April Wrap-Up

     Well now, I have finished up the rough draft of the first story, and am beginning the arduous process of editing it. I think I'll revise my writing method so I can break it into manageable size without a huge manuscript looming over me in the future. But even though it is finished, I am not ceasing my writing efforts, though I did falter a couple of times during April. Largely I think it was due to shifting gears and the urge to continue writing the story I had in combination with an odd sleep schedule. Regardless, it feels good to continue writing all the time. I feel productive and better about myself even when I squeeze those 1,000 words out at the end of the day. So, the writing continues unabated, and here are the totals for April.

March Wrap-up

Well now, it's been another productive month of writing for me. I am very close to finishing this monstrosity of a book now, too. As I write this I am writing the final chapter. I plan to take on an epilogue afterwards, but after that I shall be finished. I've already started the editing process, and I hope to take on a chapter a week until I finish it. Hopefully I will be cutting more than adding, though I quite often add more than I cut based on past experience. Regardless, this project is nearing completion and I can pursue the task of finding an agent as well submitting it to publishers. But for now, I shall post up the graph for March.

The Milestone

I have done it. I have reached a mark which I had once thought far off and unobtainable. By my word processor's built in count, I have reached one hundred thousand words, and find that I'm still not finished with my novel, though I am very nearly there. Though this milestone passes with less fanfare than the results of my NaNoWriMo competition, I feel it is more impressive than the fifty thousand word mark, and shows that I do have what it takes to not just write the bare minimum length of a novel, but to write one of depth and complexity more akin to my favorite authors of the genre have written. And I believe that for my first attempt at a novel, I could not have wanted for better. And so I will be celebrating, minorly for I wish to save the real celebration for the rough draft I will complete soon. To those who have been following me on this journey, I urge you to take a celebratory moment on my behalf. Excelsior!

Week's End

Now for the results of the grand experiment: The results are . . . mixed. Mostly due to the fact that the experiment was not carried out exactly as I outlined a week ago. I did sneak in the occasional streaming episode and YouTube clip over the week, so that does skew my results somewhat. However, I can still say I learned a great deal from the experiment.

• First, it does help to have the television off when during certain activities, particularly writing.
• Second, I don't actively watch that much television. My activities through the week generally did not change. The television largely remains as background noise for me, providing the occasional distraction from what I'm doing on the computer.
• Third, I think the Internet represents a bigger vacuum for my time than the television, though i generally use both together in tandem to negate some of the downsides of both.
• Fourth, performing such an experiment when my sleeping habits are closer to that of vampires than humans is not a good idea. Especially in trying to change that schedule. I've suffered through massive insomnia during the week, and am even surprised at my ability to function at all.
• Fifth, I didn't get any books read, but I attribute that more to number four than television.
  

With these lessons learned, I will make myself more productive during the week, and I plan to re-run the experiment, after dealing with my insomnia, and plan to cut back on the Internet, as well. I think by cutting back on my time in front of the computer and television, I will leave myself with productive reading or other miscellaneous activities.

February Wrap Up

Well now, February has come to a close, a longer one than most to boot. I will report on the TV experiment at the end of the week, but for now I just want to cover February.

I can say, with certainty, that the Martini Method works for me. Though I don't enjoy a beverage such as Tony did, I find plenty of reason to relax and feel the sense of accomplishment just from the writing. Why, in the month of February alone I added 23,699 words to my novel, and achieved the staggering result of 33,784 for the entire month. I think I enjoy leaving my weekends open to jot down other ideas. This keeps the creative fires nicely stoked and gives me an outlet for all of the ideas that continue to come at me. Why just this morning I had an interesting idea I'm still toying with right now. Which I'll probably make a note about it after this post.

Back to the original idea, I am proceeding nicely with my work. The total, which is displayed ever so conveniently above the daily word count, reflects that is a very healthy length, which is fortunate for me as I feel the story winding down to its close. I believe very soon I can begin the arduous editing and the even more frightening search for an agent for the publishing of the work. Fortunately I'll be able to tap into some friends and get their opinions as well, along with editing suggestions. There's nothing quite like exploiting your friends to give you that warm tingly feeling . . . at least until they return their criticism. But I jest. My spirits are good at having come so far, and I feel that with some good editing and polishing, I should be able to see this book into print, and its sequels after that.

Well, enough prattling. Here is the chart for February, in all its glory.

A Word is a Word?

As I am nearing completion of my first novel, the realities of the publishing process have started to weigh upon me. to that end, I have done a little digging around the old interweb for more information. One tidbit in particular stood out to me as I poked around: word counts. The publishing industry dictates what a manuscript format is (this I already knew), but along with that comes the peculiar idea of word counts. Now, from NaNoWriMo I knew that different word processors count words in different ways. My favorite WordPerfect is far stingier than most (you Word users take note that you're probably getting away with free extra words), so I felt good knowing that my word counts would never be less than what my word processor reported to me. However, the publishing industry evaluates things differently than by how many actual words are on the page. They want to know how much physical space the work will take up, so their definition of a word count is vastly different from that of any word processor. I discovered two great pages that explain different methods to arrive at the word count publishers are more interested here and here. Using these methodologies, my WordPerfect reported count (as of this day) of 83,264 became 93,700 (rounded to the nearest hundred) a difference of over 10,000 words! I'm rather excited by this little piece of information as it makes me feel as if I've written that much more to my novel, and that I'm clearly not just barely making my book fit the minimum requirements of a novel. It also tells me I can edit freely (by chopping out a good bit) without fear of knocking myself under the word limit. This will let me make for a much tighter story. Stay tuned as I reveal more interesting tidbits regarding my publishing discoveries as well as my editing woes.

