Writing Update: Write, Rewrite, Revise

This whole week has been filled with revisions and rewrites. My first three chapters are being rewritten and it's taking me a long time. I'm probably going to spend the weekend working on creating a new outline with index cards because that's how I work. Hourglass is coming along nicely though. It's a bit slow but I'm taking my time. Beginnings are usually really hard for me to write.

I'm starting on another project - not another novel - and I'm getting pretty far with it. I have a few things that I need to do first though. It's going to cost a bit of money but, it's going to happen.

This weekend, I'm going to be contacting the people who I want to do my cover art with. I already picked out the service and I've been stalking the hell out of their website. I'm so excited to be asking them to do my cover for me.

I'll be looking for Critique Partners and Beta Readers soon. Probably at the end of June. It's strange to be doing this. I've written so many novels but this is the first time I've tried to publish.

The Editing Process: Going By Slowly

I'm getting a little frustrated this week. Lesson two of How To Revise You Novel is taking me forever. I think it's my novel itself. I'm getting bored with it already. I just want to get to the part where I re-plot everything. This story needs a massive overhaul.

I'm almost done though. After this I have several more lessons before I get to the overhaul but hopefully it will get better. I still have to fix the broken plot and whatever the other chapters have. So much work. I have to keep at it because I have to finish it by the end of the year. Then I have to start working on my other story that is halfway through the Holly Lisle class.

But in order to finish it, I'm going to have to find my plot cards that I made...I cant remember where I put them.

I absolutely need to finish Lesson Two by Saturday. I have to.

The Editing Process: Pushing Ahead

I don't think I've mentioned this before but I've been using Holly Lisle's How To Revise Your Novel course to edit my novels. For Dowsers, I'm only on lesson two of the class and have been on lesson two for weeks. Not because I stopped. The beginning lessons tend to take a lot more time than some of the other ones.

Dowsers is also a very long novel. And the longer the novel, the more work I'm going to have to put into it. Currently, this novel is at 122k words. Printed, that's 177 pages (normally) and that isn't separating my chapters onto a new page. It might not seem like a lot but if you ever take this class, you'll realize just how much time it takes.

I'm not going to lie, it's totally worth it. I was reading another novel I took through the process (and still need to finish) and it's way better! I mean, leagues better. I put it on my kindle to read and I'm going to finish editing it after I finish Dowsers.

I'm hoping that Dowsers will have the same results as my other novel. So far, I'm picking apart my novel and seeing all of my plot holes and other things that were terrible. And I have to keep going with it if I want to get it done on time. I have so much more to do. 

Second Edits - Done!

Finally! Finally my second edits are done for District Pluto: The Survival Agreement (formally known as The Sacrificial Son). I've even created a checklist for what needs to come next. My third and final round of edits (which is mostly a syntax edit) should be over quickly before I sent it out to Betas. Then I'll be editing two projects at once. The next story in the District Pluto series, Morality Sentence and my stand alone novel Dowsers. I'm hoping to get some of these out to Betas by the end of the year but I have a feeling that Dowers will take me a long time to edit but I really need to get back on it.

One thing I noticed when doing this second edit was that my characters were weak. While typing up my edits, I tried to fix this but I don't know how well I did. I guess I find out when I start the last round of my editing. If not, then hopefully my betas can help me with how they read. It occurred to me that my characters didn't even have the barest of description so I had to add that in. That was a struggle.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this short story/novella (possibly a novelette). I can already see the improvements compared to my very first draft. I finally have a name for it too, as I stated above. It's no longer Sacrificial Son, it is now titled The Survival Agreement. I already have the cover art made (and fixed). Actually, I have two. I have one that I picked out but I'll also ask the people who are my betas - if they want to. I'm not going to force that on them. I already have one in mind.

School, Work, and Writing

This last week was my first week of having classes, a full time job, and trying to write and edit projects at the same time. Well, the first week this year and the first time in a very long time. It turned out pretty well. Writing 750 words was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I had to squeeze it in from time to time.

Thankfully, I managed to do it consistently for the last 17 days. I'm hoping to keep it up. Tuesday might be an issue but I'll work it out.

My weekly word count is, 6,484 words. My grand yearly total so far is 36,605 words. Not too bad. My novel is going to be ridiculously long though. I'm not even a third of the way through it yet. Though, I do know that there is going to be a lot of editing with this one.

Keeping Up with 750 words

This week was a bit tricky. My work hours make it a bit harder for me to fit in my writing time and with my class starting on Monday, it's going to make it even harder. 750 words a day becomes hard. Though I managed to keep up with it on top of the things I had to do for work.

I can't say how many words I wrote for this week, but as of right now my monthly total stands at 30,121 words. With editing, I clocked in my 10 hours for the month. Now, I'm going to prepare to work on it in February. I need to print everything out.

As far as reading goes, I'm not doing too well in that department. The book I picked isn't really holding my interest which isn't good. I'm going to push myself through it to see how it goes.
There is a whole list of books I want to read this year and I'm stuck on the first one.

