Fanatical Pupil

4 Reasons I Quit Writing Exercises – I totally agree. When I’m not writing for a project, I write for my blog. I’ve done writing with prompts and journaling and other things like that, but to me, that ended up feeling like like training for a marathon by doing wind sprints.

Why Word Count Goals Can Be Destructive – Again, totally agree. I used to have word count goals, and I spent way too much time tracking my word count while writing and after my writing sessions. I now have what I think of as “soft” word count goals. They’re goals, yes, but my main goal is just to write something. I can track that easily with either a 1 for Yes, or a 0 for No. I track my words, but on a more meta-level now (at the scene/chapter level rather than on a daily output level).

Why You Should Stick With A Story – I have much less experience with actually finishing a story, but I certainly do agree with the idea that you should finish what you start. (Do as I say, not as I do!) That way, instead of practicing starting a new and exciting idea over and over, you practice toughing it out, and you practice writing a complete story. As they say, “No one wants to read just the beginning of a really cool story.”

Fiction Writing This Week: 2,260
Non-Fiction Writing This Week: A bunch

I believe that’s the first time (since I’ve been keeping track) that I’ve topped 2,000 words in a week! I was inspired! I’ve been writing some somewhat tough scenes, too, in that, I already know what happens before and after the scene, but I’m filling in what actually happens so that readers don’t have to make spectacular jumps of logic to follow the story. And in doing so, I am now only 517 words away from 20,000 in The Nine Mothers of White Home. With a goal of 90-100,000 that puts me at 20% done! That actually seems like a decent number.

For the week ending 8/28: 353

Not much, but as I always say, it’s 353 more words than I had last week at this time. It seems like there is only one really obvious day for writing. That’s when I get my 300+ words per week in. So, now I just need to work on creating time on a couple other days, so I can get closer to 1000 words per week. I can crank out the 350 pretty easily, but I do it, and then I kind of rest on my laurels for a couple days, and then I get back to where I want to write more, but then I don’t have the time. It’s definitely a pattern, and I’m hoping that being aware of it will help me to change it.

Now, I didn’t do WCW last week because I was on a schooner, sailing around islands in Maine. I should have been writing (well, at least, I should have been writing more), but instead I read Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. I did at least get through the whole book. And in the mean time (over the past 2 weeks), I wrote 414 words of fiction (for The Nine Mothers). I also got a lot of thinking and note-taking in as well.

And to make this post a little more interesting, here’s a picture I lomo-ized from the trip:

6/18: 187
6/19: 0
6/20: 229
6/21: 0
6/22: 0
6/23: 10
6/24: 290

Last week I mostly had positive comments about the writing… this week, while I got over 700 words, but each of those days when I actually did some writing (not counting the 23rd), the time was spent on a different project. So, despite getting over 100 words a day (hey, it’s something), really each project is only getting 34 words per day. Which means that to get any of them to 90,000 words, it will take me 7.25 years. And since I’m working on all 3 simultaneously, that puts the end date about 21 years away. I’m fairly certain this is my subconscious way of continuing my normal mode of operation; that being: start doing something, don’t finish (or only work hard enough to get somewhat decent at a skill), and move on.