How did everyone do on their goals?
I did not meet my goals. My week was worse than expected and I'm still in the middle of chapter five.
Next week should be better, so my new goals are:
FINISH chapter five already and write chapter six.
Hope at least some of you did better than I did.
I achieved this goal, reaching almost 11,000 hard words, about 13,000 MS words.
This week's goal?
I'm going to change from word count to page count -- just to see how it works. I'm on page 52 of my novel. I think if I work hard, I could write 48 pages and reach page 100 by the end of next week. That's about 7 pages a day. I average from 5-6 pages a day right now, so I figure if I can squeeze in an extra 45 minutes of writing time at night I can hit the 7-page mark.
I did finish my first chapter with my new main character. It's only in the "event draft" stage as I call it where I concentrate on getting the chain of events written (i.e. Character A goes to Town C and does X then goes over there and does that). The only fine tuning I have done is with the "first 13" or so because I wanted to at least have the hook somewhat established before moving too far.
Another reason I'm not setting specific goals is because I am "writing by Muse." I do not have these new first chapters outlined at all. Once I get to the point in the storyline where my old main character's story takes place I will have an outline to work by, which I hope will allow me move a little faster. Unfortunately, the main story plot still changes a bit so it may not be as fast as I would like once I get there.
So, currently I have finished an "event draft" of Chapter One completed (at 2,300 words) and have the first scene (my first fight scene) written for Chapter Two. If I were to set a goal it would be to finish Chapter Two. However, as I said, I only have a sketchy idea of the events that need to take place in that chapter. We'll see how it goes.
-- William
[This message has been edited by WBSchmidt (edited April 05, 2009).]
This week I want to start revamping my WotF entry, and finish off crits I owe.
I did okay, but not great on my writing. I added two scenes in CTD though I am not loving them a huge bunch. I've found that when I write a scene that I find particularily awesome I have issue following it with a lesser scene.
So I've mostly been reading this week. I just finished Cats Cradle, by Kurt Vonegut, and am starting Slaughterhouse Five now.
He is just weirdly brilliant. I'm reading him for the first time. I'm kind of glad I waited, because I'm learning so much from him about storytelling. I'm ready for him now, and loving it.
So my goals are to keep learning and keep improving, however that looks like.
~Sheena
So! Anyone willing to look at the first three or five chapters (again), let me know. My writer's group suggested some big changes to chapter 2, so off I go to work on those now!