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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
message 1601:
by
Will
(new)
Jan 07, 2018 02:21PM
It doesn't like my soft Lancashire accent as it is!
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None of the text to speech things in my life understand my accent which is bloody ridiculous because I don't have one.
as somebody whose speech is so pure and clear that apparently the Queen herself envies my diction, I've always avoided these devices lest I shame them into crashing from pure humiliation
Sometimes when I'm listening to an audiobook, Siri on my phone starts an argument with it . . .
Tim wrote: "Sometimes when I'm listening to an audiobook, Siri on my phone starts an argument with it . . ."Mwahahahahrgh! I would love to see that.
Jim wrote: "as somebody whose speech is so pure and clear that apparently the Queen herself envies my diction, I've always avoided these devices lest I shame them into crashing from pure humiliation"
As far as I can tell, the more clearly you speak the less likely it is to have a fucking clue!
Example:Guy on audiobook, "What? Are you serious?"
Siri (completely unbidden): "I'm always serious!"
Tim wrote: "Example:Guy on audiobook, "What? Are you serious?"
Siri (completely unbidden): "I'm always serious!""
pure genius ;-)
M.T. wrote: "As far as I can tell, the more clearly you speak the less likely it is to have a fucking clue! .."I suspect there were too many Americans in the system, English speakers are doomed
Tim wrote: "Example:Guy on audiobook, "What? Are you serious?"
Siri (completely unbidden): "I'm always serious!""
Brilliant! I'm so stealing that.
Will wrote: "Tim wrote: "Example:Guy on audiobook, "What? Are you serious?"
Siri (completely unbidden): "I'm always serious!""
Brilliant! I'm so stealing that."
you're not the only one
But don't ever fall asleep with the TV on and Siri in the room unattended!
Formatted 2 chapters - 23K words - and sent the first one off. Very hard - had forgotten half my editing and formatting process and had to think harder than comfortable. My brain hurts - but the first one is mailed off.Beta reader gets them one at a time, as they're so long, and part of what she does is tell me if they hang together as a chapter, and whether my writing style is fading. These are literally all over the world - New Hampshire and Los Angeles in the US, Dublin, and New Delhi to Agra, so I have to make it possible for the reader to follow along without confusion or getting lost, and it was very hard work. Hope they do the job.
Got a new review - which makes thirty. It was a puzzling 3* - which makes me wonder about it being compelling enough to be read quickly (KU). Ah, readers!
No words today, and from tomorrow I shall mostly be re-writing some. Got my edits back!
Wow, everyone's been busy. I had to leave my latest version of the book half formatted before NY and haven't yet got back to it with various distractions including coming down with a cold, but managed an afternoon today - though editing another book, to be able to send two chapters round on an email based critique group. Just got those chapters off so with luck and if I feel any better can get back to that formatting shortly.
Fine job Alicia and Pam. Tim, that's comedy gold that is. In a grump today as administriviatative shite ate yesterday and it'll eat today too. Hoping I'll get a quick sprint in.
Jim wrote: "M.T. wrote: "As far as I can tell, the more clearly you speak the less likely it is to have a fucking clue! .."I suspect there were too many Americans in the system, English speakers are doomed"
I'm told it's Engrish that will overcome all. As many folks in SE Asia speak it as we do and they write all the programmes, text to speech and instructions.
Finally got the first 1000 words written for a new Benor, 'Port Naain Intelligencer' story.Just been so busy with one thing and another and it's been all I could do to keep up with blog posts!
Finished the formatting, uploaded the book to KDP again and downloaded a copy to re-read. Found some things to correct again in the first few chapters, groan, including a continuity error which luckily four changed words took care of. So am reading on, hoping not to find many more.
Go Pam! Hope the rest is glitch free!Jim, I'm having the same trouble. If I write a decent blog post and do a mailing that's about it for the week. Did about 400 words of the K'Barthan novel though.
Cheers
MTM
that's one reason why I started collecting the blog posts
Well done all. I'm more in the way of cutting words out and moving them around at the moment!
That's two days of recording finished. Waiting now for mixing and production work before I hear finished tracks. But I'm really happy even with the rough cuts!
Wrote a blog post yesterday: https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2018/01/20/st... which meant that over today and yesterday I managed 1,567 words and broke the back of a tricky but important scene.
I also sorted out a zazzle shop for my eyebombing stuff (as cards).
http://bit.ly/eyebombtheschoolrun
All in all a good week. Dead chuffed.
Cheers
MTM
I keep writing blog posts - seems to be what I do when I'm awake, but not creative enough for fiction.I'd rather write fiction.
Bad week.
Latest news from the Studio is that I have 11 tracks (stories) and an estimated running time of 85 minutes. That's a double CD!
Well done, each. I've written six drabbles in the last few days, and the last couple of paras of the next book for publication.
I found myself struggling with the current Benor 'Port Naain Intelligencer' storyProblem is I'd inadvertently set it in mid summer and I just couldn't get into it!
