Busy day. We went for a walk in the woods in the morning and then watched Muppets Haunted Mansion. Luckily I got my writing done in the morning because there wasn’t much time the rest of the day.
My new tracker is below. I will add a post-production section on November 1st when I start that.
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Stories planned (total): 4
Words written today: 1,035
Words written total: 21,911
Plus / Minus target: +1,911
Currently writing: Son of Mars
I began the day by starting Son of Mars from scratch again, only to decide a few words into that I had it right first time and went back to the original. A bit frustrating, but these things happen sometimes.
The beginning of the story is moving quite slowly, and I think some of it is going to turn out to be world building that doesn’t appear in the final version, but that’s fine. It is set a few hundred years before The Last Outpost so it needs a bit of fine tuning.
I have been thinking about how I am going to track my progress here on planning and editing without dumping loads of numbers at the bottom that don’t mean very much. In the next few days you will see a new statistics footer.
This is the 26th day in a row that I have published this blog and that’s probably the most I’ve ever done. They are generally quite short though, so that only adds up to around 6,000 words. There are some longer topics that I want to write about here, but at the moment I’m just figuring everything out and getting a lot of new habits locked in.
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Words written today: 1,043
Words written total: 20,876
Plus / Minus target: +1,876
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
I finished the first draft of The Last Outpost this morning and went straight onto the next story. I enjoyed writing a space story enough that this one is set in the same universe, although much earlier in history when the construction of a Mars colony is taking place.
Son of Mars is the story I planned yesterday. It’s only a very vague outline, but it gives me enough to get started and know roughly where I’m heading.
I also outlined another story, also set in the space colony universe that could be the next story I write, or not, by then I should have a few options to choose from.
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Words written today: 1,028
Words written total: 19,833
Plus / Minus target: +1,833
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
I would like to be one of those people who can write without a plan. When I read about authors who work that way, I envy them. But I don’t think it’s for me.
The other thing, is that I enjoy planning out a story. I like the back and forth of changing my mind about things, coming up with details that might never appear in the story, building a world. That’s fun for me, and I think it makes my stories better.
So starting today, I am planning stories. It’s not a 1:1 plan it, then write it. I am going to make a habit of coming up with a short story idea every day and coming up with some structure around it. It doesn’t have to be much. Then, when I come to start a new story, I will have a few to pick from.
I am just about at the end of The Last Outpost. The writing went well for the most part, and I really enjoyed writing a story set in the future. I think I am going to do more of that.
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Words written today: 1,151
Words written total: 18,805
Plus / Minus target: +1,805
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: n/a
Latest release: n/a
Started a little bit late this morning, but got all the words I needed for the day. The story is nearing the end and it hasn’t gone quite the way I expected. There might be one or two days left of it, which will bring it to around the 10,000 words mark.
I think I have figured out an approach for the editing, and that is to treat it as an entirely separate challenge that will begin in November. My goal will be to average 25 minutes per day, although there are two days a week when I won’t often be able to edit, so on the days when I can, the aim will be 35 minutes.
Not sure if that will be enough to edit and publish 5,000 words a week, but it will be a start, and much closer to that goal than not editing anything at all.
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Words written today: 1,161
Words written total: 17,654
Plus / Minus target: +1,654
Currently writing: The Last Outpost
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Latest release: n/a