Every Friday, there's Fragment... parts of a sentence are posted. Writers can use them any way they want, and then post the results, and see what others did.
I've been sick for days now and am not getting much done. I will return! One thing I did out of necessity is to write a 2500-word legal defense of independent homeschooling in California. I'll be posting that somewhere after I clean it up and make a public version. The other version is what I'll use to submit with my request for an administrative hearing. Wish me luck!
I finished the first revision for The Scribe of Irohila
I'm so thrilled to have this done. It took months to get into the revision mode. Now plans for this novel are to revise the first few chapters again, get some critiques, read it out loud to my family, and then revise one more time. Then I'll feel its ready to be published.
Work on A Curious Woman Wants to Know is continuing, but not very quickly. I did another 1697 words today. I recently turned my main character's husband into an alcoholic. Their marriage is shaky at this point. Its a shame because everything used to be so perfect for them. But I guess life is just like that sometimes.
I also edited chapter 12 in The Scribe of Irohila. Only seven more chapters to edit, then I can start looking for critiques and read it to my kids. After getting everyone's opinions, I'll revise one more time, then mail it somewhere.
Its hard for me to believe I've written that much. I look at the number and feel stunned. How can this be? But I've done it, all since November 1. And here's what scares me: I don't feel I'm very close to the end. I don't want the manuscript to go over 120000 words but it looks like it might.
Tonight I wrote 1603 words on the new manuscript and edited chapter 10 of The Scribe of Irohila. The more I read that novel, the more I like it. I hope I can get it sent out to publishers in 2004.
I'm finally getting writing done again. I finished my revision project and wrote another 3286 words on A Curious Woman Wants To Know. The total word count on that manuscript is now 112559 words.
The plot is moving right along - winding down in some ways but now its interesting to see how some of the problem makers are resolving situations in their lives. I've still got lots to write... and am hoping to get this done by the end of the month.
Wah! I need to get back to it. Tonight I'm revising chapter 9 of The Scribe of Irohila. The last two nights I sacrificed my writing time to a webdesign job as I was anxious to do the work before my client went out of town.
An African American student objected to having Huckleberry Finn included as required reading in her 11th grade language arts class. The book contains the word 'nigger' 215 times.
I recall starting to read the book a few years ago, and being unable to continue because I didn't like the way Twain wrote the dialogue.
At the bottom of the article there's a list of other books that received challenges in 2002, and the reasons why. Offensive language seems to be a common complaint.
Okay, this is getting scary. I'm still writing A Curious Woman Wants to Know and am nearing what I considered my final word count (120,000 words) and still have a lot of story left to tell. I wonder where this will all end... and I'm trying so hard not to rush it, but to let it play out naturally. Today's word count was 1541 (goal: 1500/day this week).
I also revised Chapter Eight of The Scribe of Irohila, my first middle-grade novel (written in 2001).
I located an easy Microsoft Excel tutorial last night and am about half-way through it now. I set up a simple spreadsheet to track my word count and revision progress during December. After experimenting with it for a month, I want to do something more elaborate for 2004.
I'm doing the December market research challenge at Forward Motion... and posted two markets earlier this evening... both for children's fiction and non-fiction books. I also spent time brainstorming for ideas for my news website and for Vision.
Yay... now that NaNoWriMo's out of the way, I'm cutting back to at least 1500 words/day on the noveling project.... plus will be revising one chapter per day on one of my earlier novels. This evening I wrote 1590 words on A Curious Woman Wants To Know and revised chapter seven of The Scribe of Irohila. I loved that chapter... it gave me hope for my career as a novelist. I can hardly wait to finish this pass and start reading it out loud to my son who will do me the honor of being 'first listener' for the entire novel. He's got lots of experience with listening to me read novels and I trust that he'll be able to give me feedback that will be helpful.
I also did my first critique at Forward Motion today - something I'm especially happy about as it took me so long to get over my 'block' to doing it. I've done critiques at AOL - and have edited submissions to Happy Camp News and Parent News - but this is something I've never done at FM until today. Hopefully I've gained confidence in the process.
I finished NaNoWriMo with 106142 words... 3650 of them written on Sunday. The novel is not done so I'll be continuing with this project in December.
Other writing goals for December:
1. Critiques
2. Market Research Challenge
3. New issues of Parent News and Happy Camp News
4. Learn to use spreadsheets to keep track of 2004 word counts
5. Revision of my two middle-grade novels
