Every week (or every two to three days, pending interest) I will be providing an update to how I perceived my week of writing to have gone. I intend for this to last until the end of 2018, when I hope to have completed all the projects listed below:
Monday Writing: Chronicles
Tuesday Writing: Crow
Wednesday Writing: Crucible
Thursday Writing: Eden
Friday Writing: Elder Ones
Saturday Writing: As-Yet-Unnamed-Novel
I will provide an update for each day and they will be based on several factors and categories I have helpfully outlined below.
Overview: Pretty simple. I give a brief overview of what I accomplished on a given day and how I felt about it on a personal level as well as any issues I might have incurred.
Best Line(s) of the Day: Pretty self-explanatory. This is where I provide what I feel was my best line or sequence of lines written on a particular day and why I chose it.
How I Rate This Day: This is where the money lies. I rate my overall experience of the day based on two factors: Productivity and Time Management. Productivity is on a scale of One to Ten, and it indicates how productive I was during the day. The biggest component of it is whether or not I hit my word goal of 2,500 words per day. Time Management is how well I rate myself on how efficiently I worked, also on a scale of One to Ten. I am far harsher here as I know it is my main issue.
How I Could Improve: This goes well with my ratings, as it is where I identify where I need to better myself to get the most out of what I write every day. I think of them as suggestions for myself and others who face similar issues. They are not designed to be for everyone.
So now that you know what I intend to talk about and discuss in these weekly updates, I present to you the inaugural update. This is when I began my first week of my ultra intensive writing schedule of at LEAST 15,000 words per week and I hope you find it rather intriguing. I know I had a great deal of fun doing this ambitious project and will continue to have fun with it.
Monday, January 29th
Overview: On this day, I managed to complete my goal of writing 2,500 words of Chronicles, the first part of my science fiction series. And I feel I did quite an incredible job in doing so, given that this day was also the day I had to spend four and a half hours watching WWE’s Royal Rumble event. Before anyone puts me in a certain bin of people, there are a lot of interesting things someone can learn from watching the psychology that goes into each wrestling match. They are a fantastic way to learn how to build tension and excitement for an action sequence, because a writer understands how to pick up what is not done right with the writing involved in Professional Wrestling.
Best Line(s) of the Day: It is hard to pick a single line that best sums up what I accomplished today, but if I had to pick a line or series of lines that best represented my work, it would be this sequence.
“Vorth was silent. I hailed him but there was no response. I tried again and got the same result. I did not hear any sign of struggle nor did I think that Vorth would be stupid enough to cease contact with his crew. I scanned through all the channels I could find on my radio. Only a handful sent out static signals. I tried to hail each one twice. No one on the other end picked up and I started to worry. I resolved to try Vorth again. I did not expect an answer.”
How I Rate This Day: On a scale of one to ten in terms of productivity, I rate it a ten as I hit my set goal for word count. Using the same scale for time management, I give myself a six out of ten. I procrastinated a little when I did write and it distracted me from being “in the moment.”
How I Could Improve: There are many ways I could improve. The first and foremost being my procrastinating ways. I could endeavour to increase my word goal per day, though I need a few more weeks of trialling my current situation before I consider that.
Tuesday, January 30th
Overview: Today was the day I managed to resume work on my noire mystery novel, Crow. I did some minor changes to the tense of the book and continued on where I left off six months ago. I had a goal target to get to 7,500 words (I had a little under 5,000 already written) and I managed to reach that goal, as I did with Monday. Before I did work on Crow, I watched a couple of episodes of Season 2 of Van Helsing, produced by Netflix and attributed to screenwriter Neil LaBute. I find that watching TV helps me learn how to pace better and more effectively with my works. It also allows me to develop ideas faster than what I usually do.
Best Line(s) of the Day: My best line is something I feel is quite relevant in today’s society and it reflects who I am as a person.
“You’re allowed to live your life as you want to, and if this is what you want, go for it.”
How I Rate This Day: Based on my productivity, I rate today a nine out of ten. I felt I could have done so much more with what I had, but I still feel proud of what I did write. In terms of time management, much like Monday, I give myself a six out of ten. I am still trying to adapt myself to the new schedule I have, and several times I found myself brought out of “the moment.”
How I Could Improve: I can certainly do much better with my time management skills. While my confidence in my writing is much higher than it has been in about six months, I still feel I have a long way to go before I can confidently churn out words and parts of the story to my standards.
Wednesday, January 31st
Overview: Today was the first day I worked on Crucible in over a year. I enjoyed getting back into the post-apocalyptic world and thoroughly enjoyed discovering a more subtle side of my writing. Crucible is well out of my comfort zone and that is what made it incredible. My day out of the house today was spent attending a meeting with my government mandated Job Service Provider, as I am required to do every two weeks in order to receive an income. I do draw some anti-government inspiration from that, but I am not against all government. My life as a writer is not recognised as a legitimate career by any government, so I use that to fuel my writing and make me want to succeed.
Best Line(s) of the Day: My best line of the day is something that truly captures the two sides of the world set up in the novel and embodies the passion of the main character.
“The myriad of new scents mixed with the staleness of Tumbleweed’s purified air and it was wonderful.”
