October Noveling!

[allgirls]

I was about to report my success for the day and realised it's October! Hope I'm not stepping any toes by starting this thread.

So how did September go? What are your goals for October? Are you going to get ready for nanwrimo? Can't believe it's that time again. I did it last year and won however this year I'm opting out because I'm working so hard on this one.

Me: September was great, made great strides and hoping to keep the momentum going with my goal of being finished the first draft by Oct 20th still at the forefront.

I sent Chapter One to some first readers today for some feedback. I'll let you know what they say.

Today I wrote 3130 words and I'm at 64,474 and you know I have to be completely tempted to write up to 65,000.

Yay October!! Let's write!

[Aufilia]

64k, go you! You have been on fire this week!

I spent awhile on Dread Chapter 7 yesterday. I smoothed out the third scene and I think with another line or two that scene will be ok. Only one more scene in there to mess with.... then I need to get back to the ending. And if I can fix the ending I'll be DONE.

[fullofgrace]

Originally Posted by allgirls

I was about to report my success for the day and realised it's October! Hope I'm not stepping any toes by starting this thread.

Of course not.

I think I need to force myself to leave my house and go somewhere with my laptop where I will NOT have internet access. I get far too distracted otherwise. Therefore, September was not as productive as I would have liked.

So here's to a new month!!! . for October!

[allgirls]

Originally Posted by Aufilia

64k, go you! You have been on fire this week!

I spent awhile on Dread Chapter 7 yesterday. I smoothed out the third scene and I think with another line or two that scene will be ok. Only one more scene in there to mess with.... then I need to get back to the ending. And if I can fix the ending I'll be DONE.

DONE? As in DONE?



Just got back from a walk..Looking for ideas? Inspiration? My advice, listen to Jackson Browne as you walk on a gorgeous red/orange autumn day and magic will fall from the heavens. I've got several fantastic ideas for scenes, some metaphorical stuff and as I was walking I kicked something that went clickety click down the side walk. It was a little purple plastic bead with silver lines on it. Like from one of those cheap kid's craft kits.

Ok so my novel is called Indigo...you know I gotta write the little bead in somewhere!

And I've got to describe a guitar that this kid is given as a gift and I remember my cousin is a guitar player, he just had his treasured accoustic guitar stolen ...I'm going to ask if I can immortalise it in my book and get a description from him!

Yep, autumn, walk, sunny day, Jackson Browne...*sigh*

[fullofgrace]

Originally Posted by allgirls

as I was walking I kicked something that went clickety click down the side walk. It was a little purple plastic bead with silver lines on it. Like from one of those cheap kid's craft kits.

Ok so my novel is called Indigo...you know I gotta write the little bead in somewhere!

Very cool!!

[allgirls]

66,760

2396 written today!

I'm had a great week. Things are going well. This books gonna get written. I feel confident of that now!

Allgirls

[Aufilia]

Thursday night is the night my writers group meets, so I left DH in charge of DD when I left at 6:30 for writing... and when I came back about 8:30, guess what I found? My LAPTOP upside down on the floor, my little USB drive crooked! Of course DH had sent DD upstairs to listen to her music while he messed around on his computer downstairs and she couldn't move it by herself so she just sorta pushed it off the couch. (We'd left in a hurry to get dinner.) DH is in total hot water. I had just backed up my drive this week and managed to get all the files off it anyhow, and my laptop seems to be ok, but still!!! I'm really furious with him still.

Anyhow, back to chapter 31 for me today... and I scribbled down some fresh ideas for a next novel while I was at writing yesterday. I do all my best thinking while driving and to writing and back is about the only place I drive alone anymore!

[allgirls]

Holy geez..I'd have been spittin nails mad!

I do my best thinking/ideas etc when I am walking, alone with my iPod. Well not entirely alone, my doggie comes but he doesn't say much. lol.

I got the feedback from my first three readers and it was good. They made really good suggestions for some improvements but also made good positive remarks for good stuff.

I will rewrite it a bit later but I personally think my first chapter is done.

Second chapter, not even close. I'm getting very close to finished now. As far as laying down the story. Then I have to cut some old stuff and add new scenes because I have changed direction a bit but not enough to make a drastic change.

