writing – Page 6 – Caroline M. Yoachim

Productive Day

Day 21 of JaNo – 3807 words today (2203 novel words), 45475 total

I had a short story in my head that demanded to come out, so I scrawled out a very rough draft this morning at 1.6k words. Since they’re not part of my novel, they don’t go into the grand wordcount…but I went ahead and tossed them into today’s word total, mainly because I’m pleased with myself for getting so many words down today. Yay!

Since this is the end of week 3, I’ll go ahead and do a weekly wordcount too: 14830 words for the novel this …

T-minus 7 days

Day 20 of JaNo – 2322 words today, 43272 total

After having a terrible time generating words earlier this week (can’t quite remember when, but I was definitely frustrated with the whole project at one point), the words have been flowing the last few days. The various threads seem to know what they need to do, at least for now, and I’m hoping everything will get tied together in some sort of climax. I have exactly one week left to pull it off, with January 27th being my last possible writing day before I leave for Whistler. At this point, …

Words words words words…

Day 16 of JaNo – 2153 words today, 34958 total

Decided that today was a good time to split my posse of 5 into two groups. The dynamic of five people travelling together was getting to be a bit much for me to deal with, so I’m hoping that a group of 3 and a group of 2 will be easier to handle. Besides, it gives me that much more flexibility as to which storyline I want to follow – up until now I had 4 main POV characters, 2 of which were travelling together. So I think this will …

Novel in a Nutshell

Day 15 of JaNo – 2160 words today, 32805 total

I had the good fortune to have someone ask what my novel was about, in a nutshell, which really helped me sort out what was really central, and gave me lots to think about. Basically, my novel is set in the world of the mori birds, and is an exploration of how people react when the basic rules of life and death no longer apply. On a more plot-ish level, the story involves a posse of five setting out on a quest to find and save the stolen mori birds. …

58.258% done

Day 13 of JaNo – 2710 words today, 29129 total

I spent some time this morning thinking about what each of my characters wanted, which really helped with word flow today. It was much easier to come up with what the villain wanted than any of the other characters, and I think that may be why the scenes with the villain have been so much stronger while the other characters drifted about. Now that everyone knows what they want (or, more accurately, now that *I* know what all those characters want) things are moving along a bit better. Keeping the …

Halfway done!

Day 11 of JaNo – 3124 words today, 25217 total

My brother’s in town tomorrow, so I wanted to get some extra words written today. I also wanted to get to the halfway point. Anyway, since I wrote extra today, tomorrow’s quota is 1k instead of 2k. Anything beyond that will be bonus.

After two days of struggling through exceedingly boring bits, I decided to try a different approach this morning: Instead of thinking about the plot and what should come next, I thought ‘what’s the most interesting thing I can think of to write about today’ and wrote that. …

Protecting the good guys

Day 10 of JaNo – 2018 words today, 22093 total

I’ve been finding lately that the scenes with my villain are more intersting than the scenes with my heroes, and I suspect it’s because at some level I’m trying to protect the ‘good’ characters. Tomorrow my goal will be to have something really nasty befall them. I don’t know what that will be, but hopefully whatever it is will make them more interesting. Or maybe I’ll kill some of them off. A band of five heroes may just be too many for me to devote sufficient attention to each of …

My brain is too tired to think of a good title…

Day 9 JaNo – 2027 words today, 20075 total

About the only good thing I can say about today’s writing is that I broke the 20k mark. I’ve gotten very bored with the original storyline, and I think it showed in what I wrote today. It didn’t help that I had to get them from one place to another, making most of today’s words a description of them going somewhere. To my credit, I did *try* to spice it up by having them stalked by demons for part of the way, and revving up some conflict between some of the …

Fresh Characters

Day 8 JaNo – 2291 words today, 17864 total

Shifted my focus closer to the villain of the novel today, which means a whole new set of characters and a setting in a different part of the world. I tried to focus on working in tendrils to the outside world, and while I don’t think I’m doing a good job of it, today’s words seem a bit better. Practice, practice, practice. Perhaps by the end it will read like an actual novel.

Update: In a rare (but short) burst of afternoon productivity, 184 more words, which brings the grand total …

Tendrils

Day 7 JaNo – 2061 today, 15573 total

One full week of making quota!

I think that four of my six clarion instructors told me that my stories were too neat and tidy, and that what they lacked was little tendrils of things working their way in from the world outside the story. When they told me that I nodded my head. Great idea, having the outside world creeping in at the edges of the story. And, at some level, I understood what they were saying, but I couldn’t really wrap my mind around what was needed enough to do …

Tag: writing