MayNoWriMo Day 5 & 6

Operation G.I.T. went well this morning!

However, because I have to work unexpectedly on Sunday, I won’t be able to run then. I have decided to make up for it by running tomorrow instead. I’m being so good I’m actually a little disgusted with myself.

I haven’t gotten any ACTUAL wordage since Wednesday, but that’s ok because I teased out some more cool things about StarS yesterday, and spent the majority of this evening playing with Kait Nolan’s Scene Questionnaire which I’ve been mining for subtext/ extra-tension with the scenes I’m now working on in Dirge.

So, can’t complain. It’s going very well.

ROW80 Update and MayNoWriMo Day 4

May 3rd:

So…

I pretty much got nothing done.

BECAUSE- because…meh, I got nothing.

OH WAIT. We’re moving. AGAIN. *headdesk* I think I’ve mentioned my undying hatred for this process, right? Good, let’s just leave it at that. Well, actually I can’t. See, the new place is this sweet little cottage and well…it’s smaller. Know what that means? MOST THINGS MUST GO. So I’ve been doing a bit of Spring cleaning. That’s what took up most of my day…

You believe me, right?

May 4th:

Operation GIT:

Stayed up late. Got up late. Went through my workout pretty quickly. Felt oddly energetic. Got LOTS of shit done. I pretty much kicked ass today! Got rid of some junk. Wrote in my journal. And then-!

Dirge:

Words Today: 259

Words This Week:  370

Words in Total: 3,457!

My ass kicking is moderate, but relevant.

Even better, with my words for the day done, I’m devoting some time to brainstorm StarS! Yes, it’s been a very good day.

Bring out your inner cheerleader and cheer on other ROW80 Folks here. I’ll even let you borrow my pom-poms…and by “pom-poms” I mean a lighter. Sway with it while you chant words of encouragement. Just make sure you don’t bring out your inner pyromaniac while you do that. Resist the pretty heat!

ROW80 and MayNoWriMo Day 1

Yep. I’m ambitious insane. I’ve decided to do MayNoWriMo on top of ROW80.

Although I’m technically being a filthy dirty cheat about it. As in, my goals? Totally the same. You didn’t really expect any better of me did you?

EXCEPT-

I’m using it as a way to be more accountable. I often use the excuse that, because I don’t HAVE to write posts on any other days but Wednesday and Sunday for ROW80, I can TOTALLY skip writing on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. *hangs head in shame*

So, now, I *should* be posting a progress report every day. Row80 reports  will be more of a summery of the week should things go according to plan and not backfire in my face. Wish me luck for more productivity?

By the way, Operation GIT is going pretty well. I’ve managed to haul myself out of bed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for my workouts, which I do before anything else. Had a minor set back today by not going out for a run but that was because all of my gear’s in the wash. *more shameful head hanging*

One really great thing that happened last week was that, after watching The Man in the Iron Mask with my two favorite guys, I had a light-bulb moment about the direction in which I want my much neglected project, StarS (totally not sticking with that name), to go in. I’ve been debating back and forth for months since the beginning of the year about what exactly I wanted to with this project and a lot of it fell into place over the last few days. I’m still murky on a few details but I’m excited to “learn” more about them in the coming weeks!

Sorry for not being much of a cheerleader this week Fellow ROWers. It’s been a mostly introspective week. I’m going to do my cheer rounds now, promise.

Bring out your inner cheerleader and cheer on other ROW80 Folks here. I’ll even let you borrow my pom-poms…and by “pom-poms” I mean a lighter. Sway with it while you chant words of encouragement. Just make sure you don’t bring out your inner pyromaniac while you do that. Resist the pretty heat!

ROW80 Progress Report- 10/04/11

I’m pleased to announce I’ve met my goal for the week and have 1, first draft quality, scene written. I’ve been feeling a little sluggish ever since I came back from my run and even though my head wasn’t in it I still knocked out the scene. I’m not completely happy with the words but I AM happy that the scene took on a totally different tone from the Zero!Draft version while I was writing it. I can easily whip the writing into shape later, for now I’m leaving it the hell alone. The more I fiddle with it, the more I’ll work myself into an obsessive frenzy. For now, I’m hella tickled by the way the scene evolved to take on a different and yet, more appropriate, tone. This is boding well for the experiment!

For the break down….

07/04/11 – Had to work unexpectedly. I’m sort of “on call” for a Child Care service.  Returned home a zombie. Got nothing accomplished.

08/04/11- I was a bad bad girl and indulged my Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series Marathon in place of work. Except, totally counts as research. That’s my story. (Shh, Don’t let Rebecca’s Judgemental Dog know!)

09/04/11- 301 words before bed time and half way through the scene!

10/04/11 - 461 words that felt like pulling teeth. Worth it. Finished the scene!

Words for today: 461

Total Word Count for Scene 1: 570 (Zero!Draft) , 768 (First draft)

Words in total: 1327

Scenes: 1

On the ‘StarS’ front: Nada -Need to push myself in this area next week.

Goals for week two: Second verse, same as the first.

Check out other ROW80 participants’ progress here.

