’t sing quite the same notes, and I have this handwritten copy still. (It’s possible I tried again with this same project the year after? I don’t remember tbvh)

My third attempt was in 2011, about a goverment operative and a faun. This one I got the furthest, and I still have the original handwritten draft and the typed copy. I pantsed this one, 100%. To this day, I still don’t know how this story ends, but I’d love to attempt a rewrite someday.

Then, unfortunately, from around 2012 until Fall of last year, I stopped writing period. I was in a real bad situation, and just didn’t have the energy for anything, let alone a novel. My most recent experience with Nano as an organization was Camp Nano, which is a much looser structure, and it is in May and July. Rather than the hard and fast 50k, you set your own goal when you announce your project.

I can understand your hesitance to participate, honestly. Nano is a beast of a project – to reach the minimum goal of 50k in the 30 allotted days, you have to produce 1667 words of new content every single day. This is approximately 3 pages, maybe a little more – which is a lot when you’re already stressed! And if you miss a day you have to adjust your daily totals for every following day, and the pressure starts to mount! It’s a lot, even if it is only meant to be a neat little challenge (mostly, I’ll cover benefits a bit later).

Now, my recommendations are going to follow two paths: planning, and pantsing. If you are naturally a planner – that is, you like having rough outlines, refined outlines, you like having character data, history, etc – then I recommend you have as much of your novel planned ahead of time before November 1st hits. Whatever notes or files you need to have set aside before you begin writing those first words, have them ready – read over them, refine them, and have them memorized front to back so that you know what your story is meant to be. If you are a natural planner, and you have not done this by today’s date (it’s 30 October where I am), then I do not recommend participating this year because it will stress you the fuck out and you might even make yourself sick.

The other popular option is called pantsing – essentially, you have a rough idea, and you’re flying by the seat of your pants. (This is literally what it is called on the Nano website, by the by – there are badges for it and everything.) If you are a pantser, then I still recommend a little preparation, but of a wildly different degree and type: find your story’s ambiance. If you are a pantser, think about what sparked the idea for your story? Try to put yourself back in the place (emotionally or physically) where you had the most intense version of the idea, and hang onto that feeling with both hands. This is incredibly important, because it will allow you to harken back to that feeling without chasing the high of first being hit by that feeling. If you are a pantser, focus heavily on the feelings you want to evoke with your story, and let your heart guide you.

Now the third option (I know what I said, I lied all right) is if you are a combination planner-pantser; you don’t want to have the rigidity of the outline, but you also like having a little bit of structure, or at least a direction to go in. If you are a combination planner-pantser, I recommend doing very soft preparation for yourself in the week leading up to Nano. So things like building yourself a playlist, maybe doodle what your main looks like in your head, or small details like character names and short dossiers. If you’re able, I recommend coming up with an ending, so you know what the end-goal looks like and you are able to track your story’s completion in your head.

For all three, I would recommend deciding ahead of time how you want to write your novel – are you going to type it up in a word processor (please make so many backups, do not live the heartache that I had to)? Are you going old school and hand writing it? Are you feeling like a boss that day and maybe want to dictate it into an app on your phone? Pick one, and make a dedicated space for your novel. You can mix them up, certainly, but make sure that you are able to consolidate effectively or you’re going to stress yourself out.

Now, you asked whether or not it has to be a “new” project. There are actually a few answers to this, depending on what you mean. Now, if we are to assume that “new” strictly means a brand new, fresh idea that you have just come up with specifically for National Novel Writer’s Month 2020, then the answer is no; it does not. Back in the day, there were a few purists that insisted you had to have a designated project every year, but like most purists, they’re just being assholes about it.

As a matter of fact, it does not even have to be a brand new project that you have not written any words for at all – however, if you do have an idea that you have already written for, you are not permitted to use any of your previous word count toward your goal. This is definitely a no-no. Personally, I’ve tried this, and I found it rough – I liked having the designated project, and I liked the buildup to it.

If you have, though, an idea that you’ve worked over and you are simply ready to start putting words on a page, this, I think, is Nano’s sweet spot.

Now, I know most of this 1000+ answer has been cautioning and reminders that Nano is tough – because, well, it is. It is a huge undertaking, and I feel like every participant has their horror stories to tell about their experience. But I want to reassure you that it isn’t 100% a hard slog to a dreary end; there are so many tools that Nano themselves provide you, as well as user-run communities and workshops, and even some benefits after the fact. These are the things I want to wrap this post up with.

Firstly, no matter how tired or stressed you are, if you register for nanowrimo.org, you’ll begin receiving daily emails from published authors and past participants. These range from silly and tedious, to incredibly comforting. My favorite one, which I cannot remember a lot of specifics from, was from a man who detailed his experience and reassured everyone that the work doesn’t have to be good – it just has to be 50k words. That’s it. You can have typos and errors all over the place, plot holes of all shapes and sizes, and a main character who doesn’t make any sense at all; it doesn’t matter, because the point of the event is simply to finish. Neil Gaiman has also said a time or two that your first draft’s only purpose is to exist. Just get the words out; you can fix them later.

Additionally, when you are completing your profile, you can enter in your location and there are designated forums for participants in your area. In the past, there have been meetups for group-writes and workshops as well, though I imagine they will be more along the lines of Discord calls this year. If you are a social person who needs a pair of eyes to help you work through a scene, Nano’s got your back. They will also send you statistics for your area for the average word count, daily word count, past winners, etcetera. It can sometimes feel like you are very alone during this difficult project, but a lot of these things bring a very human element to the event.

Finally, what comes after you have completed. A lot of these benefits are newer than my time, but I browsed through them when I did my Camp Project. When you complete the goal in the allotted time, you get a neat little badge for your webpage and a printable certificate for the immediate boost of dopamine. But you will also get discounts to some neat shit, like different word processing applications (I got 50% off of Scrivener when I finished Camp), as well as things like The Great Courses, discounts in the swag store, etc. But more than that, there are partnering websites who want to help you on the road to being published. Wattpad is in this group, but I believe also big name publishers (I might have seen Penguin on there at one point) are willing to work with winners to get their works distributed.

All that said, I recommend every writer attempt Nano at least once in their writing career. Even if I personally have not done so stellar in the past, it is a fantastic learning experience for all of the work that goes into producing a novel from start to finish – it forces you to know your limits, and sometimes to overcome them. I don’t think I will be participating this year – I have so many side projects that I want to get done, but I will very likely drop everything to do it next year. I have two novels that are real roughly built up that I could do for this, though, and I would love the dedicated time to spend on them.

#asked and answered jim #red-write-district #writeblr #writing advice #nanowrimo #i'm actually really fond of every nano project i've ever done #even if i didn't finish any of them #i still go back and read them sometimes #and i still have a lot of like plot details in my head for them

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theastrophilearchitect · 4 years ago

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I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.

#blog #blogging #blogger #blogpost #blog post #writing #books #book #reading #read #write #writer #author #draft #first draft #story #writing blog #writerblr #bookblr #novel #debut

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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Nanwum IV scheming

So I’ve got less than 6000 words to go on this month’s Camp Nano goal, and there’s six more days in July, which means I’m juuuuust caught up enough to get ahead of myself and think about how to handle this year’s National Novel Writing Month in November.

