Sunday, June 30, 2002 ( 2:09 AM )
Moving right along
Between last night and tonight I added another 2086 words, so the manuscript is 12523 words long now. I actually was too tired to write last night, and only did 481 words, but now I've caught up, writing 1605 words during the last hour.
I can't believe I did 2500 words/night during Nanowrimo (last November) ... if I'm going to do Nanowrimo again this year I'd better pick up the pace!
Right now I'm working off the notes I wrote about Alyssa's inner journey - but I feel the plot needs more twists and turns so I may take a few days off just to work on spicing up the outline a little.
Friday, June 28, 2002 ( 4:22 AM )
Its not for everyone...
...but it suits me fine. I'm enjoying my new writing schedule. Since Cimeron needs to use this computer too, I'm letting her use it from 7 to 10 each night while I take a nap. The nap helps me stay up in the quiet time of darkness, when I can write in peace undisturbed.
Tonight the writing was just great. It flowed like water gushing out of a faucet... really smooth and natural. I love it when writing is this easy, not at all stilted or stressful. I felt so good about how things were going, I decided to let the protagonist take a short vacation with her boyfriend. When last encountered, they were heading east towards a lake in the mountains.
The Alyssa Project now has a total of 10437 words, and that includes the 1048 words I added tonight.
Thursday, June 27, 2002 ( 3:58 AM )
Keeping the momentum going
I took an afternoon nap earlier, to make sure I wouldn't be too tired to write tonight. Well, it is nearly 4am and I finally got done. The Alyssa Project is 9389 words long now, as I added 1133 words tonight. Earlier tonight I did some "writing to the prompt" using the suggestion in Judy Reeves' book:
The prompt for today is "write about the making of beds". I wrote a piece using characters from another novel I want to write - one I've been mulling over and writing at for about a year now - with the working title of "River Girl". This will be a historical novel about the town I live in. I had Clara (the river girl) and her brother making flower beds for their mother. Because the ground here is so rocky, I have a hard time getting anything to grow so ... I had them moving the rocks around to make two identical flower beds and trying to decide where to find dirt to put in them. This is a BIG problem for me too... you would just have to see this rock pile to believe how challenging this can be.
Anyhow, it was great to be writing to a prompt again. I would like to do that every day but I know, life being what it is, I'll get distracted again. With every distraction is an opportunity to return to practice.
I'm trying to motivate myself to write here, so bear with me. My total word count for the Alyssa Project now stands at 8256 - and tonight I wrote 1142 words. I have been sitting here wondering if I should mention what the scenes were about - but decided not to.... it just seems like too much information about a novel in progress to put on the web. Suffice it to say, there were two scenes. Just like with the last two novels I wrote, I'm finding that 500 words is the length of an average scene. Now I'm curious to go analyze some other author's work to see how long other people make an "average scene" as if there really is one.
Tuesday, June 25, 2002 ( 1:32 PM )
Making Progress - The Alyssa Project
I'm up to 7114 words now. This includes what I already had done on the other computer (1618 extra words) plus the 1009 words I added last night. If I keep writing at this rate I should have another novel written in a month or two. One of the writing books I've read suggested this pace for no burnout:
Well, it is just after 3 in the morning now, but I did it. I wrote 1077 more words in my newest manuscript, and the total is now 4487 words. That's a start! I really didn't want to write tonight... I wasn't "in the mood" - but I did it anyhow and now I feel great (albeit tired) and well... I'm exhilarated I'm nearly to 5000 words with this.
I actually have a missing chapter already written on my other computer and hope to add that in within a few days now. Tonight I wrote a scene in the parking lot of a courthouse. What should have been a wonderful experience was much less than wonderful... for Alyssa... and now she's depressed............... but I'm not!! I almost feel like apologizing to my fictional character. What does that say about novel writers?... or am I just getting silly because I'm up so late?
Today I went to the Indian Creek Café to write. They were very nice about letting me take up room at one of their tables (of course I bought coffee and garlic bread - that helps)... and I went through one of Alicia Rasley's outstanding articles about writing. I did the one called "The Internal Journey" ... detailing Alyssa's inner journey from being a very self-centered young teenager to becoming a young, but more mature, wife and mother. After six pages in longhand I knew my character a lot better -- not only her relentless march toward strength and maturity, but also her quirks, misbehavior, and shortcomings.
I'm doing a constant word count on the writing of this manuscript - for some reason that really motivates me. So far I'm 3409 words into it not counting the words in my prefocus elaboration document. My goal is 1000 words per day (or night).
I was doing a bit of research on "the writing process" and came upon this website that talks about doing research papers. I definitely believe that adequate preparation makes any work much more compelling.
For tonight I will do a "Prefocus Elaboration" on the Alyssa project issues. Even though it is fiction, it is based on actual issues in our American government today... so it is essential to touch on all the pertinent facts that would affect Alyssa's attempts to regain custody of her baby.
I'm about to start on my Alyssa project again and this time am thinking I must take joy in the process of writing her story, rather than obsessing over what to do with the manuscript when it is finished.
Alyssa is a teenage girl whose baby gets kidnapped by a government agent. I need to go help her get her baby back home again now.
The process of writing involves allowing words to flow through without the evil editor within taking on censoring duties. If we can allow ourselves to write bad, we can at least get the first draft down on paper.
Speaking of writing bad, I just wrote one of the worst poems to ever flow out of my pen. It was about my daughter:
Here's a few of the "better" lines:
She is a girl who acts like a cur.
She's probably sorry she was born without fur.
She likes the computer just like she loves dogs,
I don't know why she doesn't have a dog blog.
Probably better to skip the rest! ... But you get the idea. She didn't get the nickname "dog-girl" for nothing.
Now, usually when I write poetry, I take pretty much the first thing that comes to mind and don't bother editing much out... for example - my poem about food additives was total stream of consciousness and remains unedited to this day... and the reason I haven't edited it is that it was "just practice". I didn't have high standards for my work the night I wrote it, but just wanted to do my "daily writing practice". Every now and then, by luck or by probable odds, I come up with something I'm not totally ashamed to share in public.
Lately my writing has been mostly in my journal or blogs. I've been working through Artist's Way again and doing morning pages. Many days during the last two months I spent time outside writing in a plain, spiral-bound notebook, and I've managed to record so much about life as it swirls and revolves around me. I feel this period in my life is genesis for something better to come... not that this isn't good enough but that I'm learning something every day.
This last week I've revived my Coast To Coast Weblog - because the art of writing commentary is something I want to do better. Weblogs are great for learning to get words out and stress less about perfection.
As the page linked at the top of this entry states, "Go ahead and write drivel at first, as long as you write. Out of your nonsense and ramblings, however, believe that something good will come..."