ROW80 Progress Report

I have a bad habit of waiting until evening rolls in to post my updates. Here’s how my week’s going so far:

04/04/11 – Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nien. Nyet. Nunka. Although I see I was in good company here.

05/04/11 - After returning home from my second viewing of Sucker Punch (my opinions on which, I talk about at length over here), I attacked my word processor in a fit of inspiration and knocked out a whopping 266 words! …What?

06/04/11 – 299 words (Stop judging me with your judgy eyes! I’m happy with my measly progress) and I’ve officially finished the Zero!Draft of Scene 1. Which I wrote  entirely to the Sucker Punch remix of Bjorks “Army Of Me”.

“Hold up. Rewind. Zero!Draft? WTF you talkin’ ’bout S.J.?”

About that. See, I’ve been reading a lot of Chuck Wendig’s advice to writers. They mostly consist of him yelling at us writerly folk. Tough love? I’m a masochist, I guess?

Anyway, one day he wrote a blog post about how people who don’t like to outline should TOTALLY take up screenplay. Really? Really. At first I was all “yeah. ok. whatevs.” But as the week went on, I realized my two major problems have been Dialogue and Getting-To-The-Mothafrackin-Action-Already! So, actually? That whole screenplay thing? Could totally help me.

And lo, Zero!Draft was born.

Zero!Draft is not my weekly goal however. It’s just the …shall we say “blueprint?” I kinda loved Ben’s phrase, “architecting the novel”, so I’m going with it. My weekly goal is a completed FIRST drafting of a scene. Which comes after Zero!Draft.

But because I’m such visual person, the screenplay format really helps to get all the visuals flushed out. It creates like a “thumbnail/bare bones” of the scene so I don’t get bogged down with internal monologues which come TOO easy to me. I know what the characters are thinking. What their motivations are.  Those aren’t my weak areas. Dialogue, though,  is always going to be a weakness. But, by forcing myself to focus on it, I feel this can only help me to get sharper. At least I hope so…

We’ll just have to see how this little experiment goes.

Words for today: 299

Words in total: 565

Scenes: 1 Zero!Draft

On the ‘StarS’ front: Nada

Check out other ROW80 participants’ progress here.

ROW80 Round 2: Goals

Round 2 officially starts tomorrow so I figure I should set up my goals. I’m simplifying this time. It’s better for my sanity. Despite the almighty temptuous urge to be super competitive. It’s not a race. Right?

Primary Goals:

Write every day.

1 Scene minimum per week on Dirge.

Tweak Plot to accommodate new changes but only AFTER daily writing is accomplished.

 

Secondary Goals:

Character Work for StarS. (This title is so not going to last) But, again, only after daily writing is accomplished.

Use Review work as “reward” for daily writing and plotting.

 

1-23. End of Week ROW80 Check-In.

So I’m sitting here watching the NFC Championship Game. I’m almost 98% sure that I don’t care who wins, so long as it’s not Greenbay because I know Packers Fans offline and I kind of want to know what it feels like to be a hater.

It feels awesome and I’m not even a little ashamed.

Besides, my game is later. I need to get me a Terrible Towel.

This is the first week that I’ve actually met my goal. I worked on exactly three scenes. The problem is? I realized during the second scene that what I had been writing for the entirety of January was backstory. Cursed like a drunken sailor. Sighed. Meditated. Opened the draft again to see if there was anything I could salvage. Could. Cursed anyway, because it’s fun. Now I only have one scene to show for an entire month of work.

But you know what? This scene is way better than all those other scenes combined. It is a good introduction to the series world as well as the main character and hero-instead of just being a mediocre one. So I’m happy. And I have a great place to start tomorrow!

I’m sorely neglecting my research on StarS in favor of reading Lady Doctor Wyre by Joely Sue Burkhart. Because I’m a horrible horrible writer lazy I have a review to write. Before March, it’s Janurary,  dumbass.

But I still have some time today so maybe I’ll pull out my research books and read during the commercials.

Oh yeah, and Go Steelers!

End of Week ROW80 Check-In

I missed the first Check-in due to being Internet-less. It was a trying time and I barely made it out with my wits about me. (or did I?)

My Goals for this week:

Write three scenes for Dirge. – I’ve written a scene and a half, but today’s not over yet so wish me luck? Part of the problem was that it took me awhile to get back into the swing of my world. Had a particularly hard time getting a feel for the dialogue. Skills, I no haz them. Yet. I may end up changing my goal to two scenes a week, but I’m going to see if I can knock out the third scene today and let that be the deciding factor. Will check-in later to let you guys know how it went.

Pull out research books for StarS. This one was fail proof really. Like it shouldn’t even be seen as an accomplishment but hell if I’m not going to credit for it. I even started reading said research books. Please ignore me while I give myself a highly condescending pat on the back. I don’t know about you, but I think I deserve it.

 

Update: (22:37) I only managed to finish off the second scene but I’m going to stick with the Three scenes a week goal and see if I don’t yield better results next week. If it feels like I can’t handle the load, I’ll adjust accordingly.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by today. I look forward to seeing everyone’s progress in the week ahead.