70 Days, 10/27-10/28

No writing -- apartment flooded. Working on that. Staying at mom and dad's tonight. Blah. Hope we can break our lease.

70 Days, 10/26

Lunch: 496!

I probably won't get more done tonight, but I'm pretty pleased with what I got today. I know what needs to happen, it's just kind of a "slow" part right now, so it's tough to write. I want it to be interesting, and not just filler, but I don't quite want to just say "and then they..." and skip all of it. Maybe I'll need to do that when I revise, but I really want to chug through this and get it out because it will be a lot easier to cut than it will be to add.

Anyway, yeah, haven't been hitting my targets this week, but who cares. It's been a very busy week.

70 Days, 10/25

Ok, today I decided that instead of trying to force myself to write the next scene, I would try and plot out the rest of this section of the story (I've got three sections planned, and I'm on the first). I managed to crank out 891 words over lunch. Granted, they aren't 891 "story" words, but I'm still pleased. When I sit down to hammer it out (maybe even tomorrow at lunch, since I did way more than I thought I would), it will be a lot easier to write. So...woo!

70 days, 10/24/07

Lunch: 344
Home: --
Total: 344

Depressing.

I'm going to spend today and tomorrow figuring out what, specifically, needs to happen to get me to the next major plot point in the hopes that I'll be able to crank out more stuff over the weekend and next week.

70 Days 10/23/07

I realized that since there are 23 built-in holidays, keeping the days numbered in my titles might get weird, so I'm going with dates now.

Lunch: 260
Home: --
Total: 260

I'll edit tonight or tomorrow, but since I'm not busy after work, I should be able to crank out a bit more once I get a nap in (I'm freaking exhausted today).

Edit: I went to bed at 8:30 last night.

70 days, day 7 and 8

I didn't write anything yesterday, but that was intentional, so I don't feel bad for it.

10/22/07
Lunch: 501
Home: --
Total: 501

Tired + busy = no writing after work.

70 Days, day 5 and 6

10/19/07
Words
Lunch: 551 (w00t!)
Home: --
Total: 551

I'll edit sometime tonight or tomorrow with the rest of the count, but I'm pretty pumped about today's lunch progress.

Edit: Ok, so I didn't get anything done at home. BUT, check out today:

10/20/07
Words: 988

I wasn't even planning on writing today, but while I was driving around with my wife, we hammered out the next step in the story, so I came home and wrote it. 

Today also marked the passing of a significant milestone for me. It requires a story...

Back in February of 2004, I had an idea. Now, I'd had ideas before, and had even made lazy attempts at writing, but this one really enchanted me, so I started taking notes. Before long, I had written twenty pages of history, character bios, and ideas for where I thought a potential story could go. One thing I kept coming back to was this idea that the characters would have a legend about a hero named Gabriel who had done some great deed. Then, at some point, Gabriel became the story.

The first twenty pages came relatively quickly, though I took frequent breaks to play with other ideas I was having. Then, despite my best efforts at keeping hard copies of everything I wrote, I lost most of the story to a hard drive crash. I kept working on other stuff, but I couldn't bring myself to touch Gabriel.

Luckily, I had given a copy of the work in progress to a friend of mine. She found it, quite by accident, and called me to see if I wanted it back. Emphatic "hell yes!" It was everything but a chapter that I had planned to delete anyway, so I typed it all up...and didn't touch it for a long time. I was stuck.

Finally, I said "screw it," and just wrote with the sole purpose of finishing the damn story. In July of 2006, I reached an ending. The story was 14,078 words, and though I knew it was rushed, I figured I'd fill everything in on revision. I let it sit for four months and gave it a look.

It was crap. I was embarassed. I immediately began a new draft, but... I guess life just got busy. After only a couple weeks of writing, I put it down and worked on some other stuff, then stopped writing as I finished college and prepared for my wedding. I started working full-time at my job, and began using my lunch breaks to write.

In September of this year, I started thinking about Gabriel again, and all the ways I could make his story way better.

Today, when I stopped writing, Gabriel's story was at 14, 928 words -- longer than the original draft. This time I know what I'm doing -- I've taken the focus off the mechanics of the fantasy world and put it on the people who live there, and that has allowed me to flesh out a whole lot more back story than I had before. The result is that even though I currently have more text than I did in my entire first draft, I have a lot more story ahead of me because I'm no longer trying to force my characters toward the next plot point. I'm letting them inhabit their world.

70 Days, day 4

Words
Lunch: 338
Home: --
Total: 338

Bleh. Yesterday was very long and I wound up sleeping for an hour and a half after I got home from work. I did babble what needs to happen next into the mini recorder (which needs an over-the-top name, since I call my laptop the Portable Writing Machine of Destiny), so today will feature less fumbling and more getting to the point.

70 Days, #3

Words
Lunch: 259
Home: 217
Total: 476

Eh, not so good today... things were a bit hectic. Oh well. Better than nothing.

70 Days of Sweat Progress Update #1 10/15-10/16

Monday 10/15/07
Lunch: 453 words
After work: 397
Day total: 850

Tuesday 10/16/07
Lunch: 246
After work: 513
Day total: 759

Well, that's two days in a row that I hit my target of 750, so even though that isn't really a lot of words, I'm reaching my goals. I think that's what counts, so...rock and roll!

70 Days of Sweat #2

Since I need to check in on Wednesdays and Sundays with my progress, I'm also going to post  here on those days. I also have a couple legit blog entries I plan to develop, so this isn't going to become the most boring blog ever.

Beginning stats
WIP: Shadow of the Mortals (this was the draft 1 title -- I probably won't keep it)
Beginning Word Count: 10,948
Day 70 Goal: 63,448
Daily Goal: 750 words
Weekly Goal: 4500-5250 (I'd like to write 7 days a week, but I'm allowing for distractions)

70 Days of Sweat

Yesterday, Krista mentioned something called 70 Days of Sweat. It sounds pretty great -- you sign up and people start coming to your blog to yell at you to keep writing,  and you report your progress twice a week. The goal is to write 750-1500 words every day, which (sadly) is a lot more than I currently write each day, so I went ahead and put my name on the list.

Obviously this blog doesn't get updated too horribly often, but I'll make sure to check in with progress updates and maybe even more craft-related stuff if I find time.