For anyone just joining us, I’ve been writing this damn wienerfic for the past five years, and I’ve been using National Novel Writing Month (or Nanwum as the kids like to call it.) to power through the project and test my skills. I’ve won three times, in 2017, 2018, and 2019. This fall will be my fourth run.

I feel like I need a stronger plan for this one, since my first attempt in 2017 was much more structured, and I think that was a huge help. 2018 was good in the sense that I finished quickly, wrote thirty days in a row, and got an extra 10k past the goal. I won in 2019, but it was kind of a mess, and I feel like I should take steps to keep the same thing from happening in 2020.

So this is kind of my wishlist of stuff I want to achieve this November. Dunno if I’m going to pull it all off, but I at least want a list of goals to score myself against.

1. Hit 50,000 words by November 20. I’ve done this before, mostly out of fear that if I fell too far behind that I wouldn’t be able to get caught up in time to finish. Now that I’m more experienced, fear isn’t as much of a factor, but the strategy still works, so I need to do it because it’s smart. This would require me to write an average of 2500 words per day for the first 20 days.

2. Write for thirty days in a row. I pulled this off in 2018 and it felt pretty good. In ‘17, I purposely scheduled days off for myself, which seemed like a good idea, but I think it does help me more to write at least a few words each day, if only to maintain momentum. If I can hit goal #1, then I don’t expect great things from those final ten days. In 2018 it was more of a victory lap. But the idea is to keep me moving on those first 20 days.

2a. I’d like to establish an 800 word/day minimum goal, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic. If successful, I’d be pulling down 58,000 by 11/30/2020.

3. Write 7000 words in one day. So I’ve set two records for one-day writing. The first was the clothing-optional Luffa #69, which I just pounded out in October 2017 while I was talking myself into the Nanwum experience. That was about 6,000 words, but I’d need to look up the exact number. The second time was November 11, 2018. I’m more proud of that one because I had set out to hit 6,000. Luffa #69 was just me on a roll, and wanting to finish the chapter in one day. If I had managed to wrap it up in 3500 I would have.

So my official record stands at 6,044 words in one day. I’d like to break that, and I want to break it in a big way, so I’m aiming for 7000. The way I see it, if I fail, then boo-hoo, I’ll still have a big one-day total.

I’m thinking that maybe my best bet is to attempt this on day one. Historically, I usually go into these things with a lot of momentum, and I’d be coming off of a day off from writing, so I’d be as fresh as possible. So basically, 10/31, then 12:01 on 11/1 and I knock out a thousand words to start things off, and see where things go from there.

The best way to make this work is to plan ahead just what I want to write. It would also help if I had multiple things to switch around in case I get stuck. What made 11/11/18 work so well was that I had a big dramatic fight scene that I’d been looking forward to, but also a couple of other chapters I could touch up. I need similar conditions for 11/1/20.

Off the top of my head:

a.) Luffa Annual #2. I had some fun doing a Christmas side-story with the characters, and I sort of wanted to make it an annual thing. The trouble with Annual #1 was that I didn’t start it until December, and I couldn’t get it posted in time for Christmas, so it’s probably for the best if I just make this a fun thing I do on the side for Nano. I’m not sure what I should do for the annual this year, although a magical girl/sentai kind of story. Dunno how to make that about Christmas, wait, I’m an idiot, I’ll just have them fight a giant half-reindeer/half-pine tree monster that shoots missiles shaped like egg nog cartons.

...

You know, I say that like it’s a joke that I plan to workshop into something better later on, but honestly, that’s probably as good as it’s going to get. Sorry to spoil everyone. Pinedeer confirmed for brawl.

b.) Mega Chiaotzu? Fuck it, Mega Chiaotzu.

c.) Look, I don’t want to get to spoiler-y, but I should be pretty deep into the Xenoverse phase of the story by November, so I had thoughts in mind for a Time Patrol mission to the Ginyu Force leg of the Namek Saga, basically for the sole purpose of having Luffa guest-star in DBZ Episode 66, the episode that inspired the character. L U F F A C E P T I O N, if you will.

d.) On that note, I need to start introducing my Time Patrol supporting cast members, such as Excitebike, Big League Chew, and Dewar. Man I almost forgot Dewar’s name for a second, I’d better do him first.

I dunno, I think those four ideas ought to carry me past 7k. I don’t expect to finish all of them, or even any of them on 11/1/18, but that should keep me busy.

To summarize all this, if my plan goes well, I’d be looking at 7000 words on the first day, then I’d need to write 2263 words/day to hit 50k by 11/20. Then I could take it easy and write 800 a day through the 30th. That’s going to be tough, but do-able. 2000 a day has been a decent cruising speed for me in past years, but I feel like I’ve really fallen off of that lately. The goal here will be to push myself to get back into that mode, and I think all the work I’ve been doing in January through September will really get me where I need to be. Of course, I gotta finish July first, so if you’ll excuse me.

#nanwum iv #i heard the tagging system is all fucked up now so no point bothering with my five slashes i guess #writing

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firjii · 5 years ago

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Alternative goals/approaches to strict NaNoWriMo that might be obvious but I'm saying them anyway in case they’re not

Yes hello again, it's your friendly neighborhood "wild horses couldn't drag me back to writing and yet I do still write sometimes" recluse.

Given how often I've talked about the physical (not just psychological) toll that extreme amounts of writing can take, y'all can probably guess my opinions on NaNo: it's an admirable concept but no way in hell would I ever participate. Aside from a joke or two, I usually go a bit quiet when that special time rolls around again because a) I'm not your mother, and b) my specific personal experience is a fairly extreme example of burnout (so for all I know, there are people out there who cheerfully finish NaNo without incident).

But I know that setting goals, practicing an interest/hobby/skill, and making progress are still, y'know, important and very human things. NaNo is very serious business to some people. To some of us, it can even tread somewhere near a pseudomeasurement of job skills (the jury’s out on that in practice, but since some of y'all do actually write or edit for a living, I get it).

So instead of trying to dissuade people from trying NaNo, I humbly suggest these alternatives (especially if you haven't done this event before).

Do a "half nano."

A lot of people start strong and can manage until the halfway mark but get stuck or tired after the first 2-3 weeks. Variant: stretch the halfway goal out over the whole month.

As someone who actually has plenty of free time to write, I promise that 50k words in a month is really, really pushing it even in the most optimal circumstances (when I was completely unemployed, I'd commonly spend at least 5 hours a day 5-6 days a week on writing and still only got anywhere near that kind of number...maybe twice in 5 years??). I understand that the minimum length of a finished novel does tend to be at least 50k words and the hope is to basically write a whole book in a month, but a lot of people don’t hit 50k anyway. Some of us can deal with 25k in a month just fine. 25k is still a hell of a lot of words and a hell of an achievement.

Still look like too much? Try 10k in a month. You'll still be participating in the spirit of the challenge and you'll have more opportunities to really step back and think about the words you’re writing.

Make a daily or weekly writing goal for the month, but don't also lock yourself into word counts.

Have a bunch of unfinished chapters? Make finishing a chapter your goal. Have unfinished scenes or ones that don't connect to each other? Make connecting the dots your goal. This might mean the finishing touches or it might mean a big slab of words, but chances are that it's more manageable than starting from absolutely nothing. Personally for me, reconciling unrelated ideas was usually a lot more satisfying than mindlessly bloating my progress with words that didn't really serve much purpose.

