Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread. Showing 3,201-3,250 of 4,252

[Jim]

why does a character have to learn something?

[Alicia]

It is impossible to write without saying something you believe. It leaks out unless you root it out deliberately - and why do that?

Your entire choice of characters, plot, even mundane details such as dialogue and description comes because of who you are. And that's why people stick with their favorite authors: that itch gets scratched.

Or you can be like me and agonize over how to put something in the best possible way, but that is a lot of work.

[Rosemary (grooving with the Picts)]

I think that's actually a bizarre question Mary and sounds like something you'd learn to ask on a creative writing course maybe? Got a hint of tick box about it and I would pay it no mind, tbh

[M.T.]

Thanks everyone

Alicia. I completely agree with you. It's why I try to avoid putting morals or ideas in, because any I consciously attempt to add get in the way of the ones that are appearing naturally.

Ro, yeh. It did seem a bit weird to me. Maybe I come over as more confident than I do, or maybe she's trying too hard. I always tell her to be an utter pedant so it may simply be that she is trying to analyse them too much or it may say a bit about her confidence, perhaps. She's a good editor and she lives just down the road which always helps and she's almost as good at continuity as Katherine was. But I think she's quite aware that we live near each other and are acquaintances and that if it goes wrong its a bit local. Also I'm not 100% certain she's read the other books. I've sent them, and the style sheet, but some of the questions she asks point to a lack of foreknowledge! I should probably get better at telling her those will make sense in time.

Jim, I totally agree and, as you know I wrote a whole series about a side character like that! Have to add that your Claire was really good on some of the question asking. Her input helped a lot with ironing stuff out.

Having slept on it, I'm feeling a lot less stumped about it. Didn't write any new words yesterday but spent the afternoon going through the edits. Have a blog post to write this morning so I'd better get cracking! Onwards and upwards. :-)

[Jim]

glad she helped :-)

[Jim]

M.T. wrote: "Have to add that your Claire was really good on some of the question asking. Her input helped a lot with ironing stuff out...."

I'll let her know :-)

[M.T.]

Jim wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Have to add that your Claire was really good on some of the question asking. Her input helped a lot with ironing stuff out...."

I'll let her know :-)"

Do, I hope I did. It’s always good when someone reads it through and asks questions. I’ve just finished doing the edits, did that today, so now it goes back to the editor for a second pass and then, hopefully, I can get it published by 18th June ... Eeek! Definitely need something in there by the time it goes live on Kindle.

[Kath]

First writing since lockdown. 667 words. It's the start of a short story for an anthology. A small beginning.

[M.T.]

Nice going Kath.

Nothing for a while but I’ve just realised I have a new book out on 18th and it’s slightly put a bomb under me in the respect of marketing and stuff. Also the audio peps are only a two weeks behind the furthest email in their automation series so I need to finish that quick smart!

I am an idiot to start these things before I’ve finished but if I don’t, I’ll never get round to finishing them.

Cheers

MTM

[Joseph]

Not been very good with the writing again :-)
Just generally wondering - do people in this thread tend to make themselves targets (hard or soft), and if so, what's their unit - daily, weekly etc?
I think I quite like the idea of setting myself a few hundred words in the next aeon or so.

[Alicia]

The minor character pulled her weight, the scene took several major reframings to figure out, a couple more to get right, and then, as usual in my world, the text wrote itself.

I polished it, ran it through AutoCrit and did the many fine-tunings suggested by such counting algorithms as 'you have X instances of word Y,' followed by me going 'd*mn' again, as that's my major flaw these days - using the same word too many times in a scene in various meanings!

My brain is lazy, and I don't restrain it when writing, but after that I have to consider the reader's experience, and readers are not lazy-brained.

The whole process is helped immeasurably by the robot voices reading what is actually there instead of what I think is there, several times, switching from male to female voices, and we are done!

1724 word scene which solved all my problems. I still don't know how it happens. I'm just grateful that eventually it does.

Then I started the next scene's files and processing (never stop at the end of anything - restarting is too hard), took a nap, and went for a trike ride before it gets too hot.

[M.T.]

Joseph wrote: "Not been very good with the writing again :-)
Just generally wondering - do people in this thread tend to make themselves targets (hard or soft), and if so, what's their unit - daily, weekly etc?
I..."