How I Rate This Day: In terms of productivity, I rate today another nine out of ten. The difficulty I encountered lay in me getting back into the world and pace of the novel. For my time management, I took a step down and this was a three out of ten. I found myself too easily distracted today, though I did still hit my word target with 90 minutes to spare in the day.
How I Could Improve: Since my biggest issue is time management, I need to lay out a dedicated plan of what I need to do every hour. In the 14 hours I am awake, I can write in all of them. If I was efficient, I would spend an hour for every 200 words of my novel, tweaking them and making them what I want, though I feel I do not need to do that as when I am in the zone, I write my best work. My confidence level in my schedule is growing and, though I still am not quite confident in reaching my standards in a timely manner, I am more confident I can hit my target every day.
Thursday, February 1st
Overview: On this day I began work on Eden again. It is a project I started back in late 2015 and sort of petered out as I got caught up in my studies. I do enjoy the idea of it. It’s an apocalypse novel, so it deals with the time leading to, during and immediately after an apocalyptic event, in this case a combination of Alien Invasion and a rogue nation obliterating the world with Nuclear weapons. It is set in the same universe as both Crow and Crucible, so you can expect a lot of intertextual references between them at varying points. I do not envision them as part of the same series, however.
Best Line(s) of the Day: At the start of a novel, it is difficult to choose a line that best embodies the story to come, but I feel that the following both sets the tone and style of the novel.
“They found something buried up there. Not something human either.”
How I Rate This Day: Today was a day of new ground for me in terms of my writing. It was fun to revisit and restart work on something I found interesting, but my scores for myself are quite different from previous days. For my productivity, I give myself a six out of ten. I felt I was not as productive as I could be and it affected my psyche when it came to writing today. For time management, today was an abysmal two out of ten. I barely made my deadline of 2500 words in over twelve hours, so I was very blasé about work today.
How I Could Improve: Next week, for Eden, I can consider buckling down better and dedicating my time better to the novel. I recognise my faults, and I must work towards fixing them. Procrastination is still my biggest issue.
Friday, February 2nd
Overview: Today was Elder Ones day. And it was one of the best days I have had all week. I was a little behind on my original word count for this day, as I started with 29,000 words of it written. I ended with 32,500, so I was proud of what I accomplished. It was definitely my comfort zone, but I also had to deal with the logistics of a complex sequence that involved a single character and limited dialogue.
Best Line(s) of the Day: While I am proud of all the lines I wrote today, some stood well above the rest, but one sequence in particular ensnared me and resonated with me.
“Aurelee feels all the power of Gaelìn surge through her body. It is a feeling she will never forget. Heat rises from her toes and she winces as it travels through her veins. Her heart begins to beat faster and faster. The world around her spins in circles and she blacks out for a second. A screech fades into the deepest recesses of her mind and the nausea in her body disappears. Aurelee drops to her knees and retches. Her stomach is empty, so only acid comes up. She laughs.”
How I Rate This Day: In terms of productivity, today was a clear ten out of ten. I managed to push past a massive hurdle I had come to in the novel, and I wound up happy with the result. For my time management, however, I must give myself a paltry two out of ten. I had every intention of working on this from as early as I could to allow myself more time for supplementary writing, but my wandering mind prevented me from doing so.
How I Could Improve: My time management with Elder Ones is always my weakest point. I need to dedicate myself to my work better, because I know I can churn out the pages when I focus wholly on the work in front of me.
Saturday, February 3rd
Overview: Today was the day I worked on my most serious novel to date. I did not add much more than what I had as the majority of the time I had, I spent reworking what I had so that it better fits my personal style of writing in anything that is not Elder Ones labelled. It is quite a difficult task to go back to something after three years of radio silence on the project, but I enjoyed getting back into it and thoroughly enjoyed every second that I got to do work.
Best Line(s) of the Day: The best line of today is one that shows how different the world is for the main character after a massive event occurs.
“For the first time in my life, I was speechless.”
How I Rate This Day: Today was not my best day this week, but a lot of that came down to the fact I was out clothes shopping. For productivity, I have to give myself a five out of ten, merely because I was not working on anything new to the novel. For time management, like Elder Ones Friday, I need to give myself a two. It was hard to get back into the novel and I came dangerously close to not even hitting my word goal.
How I Could Improve: My time management is my biggest issue, and it is the main thing I need to work on. I find I can write better as the day turns later, but it is not a good way to write as I miss out on half a day of work waiting for the right time to begin. Let us hope next week fares better for me.
Sunday, February 4th
Overview: Sunday is my well-earned break from writing, and I will use it to calm my brain and refill my creativity tanks in preparation for the week to come.
Week Overall Scores:
Productivity: 8.1/10
Time Management: 3.5/10
Area to Improve: TIME MANAGEMENT AND MOTIVATION!
I hope to improve upon these scores next week and I intend to focus harder on my downfalls. I expected there to be a lot of kinks this week as it was the first time I endeavoured to write so much over such a short period of time. In 6 days, I managed to write over 20,000 words, or a fifth of a decent sized novel over all my projects and my blog.
The only way I can go is up, right?
My debut novel, Sea Spray (The Elder Ones Part One) is available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0795TB37R
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