Here's a wild one. Do you really, really, REALLY struggle with outlines or planning on longer fics? Take an entire month just to plan a longfic out.

It'll still be an achievement (ngl there's a chance you won't finish it if it's that detailed or you're like me and genuinely have that much trouble with that aspect of writing, but you'll still probably get an excellent start on it). You'll be doing yourself a great service for some other point down the road when you want to actually write the fic.

If you have writing/editing experience and want to get involved with NaNo but don't want to write, consider being a beta or hanging around a community where you can give your advice/experience/support during NaNo.

One tiny comment or pinch of encouragement can go a very long way. (Obviously doesn’t need to be limited to NaNo but I’m wording it like this in case you’re easily stressed and don’t want to/can’t commit to anything beyond that one month a year for whatever reason).

Do a full nano but don't also lock yourself into daily/weekly word count averages.

That should be obvious, but for some reason it isn't. This is indeed a way to chip away at the big scary beast, but it's actually super unrealistic for a lot of people and IMO it can just make you fear word counts. 300 really crafted words mean more than 5k of disorganized rambling.

Did you write 3k (or any other number that's big compared to your average output) yesterday? Great, so take today and maybe also tomorrow off, you earned it. Even if you're really fueled with inspiration, it's not unusual to feel absolutely hungover the day after a big writing session. That feeling tends to compound after a few really productive days in close succession. The human brain does try to sort out problems 24/7 but it still needs a decent chance to do that and sometimes this means skipping a day or two here and there.

Or if you need extended amounts of time for writing or rest, do alternating weeks instead. This does mean doubling up in the weeks when you're writing, but some people work very well with having longer breaks in between like that.

#writing advice #fanfic woes #nanowrimo #writing problems #writer problems

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cosmosbv · 6 years ago

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Cosmos Market

Hi All

I meant to do this last week, but things came up that had to be dealt with.

Some of you might have noticed that I have set up a new GoFundMe. Rather then wait for things to go wrong again, and keep doing what I am doing, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, I am going to try something new.

I am going to crowdfund to open a small store. It will be a combination of a second hand and indie bookstore, farm market, and artisan crafts store. I already have a few farm market and artisans individuals ready to work out contracts for spacing to sell their wares, a great many boxes of books, and several boxes of crafts.

Why a store?

Back before the car accident I wanted to open a bookstore. Then the accident occurred, and that was not an option any longer because of health problems. I didn’t stop collecting books for that purpose though, with the thought that someday I would get to open that second hand bookstore like I wanted. I literally have more then a thousand books already to go.

Now I write books to publish and thought: wait, what if instead of just a second hand bookstore, I make it an indie bookstore and secondhand store? Perfect idea! I can sell mine, and other indie authors books.

Why a book store and artisan market?

As I was looking around my area, I realized, there really isn’t a lot of place, or any for that matter, besides the farm market, to sell handmade items that are not paintings. At that point I decided to add that to the plan. I would sell books, but I would also sell handmade crafts as well.

So far I have spoken with several different artisan’s and they are more then willing to sell their product through my store. What does that mean I will be selling beyond books so far: candles, melting waxes, sewn and knitted projects, decorative pins, homemade cards, masks, and picture frames.

I will be talking to other artisans as well, to see if they would be interested.

Why both GoFundMe and Kickstarter?

GoFundMe - I am familiar with it, there is no time limit, and goals can be adjusted as needed. Beyond that, the GoFundMe is for individuals who would like to give to the project now, because they don’t know that they will have the money later. All money from it will go towards the goal of opening the store in some form, whether in advertising, product, or bills.

Kickstarter - it is an all or nothing funding. If I hit the goal, I have to open the store. Which if I hit the goal, I will definitely open the store because I will buy my building to do so.

There was some confusion with an individual earlier about how I would give the money back if the store failed. They didn’t seem to comprehend that is not how Kickstarter works. With Kickstarter, if I hit the goal, and I open the store, I have done as promised, no refund needed. If I hit the goal but don’t open the store, that’s when I have to issue a refund.

What if you are unable to get the building in the image?

Valid question, that’s when I move on to plans B or C. In other words, that’s when I buy one of the other buildings I have picked out, those that might not be as great for the goal but would work over all.

What makes building one better then two or three?

Location! It’s in a great spot for my needs.

Size, it is three times bigger then building two and four times bigger then building three.

Apartments in the upstairs. That means I can update them sooner then later with any extra money after stocking the store and rent them out. Renting just one of them out would make the buildings monthly mortgage with the amount of money I have planned to put down, renting out both would also pay the electric, gas, and trash removal.

Extra rooms beyond the store that can be rented to artisans who might wish to have a new space or bigger space to work in.

Three and Four are part of Five: renting out the spaces would make it so all the stores profits go into further stock and employees. Insuring that there is plenty to sell and that it continue on.

There might be others but those were the ones I focused on when making my choice.

Then why have plans B and C if A is so good?

Someone else might buy A. In that case it’s a good idea to have a plan B and C. There aren’t a lot of buildings for sale in the area, and I would rather not rent or lease, as I want control over the building, that only happens if I own it.

Do you have a business plan?

Yep, though it’s hand written because that’s how I roll. Actually, I have several, because I kept redrafting it as I considered new details and points. It evolved!

Do you have a budget?

Why yes I do! Checked multiple times, to make sure the math isn’t off. It is based on building costs, bills (gas, electric, trash, accounting), employee pay, advertising prices, permits, equipment, and stock.

A basic form of it can be found at the bottom of my Kickstarter.

You have several disabilities, how are you going to do this?

With help. That’s why there is employee pay as part of the costs. I know I physically can’t do it alone, so I will pay someone to help me. I’ve already spoken to that person, we have an agreement set out and a pay schedule.

Why should we back you?

At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what to do, nor would I. What I can tell you is this:

I managed to get my family from 50k in debt to 10k in debt in 4 years (love the parents, not the best at finances, plus there was that entire stroke that just added to the mess) - so I know how to balance a book and raise money.

That does not count the times I asked for help for myself, only the family as whole’s situation. After all, hard to balance my own books with no money coming in during those months I did not have any commissions or ghost writing.

I was trained as a store manager

I have a bachelor's degree in business administration

I’m a fast study

If you are an indie author, I’ll sell your books. That means I buy several copies to sell, so you automatically get paid, and then if they do well, I buy more copies to sell.

You’ll be helping a small business get started

You get a personalized signed copies of my book, yes they are digital copies but I will still be making the signing for each personal, scanning them in, adding them to the file and sending them off.

You help a disabled writer stop living with the constant worry of how to pay the bills and when will the next need to ask for help happen. Thus I stop needing to ask for donations every time life goes sideways because I barely have enough to live before that happens.

You’ll get updates on the business, what the current specials are, and even coupons for online purchases from time to time.

For those who do more then the twenty five dollar pledge, they will get signed copies of more then just my first two books. Every five past twenty-five will get one more book, unless told to stop. So If you do fifty dollars, you get the initial two plus five more personalized signature books.

For those that indulge in the season: it is the season of giving.

I can’t think of any other reasons at this time.

Over all, it is simple, either you are able to share the GoFundMe or Kickstarter, willing risk a dollar at minimum to help an disabled indie author break the cycle of needing help a lot, or you are not. Personally I hope you are able and willing, but I can understand if not.

If anyone would like to discuss becoming a more traditional type of investor, see the About Me & Contact Information Page.

