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Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Been doing crits for my online group. One more to go and then I can get back to the edit.
Finished Part Two of the book I'm working on at the moment - The Truth About Trees and woke up this morning with the whole of Part Three in my head! Funny how it works sometimes!
I wrote a blog post. It may lead to getting going again. I'm at a peculiar junction, and have decided to solve it as an arc instead of scene by scene. When I figure out new things (for me), I often blog about it to get it down in a coherent form for my own sake.
Doesn't hurt to get my first review in a while (up to 48 now - wondering if 50 is a magic number, as some have said):"Katherine Keough
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2020
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed this book and am eager for the next. I felt immersed in the story and the characters. The characters became real and I am concerned for them now. "
One loves to be called nice names.
It had been a while, so it was extra special. Plus Keogh is an Episcopal bishop - and someone who went to Seattle U. and was in the same hiking club way back in the 1960s and 1970s.I'm hoping her review will lead to more.
I sit here, head held high, for I have now written 3 chapters - about 5,000 words. However, I'm behind with everything else now.
Last two or three days I've been writing about 800 words a day of the novel, but before that I had a splurge of blog posts, getting them done so I wasn't having to keep breaking off to write them :-)
Anna wrote: "I sit here, head held high, for I have now written 3 chapters - about 5,000 words. However, I'm behind with everything else now."Somebody needs to say it: Great job, Anna!
Who cares about anything else (unless the 'else' is fiction, too)!
You have your priorities straight.
Jim wrote: "Last two or three days I've been writing about 800 words a day of the novel, but before that I had a splurge of blog posts, getting them done so I wasn't having to keep breaking off to write them :-)"Good job!
You DO know that blog posts are optional, and not paid for? Even if they are a form of advertising? Just a gentle reminder.
Alicia wrote: "You DO know that blog posts are optional, and not paid for? Even if they are a form of advertising? Just a gentle reminder. ..."
Remember my business model
The dog and quad blog posts and sifted through and go to make up the collections such as Sometimes I sits and thinks
The Tallis Steelyard ones get put together into anthologies like Tallis Steelyard, shower me with gold and other stories. so they do both jobs :-)
Jim wrote: "Alicia wrote: "You DO know that blog posts are optional, and not paid for? Even if they are a form of advertising? Just a gentle reminder. ..."
Remember my business model
The dog and quad blog p..."
Sorry - I forgot about the second part.
I should have remembered - I look at all my writing posts and see a book: How NOT to Write, subtitled Unless everything else hasn't worked for you...
What do you think?
Mwahahahrgh Alicia that made me laugh. I still keep threatening to do a how to book called, 'I fucked this up so you don't have to, what to avoid doing to build a writing career.'Congratulations everone. I sent my book off to some beta readers today, and I'm about to offer it to the superfans on my mailing list. I also finally got the invoice for Dad's care and paid it ... it only took them 21 months to send it but that should be the last piece of admin around Dad's death taken care of. Well ... er hem ... apart from interring his ashes. But we're going to batch him with Mum.
M.T., now you'll have all the memories to play with, I hope they are all good ones. My heart went out to you with all the admin.As for 'How not to' books, sigh. I think we'd be joining another crowded market!
Anna wrote: "M.T., now you'll have all the memories to play with, I hope they are all good ones. My heart went out to you with all the admin.As for 'How not to' books, sigh. I think we'd be joining another cr..."
Thanks and ... yes you're probably right.
Maybe that's not the best Title/subtitle. A touch more subtlety?Suggestions?
Hmm..., Alicia, that's a good thought. I wish I could have a good thought to help you out!
I'll have more standing (and the time) when the trilogy is finished.Hard to argue with a finished project.
I wrote a blog this week, which was a bit of a turn up. Also got comments back from the first beta reader and incorporated them.Cheers
MTM
Sounds good. After plodding away at about 300 words a day (or blog posts) I've managed over 3000 this weekend :-)
Well done M.T. and Jim. I managed about 2,500 last week. I could do more but I always find so much that needs altering on the first read-through!
I've discovered something M.T. mentioned a bit back. You want to find a short window and just write. It happens that there's a certain time in the morning when I'm between stuff, I'm waiting for other people to do things before I can, and nobody is bothering me. It's amazing what you can do in half an hour, especially if you've been pondering the story over the previous day :-)
I've learnt a lot from other people on Goodreads.
When I finally blocked the internet to write, deciding to leave all the political turmoil and coronavirus turmoil to the experts and the people in charge, half the final scene in the current chapter flowed like warmed honey, which was cool because it's six people, and my brain seemed to have pulled it out of the ether. 820 finished words after I changed 3.Maybe I'll get the other part done today, too. Could happen.
Well done! I'm hugely impressed with you needing to change only 3 words.
The rest of the scene proceeded onto the page for a total of 1587 new words - and it and the chapter are finished except for a very thorough set of passes through AutoCrit and all my checklists.I may actually finish this second trilogy volume this year. And start the third (I don't count rough drafts - mine are so pedestrian).
It has been a dry spell through the worst of the politics and the pandemic - hard to write when it might be the end of the world, I find.
