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Writing Goals Update 2/10/2019
Feb. 11th, 2019 07:43 pmStatus Update:
1. Words written this week: 3,127. I wrote every day this week and met or exceeded my GYWO daily quota (411 words) five times, up from previous weeks. This week I wrote most of a shitty first draft, as Hemingway would say, longhand for a fic in a Gothic horror fandom. I find that it’s easier to plow through a story idea when I write on paper as opposed to on a computer, mostly because it’s materially more difficult to tinker or go backward. I know my next draft is going to need a lot of clean up, which is intimidating, but my hope is that I'll be able to give every section of my story a consistent amount of revisions and edits.
1. Words written this week: 3,127. I wrote every day this week and met or exceeded my GYWO daily quota (411 words) five times, up from previous weeks. This week I wrote most of a shitty first draft, as Hemingway would say, longhand for a fic in a Gothic horror fandom. I find that it’s easier to plow through a story idea when I write on paper as opposed to on a computer, mostly because it’s materially more difficult to tinker or go backward. I know my next draft is going to need a lot of clean up, which is intimidating, but my hope is that I'll be able to give every section of my story a consistent amount of revisions and edits.
2. Write 4+ mornings per week: Close but no cigar according to the rules I established last week.
3. Friday Morning Writer Date: Achieved! I actually got my act together the night before and got in a whole hour-and-a-half of writing time Friday morning.
4. Write two original stories: No progress this week.
5. Write to prompts for story ideas: No progress this week—all of my writing energy went to working on the fic. I’m starting a three-week Gotham Writers Workshop online course on character development soon, so hopefully that will enable me to check this box in future weeks.
6. Post Personal Fanfic: No progress this week. I realized that the fic I'm writing is one that I'll want to give to a specific recipient because 1) they offered the specific prompt that inspired me to write it, and 2) I am really encouraged by the fact that I can find fans of the source material that may actually want to read it. The recipient I had in mind included the prompt in their recent Yuletide sign-up, so this may be a good candidate for the New Years Resolutions collection. Fortunately I have a slew of other WIPs that would meet the criteria for this personal fic goal, as long as I can make myself finish them.
7. Craft on My Commute: This week I started The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne, who also created the Story Grid website. This book is geared much more toward questions of structure than the LeGuin book. It also is written by an editor rather than a novelist. I've found it helpful to include books by editors and sometimes even agents in my reading list because they see a large volume of manuscripts and can common on patterns, particularly in stories that don't quite work.
I decided this week that this writing goal needs some structure, too. I can mark this goal complete for the week if I read a Craft on My Commute book for at least four of my 10 commute trips per week.
I decided this week that this writing goal needs some structure, too. I can mark this goal complete for the week if I read a Craft on My Commute book for at least four of my 10 commute trips per week.
Helpful articles and resources this week:
- Interviewing Techniques for Researching Your Novel by Stephen Harper at Writer's Digest
- Character description: 7 ways to avoid weak imagery at the Now Novel blog
- Character description: 7 ways to avoid weak imagery at the Now Novel blog
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