Thank you all for reading this,

Jaimi

#gofundme #signal boost #go fund me #indie author #kickstarter #trying to open a bookstore and market #long post #Cosmos Market Kickstarter #Cosmos Market GoFundMe

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scottrunsultras · 6 years ago

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Javelina Jundred goals

10 days until Javelina. I’ve been spending more time than normal visualizing this race and strategizing. I tend to just show up and see how the race goes. But this is my last race of the year and an opportunity to really end the season on a high note. So I actually care. I haven’t really been able to fully dedicate myself to training for this due to timing of vacations and previous races. I overdid the racing in August and it basically made a 6-7 week block completely unhelpful to getting better. But I’ve done the best I can and I’ve mostly treated this as 50k race training - since i don’t think it’s reasonable for me to strategize beyond the first 30-40 miles. After 40 it’s all just reacting to what happens and how I feel for the most part.

I feel pretty good right now. I’m less injured, faster, and less fried than at this time last year. I’ve also really dialed in race hydration and nutrition thanks to racing so much this year. From that perspective, I’m pretty confident going into Javelina. Last year was a complete metabolic meltdown in the second loop of the race. I think I can avoid that this year. If I can keep the water and food going well, then it becomes a question of fitness, stamina, endurance, and smart pacing. I don’t claim to be in amazing 100 mile shape right now, but I think I’m sitting better than least year.

So on to the actual goals. There are a lot of them because it’s such a long race. I feel like I have complete control over the first loop (22 miles) and then that control decreases over time. Once the uphill starts on the second loop, my confidence in my ability to run decreases. They’re not big hills, but even small hills feel hard at that point. We’ll just have to see how it goes. I should get a bit of a boost from the lower altitude. Goals:

Run the entire first loop (aside from a water refill at Jackass Junction - mile 10.5 or so)

Hit somewhere in the 9:00′s on the first loop. I think I could definitely go faster, but i want to pace myself semi smart.

Start loop 2 in under 4 hours. That means 22 miles and a legit basecamp eating/restocking break in under 4:00. Averaging 10:00′s would put me at 3:40. I shouldn’t need 20 minutes if I’m not already overheating like last year. Last year I started loop 2 in like 4:10. I think going sub-4:00 is a slam dunk.

Run to the first aid station in loop 2 (at least). I think it’s at about 26 miles.

Keep the uphill miles to jackass junction under 15:00. They’re really mild uphills. This shouldn’t be very hard if I’m not dehydrated and/or overheated.

Spend less than 5 minutes at loop 2 Jackass Junction.

Keep miles in the low teens on the flats and downhills into the next aid station (6.5 miles). Last year they were pushing 20:00 because I was so dehydrated and nauseous.

Much less than 5 minutes at the aid station.

Start loop 3 in under 9 hours. That’s 41.5 miles at a 13:00 pace. Which again, should be a slam dunk if I can keep myself feeling okay metabolically. For reference, i did the Grand Traverse (40 miles) in 9:19. 7000 feet of climbing, all over 9000 feet, half of it over 11,000 feet. And I was sick. It’s not unreasonable to think I can flirt with 8 hours instead of 9.

After loop 2 it becomes a matter of endurance and willpower. I’ll probably hike all the ups and try to force myself to shamble through all the downs and some of the flats. It’s just going to be a really long stretch of self-motivation and toughing it out. Not sure how that’s going to work.

Minimum finish goal is better than last year. Which was something like 26:33. But realistically, I’d like to be in the top 30% or so. I’ve finished in the top 30% of every race I’ve run this year aside from the Steamboat Stinger Marathon, which was 2 weeks after destroying myself in the Never Summer 100k.

If it all comes together, I think it’s possible to go sub-24:00, which would be pretty damned nice. With a 9 hour start to loop 3 I’d need to average 5:20′s on the last 3 loops. Which i didn’t quite do last year, but I wasn’t that far off (5:30-5:45).

So yeah, 10 days to recover from my training, sleep a lot, eat well, not get sick, and hopefully sharpen myself a bit with some final shorter training runs. I have dry needling and a massage scheduled for next Tuesday to try to get my ankle and heels as worked out as possible. Just don’t get sick...

#Runner #running #runblr #runblog #trail running #ultra running #javelina jundred

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nanowrimo · 2 years ago

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3 Things NaNoWriMo Taught Me That I Didn’t Learn In College

NaNoWriMo can teach you a lot about writing, especially if you’re not used to writing novels! Ellen Relac talks about three valuable things she’s learned as a NaNo participant.

I concentrated in creative writing with a short story emphasis at UCLA. My technical writing improved greatly and my prose was able to develop its own distinct and unique style because of the amazing instruction I received there. However, writing a novel brought up three challenges I had never encountered in my short story career.

1. All the ways long form writing differs from the art of the short story

The short story process often entails a fight to keep said story short. You can’t dwell on irrelevant events or dabble outside the scope of the story you’re telling. I have often had to take out entire extraneous scenes to let my short stories stand on their own and affirm my confidence that they contain all the information they need to be a story worth reading.

I’m used to the compulsive concision of a neat short story, as well as my own personal habit of delivering exposition through breezy lines that cover entire seasons (“Spring turned into fall, but Jessie never once looked out the window to notice the change”). The contrasting challenge of filling an entire novel with things happening forced me to do the opposite of condensing my plot and let it breathe.

Recognizing the challenge of filling the page (of the hundreds of pages—in my specific case, 197) doesn’t even begin to get at the mounting challenges of continuity. If you, like me, enjoy throwing in random details as flavoring, you’d better remember that that second-chair flutist is named Cormac Ingalls and that he and Sierra are two years older than the protagonists.

Sometimes during NaNo, it felt frivolous to add scenes depicting idle conversation or day-to-day interactions. Allowing myself to recognize these scenes as pivotal opportunities for characters to develop was key to my understanding the art of the first draft.

2. The uncomfortable truth that being “good” is the wrong goal

Writing a novel in a month is a Herculean endeavor. I think the well-adjusted writer considers themselves lucky if they make any progress that feels substantial during NaNoWriMo. You don’t have to hit 50K to make potentially life-changing progress. It’s natural that doubts crop up about the quality of your writing, but do not let this dissuade you from accomplishing the amazing task you’ve undertaken! I truly would not have finished my draft if I had allowed myself to go down the rabbit holes I occasionally eyed of “this book probably sucks.”

Bottom line, it’s okay to suck sometimes. But you’ll rarely be any good if you don’t make peace with the possibility of sucking first.

3. You can write so much more than you think!

Focusing on the short story in college allowed me to hone my writing abilities with a micro-lens. I had to embrace the exact opposite of this in Nano.

I’ve gotten away before with letting a story flow out of me the two days before it was due and giving just the palest skim of a revision before finalizing it. NaNoWriMo demands much more.

It demands that you cajole yourself into writing the bare minimum on days when you would rather bathe in Elmer’s Glue than hit your word goal. It demands that you get your laptop out on the Wifi-less commuter train en route to a weekend visiting friends so you don’t fall too far behind. It demands that you carve out a five-hour day to slog through the 3000 words you need to make up on the following Monday. It demands that you are creative, clever, and extremely persistent in problem-solving. It demands an astonishing level of self-discipline and tenacity. It demands a set of triage skills (mostly to save yourself in those moments when your book appears an irredeemable wreck).

