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
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