August is not off to a great start… I opened my laptop to write last night and life decided to strike. Had to find a plumber to fix a leak in our newly renovated bathroom, and still need to track down a contractor to fix the ceiling and wall that were damaged from it.
Good news, I’ve kept up a writing streak for 18 days. There were ranges in the word count throughout July. Lowest day was only 43 words (and I beat myself up after every single one). Best day 1,332. I started four different chapters in July, and finished one.
My Camp NaNo motivation dried up during the last week when I was on holidays. I wanted to read Heaven Official’s Blessing book three, and I always end up cleaning when I’m left to my own devices.
When I get around 700-800 words in a writing session, my focus evaporates. I have a hard time coming up with sentences that don’t contain words that I’ve already used. I’m going to try hitting 500 words a day for August, and see how that goes.
I have lost track of the number of times I’ve restarted my opening chapter… After passing perspective through four other characters, I’m back with Quentin, and trying to avoid an opening cliché. I have about 6,000 words between three different documents, all with a different approach to the same fucking thing.
Trust the process! Keep swimming! There are no bad ideas. You can polish something tarnished, but you’ve got to go antiquing first… Or something.
Every once in a while, I speculate what my final word count will be based on the number of chapters in my outline. I’ve planned for a trilogy, with the first book being the longest (at over 100 chapters). The first draft was no where near as long as what I’ve plotted for the second. If I don’t keep length in mind and try and combine events as often as I can, this book will easily hit 700,000 words. I’ve considered breaking it into smaller volumes (expanding to five books, instead of three), but I think that’ll piss off my audience more than anything. The first arc ends on a cliffhanger, and there’s two other places I could logically split the story into different books, but they would also be cliffhangers… Not sure how I feel about that. Going to keep that in the back of my mind as I go forward.
I think I’ll skip around my outline, and write the chapters that I have a better grasp, on this month. Once I get one done for each character, I should have a good handle on their individual voices. Writing for Corvin has been surprisingly easy.
Writing role play should be picking up again in a week or two. I’ve found a critique partner that feels like a good fit. I’m going to try The Writer’s Hour in the mornings and see how that helps me up my focus and my word count.
Stress is still high, and health is a day-by-day adventure, but I am improving. Fingers crossed that I can manage a walk around the neighbourhood this weekend without my heart rate going crazy.
It’s also my birthday at the end of the month. I haven’t celebrated much the past couple years, but it’ll be nice to make offerings to my ancestors, and cleanse my space.
Figuring out how to balance writing with everything else in my life is still a work in progress, but I am very happy to be writing again.
Photo by Anete Lusina