Overall, it was a pretty good week.

Progress Update: Getting Somewhere

So far, I've been doing really well. I'm on top of most of my projects this month. I'm almost done editing The Morality Sentence. It's going much better than I hoped. I think I wrote this one really well and it's one of my favorites so far.

I'm currently writing the Escapist (temp. title). I have about 10k written in the novel so far and it's getting into the interesting and fun stuff.

I'm doing well with keeping up a schedule. Though, I haven't been good with these blog posts. I was going to post the Blogging Circle prompt last week but I didn't finish it.  I should try to work on that soon. And once I get everything set up, I'm going to show off my writing planner. It doesn't sound exciting but it's keeping me on track of everything. I can't keep track of anything on the computer because I tend to ditch it after a while. My planners are always around.

Anyway, this is my really quick and random update.

Progress Update: First Edit

It has happened. I finally finished editing the first draft of the Sacrificial Son. I'm not sure if it's going to be called that but that's the title I have now. It will be what I'll call it until I figure out another name for it. Anyway, it's finished. I'm letting it settle for a moment before I go through it again.

I already know there are scenes that need work. Mostly the ending scenes. They are important to the story since it introduces a much bigger plot that encompasses the series. This editing process was a journey. I'm still trying to figure out what works for me but there are some things that I find really help. I'll be sharing them in another post later down the road.

For now, I'm going to continue planning my new novel The Escapist. That is also a temporary title. I only picked that because it was the only thing that fit for now. I don't have all of the details worked out yet so the title is more than likely going to change. As far as planning goes for this novel, I think I figured out a fair bit but not enough to get started yet.

Progress Update: A Balanced Schedule

So, I haven't updated in awhile, which is usually when I disappear for months and pop up around October. I'm snapping out of that pretty early. But, sadly, I don't have any major plans for this month. I was going to join CampNaNo but I decided against it. I want to try to make a balanced schedule instead.

I'll still be writing and editing but I want to do it in moderation so I don't burn out quickly. That always seems to be my problem. I find that writing down a list of the tasks I need to do helps. I try to finish them as soon as I can but then I have a lot of free time on my hands, which isn't a bad thing but I tend to get in  the habit of procrastinating when I realize that I have plenty of time to finish my tasks. Eventually, I stop doing them.

So, making a schedule/routine that will stick with me for a long period of time will be helpful. If something comes up, that extra time will be helpful to move things around as needed.

It's still a work in progress but I hope I find a schedule that helps me be more productive.

Progress Update: Overdone

I hardly finished anything this month. Yeah, it's the beginning of my disappearing time and the fact that I'm still here doing this is amazing on it's own but I'm going to continue to try to finish through this. I think I'll be able to finish editing one short story.

Honestly, I have a feeling that I'm just getting a little tired of doing the same thing over and over again. I need to balance out my writing and editing times a little better. So, at the end of the month, I'm turning my focus to writing. I'm actually really excited about the novel I'm going to write. It might not be complete by the end of April because it's going to be a long book but I need a break from editing. Now, this won't stop my from finishing up Call of the Piper or another short story from District Pluto but editing won't be my main focus.

Maybe for the rest of the year, I need to work on balance.

Progress Update: Nothing

With everything I did this month, I only have 15 hours of editing. I really need to crack down on this but I don't know if I can. I think I'm going to have to re-plan my mornings. If I can get a could hours of editing in the morning, I should be fine for the rest of the day.

I won't get muddled with other things if I start then. So, my new goal will be to wake up earlier and fit in a few hours. This first story is taking much longer than it should. Thankfully, my next story won't have as many scenes to add. I just wanted to make the obstacles seem like more of a challenge since it was kind of lame before.

The planning for my other story is coming along. I can't decide on a setting. I'm leaning toward one and it's going to take a lot of world building if I want to do it that way...I just might because it will be fun. I do love some world building. If it ends up taking too long to plan, I'll just write it for NaNoWriMo.

Progress Update: Not Going to Plan

So this week started off strong but fell pretty rapidly. I managed to get 5.5 hours of editing finished. That got me through all 26 pages. I'm in the middle of taking the mark-ups and adding them in. Unfortunately, I have to write a few scenes in and I'm having a hard time figuring out where to place some of them. There are some places that I know I'm going to have to go back and fix several things before it has some kind of flow.

It's not going to plan. I wanted to finish the first short story this week but I procrastinated. It is around the time I normally have a fall out with everything I'm doing at the beginning of the year. I'll just have to put in as much editing as I can tomorrow. 

As far as writing goes...I'm not sure how many I wrote but I didn't write the 7 pages I wanted but I did make some progress. I just need to think of where I want this to go. I didn't plan ahead. I should have. That is something I'll have to work on.

I started planning out a novel for April. It's my month for a break. I'm pretty excited about this new novel. It is untitled as of now but I will get one as soon as I know what I'm doing.

