Posts Tagged ‘Check-in’
Not much new to report here, but I thought I’d give you a quick update on my progress.
I wrote 401 words on Meg & Matt’s story today, bringing my total since I started tracking on Jan. 17 to 19,855. That’s nearly 20K — one-fifth of my 100K-word goal.
Still mulling a title for Meg & Matt. “Beauty and the Ballplayer” seems to be the clear favorite amongst those of you who’ve weighed in.
I’m working this weekend, and want to get in at least one decent workout for the week. But I’ll be trying to sneak in some writing, too. It shouldn’t be all that hard. I’m kind of on a roll — I know exactly where things have to go. It’s just a matter of getting down the words to get them there.
Even though I had to work at the “day job” (which is really an afternoon/evening job), this has been a productive weekend.
Today, I wrote more than 2,000 words on Meg and Matt’s story. Yesterday, I went to plot group and had fun chatting about Meg, Matt, Brad, Erin, and Kari and Damien. There were only two of us there, so we covered a lot of ground.
With Pat’s help, I even came up with a tentative title for Meg and Matt. I’m leaning toward either “Beauty and the Ballplayer” or “The Baby and the Ballplayer.”
Either one might work. Matt, of course, is the ballplayer. That’d make Meg the beauty, though she hardly considers herself one. He does, though, so that counts for something. “The Baby and the Ballplayer” lays out both characters’ initial secrets, though. (She doesn’t know he’s an athlete and he doesn’t know she’s pregnant.)
When not writing, I’ve been playing with the “chart wizard” in Excel, which has led me to some startling realizations.
- Since I started charting words written on Jan. 17, I’ve put out 18,451 of them. That’s 35 days (I think), giving me an average of about 527 words a day. Not prolific, by any means, but it’s a start.
- My highest-output days are about 2,000 words. Some days it’s all I can do to squeeze out 200.
- My goal of 100K words by the end of November is about 18 1/2 percent complete. I can do it!
- Meg & Matt’s story is now up to 29,819 words. If I’m shooting to make it a category romance, which I think I am, that means I’m a wee bit past the halfway point. That’s exciting.
I take that back about 527 words a day not being prolific. I just did the math. If I averaged 500 words a day, that’d be 182,500 in a year. That’s approximately TWO single-title books or THREE category romances of 60K apiece. Wow!
Of course, I know I can’t keep writing at that pace. There’ll be more slow days … days when I do more editing than writing … days when I end up not writing anything at all. (I can already count 13 since I started keeping track.)
Even if I end up averaging just 200 a day, that’s 73K in a year. And considering I’m going to do the NaNo again, I’ll get 50K just in November (I hope. I plan to actually finish NaNo this year!)
I’m really not much of a statistics junkie … but cool charts could just help change my mind. 😉
What to do, what to do?
I’m at a bit of a loss again. After writing more than 1,000 words on Meg and Matt’s story yesterday, I’ve hit a block. If I take a page of advice from the “write quickly and often” book, I’ll sit down and make myself write something — anything.
But maybe I should continue working on my new synopsis for “Operation Snag Mike Brad” — the one that puts more emphasis on the conflict (you know, the one that may or may not actually exist in the story. I’m trying. It really does have more conflict than it used to.)
I’m not sure it’s worth sending out more queries on that one until I resolve the conflict issue.
Or perhaps I should do something else altogether. “Blind Date Bride” needs a query letter and synopsis. I’m thinking about taking an online synopsis-writing class that starts in March, though … so maybe I should wait on that.
This is the story of my life these days: I seem to have a short attention span. I can’t settle down to any one project. Yet I need to keep making progress on my Word Count Club goal. I don’t want to be the one to fail.
I also need an editor’s note for the next NARWA newsletter. I’m thinking my topic will be … drumroll, please … rejection. I’ve certainly handled enough of it lately to consider myself an expert! 😉
Based on the contest feedback I got on “Operation Snag Mike Brad” today, there’s no way in hell it’s going to final in the Golden Heart.
Guess that means I don’t have to worry about coming up with $425 to pay for Nationals, eh?
I got scores back from a contest I entered right before I sent everything off for the GH. One judge gave me an 80 out of 100. The other two? 60 and 57.
I can buy 60’s assertion that there may not be enough conflict to sustain the story. (She should have seen it BEFORE I beefed up the conflict in one of my rewrites!)
However, I find 57’s comment that I don’t know how to use punctuation insulting. It reminds me of my freshman year of college when my World Cultures prof (who taught art history) tried to tell me I couldn’t write an essay.
I know punctuation, darn it. I’m a freakin’ copy editor for God’s sake. I may not do old-school punctuation, but what I do is perfectly acceptable in journalism. And I should think that if my punctuation was that darn bad, someone else would have pointed it out to me when they were proofing my GH entry for me.
Nary a peep, though. So I’m inclined to write that one off as ravings.
Guess I should be thankful that all my scores were at least a 2 (shows promise but needs improvement).
I’m sure I’ll be able to look back at the scores with more detachment later, so I can get more out of them. Next week … maybe next month … Right now, however, I’m still smarting.
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