I finished the first draft of Son of Mars this morning and moved straight onto The Lottery. It’s a horror story, so very different to the three stories I’ve written so far.
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Stories planned (total): 15
Words written today: 1,057
Words written total: 33,891
Plus / Minus target: +2,891
Currently writing: The Lottery
Super busy day and evening. Should finish Son of Mars tomorrow and move onto the next story, I have plenty to pick from now.
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Stories planned (total): 14
Words written today: 1,047
Words written total: 32,834
Plus / Minus target: +2,834
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Most people probably wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I suffer from an all or nothing personality. No idea where I got it from, but it’s mine to deal with.
It comes out at times like when I try to improve my relationship with the internet. A sensible approach would be to reduce the amount of time I spend online, but I find myself jumping straight to not using the internet at all.
And it snowballs. I go from not using the internet at all to trying to reduce all my technology useage, until I’m ready to sell my phone and computer and go and live off the land.
This writing challenge is a good example of me trying to do the opposite of that. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised it.
The first writing challenge I set out to do was a million words in a year. Which I failed. To be fair, I got something like 800,000 so I failed well, but even if I’d managed it, I couldn’t have sustained it. This time things are different. 1,000 words a day is a goal I can hit pretty much every day. It’s not an impressive number, but it’s something I can do consistently. And that’s what I’m looking for.
The same is true for the planning (one story plan a day) and the editing I’m going to be starting on Friday. And now that I’ve realised it, I’m looking at other areas of my life where I can apply this simple goal of being a bit better.
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Stories planned (total): 13
Words written today: 1,048
Words written total: 31,787
Plus / Minus target: +2,787
Currently writing: Son of Mars
I don’t know for sure that Son of Mars isn’t going to work. Like I’ve said before; when I’m in the middle of writing something, I’m the worst judge of whether it’s any good. I might get to the editing stage and find out I really like the story and that it (whisper it) might even be good. But it also might not be.
I’ve been thinking about that a bit recently and trying to work out what to do. I am successfully overcoming my desire to stop writing a story because I don’t think it’s good (while I’m writing it), but there’s still the chance that I don’t think it’s good after I’ve edited it. Do I still go ahead and publish that story?
I don’t know the answer to that at the moment. I know Dean Wesley Smith would say that I should publish it and let readers decide, and maybe that’s what I’ll do. It’s probably what I should do.
Even if I do publish it, there is still a chance that it won’t be any good. That it doesn’t really work. I’m still (re-)finding my feet with this writing and publishing thing, so I’m not going to pretent that everything I write will be solid gold. But then not everything I published before was either. I’m happy to admit that some of the stuff I wrote and published isn’t any good, but maybe what I think is no good, and what you think is no good, aren’t the same.
I’m just thinking through this. I don’t have an answer. At the moment, it’s making it easier to finish a story if I tell myself I don’t have to publish it, and that’s half the challenge I’ve got going here. Maybe by the time I get to the editing and publishing stage, I won’t feel so connected to the thing and can put it out.
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Writing went well this morning and it’s feeling more natural to put together a story plan. On Friday I will be starting the editing / post-production part of the challenge and, as you can probably tell from the post above, I’m a bit anxious about that.
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Stories planned (total): 12
Words written today: 1,057
Words written total: 30,739
Plus / Minus target: +2,739
Currently writing: Son of Mars
It has been 27 days since I started this writing challenge and I am at 29,682 words, which means I am averaging 1,099 words per day. And, if I’m honest, it’s starting to feel easy. So I am thinking about increasing my daily word count to 1,100 words per day at the start of November.
It’s not that I particularly want this to feel like hard work, but I would like to feel aware of the challenge.
Of course, an alternative argument is that I will be starting the editing and publishing portion of the challenge in November, and that will brings its own challenges. So maybe it’s premature to think about changing the rules until all the pieces of the game are in play.
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Stories planned (total): 11
Words written today: 1,030
Words written total: 29,682
Plus / Minus target: +2,682
Currently writing: Son of Mars