95 Percent

So long as my projected final word count stays the same, I've reached 95% done on this first draft. It seems like there's a lot still to do in the story, but it's been moving fairly quickly through the section just completed. I don't think it will be finished by Saturday, the deadline I was aiming for, but add a few more days to that and I should be able to make it. Then I can start planning for November and some pure fun writing.

Still...slogging...along...

Once again I've had to increase the word count total for The Seventh Crow, but I've also added to the actual count, too. I thought I would accomplish a lot today but there were more interruptions than I'd thought. I did keep doggedly trying, though, and managed to write a few pages in my notebook while I waited for the kids after school.

Our writing group met tonight and I came home envigorated, ready to pound out a few more pages. However, after being met at the door by a huge puddle of dog pee on the kitchen floor and children who were not ready for bed despite my instructions, my enthusiasm quickly evaporated. When things finally quieted down I checked my email, typed up my handwritten pages from earlier in the day, and now as soon as I finish this I'm going to bed.

My friend Nancy and I are both hoping to finish the first drafts we're working on by the end of the month. Earlier tonight I felt hopeful that I could do it. Now...I think the laurels might go to her alone.

Getting attached to one's characters

I had an odd experience during the last few bits I wrote on The Seventh Crow. One character in the story is magically disguised for a time; he doesn't realize it, looks different, goes by a different name. I came to the part where the charm would be removed and the character would revert back to his normal form, and wrote it as it had played out in my head. Then suddenly I felt terrible. I felt as if I had killed off the alter ego, the "in disguise" character. Even though it was the same character! It really bothered me, even though this was the plan from the beginning of the story. I knew it was going to happen. But I hadn't anticipated how it would make me feel.

Which in turn made me wonder how readers were going to feel when it happens. They're supposed to be somewhat surprised, but I hadn't thought about them being disappointed, sad, or even perhaps angry. I can't change it now, too much of the story depends on it, but what to do about it?

I had to set the manuscript aside for a little while to think about it. I had to come up with some way to reconcile what had happened and not leave it where it was.

Luckily, I did. I think my idea is going to work and that if readers will stick with it, they'll be satisfied with what happens. But it just goes to show how attached one can get to one's characters. I think in this case that turned out to be a good thing, since it made me think about how my readers might react to these developments. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in our plots and ideas that we forget we have a deal with readers not to disappoint them.

On a completely different problem, I also realized that I can bypass a huge section that I thought I would have to write, by having my MC delegate a certain task to someone else. In the context of the story it makes sense for her to do this, so I'm energized to keep pressing on now.

Progress of a sort

After two days of being kept away from writing by all sorts or other obligations and committments, I did get to write some today. Of course, I also discovered a problem in the storyline that I'm going to have to think about for a bit and try to decide how to fix it. So I feel like I made progress and then slipped backwards. Hmmm. Off to think about it for a while. I did reach a certain milestone in the story that I'd been dreading a bit since I didn't quite know how to handle it. So even though it might change later, at least it's not blocking me any longer.

Darn real life

Why does it seem that every time I get on a writing roll, "real life" goes crazy and throws all kinds of interruptions, distractions, and obligations my way, resulting in a mega-dose of writus interruptus?

What little I have managed in the last two days makes me think that it's going to take a long, long time to reach the end, not just in terms of time but also in terms of words. I really don't want to revise the final word count goal upwards again, but it seems like a lot of "stuff" still has to happen. Oh, well, hopefully this weekend I'll get more done than last weekend.

I found these fun Zoom Clouds (see left sidebar) on my friend Helen's blog and of course had to have one. Aren't they fun?

NaNoWriMo update: I now have a generated story idea and two character names for this project. Getting excited!

Pesky progress bar

So, you may be wondering, if I'm getting all this writing done on The Seventh Crow, why is it that my progress bar (in the left sidebar) never seems to change? Or, to the very observant, seems to sometimes move backwards?

That's because, as you also may have noticed, the "finished" word count is also always being revised. I might write 2500 words, but if I also add 5k to the goal total, there's not much change in that lovely green bar. Which, you may note, I have done.

