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Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Brain visited for a while, and I scrapped a lot of the current scene, figured out the real focus, and rewrote, edited, and polished it - to end up just short of 2K. And another chapter will be done when I write in the epigraphs tomorrow and pick a title - it is good to have my brain stop by.
Yay. Brain is not playing ball at all here although I did manage a mighty rant and a very silly dream on my blog.
Not sure why I need so much new research before starting each chapter, but it's done, and the new chapter has far more promise than I thought it would have: we're 637 words in, and several of the epigraphs wrote themselves.I think I knew these would have an obvious base, and the twists would come. I can see the action happening - just have to pick my way through the words. In some ways, a story is only as good as its villain.
Another scene finished and polished - 1800+ words, and put through Autocrit maybe 30 times to make sure the repetitions were intentional. On to the next.Meanwhile, between the delta variant and the wildfires, the stress is ramping back up.
Stay well.
Delta variant has largely been through the UK, vaccines work well. Wild fires we have managed to avoid fortunately
We have a vacation planned in September - first family vacation since 2018 - and it may be affected both by delta (whatever) and by the fires, so we're watching very carefully. Three of them will have to fly in to Reno; the other three of us will drive to Lake Tahoe from the San Francisco area. If our hopes are not dashed.Wish we could have some of your excess water. And I bet you wish we'd take it away.
Alicia said: "Wish we could have some of your excess water. And I bet you wish we'd take it away.Yes, somebody should think of a viable way!
Not much getting done here in the way of writing. A bit of polishing going on, that's all.
Hope everyone else is doing better.
Almost a thousand words into the next scene.And most of them are useful words, possibly even words to be kept.
I am grateful to my body and mind for using their time wisely - it is most appreciated.
Good work, Alice! I too am grateful to my body and mind - simply for having forgiven me my years of excess!
Family arrived home from abroad - for good! Need I say more? Celebrations have to wait until the quarantine finishes but there's lots of WhatsApp chatter going on. Loving it. Writing is on back burner but I'll try to get to it in the quiet times.
Wonderful, Anna! I'm going in the opposite direction and leaving all mine to go abroad for 6 months! Writing very much on the front burner for me, as we plan to live as much as we can in the wilderness whilst away; so need to get this latest crazy novel of mine done before taking off!
I don't know where these come from, but another scene is down the hatch, and gets me closer to the end of this book - though 1,919 words is a little long, it had a lot of things to accomplish.I'm worried that all the stuff going on in the world is going to bring me to a shuddering halt one of these days - and want to write while I can. Climate change is getting scarier every day.
Well done Alicia, yes it is a worrying situation. Fires in Greece and Turkey now too :-(Been continuing with a Kindle Keyboard readthrough, making notes for changes, and gradually implementing those.
Pam wrote: "Been continuing with a Kindle Keyboard readthrough, making notes for changes, and gradually implementing th..."Good luck with the editing.
I don't mind editing - it always catches things I would rather not appear in the final novel - but it is time-consuming. I'm becoming more and more efficient, and yet that final set of MANY passes through Autocrit is essential.
It's the summer holidays. Nothing doing on the writing front, indeed i have realised it was a week since I came here. Have to get some supplies this morning and go to the back as we are off to France at the weekend. Hopefully McOther will be slightly less like a cat on a hot tin roof after our trip. He's a doer so he doesn't really relax at home, he just sees stuff he needs to fix, or tidy. Hoping the weather will be better over there too. And I may get a moment to write some things.
Have fun - and relax. The world can wait.
Finished a really tough scene - 1623 words - some day I will have gotten through more of the permutations, and they won't be this hard.Figuring how to use actual historical events in fiction is harder than I thought.
Actual historical events help peg the settings, I think, so keep at it, Alicia.I've realized that I haven't had a holiday or 'time off and going places' for quite a while (British understatement) so I'm taking next week off. I'm not getting any writing done anyway. The interruptions, delightful as most of them are, are increasing...
Good work fine people! I have used historical events quite a lot in my books as well as toying with historical figures. In my current one, I have tale around the Essex Witch Trials, another around the Battle of Waterloo, and one about the explosion in the Low Moor Munitions factory in Bradford in 1916. I really enjoyed learning more about the episodes, although of course, my approach has been more surreal than factual...In one of my previous novels, I wrote about a huge tree in Norfolk and how Charles Dickens used to seek it out and rest, think and sleep in the hollow at the base of the trunk. My lovely wife believed it to be entirely true. Of the scene in a different novel, where I break into Shakespeare's old house and have a full on conversation with him, she was less convinced.
The problem is still with the events being relatively recent. The novels I'm writing are set in 2005/2006, so recently that there is actually video on Youtube of the historical even I'm doing a riff on.And the organizations mentioned still exist. And the people are mostly still alive.
It's tricky, but I think it worked. Which is good, because now that the storyline has intersected with reality, that merging is going to be part of the rest of this and the final novel in the trilogy. Which is part of why I had to get it right - there's no way I can dump the rest of the plot!
I'm counting on readers 1) knowing it's fiction (that there disclaimer at the beginning), and 2) even if they go look it up (unlikely), still being willing to let me do it - because of where the plot has already been.
I'm sure you'll carry it off, Alicia! What is the historical event by the way?In terms of such things, I wonder how many future novels will include lines about mask wearing, vaccine status etc - films too for that matter?
Stuart wrote: "I'm sure you'll carry it off, Alicia! What is the historical event by the way? ..."The 2006 Critics' Choice Awards - categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress in a supporting role (and several others including Best Composer and Best Original Score).
The mainstream trilogy I've already published the first volume of is set in the intersection between writing and movies, and in the movie world, there is a huge difference to an actor's career if he wins a major award. The public success combined with personal disaster is the point of this particular set of scenes.