So I think I'll make my goal of an October 20th end to the first draft. I'm not writing this weekend, I have to help my daughter with the bakery tomorrow and then Sunday is an all day show for Heritage Makers. I love my storybooking almost as much as I love writing though I haven't been doing much of it lately!

Have a great weekend! My hubby will be home in two hours after being away since Monday! Hands on inspiration for the love and romance part!

Allgirls

[Aufilia]

Good luck with your goal -- it seems doable given all your progress lately. How much did your first readers read for you?

I made a small amount of progress with the last chapter today... I wrote a new conversation and made some tell-y bits more show-y. I added about 250 words overall, so at least it's officially NOT the shortest chapter in the novel.

[allgirls]

Originally Posted by Aufilia

Good luck with your goal -- it seems doable given all your progress lately. How much did your first readers read for you?

I made a small amount of progress with the last chapter today... I wrote a new conversation and made some tell-y bits more show-y. I added about 250 words overall, so at least it's officially NOT the shortest chapter in the novel.

I asked them to read the first chapter. They all came back with almost identical feedback and they all said it was good. I personally think it's good. Is that terribly self important? I honestly read it over and over and go "I can't believe this is my work"
This week my goal is to re-do the second chapter and get it ready...it needs to be rewritten really, then work on the rest of the chapters that need to be complete..I'm gonna say I need to do about 10 more maximum before I start rewriting one at a time.

So no writing until Monday afternoon. All day vendor show tomorrow and I'm on assignment Monday so after that. Ready to go. I miss it when I can't write!

[1jooj]

I'd like to join you. I have a novel I have been "working on" for the past few years. This month, beginning tonight, I will begin it again. In the past, I have fizzled anywhere between 20K and 50K. My intention this time is to write, simply to write, at first for an hour daily over the next three weeks.

At the end of the next three weeks, I will assess my progress in terms of words on paper, and decide what to do. My error in the past was to rewrite instead of writing on. This time, I will slap my hand when I try to jump into the middle. If I have a fragment to add, I can write a fragment and insert it later.

I hope it's OK to follow this thread for inspiration and company.

[Aufilia]

Originally Posted by allgirls

I personally think it's good. Is that terribly self important? I honestly read it over and over and go "I can't believe this is my work"

As long as you have a healthy sense of what's good AND what's bad in your own writing, I don't think it's self-important at all. I think it's healthy and useful to be able to be satisfied with your own work. There's got to be something rewarding about it for you! And it's better to be happy with your stuff than to fall into the trap of revising the same thing over and over and over again.

Originally Posted by 1jooj

My error in the past was to rewrite instead of writing on. This time, I will slap my hand when I try to jump into the middle. If I have a fragment to add, I can write a fragment and insert it later.

I hope it's OK to follow this thread for inspiration and company.

Welcome! And good luck with your writing! I found I made tons of progress when I wrote daily and didn't let myself go back and rewrite, and I hope that works for you, too. Are you starting over from scratch or continuing what you've written previously? What sort of novel are you working on?


I'm still mired in chapter 31, but I've made it to page 6 of 7 my file and am still chugging along. I've added about 500 words altogether, and I think it's moving in a more-correct direction (if not the right direction... but I'm not 100% sure yet).

[allgirls]

and remember..it's only the first chapter that I think is good...lol not the whole thing!

Welcome! Jump right in. I open my ms everymorning and leave it open. Lately it's been working great, I've made so much progress! I'm almost finished very rough first draft. I'm going to be starting at chapter two soon revising and getting it ready for first read and so on. I have a lot to do along the way to be ready for the entire thing to be read.

Aufilia, you are getting so close

[1jooj]

Thanks for the welcome.

Keeping the ms open is a great idea. I work around the home and farm all day, and it makes good sense to keep it accessible for when opportunities come up. And now that both kids are in school, it's not at great risk.

I'm working on a literary novel. The MCs have been growing with me the past several years, probably 6. I struggle with how it should start, but I figure I'll write it, find the place where it really begins and sacrifice the rest.

I'm starting over. I managed 3000w yesterday. These next 3 weeks are my big opportunity to get it shaped and moving. My dh is overseas for work. While this adds a lot of tasks to my to-do list, it also frees up a lot of my time and allows me to control the structure of my days/weeks more completely. Should equal more writing time. Which should equal progress.