However, I'm thinking that 70k should do it. Hopefully. I guess we'll just have to see. Maybe the next time I add 2200 words to the WIP side there'll actually be a visible change.

Back to reading

I've had to go back and re-read everything I've written for The Seventh Crow before I can go on. Well, I'm still reading it, actually. There were just too many threads I'd let slip and I felt like I was forgetting too much.

However, I'm enjoying it, so I guess that's a good thing. I should be able to finish reading it tomorrow. I'm trying to go easy with the red pen, although when I see something glaring I mark it. I'm not editing! I'm just being prudent.

Anyone thinking about NaNoWriMo but lacking ideas might want to cruise on over to The Seventh Sanctum and its wonderful array of generators. Also links to other pages of generators. If you're still stuck after an evening of generating, I despair of you. I had this crazy idea for a NaNoWriMo dare--everything in the novel must come from a generator. The initial idea, all the character names, names of gadgets, places, magic items, monsters, everything. Now that would be fun. I might post it when the new forums come online. I might even do it myself.

Progress

Still making progress with the story, but I'm having to go back and read more thoroughly to get all the story threads fully back in my mind. It's amazing how much one can forget over the course of a few months. I'm trying not to slip into editing mode as I'm reading, so that I don't get caught up in making changes. Writing is writing and editing is editing and it's generally best if the twain don't meet.

After quite some time spent mulling it over, I decided the other day to subscribe to Michael A. Stackpole's bi-weekly newsletter for writers, "The Secrets." I've been listening to his podcast of the same name since earlier in the year and have been suitably impressed. I've only read a little so far but I think it will turn out to have been a good investment.

Inspiring thought for this fortnight

The writing group meeting we had last night was planned as our big get-back-into-the-writing-groove get-inspired-for-fall kickoff. It worked quite well. Each meeting from now on I'm going to post our inspiring thought for the next two weeks (we meet every two weeks or so) on the white board. This week's was one I got from Monica Wood's very inspiring book The Pocket Muse. Here it is: "What are you waiting for? If not now, when?"

Are you inspired?

What's up with schools?

In the past three days there have come to my attention no less than four incidents involving schools. On Tuesday, my son's school had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat at the bank that is adjacent to the school. It turned out to be untrue, the burglar had a stone wrapped up in a parcel and only claimed it was a bomb, but steps had to be taken, of course. The RCMP bomb squad had to travel from Halifax (we have nothing like this in Cape Breton? That's a whole other story, I guess) only to find out that there was no real threat. I must say that the evacuation was well-handled and most of the children had no idea there was any possible danger. Kudos to the school for that.

The same day there was a stabbing at my niece's high school (which most of the students didn't know about--it was a love triangle thing and kept quiet). Fortunately the victim was not badly hurt.

Then yesterday, of course, the terrible shooting rampage at Dawson College in Montreal. Too horrible for words.

And this morning the news that an elementary school in Cape Breton burned to the ground in the early hours.

Weird. I want it to stop. I want schools to be safe places.

The writing is continuing to go well, although I'm realizing that there are things I've forgotten about in the writing hiatus. I've started reading through the manuscript again, specifically looking for those things so that I can either follow up on them or cut them out. We also had a great writing group meeting last night. I think folks are getting excited about taking up fall writing projects.

I've broached a crazy idea to my daughter and niece--to co-host (with me) a podcast in which we'll review middle grade, teen and young adult fiction. It's all still in the working-out stages but I think it will be fun and also good experience for them.

And the countdown is on: only 47 days to NaNoWriMo and not a solid idea in sight yet.

Goal revisions

I've been able to work on The Seventh Crow a fair bit the past two days--nothing like the time I'd like to spend on it, but I am still getting back into the writing groove. However, I'm starting to think that the 65K word final count I had predicted for the first draft was a little low. I don't think I can wrap it up that quickly now that I've figured out what still has to happen. That's not what I was hoping, but it seems more realistic. I'm not sure what the end count will actually be--I'll have to get a little closer to the end before I can predict it, I guess. At least 70k, I'd say.