I've gotten it so it feels right - just worry about using a real event and changing it.
But then I remember other writers do this in fiction all the time.
Forced myself to add 234 words to the WIP last night (hadn't done anything all day), and they are execrable.Now I have to spend energy deciding if they can be reprieved.
Sometimes it doesn't pay to try to overcome lack of brain.
Keep going Alicia!I have tasked myself with finished the final draft of my novel tonight. Has to be done as have loads to sort for our trip next Tuesday. Three chapters left to rewrite but if the previous ones are any thing to go by, they'll turn into six!
Tonight? That's a pretty big task if they're going to turn into six!Mine are so heavily plotted that rarely happens; more likely I'll decide I don't need that one, move the relevant bits elsewhere, check out the structure to make sure it still works, and drop it.
Well I finally finished The Truth About Trees an hour or so ago. Comes in at just over 85,000 words. The original plan was to have four parts of 15,000 words each but the more I wrote, the more I discovered there was still to be written. As it stands, I really love it. As always, there's just no knowing how these things will be received. For me, though, the real joy is in the creation, anything else is largely incidental. And I guess that is why I will always be poor!
If I had a hat on, I'd tip it to you - that's some feat!
Yay! Good going Stuart. Have managed to write something several days this week so that's grand. :-) It's still holidays though so it's all a bit up in the air.
Last scene in Chapter finished - just noticed that the number of words is 1984. With all the other numbers out there, that's where it landed. Huh.Hope you guys don't mind posts like these - it's my only place to post progress, and I have no real-life writing groups to keep track in. Here I run into working professionals.
As usual, it took a long time. The first date in my Production file for it is August 17. Things happen, or the brain refuses to click on (I lost four days in a row to ONE doctor's appointment), but I keep nibbling away at 'process' - and then it's ready to actually write, and I wait for time when the brain switches to 'ON' - and keep putting a few words down.
And then the editing and polishing takes a big chunk of time. It's the official 3/4 mark (and I hope things go faster from here: we're in the chute) for this book as soon as I clean up the epigraphs and send it to my beta reader.
With the delta variant attacking, I don't go out of the apartment most days! Without the progress, I think I'd go batty.
I'm starting to worry about a cover.
I use only the worlds finest artists for my covers :-)
I already set the tone with PURGATORY - I need three more covers in the same, two for the trilogy, and one for the prequel.I'll figure it out, but they have to be me. I had a lot of fun with the graphics program.
Nice going Alicia and no, we don't mind. I have done bit and bobs but am having a frustrating time working really hard on one scene and getting nowhere. The thing is, although it keeps morphing and changing, when it settles, I'll have the world settled. It sounds stupid but all this crap I'm writing here is the bedrock on which the whole series will be based. So although it's frustrating and annoying, I know it's the right thing to do because it's how I work through the ideas. I've spent about three hours on it today though and done 800 words. So irritating.
But what you're doing, Mary, IS the most important part of planning - once you have the bedrock, you can build skyscrapers.Give it the time it needs. Make lists - cross items off as you figure out how they fit in your world. The books depend on the solid foundation.
I put a number of things off (you can't decide everything in advance), and find myself doing extra planning stints when I get to those points. I knew I'd have to, but they didn't affect the story yet, and now they do. Just did one for the next chunk that I had blithely labeled 'Here be dragons.'
As the creator, you're the only one who can do that expanding. You'll get there.
Alicia wrote: "But what you're doing, Mary, IS the most important part of planning - once you have the bedrock, you can build skyscrapers.Give it the time it needs. Make lists - cross items off as you figure ou..."
Bless you, thanks. Here's hoping. I also have a much stronger 'will people understand this' reflex which is both a good and bad thing! It slows me down but it can make for a more complex and better whole so it's worth doing. I'll have to down tools and write a mailing soon anyway.
Managed to write about 150 words so I'm almost 800 into the new scene and chapter - while waiting for my ride to get my Moderna booster shot!I do better - less stress - for this kind of thing than I do when I have to go talk to a doctor, so I had a bit of brain functionality left over. Woo hoo!
Been doing mainly books, but have a project in mind for something which, as you say, needs planning :-)
Have managed a bit here and there this week. Reverted to one of the K'Barthan things this week and it was like meeting old friends. A lot more fun. Have written some stuff but not as much as I'd like because McMini went back to school this week so it was all hands to the pump a bit.
I'm slowly chugging away on the next Detective Daintypaws. I struggle to get more than 200 words a day, though. Today it's been about 350 words so far, but I did get up at six...
I just got over the booster covid shot - and still managed a few words on some of the four post-vaccine days. Woo hoo!Not many, and not great, but we may be able to mold them into something after all.
Andrew wrote: "I'm slowly chugging away on the next Detective Daintypaws. I struggle to get more than 200 words a day, though. Today it's been about 350 words so far, but I did get up at six..."Rock on :-)
The world needs more Detective Daintypaws.
Well Andrew, you're still writing more than I am. Today I have written nothing so far and I doubt I'll settle to writing until, perhaps, tomorrow. Today's excuse is that it might be the last few hours of gorgeous sunshine that we see for some time - though tomorrow looks good too. How could I not sit sipping cold drinks under the parasol? In my defence, I have attended to a bit of marketing and been for a walk to get essential (ahem) shopping.
Still working on the readthrough though getting to the end of this round. Then will need to redo the book and do a third to make sure no mistakes crept in.
I saw a nice meme, "Write the book you want to read. Because you'll read it seventy-five times before you publish the damned thing" :-)
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Humaning is of course the highest we can achieve to. Food prep is not. Even if I could stand.