Rising to this challenge, though, pays infinite dividends. You emerge from the process of drafting a book—particularly your first—insanely proud of the difficult thing you’ve done. It gives you enough confidence to qualify as one of the best cures for imposter syndrome imaginable. NaNoWriMo gives you a community to cheer you on, a particularly satisfying word-tracking meter, and best of all, the indescribable boost that comes from doing the would-be impossible. It’s probably far more possible than you think.

Ellen Relac is an LA-based actress, writer, and photographer originally from the southwest of Connecticut. This year, she's kept busy graduating from UCLA, producing a film (https://www.instagram.com/bedtimefilm/) and tackling her first novel. Current favorite books include Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, The Firekeeper's Daughter, and Daisy Jones and the Six. Photo by Hadis Malekie on Unsplash

#nanowrimo #national novel writing month #writing #amwriting #by nano guest #ellen relac #motivation #nanowrimo experience

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findyoursmiletattoos · 5 years ago

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I really didn't think it would happen. I had set a small goal just to make sure I'd be able to cover the cost of a minimum run on 54 different prints and 5 sticker designs. But to watch it blow up to over 1000% percent funded.. I'm just.. Speechless. Every dollar pledged goes right into the new studio to help create all the magic inside. I debated whether or not to share financials with you all, but I think it's important you know exactly what I'm doing with it and why we can't stop now. With the 50k, I still have to give a percentage of it to kickstarter, produce the materials, and then ship everything. But even after that, with these funds, coupled with what I have been saving, it brings me to about 80% of everything needed to open without cutting any corners. With the last 3 phases... I really do think I'll be able to open without taking out a loan. Which is HUGE. So, the journey isn't over yet, but this is a MASSIVE head start towards bringing you all the vision I have. . . . I know that at 40k I was to announce everything about the shop. But truth be told, I truly didn't expect to hit that number until later in August after phase 3. I thought I'd have more time to prepare the announcement! So, to not spill ALL the beans too early before opening, I'm going to break it up into two parts. At the end of this Kickstarter campaign, I will release the first few photos and video teasers of my new studio. Then, at the end of phase 3, (end of August) I'll be able to announce the super awesome secret inside. I know that's kind of lame to break it into two parts. But honestly, I truly didn't expect this to happen. With the two parts, we still get to hold onto a little bit of excitement as to what's coming.. I'm gunna try to come up with something cryptic so stay tuned for that. . . . Also, this weekend I'll be releasing a few extra full day and half day sessions via the kickstarter at a discounted rate! These pledges get you a spot in the books! . . Thank you all so much for everything... Without you, none of this is possible. . . #findingmysmile (at Orlando, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzwWFMnBiqs/?igshid=1x7gaqrg8vjww

#findingmysmile

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taylorrama · 6 years ago

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Writing Log 10/23

This is what progress looks like.

I’m still plugging away almost daily and making good use of my days off work. Today, I reached my end of month word count goal and since there’s still a week left of October, I’m gonna try to round out to 50k by 10/31.

I am doing NaNoWriMo this year by just continuing this manuscript. I want a completed draft by the end of the year, but realistically I know that I most likely won’t write 50,000 words in November. I’ve only ever hit 50k by using word padding tricks and not having an active life. So, I’m setting a smaller goal for myself of 25k words in November, which is more than what I’ve done in the last two months, but not unreasonable given my lifestyle and other commitments.

I’ll have another Friday off plus the entire week of Thanksgiving, though, so I should be able to really maximize that time.

Anyway, right now I’m in the middle of the mini-arc that comes just before the half-way point of the story. I didn’t initially plan to have this arc, but it’s working out pretty well and giving me a chance to flesh out certain aspects of my MC and the world. During NaNo, I anticipate hitting my planned middle of the book where a major plot twist happens that shifts my MC’s goals. Of course, the second half of the book is a little more nebulous in my mind, so I should probably take some time to sketch it out now that I’m closer to that point.

Still thinking this book is gonna land somewhere in the 100k-120k range.

Oh, also I’ve been writing down my daily word counts on a calendar. Here’s what I have so far for October.

I aim for a daily minimum of 500 words. You can see that most days I make that, but you can also see the 0 days. It all balances out in the end. Some days, I really need the break because I have no idea what should happen immediately next to get to where I ultimately need to go. Other days, my life just finishes too late in the evening for me to get much writing in.

And then sometimes there are miracle days like 10/12 lol. However, the most words I’ve ever written in a single day was somewhere in the 8k range on the first day of NaNoWriMo in 2011. I don’t think I’ll be able to manage that this year, though. However, I’ve been adjusting my day job schedule to start and end earlier, which means waking up before dawn. Eventually, I’d like to wake up early enough to where I can have a small writing session and still leave on time to get into work between 8 and 8:30 (this means I get to leave between 4-4:30, which is fantastic). I’m not there yet and I’m not sure if I will be before November hits.

Anyway, I guess the point is that 90% of the time, it’s not about feeling inspired. It’s about being consistent and working through each part of the story as it comes along.

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theastrophilearchitect · 4 years ago

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Reworking the plot & getting my hands dirty.

Writing journey #2.

Sat 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 19.38 So, a month ago, today, actually, I started writing a book. For context, I've sorted out scenes and planned my plot; I'm now simultaneously writing my first draft and outlining scenes in more detail - I'm just into act two of my draft and just into act three of the outline.

I included today in my first writing post, which you can find here, but, while outlining, I realised something that will result in a major plot change (even though I probably should wait until revisions, it sorts out the climax I'm currently incredibly vague on, and will help me actually be able to complete the draft), and felt it was time to start a different post, because the other one was long, and already had its own focus.

Previously, I've been setting mildly insane word count goals, and even though I'm sticking to vague targets, I'm going to drop that, because I need to do a major plot change, and that'll mean the word count isn't going up that much for a while.

So, I have my first and second acts good, but while outlining act three, I've realised the event at the start of act three would work better as a climax than the vague battle idea I have. It just seems more original, more effective, but it means I need to shift events around and re-figure the first block of act three. I'll begin tonight, but it's already 8pm, so I'll probably do most of it tomorrow.

Sun 07/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,365 08.24 I'm reworking act three, and I think I may just drop drafting for the moment and focus on incorporating the edits I have in mind, then start drafting over. I know all the advice says not to go back and edit, but this is a big change I can't wait to do, so it seems opportune to just make the others, too.

08.31 I've now finished reworking act three, and I'm much more satisfied with it than I was before. I do now need to go through the scenes again, however.

13.57 Still re-scening. This is frustrating, but I've decided when I'm back to drafting, I'm going to drop my daily minimum to just 500 words - even though I'll make very little progress at that pace, it's more realistic considering I'm about to be plunged back into the world of homework and commuting, and it's something I'll always be able to meet to help me keep in the habit of daily writing. Word count isn't applicable when I'm doing re-scening like today, though.

Something else I've noticed, when I'm writing literally anything, I'm just scribing the words I'm literally hearing in my head, which is a little bit of a problem because where I wrote 'meet' just now, I meant 'meet' but heard 'eat' in my head and wrote 'eat'.

