Progress Report: 1/26/09--2/1/09
Starvation
Word Count: 14,392
Page Count: 70
The goal was two chapters, but only one got completed. I started chapter seven with simply too much junk in my head of what I wanted to convey, and ended up rambling for too many words and too many pages without the chapter really going anywhere. Which meant that I had to sleep on it, of course, and stew and mull and kick myself over how the chapter really needed to be. Ended up writing it late at night after reading the previous (and at that point, only) chapter from my secondary protag's POV, and was able to use the last line of that chapter to jump start this one. What I ended up with is very different, very internal, but with any luck, right on the emotional money. We'll see.
Chapter eight was a lost cause, mostly because I didn't have the brainpower to concentrate on it and I also kept researching what bodily organs a person has on the right side of the body, and from there, I kept extrapolating just what kind of damage a person might sustain if said person were stabbed. It's such a great thing to have friends who are married to doctors: I called digitalclone up with a few questions and got my answers without so much as a bat of an eyelash. Which is nice, because there's some questions the internet just doesn't have answers for.
I also spent a good deal of time this week cleaning up what I've written so far, the total of which is at the top of this entry. The first twenty pages were sent off to a small crit group I'm participating in, and the whole kit and caboodle was sent off to digitalclone, because it's high time the two of us start critiquing each other's work again.
digitalred93 asked me a question about my word count goal per week, and I thought I'd answer it here. The question is: what's my word count goal? My answer: I don't have one. Not the greatest plan in the world, I admit, but if I were under deadline of any sort, you'd bet your ass I'd have one. My very LOOSE goal for the year is just to finish the rough draft of this novel, and for that, I've got lots of time. However, if it's not done or very close to it by the end of June, I'll need to get cracking.
But for the time being, I'd like to be churning out two chapters a week, and that's been tough because the previous two chapters have had false starts, and that's a lot of wasted wordage. How to get focused again? Hard to say. I have an outline in my head, and I need to make my imagination fill in the blanks while I'm away from the desk so that when it's time to write, I know where I'm going.
No, don't even bother suggesting outlining. My deal to myself is to follow the general path in my head for the sake of the rough draft so I don't lose the excitement of the story by outlining it BEFORE I write it. However, when this rough draft is done? I might very well outline the second draft, because it worked well for my thesis novel, and it might work well here too.
And that's it. To chapter eight and beyond!
Word Count: 14,392
Page Count: 70
The goal was two chapters, but only one got completed. I started chapter seven with simply too much junk in my head of what I wanted to convey, and ended up rambling for too many words and too many pages without the chapter really going anywhere. Which meant that I had to sleep on it, of course, and stew and mull and kick myself over how the chapter really needed to be. Ended up writing it late at night after reading the previous (and at that point, only) chapter from my secondary protag's POV, and was able to use the last line of that chapter to jump start this one. What I ended up with is very different, very internal, but with any luck, right on the emotional money. We'll see.
Chapter eight was a lost cause, mostly because I didn't have the brainpower to concentrate on it and I also kept researching what bodily organs a person has on the right side of the body, and from there, I kept extrapolating just what kind of damage a person might sustain if said person were stabbed. It's such a great thing to have friends who are married to doctors: I called digitalclone up with a few questions and got my answers without so much as a bat of an eyelash. Which is nice, because there's some questions the internet just doesn't have answers for.
I also spent a good deal of time this week cleaning up what I've written so far, the total of which is at the top of this entry. The first twenty pages were sent off to a small crit group I'm participating in, and the whole kit and caboodle was sent off to digitalclone, because it's high time the two of us start critiquing each other's work again.
digitalred93 asked me a question about my word count goal per week, and I thought I'd answer it here. The question is: what's my word count goal? My answer: I don't have one. Not the greatest plan in the world, I admit, but if I were under deadline of any sort, you'd bet your ass I'd have one. My very LOOSE goal for the year is just to finish the rough draft of this novel, and for that, I've got lots of time. However, if it's not done or very close to it by the end of June, I'll need to get cracking.
But for the time being, I'd like to be churning out two chapters a week, and that's been tough because the previous two chapters have had false starts, and that's a lot of wasted wordage. How to get focused again? Hard to say. I have an outline in my head, and I need to make my imagination fill in the blanks while I'm away from the desk so that when it's time to write, I know where I'm going.
No, don't even bother suggesting outlining. My deal to myself is to follow the general path in my head for the sake of the rough draft so I don't lose the excitement of the story by outlining it BEFORE I write it. However, when this rough draft is done? I might very well outline the second draft, because it worked well for my thesis novel, and it might work well here too.
And that's it. To chapter eight and beyond!