Not a lot to add. I’ve written my words for the day and planned my story. It’s been good.
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Stories planned (total): 10
Words written today: 1,109
Words written total: 28,652
Plus / Minus target: +2,652
Currently writing: Son of Mars
I haven’t spoken much about reading recently so thought I’d give you a quick update on where I am with that.
I started off October with a plan to make it a habit to read for 40 minutes per day. And that went well but it didn’t really feel like enough.
Back in the day, ten years ago probably, I was reading so much. I was getting through 75+ books a year. Now I’m currently on 32 books for the year and in 2023, I only read 36 books total.
It’s not that I don’t love reading. It’s one of my favourite things to do, but there’s always something else that’s easier to do and there are so many distractions and… you know how it goes.
There are a lot of personal reasons why my reading has taken a hit. Just looking at the dates when it dropped off it’s easy to connect it to Jude.dropped off it’s easy to connect it to Jude. And that makes sense.
The thing is, reading and writing are so closely connected that trying to get back into writing without getting back into reading isn’t going to work.
So in the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading a lot more. I’m listening to audiobooks, I have three digital books on the go and most of the time when I’m not writing, I’m reading. I’m not tracking any of it in the short term, but the numbers will be reflected in the number of books I finish each year.
I’m enjoying it a lot and really enjoying it.
And on the writing stuff: that went very well, but nothing to really tell you about that.
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Stories planned (total): 8
Words written today: 1,150
Words written total: 26,496
Plus / Minus target: +2,496
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Tuesday’s are always busy for me so this isn’t a long update. I got my writing done this morning. The story has started to move away from my original plan but that’s fine.
I’m starting to get more of an idea for how this future space civilisation works and where more stories might go in the future. Despite reading a lot of science fiction I haven’t really written much of it in the past and I’m enjoying the opportunity to change that.
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Stories planned (total): 7
Words written today: 1,118
Words written total: 25,346
Plus / Minus target: +2,346
Currently writing: Son of Mars
The theory as I understand it, is that it takes 21 days to build a new habit. Seeing as this is my 29th daily blog post in a row, and the 22nd day of writing 1,000 words, I would say that means I’ve built the habit of doing those things. It feels closer to automatic now. I don’t need to keep reminding myself that they are things that have to be done.
I am also in the process of building the habit of coming up with a story idea every day and writing a brief outline. Today is only day six of that, so I guess I can’t expect it to be a proper habit until sometime in November. When I will also be building the habit of editing/publishing every day.
The writing this morning went well. There’s not really a lot more than that to say about it at now: I get up, make coffee, and write. That’s what it being a habit means really, there’s no drama to doing it, I just sit down and get on with it.
The same is less true of pre-production, but only because there is no fixed time in the day when I sit down and do it. I’m guessing the same will be true for post-production because I won’t even be doing that every day. Those things are probably going to take longer to turn into habits but I’ll get there eventually.
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Stories planned (total): 6
Words written today: 1,158
Words written total: 24,228
Plus / Minus target: +2,228
Currently writing: Son of Mars
I now have five stories planned, one of which I am currently writing, all of which I like. It might be hard to pick between them when the time comes. That’s not a complaint though, it’s what I wanted when I started this habit.
The idea process is straight forward. I have a little template in Obsidian that looks like this:
IDEA:
A CHARACTER:
THE CHARACTER WANTS SOMETHING:
BUT SOMETHING PREVENTS THEM FROM GETTING WHAT THEY WANT EASILY:
SO THEY STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FORCE:
AND EITHER SUCCEED OR FAIL:
SETUP:
MOVE INTO ACTION:
THE PROMISE IN THE PREMISE:
SHIT GETS REAL:
FINALE:
I start with a vague description and then I work through each step. The last part (SETUP to FINALE) is the actual plan. Usually I go through it in order, but this morning the ending was the clearest image in my mind, so I started there.
It usually takes ten minutes to fill it in, but that’s ten minutes well spent if I avoid floundering around when writing the first draft. And I don’t know, although I suspect, the editing will be quicker as well. So all in all, it seems like time well spent.
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Stories planned (total): 5
Words written today: 1,159
Words written total: 23,070
Plus / Minus target: +2,070
Currently writing: Son of Mars