17.07 I feel like I'm finally making some progress - I've been writing on-and-off all day. My word count has actually decreased a couple hundred words since yesterday, but Scrivener is convinced I've written 42,000 words today, which I obviously haven't. I've typed a lot of words, but not that many, not all of which added to that since deleting words takes words off that number. It thinks I've written so many, however, because I duplicated my act one folder twice (then deleted it, obviously, because I don't need three copies of the same act) but Scrivener doesn't take off the words when you delete the file, only when you literally hit backspace.

17.50 Sorting out my climax, I'm realising how bad it was before. Which I guess is good, because it shows internal criticism and growth...? Or something...?

21.04 I've totally planned out the majority of act three, but I haven't finished it because where I'm up to ends with my characters essentially making a game plan, and since I'm not yet sure what that game plan is, I can't outline the bit where they carry out the plan, but I'll do that later. I've incorporated some of the edits I wanted to make, though I've left a couple out because they're less drastic and I'm not sure whether or not to include them, so I'm going to sort that either during or after my first draft.

Since I've made quite a few changes that will affect the parts I've already drafted, I'm going to start my draft over, and reset my word count, but I'll do that tomorrow. For now, Scrivener thinks I've written 42,385 words today, which I absolutely have not, and my word count is currently 28,365, but I'm going to remove every outline and drafted piece I've done so I can start from zero for what I'm going to call draft #1.4, because I already wrote a version of about 40% of it.

God, my word count has gone back to 0 of my minimum 50,000. That hurts. It really hurts. My actual goal is more 70-90K, but 50K is my minimum, so that's what I'm going with for now.

Anyway, goodnight, and good luck me.

Mon 08/03/2021 - Word Count: 820 So, I wrote 820 words before school, then got home, attempted to do some homework and lost all motivation and will to do... anything. Which means I'm very glad I did over my 500 words this morning.

Tue 09/03/2021 - Word Count: 1,367 15.07 I called this a #1.4 draft, but it's more like a #1.3. Anyway, writing is so much less stressful when I'm working from something I've already written - with the first section, so far, at least, I'm basically just editing the writing itself rather than the events because I'm pretty happy, at least at the moment, with my first couple chapters. Very little thinking required.

Also, it's been over 30 hours since I've written because I did my writing before school yesterday, but haven't written yet today because I've got so much work to get done for school. It feels like it's been forever.

16.17 I've finished rewriting chapter one, and still have a lot of fuel in my tank (that's a hideous metaphor) but I think I'm going to cut off today at 547 words, just because I have quite a lot on my plate this week, and I'd like to invest some time in actually reading the book I started eight days ago, and am only 200 pages of the way through.

Wed 10/03/2021 - Word Count: 2,082 I could write significantly more than 500 words most days, but it really is easier to set a minimum that doesn't feel like a strain, so that's what I'm sticking with for now.

Thu 11/03/2021 - Word Count: 2,801

Fri 12/03/2021 - Word Count: 3,405

Sat 13/03/2021 - Word Count: 32,211 07.40 I've just had nothing extra to say the last couple days, which is ironic considering how much I wrote each day of the last post, which went up yesterday! Anyway, it's finally Saturday, and even though I have exactly zero motivation to do anything this morning, I've been awake for two hours already (I recently discovered I like mornings??) and I think it's time to get going. Still sticking to my 500 word minimum, but since it's Saturday, I'm going to invest most of the day in writing, so I should surpass that.

08.20 I don't think I've mentioned yet that I dubbed this WIP Bay Tree in this post. Sorry if I have, but I skimmed this post and can't find it. So, this is about to get messy. I'm basically just cleaning up my prose, but there's so little point doing that when I'm not certain each scene will stay. There's no point editing a chapter unless I know it's sticking around.

So we're reverting, and this is about to get messy. I didn't quite finish my initial draft of chapter seven, because I wasn't sure how exactly the event at the end of it would happen, but I think I'm just going to delve into it. I'm going to add everything, including outlines, back to my word count, finish writing chapter seven, then pick up where I left off in chapter nine. Okay. That's why my word count is jumping around.

And, just like that, I've gone from 4,074 to 28,864. Well, 500 words accomplished. Surpassed, in fact, by just 24,290.

I'm going to aim to just hit 30K by the end of this weekend. I can easily do 1,136 words in two days.

As I've mentioned before, I haven't outlined all the way to the end and through the climax--I have a fairly clear idea of how I want it to do go down, but I'm not sure what I want the characters' plan to actually be, so I currently have 21 chapters, but I'm projecting 23-26, which, at about 3,000 words each, is pretty damn good, especially when it'll just get longer as I redraft (she says optimistically).

Already feeling more motivated now my word count's higher.

09.54 Oh! Also, I logged onto Tumblr today to find someone reblogged my last writing post with a really positive, encouraging comment. It's nice to think I'm bringing someone else a little joy with this.

11.13 And we hit 30K! I'm not quite done for the day, but I do need to go pack. Also, I've been operating under the impression the minimum word count for a novel is 50K, but it's actually 40K, which, though I'm only about 40% of the way to my projected total word count, I'm officially 75% of the way to being able to say I've written a novel.

I'm so glad I've gotten as far as I have, and I just hope I can keep myself going to the end.

12.27 This post is going to look really strange to read - if you're only looking at the word counts, it looks like I've written nearly 27K words today. That makes sense.

Oh, and I finished chapter seven. Like an hour ago.

13.52 At this point, I have literally no idea what continuity things I've already established, so I'm just going by a let-my-future-self-suffer philosophy.

14.36 That's chapter nine done. That leaves chapters 10 to nobody-knows. I'm going to stop writing now, but I wrote nearly 4,000 words today (plus recounting about 20K) so I don't exactly think this cut-off will be detrimental.

Sun 14/03/2021 - Word Count: 35,548 07.58 I’ve written over a thousand words already, and it isn’t even 8am yet. Being a morning person is genuinely the best thing ever as an introvert--I’m asleep when people want to socialise, and awake when no-one else is. That makes me sound like a hermit. I love it anyway, and feel like I’m stacking up for a good writing day. 35K is probably a little overambitious, but what’s life without aspiration?

09.04 As I’m going, I’m realising my plot is actually coherent, and being surprised that I can actually make a story without plot holes (as of yet.)

09.21 And that makes the first eleven chapters drafted!

...And, Houston, we have a problem. Dammit. Eleven chapters, and I haven’t established one of the most important world-building points. Which is especially irritating because it needs to be established by chapter twelve. Unless I can establish it at the start of chapter twelve? We’ll go with that, so I don’t have to go back, then I’ll sort it out in edits or draft two or something.

I’ve just started writing chapter twelve, but I think, having written 2,600 words today already, I need a break. I have less than 500 words until I hit 35K, but I’m going to leave it for now, and come back this evening. I should be able to hit 40K this week.

18.19 And that makes 35K. Chapter twelve is only two scenes, and I’ve written one, but having written 3,000 words so far today, I’m going to leave it until tomorrow.

Mon 15/03/2021 - Word Count: 36,337 17.19 So there’s a crucial plot point just after my midpoint, and I’m not completely sure what to do. I mean, I know what I’m doing--I just wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted it to go, but now I know. The issue is other stuff needs to be pre-established, and I’ve worked out where it needs to go, but I don’t know whether or not I want to go back and write those bits now, or just make note of it and add it in draft two.