Clockwork

Well now, it has been quite some time since I've made an entry here, and I'm just getting this in before the February wrap up. I have been, and continue to, write every single day. I've been doing so ever since mid January when I discovered a little tidbit about the "Martini Method" adopted by Anthony Burgess of A Clockwork Orange fame. The idea is simple, write one thousand words per day, and then reward yourself. Since I came across that, I have been doing just that, writing no less than one thousand words per day, and sometimes exceeding it. I've also taken the liberty to modify it somewhat to fit my own best needs. During the week I write the story that I began with NaNoWriMo, but the weekends I leave to myself to free write some other things that are in the back of my mind. Thus far the results have been nothing short of miraculous. I am writing more now than I ever have in my life, and it feels wonderful. So to anyone struggling with writing, I suggest the Martini Method.

Now I'm also attempting something new this week. For some time I've been thinking I watch too much TV, movies, DVDs, what have you. Mostly this has come as a revelation that I haven't been reading as many books as I used to. So I'm going to try the radical approach and not watch anything for an entire week. Starting today and ending on March 2nd, I will be free from the infernal box. Nor will I cheat by using my computer to watch anything streaming or even an entertaining youtube clip. It's cold turkey for me, and I hope that the lack of mediocre stimulation will force me to search out better things, or even create better. So let the grand experiment begin, and I'll report, hopefully, periodically or by week's end at the latest.

January Wrap up

Well now, February is upon us. I have to say that my writing has not been going as good as I would like, at least not until the midpoint of January, whereupon I had a sort of revelation and inspiration to follow. From that time on I've been writing steadily. Hopefully I will continue on this path until it becomes a fully established habit.

Like December, which was only one post ago---yes, I need to post here more often as well, even tiny tidbits---I shall post up the final graph to show my writing progress for the month of January. Until next post, excelsior!

December Wrap up

Well, December has ended, and my experiment for the month is successful. Not as much as I'd hoped, but still successful. I think this month I've thought more about writing than I've ever done save for NaNoWriMo, but I didn't have the same impetus. I hope that in these future months I will discover my own impetus and write even more. I think the goal of 2,000 words a day was a bit ambitious, but ambition can be good. I have tempered my goal for January to be only 1,000 per day, which will hopefully allow me to keep getting everything else done as well as write.

I know now that I need to change my writing habits in order to make this an actual job. I need to sit down and do this for hours a day even if there is a block of some sort. I'm still working on techniques to get around this, but if I change my primary mindset, I'll get more done. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take work and time and persistence, just like any new habit. Hopefully in a couple of months I can have the habit down, and I'll be exceeding my NaNoWriMo goal.

Anyway, here I will post the final graph for December as a testament to how much i did actually get done. I think I need Story 1 back in the primary spot, and hopefully I can make it happen for this new month. I've also decided to start some sort of idea journal for writing snippets. The exact how of this I haven't decided, maybe a folder where I just store little bits and pieces in one place and can come back to. Well, I've digressed again, so without further ado, the final chart.

The slump

Life happens. And in the hustle and bustle of life, and I'm not even talking about the holidays, things become pushed aside. Not only that, but the temperament changes. The general malaise that is associated with doing certain things be it going to work, watching television, preparing a meal. Mind and body both just sort of shrug and try to find something else to do as the other activities have no appeal whatsoever.

I am in such a malaise.

Even reading has become onerous to me for some reason. Writing has almost completely gone out the window because my mind can't seem to focus on the task. For other activities, stopgaps and alternative measures present themselves. A lot of work can be done on "automatic pilot" just to get you through the day. Don't feel like cooking? go to a restaurant or grab burgers on the way home. For the TV, change the channel; put in a dvd; go to a movie, play, or concert; or even hang out with friends. Writing, though does not have any alternative options. To write or not to write, that is the question. Forced writing can turn out very poorly as well. Rambling off things can sometimes work, and sometimes not. I've had days where I pushed myself and once through the initial inertia, the writing not only goes smoothly, but amazingly. Only sometimes, though. The other times I end up writing and then looking back at the pages of gibberish to scrap them. Still more often my brain just gets sidetracked so I can't get the writing done. I'm aware of many tricks to get rid of writer's block, slumps, what-have-you, but I'm always eager to hear more because I find that I need an ever-changing repertoire of techniques to shake away the malaise. I know at other times I just need to let my brain wrestle around with things in the back of my mind to percolate into the perfect brew---root beer, of course. I strongly believe that writing, like baking, cannot be rushed. to try and rush the act causes disaster. Yet, the reverse is also true. Wait too long, and things turn out the same. I think I need to work on find out that perfect blend for me. How long do I let the dough rise? How long in the oven? Too little or too much time yields a distasteful result. I think many bakers develop a feel for their craft, and I think I'm getting closer to that with writing.

I need to work on further developing that.