I aim to do ten minutes a day. If I do more that's gravy but that's all I ever aim for because everyone can do ten minutes, right? It's 250 words usually, and it all adds up. That said I haven't done my ten minutes since Friday.

Cheers

MTM

Alicia wrote: "The minor character pulled her weight, the scene took several major reframings to figure out, a couple more to get right, and then, as usual in my world, the text wrote itself.

I polished it, ran ..."

Nice work. Nothing for me yesterday. I've a launch in two weeks and a LOT of work to do!

[Alicia]

I'm trying to live through the next few scenes; once I have the movie in my head, it is easier to write the words.

I like getting back in Bianca's mind (my villain). She has such very good reasons for the things she does. I half believe her myself!

[M.T.]

Alicia wrote: "I'm trying to live through the next few scenes; once I have the movie in my head, it is easier to write the words.

I like getting back in Bianca's mind (my villain). She has such very good reasons..."

Totally get that. I found writing my villain was extremely liberating. Loved it.

[Alicia]

Spent my day with a map of the world, planning how to justify going from LA to the Czech Republic the long way around.

I have more fun!

The rule: mention things, but don't over explain, or you will be nose-deep in trivia - and drowning.

[M.T.]

Just uploaded the finished files for Close Enough to everywhere. :-) Not exactly writing, I know but I'm dead chuffed. Also Gareth is bored so I've sent him the files for the next lot so he can quietly get on with those inbetween other things. :-)

Cheers

MTM

[Jim]

I was just mulling over stuff and realised that the investigators missed a very obvious trick so have to go back and add a scene

[Kath]

Just in the middle of a writing session for the short story. Another anthology has cropped up so I may be doing this for a while!

[Alicia]

Just working out some of the mental stuff that precedes the pre-writing. Next set of 4-5 scenes is critical, so I want to get them right.

I go back to my writing books, and realize I need to go big and bold - and set off some fireworks. Pretty!

[M.T.]

Nice going everyone. I’ve kind of worked out the climactic scene for the novel but it’s going to take a while to sort out as I have a book launch and I’ve gone and signed up for a load of promos without really thinking it through so I have emails to write. Oh bollocks ... and a blog post. Forgot about that.

Cheers

MTM

[M.T.]

There we go. Another massive rant. https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2020/06/06/bl...

[Jim]

A good one

[M.T.]

Jim wrote: "A good one"

Thanks. 🙂

[Kath]

1400 words this morning. Thank goodness for this anthology which has jerked me out of my lethargy and kick-started the writing again. I'm 3k into a 5k story.

[M.T.]

Nice going Kath! I’m in shock, just started futering about with the short that’s turned into a novel early. Now it’s sucked in two hours and I’ve written 2,467 words! Happy with that. Just the last two scenes to go now.

[Alicia]

The roadmap for the next fifteen scenes now contains about 7500 words gathered from all sources - stuff that will be examined, reworded, tweaked - and may end up in the scenes. Just part of my writing process to bring it all together so I can think - but none of those words count.

But the next arc will be easier to write this way.

[Kath]

Good going, Alicia - and Mary.

Another 1148 today on that short for the anthology. Stopping now to go for a walk before it widdles down again!

[Alicia]

Kath wrote: "Good going, Alicia - and Mary.

Another 1148 today on that short for the anthology. Stopping now to go for a walk before it widdles down again!"

Nice progress.

[Kath]

Edited it today. Quite pleased.

[Jim]

I've virtually finished the last of the four volumes of the Tsarina Sector!
This one is over 100,000 words which is the longest novel I've ever written

[M.T.]

Fine effort Jim and Kath!

Did another 1.8k words on the novel on thursday. There’s no time to write at the moment. It was all birthday prep cooking and housework last week and this weekend I’ll be going visiting. I couldn’t even write a decent blog post. I just haven’t the time to think deeply enough about them. I did manage one though, here it is:

https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2020/06/13/mo...

[M.T.]

Yay, 2,106. The whole thing is up to 55,755 and I think I should finish it in about 5,000 words’ time. The Pan has to say good bye to the girl he’s fallen for and Big Merv has to be a tiny bit less scary than he was before on account of a job well done.