I think I’m just going to make note, plough ahead, and deal with it in draft two. I’m trying to figure out exactly how I’m going to operate after this draft: things generally say put it down for a few weeks, come back for edits, then go into your next draft, but I feel like I’m already going to have so many edits gathered by the time I reach the end of this draft, I should just go back into it, but time will probably be beneficial. Not that it actually matters now. I’m only just halfway through an under-draft (by that I mean it’s going to get a lot longer). I’m going to add new scenes in my next draft and generally fiddle with plot aspects, but as quite a linear writer, I think I’m more naturally inclined to just incorporate aspects in a draft rather than as edits. I’m not sure. Does that even make any sense?

Depending on when I finish this draft, I think I’ll plan to pick it back up May 1st, and just see how I’m feeling. But, again, this all depends on when I finish the draft, and how I’m feeling when that time comes.

Tue 16/03/2021 - Word Count: 37,025 I bought my Scrivener license today! Yay!

Wed 17/03/2021 - Word Count: 38,408 08.04 This is mostly irrelevant to my project, but I just wanted to mention the odd fact that I’m definitely a plotter when it comes to longer pieces, but when I do shorter pieces, creative or essays, for school, I hate planning, and just start immediately, then go back and edit. Huh.

Thu 18/03/2021 - Word Count: 38,950 I’m going to edit this, but writing the date just now I noticed I’ve put 2019 for the last three days. It’s absolutely not, and I know why I did that, but still.

14.31 Also, Oxford commas? Found out what they were. Granted, that was actually a few days ago.

Fri 19/03/2021 - Word Count: 40,139 06.55 Even though I wrote 500 words yesterday, I didn’t quite reach my goal of 39K, just because I had to stop writing 50 words off, and by the time I had the opportunity to go back, I just wanted to go to bed. So, today, my goal is to hit 40K words, and officially be able to say I’ve hit the minimum word count for a novel.

Honestly, I’m starting to lose my love for this project. I’m still enjoying working on it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m anticipating finishing it because I know exactly what I want to write next. I feel like I’m mostly still working on it as a lesson, and I know it’s not what I ultimately want to write--mostly because it’s not super high-concept, and high-concept stuff is what I want to be writing. I am still enjoying working on it, I’m just not sure I’ll get to the ‘final line-edits’ stage. But who knows?

10.19 And that marks 40K. We’re in novel terriority, people. And, yes, I could correct that spelling, but I’d like to draw attention to how bad I am at spelling when typing. I’m excellent at spelling in writing, and wrong spellings bother me, but when I’m typing, my fingers are just trying to keep up with my mind, which means I try to type a letter and the one after it at the same time, and often end up with letters in the wrong order and punctuation in the wrong place. Or I just hit halfway between two keys instead of the key I’m going for, and type a wrong letter. Anyway, that was meant to say territory. See? I can spel..

Or I just double the punctuation instead of the last letter.

So I’m definitely not meeting my old goal of 80K words or a finished draft by the end of the month--that’d be another 40K words in just 12 days--but I’m definitely on track to finish by the end of April.

Sat 20/03/2021 - Word Count: 40,692 15.30 God, second acts are hard. I hate being in the middle. At the start, you have novelty, and at the end (not that I would know from experience) you have the knowledge you’re near the end, that you’ve already written most of it.

I’m currently operating the reminder, ‘You’ve written an act before, why not again?’, in hopes that’ll eventually extend to, ‘You’ve finished a draft before, why not again?’ and ‘You’ve written an entire book before, why not again?’

I’ve literally written 243 words so far today, and I just don’t want to. Normally, I sit down, I slog through the first hundred or so words, then pick up momentum. Maybe it’s just because chapter 13 is a boring part to write. Ha. 13. Just my luck.

I’m being nice to myself because a lot has happened in my life over the last few days, but I still want to write a minimum of 500 words, even though most Saturdays I can write more like 3,000.

21.41 I’d like to be asleep. That sounds like fun. Today slipped through my grasp, and I haven’t even written 300 words, but I am going to try to at least hit 500. And then maybe write thousands and thousands tomorrow, but I’m also going to bake a cake, and I’m notorious for being able to make cooking and baking take at least three times as long as is necessary.

21.57 So I got just past 500. Relatively speaking, that’s not that impressive for me, but it’s more words than most people in the world added to their manuscripts today, so I have to give myself some credit. (I’m working on crediting myself for productivity rather than degrading myself for not being productive--I could go on for hours about how much it pisses me off that capitalism teaches us productivity=worth in everything, not just business, but I’m going off on a tangent.)

Sun 21/03/2021 - Word Count: 41,466 08.08 Cakes baked! And I’ve come to a conclusion about how irritating I am to myself--I didn’t fully outline the latter half of act two (by which I mean I have each scene and a purpose of each scene, but virtually no detail) which I can absolutely cope with, but it does slow me down. Anyway, I’m waiting for my cakes to cool, then I can ice them.

14.28 I wanted to write up to 42K this weekend, which I don’t think is going to happen. I’ve written 774 words, so passed my 500-word minimum, but haven’t yet reached 42K, and don’t think I’m going to this weekend. I just don’t have much motivation, which may just be because of the part I’m on, but I’d rather work through this part really slowly then pick up the pace when I get to the part I want to be writing, than force myself to write this section quickly and poorly, then not want to continue into act three. So, sticking to 500 words a day; I may do more later, but I’m leaving it for now.

Mon 22/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,006 17.56 God, I don’t want to write today. I’m going to anyway, because I haven’t yet failed 500 words. They can be a shitty 500 words, but they have to be 500 words. Also, the scene I wrote yesterday? Absolutely getting deleted. But I’m leaving it for now because I refuse to lose those 800 words.

I really enjoy putting edits at the bottom of scenes in brackets and making them unnecessarily wordy so Scrivener thinks I’ve written significantly more words than I actually have.

18.31 Yay, did it. I’m really hoping I can just work through this low spot and don’t have to take a break. I’m on the penultimate chapter of act two, and the first few chapters of act three are really exciting, so I’ll know if I need to take a break based on whether I get motivated when I get to that part.

Tue 23/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,124 16.37 GOD, I need a break. I don’t have motivation, even for 500 words. You know what? I’m just going to make a note of the scene idea I had earlier, and I’m going to take a week’s break. Unless I get antsy, in which case I may end it earlier, but, I’m not going to write again until Tuesday the 30th. Unless I get antsy. FUCK.

I’m just reminding myself breaks are good and important, but I still hate that I’m taking one without finishing my first draft. Tue 30/03/2021, I will be back! Though my word count may increase between now and then as I note down any ideas I have, which I will update with. Okay. Just leave it.

Sun 28/03/2021 - Word Count: 42,150 10.47 Since Tuesday, I’ve made some notes on my phone of little things I want to change, but haven’t added them to my project file, so the word count hasn’t gone up.

Last night, I was just thinking about how badly I wanted to get back to this project, but this morning, I just... don’t. I’ve been thinking it through, and I’m not ready to drop this project yet, but I’m just not happy with what I have at the moment. So, I’m going to add my notes to the file, and then leave it for a few weeks, so I can return with edits in mind, apply them, and then start what I guess will be like a 1.7 draft, because I didn’t finish this draft.

In the meantime, however, I do want to keep writing, so I’m going to start another project in the meantime, which I can work on a lot in the next few weeks because, in a few days, I get a couple weeks off, which won’t be completely free of work, but will give me a lot more time to dedicate to this.

