Sharp Words

It’s been a while since I last posted an update on what I’m writing - or not writing, as the case usually is.

Well, the good news for me is that I am writing. Or at least, I’ve picked which of my unfinished projects I want to get done by mid-October (which is when I start gearing up for National Novel Writing Month); I’ve re-read it to re-acquaint myself with characters and plot; I’ve drawn up new characters sheets and a new outline, and I’m all ready to get going.

Actually, that’s not strictly true. I’ve already got going - I wrote about 400 words this evening - and I’m ready to write more, lots more. 10,000 a week for the next few weeks, if I can manage it; I’ve made a pact with one of my fellow NaNovellists.

So I guess I can cross off July’s writing challenge already…

I think one of August’s challenges is going to be to find a title for this poor novel though! I started it in 2003 and it’s never had even a working title.

And I still would really like to get one of my old stories revised and edited, and then pick where I’m going to submit it.

No More Procrastination.

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All my efforts in writing for the past couple of weeks have been sunk into my job (technical writing, in other words) - hence the lack of blog posts, and serious lack of progress on any fiction-writing.

Out of May’s goals, I managed to re-outline my novel. It was a pretty important goal and I’m glad I managed it - it’s given me a lot of new ideas for plot points and characterisation (which I really need to write down too). I’m disappointed I didn’t get any new short stories written for competition, but they’ll just have to wait a while - there’s a reasonable deadline on both.

I have my big work deadline in about 2 weeks’ time though, so I’ll be focussed on that. Anyone want to contribute a guest blog?

I do have a few things I need to post in the next month, including a couple of book reviews from advanced reading copies I’ve received; the first is due this coming Wednesday, so I need to get re-reading!  I also missed my last Technical Writing Tuesday, so I need to play catch-up a bit there.

Roll on July and hopefully a fresh start with things.

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April’s totals were 19 poems out of 30 and 3,412 words out of 8,000.

So… good and bad. I started the month really well, and kept producing a poem a day for NaPoWriMo right up until the 17th. Then I ran out of steam. I had ideas for things I wanted to write poems about; I just couldn’t get the words to shape themselves around the images. It got pretty frustrating by the end of the month, although I’m still pretty pleased with myself for doing as well as I did.
As for the word count; well, a lot of it came from the poems. I also managed three Sunday Scribblings (although I only posted one) plus some random bits of nonsense here and there.
I totally failed to edit and submit a story for the competition I wanted to though.

I’ve got more concrete goals for May than just aiming for X number of words, though. There are two competitions I want to enter (Over the Edge and SFX Pulp Idol), and I’m determined to completely outline the novel I want to work on. I was supposed to be going to the US next week, and I was going to use my airport-sitting and flying time to do some writing. That’s been called off though, which I’m pretty miffed about since a) I’ve never been to the US and b) it’s a work meeting at which decision will be made that impact my job; and it also means I’ll have to just set aside some of my ‘ordinary’ time to write.

We’ll have to see. I’m starting to feel ever more annoyed with myself for not getting anywhere much, and ever more determined that I want to finish at least one of my damn novels, so… Wish me luck.

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So, we’re thirteen days into April, and although one of my challenges has been going fine, the others haven’t.

The plan to finish, edit and submit a short story for competition has been completely wiped from the board. Once again, procrastination has struck and I failed to finish the story in time despite having a good sense of it in my head. I just couldn’t get it down on paper (screen). And when it got to just a few days before the submission was due, I decided to give up - I like to put new-written fiction aside for a while before I go back and edit it, and there just wasn’t going to be time. Bugger.

On the other hand, I’ve successfully been writing a poem a day for National Poetry Writing Month! Some of them are better than others (as judged by the readers of the forum I’m posting them on as well as by myself) but on the whole I’m happy with being able to come up with something every day. I haven’t even had to resort to the The Writer’s Block yet for inspiration, although I’m sure I’ll need to before the end of the month.

I’ll be posting at least one of my poems here in the next few days, but if you want to see what I’ve churned out so far this month, they’re here.

