I have officially completed fifteen days into my Spring Writing Project. (Note: Today marks Day 16, but I’m not counting it because this blog post is going up before I get a chance to write for the day.) Let’s see how my progress has been going so far:
1.) General Statistics
In regards to word count, I’m doing quite well. Overall, I have written 21,018 words these past two weeks. Considering that my goal was to write at least 1300 words/day, I’m 1518 word ahead of schedule. (So, yes, I have been hitting my daily word count goal every day.)
And since I also keep a record of how long I write each day, I can tell you that I spend an average of 1 hour, 50 mins per day on my project. (If you want to be mathematically precise, the total is 1 hour, 49.8 mins.) Basically, I spend about the same amount of time writing as I do during NaNoWriMo – but writing fewer words. And I’m okay with that. It means that I’m not rushing, that my story is moving at a proper pace.
However, my bedtime schedule has gotten worse because I’m usually awake late at night, writing away. I fall asleep closer to dawn than what I should be doing.
2.) Character Names
Remember how I mentioned in my previous post that I didn’t have any names for my characters? Well, things still have not changed. Literally, only four characters in my entire story have a name. One of those is not the protagonist. (She's referred to as MC - you know, "main character.")
Instead, all of the characters are identified by a sequence of three-letter phrases. Like “qwe” and uio” and “hjk.” (And, yes, I know exactly which characters I just mentioned.) These sequences are also placed within brackets, so I can easily recognize that they are my placeholder names and not a misspelled word.
As for those characters that don’t play too large of a role within the story, I seriously have their name become [firstname#]. The “#” is replaced by an actual number, starting with 1 then 2 then 3 and so on.
Essentially, if someone were to sneak a peek at this story, they’d probably believe that I’m crazy. Why do I have all this gibberish inside so many brackets?
But, hey, the lack of names obviously hasn’t stopped me from moving forward with the story, and that’s all that matters.
Also, I discovered that 22-year-old Amanda was a genius. On the first day of my Writing Project, I pulled out the character list from my last completed manuscript. I had written a fantasy story then, and my current story mostly falls in that genre, so I was hoping it’d generate some ideas on how to go about crafting those “fantasy” names. And on the very bottom of the document, I had described my process on how I created those fictional surnames – complete with a list of Latin words and their meanings to use as a base.
Clearly, I haven’t gotten around to the process of generating first and last names for my characters, but at least I have something to aid me when I do. Past Amanda was so smart to record all of this. And that’s why it’s important to never delete any past creative works. Never know when you’ll need to look back at it.
3.) Plot
For the most part of the past two weeks, I’ve been writing the story linearly, starting from the very beginning. But earlier this week, I hit a snag. I wasn’t exactly sure how to connect the story from where it was to where I wanted it to be once the first major turning point occurred. So I left some space on my Word document, and skipped ahead to begin writing at that first turning point. And I’ve been continuing onward from there.
Of course, I keep meaning to draft a more detailed outline for the overall plot, but I keep pushing it off. Basically, once I start writing every day, I usually have no idea where I’m going with it. I just write, and try to figure it out as I go.
That’s actually my biggest struggle these past fifteen days. Getting myself into the actual act of putting words on the page. The first ten minutes are the hardest, because I don’t know what type of scene to write. But after that, I get my groove, and those two hours of writing fly by quickly. Even if I sometimes have to take a break for a few minutes halfway through in order to figure out what scene I should be (or want to be) writing next.
All things considering, my Spring Writing Project is going well so far. I’m hitting my daily word count goal, and I’m not bored of the story (yet). I also believe that I still have enough material to write for the next month and a half.
Two weeks down, six more to go.
P.S. And in case you were wondering, I did begin reading Book #11 during all of this. WARCROSS by Marie Lu. I’m obviously reading it at a slower pace than I did for the other ten books, but not by much. I started it last Thursday (03/22), and I currently have 32 pages left. Therefore, it should be finished tomorrow. After that, I will be halfway through with completing one of my 2018 New Year’s Resolution goals. (If only the other resolutions were so easy…)
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Looking Back/Looking Ahead
Last week marked exactly five years since I decided to consider taking my writing seriously. And although I’ve certainly taken steps during that time period to put me on the path of a writer, I still feel like I have a long way to go. (The struggle is real.)
When I reached the decision to pursue writing half a decade ago, I still a junior in college and majoring in the sciences. I had already participated (and “lost”) in two NaNoWriMos. However, I had never actually written anything that could be considered the length of a manuscript, let alone actually complete a story of that size.
So I set out to prove to myself that, yes, I could write an actual manuscript. I mean, how else was I going to learn how to one day write a book?
Of course, the process was very stop-go at first. I spent that spring just in the brainstorm phase. During the summer, I wrote the beginnings of the story, but I wasn’t truly committed to writing it until that year’s NaNoWriMo rolled around. There is when I fully dove into my story, never veering off to write in “short story land.”
By the end of November, this working manuscript of mine still wasn’t finished. Heck, there were multiple characters that still didn’t have a name. I just gave them gibberish code names, knowing that I’d go back and replace them with their true names later. My main concern was to just keep writing, because I didn’t want something as silly as what to call the characters to hold me back.
Taking a break from writing all during the month of November, I focused on finals in December instead. I didn’t get back into writing that story until January.
During the first week of the new semester, we were hit with a mountain of snow. My school actually declared two snow days. Seeing how I was hardly in class that week, I had no homework to labor over, and I didn’t have anywhere to go because of the weather.
So I toiled away in my dorm room, determined to finish this manuscript once and for all. There was one day where I wrote for 7-8 hours, only taking an hour break in between to scarf some dinner down at the caf before heading back to my laptop.