Progress Update: Beginning of a New Month

 

Yesterday was the start of a new month and, for me, it started off pretty well. I managed to get 2 hours of editing in with the new method of editing I'm doing. Frankly, this is working a little better than my other method even though, I'm pulling a few things from that method.  I still haven't found a sure way of editing yet but I have a long way to go.

This month is the month I work on my District Pluto series. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to need more short stories in the series to help people understand the world a little better. It's best to understand the world. 

I'm pleased with my progress so far. Editing short stories is going to be much easier than editing a novel. Baby steps, I suppose.

I'd better get my 2 hours in for today and write a page in my handwritten stories.

Progress Update: Getting Ready For More Editing

Weekly Progress

Editing Hours: 4

Words Written (Typed): 8,915

Pages Handwritten: 2.5

Summary: It wasn't my best editing week but I did manage to get in a fair bit of writing. I need to write some more to catch up with Hush.

That list and summary should be enough to tell you how my weekly progress went. Next week it will be March and I'll have a whole new project to edit. I know I'm not even close to being finished with Call of the Piper but, that's too bad. I planned to edit District Pluto for Editing Month (March). These are short stories so they shouldn't take as long as Call of the Piper but it will still be a pain in the butt.  

  

When I'm done editing District Pluto, I'll go back to Call of the Piper, if not sooner. There are 5 short stories and my goal is to have at least 1 of them completely edited by the end of the month. I'm thinking that it's time to switch it up. My muse needs a rest. I've been editing the same novel for almost a year. These short stories shouldn't take too long to edit. I hope it won't take too long to edit. 

Now, I'm about to go backwards a bit. I already mentioned my plans for next week (next month) but I didn't say anything about Tell a Fairy Tale Day! That's on Thursday. I already made stuff for my crafting blog for this. I get way too excited about days like this. There are a few I have marked down in my calendar. 

Overall, I'm ready to start a new month. I'm hoping to post more during the month of March, not just progress updates or blogging circle posts but other things that are writing related and less boring than my progress updates. 

Progress Update: Slacking

This week hasn't been a good week. So far, I only have 11.75 hours of editing and that isn't including today. Hopefully I'll get that count up soon.

My current novel is kicking my butt. I'm basically rewriting the whole thing and that's where it's dragging me down a bit. My new plot line keeps changing, not in a bad way, I just keep adding things. That's what I get for not giving myself room to move things around so I have to track my scenes a bit differently than I usually do. Maybe I should bust out my index cards but that motivation just isn't there.

I did read through my Hourglass series though and started marking places that need to be changed. I just needed something different to read. I won't be editing the Hourglass series until later but it will happen this year hopefully.

I'm hoping this week will be a better week. My goal is 10 hours of editing. That's all I want to get in. It is possible if I stop being so lazy.

Progress Update: Getting Organized

My progress hasn't really been great for the first week of February. While I'm getting places with both my editing and my writing, it's a bit slow. Part of the reason is because I need to get organized. I'm currently making a planner that suits my needs but I also have something for blogging. Eventually, I want to start doing more than just boring updates on my progress. There are the blogging circle prompts which are fun but I think there should be a little more.

As of right now, I have no idea what those posts are going to be about but it will happen. I want to work on better graphics for my posts and maybe some book reviews or random research topics I find interesting. I already have a crafting blog to post my fun stuff on but I'll think of some content to make this more interesting for me.

This coming week might be slow with progress. My goddaughter is due any moment now and I plan on being there when she is. But, then again, I might not be with my best friend in her daughter all week. They are going to need time to adjust and I don't want to get in the way.

I think getting a little behind on my editing will be okay this week because I think getting organized will help with that. I have two planners, one that travels with me and one that stays at my desk. I really want to make the most of them and hopefully create some kind of schedule for my life.

Maybe next time, I'll actually talk about some real progress. 

Progress Update: Software and Planning

I got sucked in to trying a new 3D program because it was free. Yeah, I get sucked into this stuff a lot. I just wanted to give it a try to see where it goes. So far, I suck at it. I need to play around with it a bit to get used to it and maybe watch tutorials.

I want to try to make novel covers or just artwork with it, just to try it out. It's just something to try out to see if I like it. If I don't, it's not a big deal. I can easily remove it from my computer and stick to Photoshop.

Other than software, I did manage to get a bit of editing done. I'm at a total of 39 hours with plenty more to come. Hopefully, next month I'll have Call of the Piper (temp title) finished. Well, at least finished with the first edit and where I want it to be for me to edit again later. I was going to take that month to write but I think I'm going to stick with editing this. I want to finish it and I think I know where I want it to go.

I finally finished my new storyboard and I'm keeping a lot more scenes than I thought I was. And I'm getting over another bump in the editing process. I'm hoping for some smooth sailing soon.

Progress Update: Writing By Hand

Today, I have no idea where I stand when it comes to editing. I haven't plugged in my chart yet but I did most of it by hand. There are times when I get really distracted with things around the house. So, I think I need to clean my room and get focused again.

I did get pretty far with writing by hand but I'm not sure how much was written. So, I'm hoping for a better week.