There’s a problem with writing a poem a day though. My poems don’t tend to be more than about 100 words long, and that’s not great for the word count! However, I had a prose idea in a dream the other night and wrote nearly a thousand words for that, and I churned some out for Sunday Scribblings today as well which I’m pleased about even if they could do with a lot more polish. I’m also trying to decide which of my abandoned novels to pick up and finish - actually, that’s where you, my readers, can be of use to me.

This is a list of the projects which have been set aside. I’m open to working on any of them (in fact, I’d prefer to have at least two on the go so I can swap between them to keep me fresh). Pick some for me! All of them need new outlines done; the ‘plotted’ is mostly in my head so far.

1. My unfinished NaNoWriMo 2003 novel (untitled) - fantasy, about 20% written and 80% plotted
2. My unfinished NaNoWriMo 2007 novel (The Knights of Orcana) - young adult sci fi, about 60% written and 80% plotted
3. The first of a fantasy series based on my 2005 & 2006 NaNoWriMo novels (The Chosen) - about 40% written and 80% plotted
4. The modern romance thing I started writing a couple of months ago (Love Like Loathing) - about 10% written and 70% plotted
5. The film-noir-ish who-knows-what that came to me a dream the other night (untitled)- about 1% written and 20% plotted

 Comments and suggestions are very welcome (as always).

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The observant amongst you may have noticed that my Work in Progress widget in the top right corner no longer reads “March Writing Challenge”. That’s sensible enough, since we’re now into April - indeed, I could have posted this yesterday, but I thought there was enough clutter for one day. Two posts in one day is more than I like to throw at you; three would have been overkill.

Anyway, with the advent of April, I’ve called time on my March challenge. Out of a hoped-for 10,000 words, I managed 5,442 - around 1,500 of them were from that 4×4 blog post, although I didn’t include any other posts in the total even though I might’ve hit 10k if I had! I’m not impressed with myself as I know that I’m more than capable of producing 10,000 words in a mere 6 days; I certainly don’t need a full 31… On the other hand, I did write more last month than I have since November; I’ve been writing a lot of poetry lately (even if some of it’s not that great) and it’s all counted.

For April, I’m aiming a little bit lower: a mere 8,000 words, no blog posts included. However, I’ve also added another challenge: to finish writing a particular short story, to edit and revise it, and to submit it for competition. And the deadline for that is April 11th… I’m not sure I’ll manage it, but I’m going to give it a damn good try. If I can get it submitted, I’ll be so pleased with myself that I won’t care when I don’t win!

In addition - and this is possibly over-reaching myself - I’ve signed up for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) where the idea is to write a poem a day during April. So that’s up there too, under Work in Progress. I must be nuts.

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So, my personal March challenge isn’t working out too well. I’ve managed just over 1800 words out of a planned 10,000 - so I have a further 2 weeks in which to write 8,200. Based on my NaNoWriMo efforts, that’s not really that much of a chore, and I’d like to manage it.

Part of the problem is that I’ve been writing in dribs and drabs. I managed about 100 words towards this week’s Sunday Scribblings - it was hardly finished with so few words! and since it’s now Monday, I’ve abandoned it. I’ll try again next week though - that one would have been my first, so hopefully I can do better. 

Most of the rest of my words have been towards a chick-lit sort of novel that started festering in my head a couple of months back; first with just a couple of characters in a single scenario, and then in some fairly detailed scenes which have been written over and over in my head, mostly while driving. I wish they’d come out in text in the same brilliance that they seem to have in my thoughts though!

And this evening, after questioning my other half about what he thought ‘ambition’ could be, I’ve embarked on a short story for a competition, due in mid-April (eek, better get a move on then). It’s for Harper’s Bazaar; they want unpublished female writers to submit a 2,000 story on the subject of, yes, ambition. So, I thought I’d have a go, and I’ve managed to come up with an outline which is a good start. And I should be able to knock out those 2,000 words in the next week, right?

Yeah, right.

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