Keep up the good work on yours!

[JennyClaire]

Happy October everyone!

Welcome 1jooj!

Go Breeze! I really admire your progress (and positive attitude)!

Breeze & Erin, I don't re-write on the screen --- my problem is compulsive editing of a printed draft --- when I should (at this point; reading the 2nd draft) focus on the story & its problems/holes. Maybe I need someone else to read it for me? I was waiting for the novel to be my version of "perfect" before asking for readers....

I just keep thinking that maybe if I'm more disciplined, I can stop the line editing and focus on the big picture, but I'm not sure if I can...

No progress since my last post in September due to house-guests (who left yesterday), although I'd been feeling kind of stuck anyway.

[JennyClaire]

Thanks for the link, Breeze. It was comforting and inspiring. I need some strong rope to tie up my internal editor for a while!!!

[ombra*luna]

Hi ~ I introduced myself in another thread

I totally agree with everyone who said just to write straight through, without stopping to revise. That's the only way I can move on, even to a second page. I'm capable of revising endlessly.

My rule is that I don't even allow myself to read anything until the whole thing is done. When I open the document, I have to go right to the end, can only glance up at the previous page to see where I left off, at the most.


Recently I started working again on a book that had been shoved aside for a couple of years. At first I thought I'd better read what I had so far, because at that point I had no idea what was actually written already, vs. what I had thought about writing, planned to write but hadn't physically written yet.

Proving again that (for me) going back to read over and revise that first half, or whatever I've got, is not the path to meaningful progress.

I remember reading that Nabokov worked by painstakingly crafting his sentences one at a time, not moving on until he was satisfied that he'd found exactly the right words.

I'll have to look this up to be sure, but I think Nabokov had the strategy that there was actually one correct word, the one that was more correct than any other way of saying xyz. It was just a matter of searching for that word and he'd know it when he found it.

Off to substantiate that assertion - just leaving it to float in the meanwhile.

ETA, at a glance I couldn't find that exactly, but reading the article about him on wikipedia helped validate my memory. That is how he did it. And I'm not sure why that stuck with me so hard over the years. In reality I could revise one paragraph continuously forever, and I might stumble across those "right" words in the process and might not. Might discard them, or keep them - one thing is sure, I'll never end up with a sentence written by Nabokov, it's still going to be me.

[1jooj]

1,400w today. Going to keep looking ahead.

[allgirls]

1400 is perfect.

Steven King writes 1500 per day when he's working on a book. The rest of the time he researches, reads for enjoyment, seeks inspiration etc.

I did about a 1000 but rewrote chapter 2. I had this thing going through my head and I just had to do it. But I'm not getting hung up on this stuff anymore. I just make the decision, write and move on so I think I've found a way to not get stuck in the revisions.

I think it's because I'm getting so close to done and then end is actually written. I don't get stuck. In fact the chapters left to write are ones I've got ideas about , comments written in the margins and then I'm going through and filling them.

Tomorrow is my day to get back into it big time. Nothing planned! Waiting all day for Sears guy to fix my washing machine.

Allgirls

[Aufilia]

Originally Posted by JennyClaire

Maybe I need someone else to read it for me? I was waiting for the novel to be my version of "perfect" before asking for readers....

It might help to have some outside perspective. And do you really want to wait until it's "perfect" in your mind to have someone else tell you all the places where it might NOT be perfect? Depressing!

Originally Posted by ombra*luna

My rule is that I don't even allow myself to read anything until the whole thing is done. When I open the document, I have to go right to the end, can only glance up at the previous page to see where I left off, at the most.

Ooh, you're tough, girl! Do you at least have an outline or something so you remember what's back there?

Originally Posted by 1jooj

1,400w today. Going to keep looking ahead.

1400 a day is 42000 in a month!

Originally Posted by allgirls

I did about a 1000 but rewrote chapter 2. I had this thing going through my head and I just had to do it. But I'm not getting hung up on this stuff anymore. I just make the decision, write and move on so I think I've found a way to not get stuck in the revisions.

Yay for chapter 2! It is nice to be close enough to the end that you can map out exactly what's up... kind of freeing.


I finished messing with Dread Chapter 7 and and messing with the ending again. SO CLOSE. And yet so far. But SO CLOSE.