So sod it, I've shifted it to midwinter (it makes no difference whatsoever to the plot but will make life far more wet and uncomfortable for our hero)
I should have the first mixes of some tracks next week. I'll be looking for some BETA listeners!
now there's a novel job. makes Beta readers seem so 2017 :-)
I am working slowly on my latest historical novel. It started as a simple short story but is now just shy of 24000 words. Reading contemporary memoirs is proving quite interesting too. I like first hand information rather than that which has long been filtered by history books.
Haven't been sleeping, so the head is full of fuzz, but managed to finish the middle beat of three in the present scene, a chunk of 890 words.I had to force myself to concentrate - that's the fuzziness - and ended up chucking most of the research, but it doesn't matter because the writing is imbued with the knowledge of that research, and the timeline is thus correct.
It's funny how it doesn't matter how you got to a finished piece - just that you have sorted it out. The construction process dissolves away leaving no scaffolding.
Nice going everyone! I'm seriously impressed at our progress. I reckon it's pats on the back all round! Didn't do much writing today, just had an idea which may turn into a Christmas short for next year. Didn't write anything today but I did do a lot of the admin I was going to have to do tomorrow so I might get some writing in then. We shall see.
I like that process Alicia. The scaffolding tends to be scribbled on pieces of paper with me, then the writing itself happens on the keyboard and is totally different so dissolving is a good analogy.
Finished the dang thing! Scene 25.41.2387 words which I won't tell you how long it took to get to final shape, ready for the final pass through AutoCrit (which tells me emotionlessly details such as that I've used 'get' 27 times).
I even listened to it - and it flows (in the Mac robot voice, but you use what you have).
Total surrounding material created by me, mostly: 16,887 words.
This scene was begun Dec. 17 (there were a few distractions in between).
Mine is not a sparse process.
When I look at these I wonder why I couldn't just go from the title to the finished work - it's now perfectly obvious this is how the scene goes. Aargh!
Alicia wrote: "Finished the dang thing! Scene 25.41.2387 words which I won't tell you how long it took to get to final shape, ready for the final pass through AutoCrit (which tells me emotionlessly details such..."
I hear you. The why did I have to write all that other stuff is one of the most annoying things about writing. :-)
If it helps, over the course of K'Barthan 3 and 4 I binned at least 70k. I hope I've refined my writing process. Bit but I still bin a fair bitwhen I'm writing my way into any new characters.
Managed 1500 yesterday. Slightly better, but I'm still going slower when it comes to tryng to thread all the bits of the novel together.
M.T. wrote: "I hope I've refined my writing process. ..."This is my refined writing process!
I think I'm getting worse sometimes. It has something to do with getting interrupted by Life (I'm sure you're cognizant of this), and it taking me many words before I'm, surprise!, back where I was before I got interrupted - and with a slightly different idea of how to do this set piece.
All my scenes are set pieces in one sense - I have pre-decided exactly where they are in the sequence, and most of what will happen, and how they contribute to getting to the end.
But the 'how' is still thrilling and exciting and discovery and wild flights of fancy, so all is good.
This one just had a lot of false starts and middles and ends, and my BS detector would pass 'good enough' as good enough, and it was right. Sigh.
There might have been a new character in there, now that you mention it.
I've now written 7061 wors in the last week on the book I'm editing. Mind you, that balances out with the amount of slashing and burning I did! Another 200 words worth of drabbles again today. I can't resist a weeping Hippo!
This ... I think I'm getting worse sometimes. It has something to do with getting interrupted by Life (I'm sure you're cognizant of this), and it taking me many words before I'm, surprise!, back where I was before I got interrupted - and with a slightly different idea of how to do this set piece. Bane of my life that one!
I did about 400 words on Tuesday but nothing yesterday, obviously.
However I did get some wonderful stories about my dad and a couple of requests to circulate the results. So that's a book I can work on.
Cheers
MTM
I got a blog post out, in which I return to an earlier theme of loathing estate agents and house buyers. (And start to plug the coming audiobook/CD )Does that count?
Will wrote: "I got a blog post out, in which I return to an earlier theme of loathing estate agents and house buyers. (And start to plug the coming audiobook/CD )Does that count?"
only if you link to it here so it's easy to find :-)
400 words the other day here, as well. Still progress.
Will wrote: "To hear is to obey...https://wordpress.com/post/willmacmil..."
you've posted the editing link :-)
Have you got one to the completed article ;-)
The process of making the recordings was really interesting. I should make that the next blog piece.
Will wrote: "The process of making the recordings was really interesting. I should make that the next blog piece."I'd definitely be interested in that. Just looking up the new post now. ;-)
Cheers
MTM
Will wrote: "Blast!https://wp.me/p1NaEc-GQ
Must have been the euphoria over The Showing's latest review"
I envy you being past starting the audio process. It can't be fast or easy or cheap to learn everything you have to know to not sound amateur on audio.
Alicia wrote: "Will wrote: "Blast!https://wp.me/p1NaEc-GQ
Must have been the euphoria over The Showing's latest review"
I envy you being past starting the audio process. It can't be fast or easy or cheap to l..."
I spent a year going round the local open mic spots with poetry and stories until I knew how to do the pieces in front of a microphone without having to use notes or read from a script. That's great fun, too.
The added bonus is that it killed any residual fear of public speaking.
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