Cheers

[Alicia]

M.T. wrote: "Yay, 2,106. The whole thing is up to 55,755 and I think I should finish it in about 5,000 words’ time. The Pan has to say good bye to the girl he’s fallen for and Big Merv has to be a tiny bit less..."

Saying goodbye is hard - I have one coming up in a scene or two, and it's going to lead to a big plot change, and... you know the drill.

But it has to be done - pain now to avoid even bigger pain later (maybe).

Sometimes we writers aren't very nice to our creations.

[M.T.]

Yay the novel has hit 60k. Woot.

[M.T.]

Alicia wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Yay, 2,106. The whole thing is up to 55,755 and I think I should finish it in about 5,000 words’ time. The Pan has to say good bye to the girl he’s fallen for and Big Merv has to be a ..."

Yeh. He will be heart broken but I think he's going to end it not her.

[Alicia]

The roadmap worked; the first scene came out at 2100 words, and the next three will be shorter.

I plotted in all kinds of connected stuff from my planning words, and it made it much easier to see where I was going.

One more, shorter scene, and this Chapter will go off to the beta reader. I think I'm getting a bit faster. Once I figure out what I'm writing.

[Jim]

The fourth book of the Tsarina series which I'm determined to finish was getting way to long and clunky
So I've split it and am putting in the extra scenes that really needed to be in
But also it means that it allows people to understand 'the bad guys' better

[M.T.]

Jim wrote: "The fourth book of the Tsarina series which I'm determined to finish was getting way to long and clunky
So I've split it and am putting in the extra scenes that really needed to be in
But also it m..."

This is a feeling I know well with my four book ‘trilogy’ and my 60k ‘short’. Good news though. I really enjoyed the first two Tsarina books.

Alicia wrote: "The roadmap worked; the first scene came out at 2100 words, and the next three will be shorter.

I plotted in all kinds of connected stuff from my planning words, and it made it much easier to see ..."

Woah! You’re flying now Alicia. Nice going!

I’ll be writing a blog post today, mostly but hopefully I’ll get it done quickly.

Cheers

MTM

[Alicia]

Thanks MT - just have to corral the brain today and finish the one short scene which concludes this chapter.

Unfortunately, it was also trike ride day, and many of those are a dead loss.

[M.T.]

Nothing for me today either. But I did write a blog.

https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2020/06/20/th...

[Jim]

Today I did manage a Maljie story,
But then the day was lost as I was kept running from pillar to post dealing with stuff

[M.T.]

I thought I'd be in the same boat Jim but I managed 918 words. I may have to delete them all later but for now they're staying.

Cheers

MTM

[Alicia]

Good job, Mary - what an odd Sunday!

Somehow found 1122 words yesterday for the beginning of the last scene in the chapter; they're not there yet, nor finished, and there are all kinds of questions about whether it will make a reader want to turn the page, but words are word.

Hope to finish today. But the brain was DOA this morning. Have had a nap - hoping!

[M.T.]

Hope the Brian is back tomorrow Alicia. Did some mailing list stuff. Hope to do more this afternoon.

[Alicia]

M.T. wrote: "Hope the Brian is back tomorrow Alicia. Did some mailing list stuff. Hope to do more this afternoon."

I shall have to call it that, Mary.

I finished it yesterday - 1538 words - and the chapter is finished.

Edited both of these last scenes to within an inch of their lives, and then put one through AutoCrit and my insane process this morning, and will do the other one after a nap, and 29 is off to Rachel, my amazing beta reader/cum proofreader.

I decided I had achieved the right tone - perfectly serene above water, paddling frantically underneath - for the two women thrown together with no warning.

[M.T.]

Alicia wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Hope the Brian is back tomorrow Alicia. Did some mailing list stuff. Hope to do more this afternoon."

I shall have to call it that, Mary.

I finished it yesterday - 1538 words - and t..."

Nice going.

[M.T.]

Managed 841. I was on 100 for about an hour though because I kept deleting stuff.

[Alicia]

M.T. wrote: "Managed 841. I was on 100 for about an hour though because I kept deleting stuff."

Nothing to sneeze at, especially considering how busy you have been with book stuff. Good show.

[M.T.]

Thanks. Managed 400 and something today.

[Alicia]

It was 28, not 29 - where is my head?

Chapter 28 came out at 9800 words, about average for me, and on track for another door stopper, but the last three chapters are planned to be shorter, so it won't hurt.