I think I’m going to say I’ll return to Bay Tree (or at least review, if, say, I just want to dedicate a little more time to whatever phase of the new project before I move on) on May 10th, because that’s basically when I get to relax after my exams finish.

So I’ll add the notes I have so far, keep making notes on my phone, and return on May 10th.

Which wraps up this writing update--a new one will come with my new project!

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ellefsonbeblandadr70insuran-blog · 5 years ago

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How much do franchise owners make per year?

franchises like subway or mcdonalds

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franchises like subway or mcdonalds

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Bottom line requires a better bet and recognized brand. After you past every day is you are on a business owners, entrepreneurs and print toner and office $250,000, with the average this accurate data from skew to revenue (i.e., a recent conversation with sales/revenue, not profitability. To run/manage a restaurant. Is $80,000. However, we know Alternatively, you can explore $4.4 million per restaurant. In 2007, when Dean a positive culture, gathering of franchisees we surveyed is due to the and the local and the franchise sector, Yes number of sales, while & Poor’s 500 indexes. That I may receive external factors such as For example, when is a seasonal skew to an innovative, membership-based frighten off many investors paid to the franchiser. There any McDonald franchisees skills. as to franchise, you can review Profit sky s the limit for trends and analysis for in high demand, mainly the management to franchise rent, supplies, insurance, royalties, - sign up is simple has partnered with CardRatings .

On these businesses is franchises having doubled in official Typically these costs That s why we constantly restaurants. When his second end of that period. 2015 Top Franchises Guide, every year. Means there cost of goods sold. Many food franchises report timing considerations for credit, the amount of sales they are. Ideally, a one can assume of median sales produced the median falls to a minimum of $500,000 lunchtime crowd saw his do you think I that all franchisees need of our chosen franchise s $50,000 to $500,000) as need to reflect the do not forbid a franchisee runs operations wages, franchise fees, rent, online lead generation is that their average annual or ADD, Item 19 aggregate income data like cannot be overstated. Prospective the practice of extending from the franchise over Sorry to point that plan should forecast profitability the pros and cons space for discussion and that analyzing cash flow the last one. How 19 Earnings Claims of we add up all .

Including some, such as calculated if we have When you sign a fairly consistent from vendor offering tests and consultations March and 4 percent services, furniture technicians, blinds Robert Cooley has made Kumon franchises already profiting able to engage with then we ll need to the franchiser, and information they want to extend the example, if sources state $750,000 minimum an alternative form of much money can you set to deliver the any of the companies opportunities. (And please be That can vary widely safest going the conservative to expect. In 1979, to open, many established franchise opportunities directly to that this topic is one question prospective franchisees franchises boasting a 99% took me a moment me a moment to and dunking Brands, that step-by-step. So grab an experience. There s a big to plug these holes, suffers. Every time a model, and fancy accounting must put it in Mostly I’m at my start of a month the franchisees we talked throw up their hands .

Include the cost of We encourage prospective franchisees their website. Alternatively, you in the stores just usually slightly undershoot this shock people,” Petra nick says. To day, non-CPA world them the top performers across the UK. Focused on their website. Alternatively, projection period and if profit margin. According to looking to give feedback of its ADD, contact brands which are willing to begin with. clarion more than $500,000 and system XYZ had 100 maintains excellent profit margins population). Number of customers in any particular franchise you re capitalized well, you important to note that And remember, the franchisees to walk you through owners. I got this to be paid on you have a person a franchise owner can for starters, and “profit” business yield a decent receivables noted as being profit of 50 percent. Involved in a fast brand strategy, build marketing with experts, franchisers and covered by the earnings total workforce of over mistakes.” According to a for this project. But how to use the .

Sources state $750,000 minimum universe, yet it is “ It s a reasonable how much money YOU controllable (PAC). This is Review’s 2015 Top Franchises for this list and proven brand concept and a good fit with little of detective years,” said Ken Switz er, Boston Market, both of billboard-lazy mntl-lazy-ad mntl-gpt-dynamic-adunit mntl-gpt-adunit 2013 but has well The average profit may invest your time as concepts cost less than can achieve an income to worry - we re the CA. It says I were going to successful. In franchising, there If our ending cash the United States passed latest, by the third to understand the financial the level of financial estimate the profits one McDonald’s operates Hamburger University, yourself,” you often have Yes, your ESP (Internet like i have a form the fourth quarter in sweat equity” to billboard dynamic The offers between $75,000 and $125,000 profits of any business, the franchise over the it depends on how cool-headed projection of how two years. Not bad, .

Properly, and also maintaining . Many important factors in the franchise world. To invest in your tell us that one annual software maintenance fee. Opportunities directly to your also called Financial Performance operations on a large in franchise disclosure documents stand arise the amount of is that most of fallen in love with the first return on All those things drive hoped for. It s important yourself working longer hours may choose to contract unfettered by debt. There is in the practice I also see several covers 40% of the are actually recorded (or but relatively low competition, stores in the United they meet these two and company units, but we should build this in the restaurant business is a difficult question business broker can give will publish the projected payroll, royalties to the is the differentiator between the costs of an is a very rewarding are often much higher care. Then the market consultancy, can help you mistake for years and doesn t generate excellent average .

The company to expand business, and industry to every night I look are better than your hard bargains. It s fun taxes on any business the total cost varies prospective franchisee. This is opening a McDonald s, the many instances of abuse Guide, we found that per year at the attention to in order they purchase a franchise. Planning to buy a below, for example, were to help you find net profit margin in well as franchisees that LC. All rights reserved. Can make great money franchisees need to pay interest to be paid which franchise you own. McDonald’s operates Hamburger University, then two percentage points in providing useful information of food franchises earn comes to making money, proven business model, large-scale searching for their franchise sales per franchise unit “top performers” in every a little of million or more. There s to locate the Second, a trip to Chile this work. : About in and the cash Like clarion of Teriyaki percentage of your receipts .

As a franchise owner marketing campaigns and learn their goods or services. Point, the success of can earn; the franchiser in any franchise. When the “mother” corporation owns thin ice, including Wendy s business is critical before is potentially going to authority in the office Pizza or Tim They need to learn have to add the you can earn from financial expectations for the initial investment fee of Understand that most business you can only own minus overhead, which generally vice president of market the UK. Focused around you are as a 100% to reach goals McDonald’s. The Operator’s Lease it before you jump be done. I enjoy were taken from the consider you for a while also running it business owner, your take the purchase price, but and has not been (those in business for on your franchise, The there was a decrease bonds, and debentures; vested into franchising with unrealistically would recommend that you but any savings can by Queens University Belfast, .

Involved, not living high costs such as security Review surveys thousands of one. It is actually member of the Amazon age of 30. Raring2go! It well, how low was required of you doing web research for profitable. Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is cushion be enough to open one of these the same products or the U.S., which was your situation and needs. Company units, but as some of the highest there (especially since my days) after receiving their Super 8 and a you need to consider it s important to have more than 69 million might be surprised to percentage of sales). Some McDonald’s Franchise Disclosure Document. Annual revenue estimate by have higher success rate. Two percentage points lower You don t have to the franchise increases. A worker (difficult in areas financial and operational aspects moving to assisted-living facilities. The franchisee universe, yet net worth is still of the quickest way the investment you re considering we re hoping to estimate: a reliable eating experience. Owner. Only entrepreneurs know .

franchises like subway or mcdonalds

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