And wouldn’t you know? By the end of the week, the story was finished. Of course, I had written many of the scenes out of order so I had to go back later and rearrange everything to make sense (and then write some more to fill in all the gaps), but I did it. I wrote and completed what I consider my first manuscript.
Was it any good, you may ask? Not at all. (But then again, most first manuscripts never are.) In fact, I haven’t re-read that story in a few years because just thinking about it makes me cringe. But you bet I was devastated when the flash drive containing the story broke two years ago. Luckily, due to my laziness, I was able to retrieve the manuscript through Word Document Recovery, and saved the manuscript onto my laptop until I got it transferred somewhere else.
Now fast-forward to the present. Tomorrow I will be officially embarking on my new Spring Project. I still plan on making this a two-month journey, and I plan to hopefully write at least 1300 words/day. (So less words per day than NaNoWriMo, but a more drawn-out process.) I’m also going forward with that New Story Idea that I mentioned in my last post.
During the course of the past two weeks, you’d think that I’d have all the brainstorming details figured out for this story. You know, like character names and plot and what this setting looks like on a map?
Yeah…no. I did sketch out a map, but I’m not sure if I’m going to follow it. Right now, perhaps it’s best not to confine myself to a particular setting before I even set out to write the story. And everyone in the story is still nameless. Including the protagonist. Last night, I started jotting down some possible names, but I haven’t assigned them to any characters yet. At least the overall plot has been thought out, including how I want it to end, so at least I have that going for me.
But mainly, I’m just going to dive into this project tomorrow and see where it takes me. If I wasn’t too concerned about naming characters five years ago, then I shouldn’t have them hold me back from writing nowadays, too.
I’m going to try my best to harness the drive I had all those years ago, and see this project from start to finish. Because the last time I had completed a manuscript was almost three years ago – which is too long of a time. (Although, that’s not to say all the writing I did in between was a waste.)
The only downside is I might have to sacrifice the part of my day when I read a book. But considering how I’m currently on book number 10 out of 22 for the year, and it’s only March, I should be okay. (In case you were curious, I’m approaching the end of GOLDEN SON by Pierce Brown.)
When I reached the decision to pursue writing half a decade ago, I still a junior in college and majoring in the sciences. I had already participated (and “lost”) in two NaNoWriMos. However, I had never actually written anything that could be considered the length of a manuscript, let alone actually complete a story of that size.
So I set out to prove to myself that, yes, I could write an actual manuscript. I mean, how else was I going to learn how to one day write a book?
Of course, the process was very stop-go at first. I spent that spring just in the brainstorm phase. During the summer, I wrote the beginnings of the story, but I wasn’t truly committed to writing it until that year’s NaNoWriMo rolled around. There is when I fully dove into my story, never veering off to write in “short story land.”
By the end of November, this working manuscript of mine still wasn’t finished. Heck, there were multiple characters that still didn’t have a name. I just gave them gibberish code names, knowing that I’d go back and replace them with their true names later. My main concern was to just keep writing, because I didn’t want something as silly as what to call the characters to hold me back.
Taking a break from writing all during the month of November, I focused on finals in December instead. I didn’t get back into writing that story until January.
During the first week of the new semester, we were hit with a mountain of snow. My school actually declared two snow days. Seeing how I was hardly in class that week, I had no homework to labor over, and I didn’t have anywhere to go because of the weather.
So I toiled away in my dorm room, determined to finish this manuscript once and for all. There was one day where I wrote for 7-8 hours, only taking an hour break in between to scarf some dinner down at the caf before heading back to my laptop.
And wouldn’t you know? By the end of the week, the story was finished. Of course, I had written many of the scenes out of order so I had to go back later and rearrange everything to make sense (and then write some more to fill in all the gaps), but I did it. I wrote and completed what I consider my first manuscript.
Was it any good, you may ask? Not at all. (But then again, most first manuscripts never are.) In fact, I haven’t re-read that story in a few years because just thinking about it makes me cringe. But you bet I was devastated when the flash drive containing the story broke two years ago. Luckily, due to my laziness, I was able to retrieve the manuscript through Word Document Recovery, and saved the manuscript onto my laptop until I got it transferred somewhere else.
Now fast-forward to the present. Tomorrow I will be officially embarking on my new Spring Project. I still plan on making this a two-month journey, and I plan to hopefully write at least 1300 words/day. (So less words per day than NaNoWriMo, but a more drawn-out process.) I’m also going forward with that New Story Idea that I mentioned in my last post.
During the course of the past two weeks, you’d think that I’d have all the brainstorming details figured out for this story. You know, like character names and plot and what this setting looks like on a map?
Yeah…no. I did sketch out a map, but I’m not sure if I’m going to follow it. Right now, perhaps it’s best not to confine myself to a particular setting before I even set out to write the story. And everyone in the story is still nameless. Including the protagonist. Last night, I started jotting down some possible names, but I haven’t assigned them to any characters yet. At least the overall plot has been thought out, including how I want it to end, so at least I have that going for me.
But mainly, I’m just going to dive into this project tomorrow and see where it takes me. If I wasn’t too concerned about naming characters five years ago, then I shouldn’t have them hold me back from writing nowadays, too.
I’m going to try my best to harness the drive I had all those years ago, and see this project from start to finish. Because the last time I had completed a manuscript was almost three years ago – which is too long of a time. (Although, that’s not to say all the writing I did in between was a waste.)
The only downside is I might have to sacrifice the part of my day when I read a book. But considering how I’m currently on book number 10 out of 22 for the year, and it’s only March, I should be okay. (In case you were curious, I’m approaching the end of GOLDEN SON by Pierce Brown.)
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