Anna wrote: "Well done! I'm hugely impressed with you needing to change only 3 words."Thanks. There will be more when I march through AutoCrit, but it has to flow properly before I even attempt the editing. The usual suspects - but I got through the listening potion of the processing, and the text survived. Funny how you get people talking in your head.
Woah, nice going Alicia.Jim, like you I’ve been doing the ten minutes thing and have managed to do something most days. Not at any regular time but at least it’s happening. I’m just tweaking the Christmas story I wrote for an anthology this year before adding its second half so it can become a K’Barthan Short next year.
The novel is being beta read and so I’m in that pleasant limbo when I’m casting about deciding what to write next. I need to do something with Space Dustmen - the slightly more suitable for the normals straight comedic sci fi series. In fact, I really, really need to write something new and more commercial but Mum’s not too good at the moment so I’ll write what flows for now so I’ll probably be doing some more work on the series of stuff about the old ladies in the Parrot and Screwdriver and Their Trev.
M.T. wrote: "Woah, nice going Alicia.Jim, like you I’ve been doing the ten minutes thing and have managed to do something most days. Not at any regular time but at least it’s happening. I’m just tweaking the ..."
You do what you can, and your body will let you. Your commitment to writing is obvious. Your mom needs you now - your family needs you now - and that knee isn't going to rehab itself.
Great job.
Well done everyone. Tackled a 2 chapter edit and have done one of the crits on the new round in my critique group.
Written just over 3,000 words so far today of The Truth About Trees. Loving it very much. Reckon I'm almost two thirds now through this first draft - 38,000 and counting!
Got through the chapter editing, and have set up the first of the three epigraphs; I know what I'm doing for the other two - just have to word them so they read like a yellow journalist wrote one, and the other an actor's fan site.
Nice going Stuart and Alicia. I've been dealing with vertigo and copyright trolls today so things are moving slowly ...!
Yay Pam! Spent the week collecting in the beta readers' comments and am about half way through incorporating them into the final document. Also have come close to finishing the interminable cuboard clean out of doom so should get more done after that.
Good work MT!I've written seven thousand or so words this weekend. Just finished chapter two of the final story in my book The Truth About Trees. Seven more chapters and it's done!
Today I mostly wrote emails to those friends to whom (!) I owe emails. Yikes what a clumsy sentence. About 5,000 words at a guess and no need to edit and refine beyond a quick tweak.
I also guess this is not what I'm supposed to be telling you! Ah but come Tuesday evening it will be different.
Anna wrote: "Today I mostly wrote emails to those friends to whom (!) I owe emails. Yikes what a clumsy sentence. About 5,000 words at a guess and no need to edit and refine beyond a quick tweak.
I also gues..."
Well done and at the same time, Oh lordy don't remind me! I have a lot of my mother's correspondence to attend to. Her friends write her letter and she gives them to me saying, 'I don't know what to do with this but I ought to write back,' so then I write back, except I've found some that are really old, where I haven't written back at all! Eeek.
Stuart wrote: "Good work MT!
I've written seven thousand or so words this weekend. Just finished chapter two of the final story in my book The Truth About Trees. Seven more chapters and it's done!"
Yay Stuart! You're motoring!
Mary, Maybe you should write a newsletter to your mother's friends - with the basics - and then just append a personal note to answer any questions and to say hi and make it less a canned response.I'm sure they'd rather hear something than have to wait until you have more time.
I'm trying to get myself in gear to do that for friends - I have neglected the writing so long, and so much of what I would say is a repeat, and most of my life right now is so boring! I'll let you know if I ever get to it.
Alicia wrote: "Mary, Maybe you should write a newsletter to your mother's friends - with the basics - and then just append a personal note to answer any questions and to say hi and make it less a canned response...."Probably. I do one at Christmas. :-) A summer one might help.
Today I wrote about 800 words - good going for me. Then my inner editor reckoned all of that could be said in a few sentences. It's now down to about 250 words. The rest are floating around in some bin somewhere.
Wasn't it Graham Greene who said that when you averaged it all out he reckoned he probably wrote about 100 words a day?
Anna wrote: "Today I wrote about 800 words - good going for me. Then my inner editor reckoned all of that could be said in a few sentences. It's now down to about 250 words. The rest are floating around in some..."Congratulations!
I manage several hundred to several thousand a day - but often little of that is finished fiction, the only thing I count.
My brain works on the page - I can't carry anything in-head. So there are all kinds of things written that another author would simply remember, and get on with it.
Can't complain. Most of the people I know with ME have the same kinds of severe mental restrictions; and I greatly fear for the future, as it is estimated that TEN PERCENT of those who GET Covid-19 will have something long-term that looks very similar to ME.
That's a HUGE number of people. Not just the ones who have symptoms. I pray it's a lot fewer.
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This one ended at 1255 words after rigorous editing, listening, and running the whole thing through Autocrit over and over until I was satisfied.
Once I let her channel through my brain, the scene finished itself. Everything I'd planned to go there, is there - phew! I love it when they finally do that. I had inspiration.