However I'm pleased with the progress I'm making so far. It feels good to be writing again, even if it's also hard work. My writing group meets tomorrow night, and it will be nice to report some actual progress. Haven't done that in a long time.

Reports

Well, the morning did pass, albeit slowly, and I heard good reports from both of them at lunchtime. Whew. Now maybe I can get some writing done...

Long morning

Well, it's a long morning as I wait for lunchtime to arrive. It's the first day of school and I can't help wondering how the kids are doing. Emily is at a new school (junior high) and I worry that it will be a big adjustment for her. I said as much to Mark and he observed, "Mom, that's because school is terror. Horrifying, hideous, terror." Oh, my. His first-grade teacher has my sympathies. :-)

Trying to work but it's hard to get the concentration. So I'm listening to podcasts instead and working on some handouts for NaNoWriMo.

Multi-tasking

Although I'm generally a multi-tasker and often have more than one writing project on the go at once, I don't usually bounce between them as much as I am right now. This is doubly strange because one project is SF and the other is Fantasy, and in the past I've generally been in one "mode" or the other, never both at the same time.

However, it seems to be working out okay. I'm getting work done on both projects, which keeps me on my autumn goals, just not in the way I'd envisioned getting them done. Whatever works, I guess. Maybe it's a product of not writing for so long. It's harder to immerse myself in one project because I'm out of practice. The ways of writing are unfathomable sometimes.

Brick walls and beyond

So there I was, tapping merrily on the keys as I worked my way through a scene I was adding to the novel. Suddenly my fingers stopped as I realized that what I was adding was going to negate a particular character's motivations for...well, for pretty much the rest of the novel. Yikes.

That had all the stopping power of a brick wall. I moped around for a couple of days, trying to bash some kind of fix into shape, not even daring to open the file. It seemed hopeless unless I backtracked and took out a lot of stuff I'd added and really liked.

Then my good friend Nancy came over for coffee, and over mugs of that brain-powering liquid and a plateful of chocolate chip cookies, she listened to my lament and showed me that--it wasn't really as bad as I'd thought. It could still work. We hashed it out a bit and now I think I'm back on track.

As blocks go, it was a pretty brief and easily remedied one. But at this fragile stage of my back-to-writing initiative, it was still scary.

Good call

I was right--I worked for an hour on my novel rewrite today. I didn't accomplish a whopping amount of work, but it's probably more writing than I've done in the last two months put together, so it feels good.

I finished reading Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt this morning--stayed up reading until 3 a.m. but couldn't read any more, so when I got up I just made coffee and sat down and finished it. I really enjoyed it; although the first third of the book was a little slow, the rest was completely riveting. Somewhere not that long ago I was reading a discussion about writers who write characters of the opposite sex well--I find McDevitt to be very good at writing believable female characters. I have another of his books, Chindi in my reading pile but I think I'll read Scardown by Elizabeth Bear next.

A good sign

Yesterday I suddenly decided to redesign my personal website to match this blog. I worked on it for quite a while and made a great start.

This probably means I'm very close to being ready to write. Why?

Because I'm procrastinating. These are the things my brain decides to do on a whim when I'm supposed to be working on a story. I take this as a very good sign.

I'll finish the redesign, because I do like the idea, and it won't take terribly long. But I'm also going to make myself start working on something before that project is finished. Maybe I have this little bit of my subconscious figured out. ;)

Organized office, organized mind?

Well, that's the theory, anyway. I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning my office and listening to "radio drama" podcasts from Decoder Ring Theatre. Great fun (the podcasts, not the cleaning)! I'm hoping that a clean and tidy office will be one more facilitating factor in getting back on track with my writing. The results? Looks inviting to me:
It was very nice to sit in there last night, sipping a glass of blueberry wine with the lights twinkling along the window ledge and a light breeze coming in the window. Of course I was too tired to write anything (hence the wine). But I could sense that I was one step closer.