PaWriCo Week 2 Check-In

Hey all, Sam here.

I guess I’m going to start today’s post by referring back to the two previous posts about PaWriCo: first the announcement of my project goals and deadline, and second my Week 1 Check-In. It has been a week since that last check-in, so if I’m serious about trying to work towards my goals, I figure I should at least make note of my progress in a public space once a week.

So let’s go ahead and get started with the update…

After my last post, I was starting to feel my characters and my stories speak to me again, as I tried to get my focus back so I could get writing. And honestly, that feeling is sometimes more important for me than actually putting words on the page. Whenever I’ve tried to write without having my stories buzzing in my mind, the words have all fallen flat and I end up deleting 95% of whatever I spew onto the page.

I’ve been dreaming of “Roll for Romance” for years, ever since I started dating my husband back in 2017, and yes, I’ve probably put too much pressure on myself to make this story as amazing as it felt to experience over the years, but since the story hasn’t been shared with others, it’s just mine and my husband’s.

Anyway, Days 8-11 of the month were work days, so I knew I wasn’t going to get much writing added to my story, but at least I could spend some time thinking about the story and the characters and getting ready for a bunch of writing on my days off.

Here’s where everything has gotten wonky…the story that is wanting to come out right now isn’t “Roll for Romance.” It’s my other WIP, the one I was focused on when I did the Write Brave Challenge mid-September to mid-October.

I’m really wanting to focus on “Roll for Romance,” but the words don’t want to flow for it at this exact moment, and so I’m struggling.

My other WIP, “When Light Meets Dark,” is sitting at 28,400 words, and I think the final word count (since it’s planned as a novella/short novel) will probably be around 45-50k. That’s based on the scenes I know I still need to write and the average length of each completed chapter, so by the time I reach THE END, I believe it will be around 45,000 words.

Here’s where the flexibility of PaWriCo might work to my advantage. Some are focused on planning, some on drafting, some on editing…so why can’t I keep planning “Roll for Romance” in the background while I work on finishing the drafting for “When Light Meets Dark”?

I mean, my absolute main goal with all of this is to get back in the swing of writing and to be writing with more consistency. If one project is speaking to me more loudly than the other, then I should hop on board and get writing…right?

Because honestly, I’ve been opening up a notebook for the past several days, intent on writing, and then closing the notebook again when I realize I’m about to work on “When Light Meets Dark” instead of “Roll for Romance,” and that seems counterproductive when all I want to do is get writing.

So, next update, I’ll talk about where I am with both projects, and we’ll see if I can make a bit more progress with things.

All right, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.