April 15, 2012

ROW 80 R2 #3

I almost did a check-in on Thursday (I have no idea what's with this lateness this week), but in the end, decided against it. Last week, I declared Thursday as my day-off. Even if I want to write something, I just find something else to do (watch movie, read book, etc.), because I need some break, to recharge my energy and/or writing skills, etc. And Thursday is literally the middle of the week and I remember when I was attending Uni and one semester, I had a day-off Wednesday. It was the greatest thing!

Ahem. Anyway. I wrote a lot on Monday (1794 words!), then: Tuesday - 1089 words + 1094 to another project (of course there was a couple of hours break between them; it helps you write more if you don't write it in one sit when you're struggling), Wednesday - 1153, Friday - 1320 AND I only needed a little less than 700 words for Saturday and would be done with the week. So I wrote 690 words and mentally ended the week. Whew!
In the evening, though, I wrote some more to another project: 1332 words. The thing is, this was to be a short story (I've started it about 2 years ago), and I reached the scenes so close to the finish according to plan, but - as you might've guessed - it didn't go according to plan.
And I was a little agonized yesterday about it, because I wanted to stop here, but I knew the story went beyond, I knew it 2 years ago, but wanted to stop it here, at this place, so it would be an open end and the reader can decide, wonder... But as it turned out now, it would end very abruptly. Thankfully, by talking about it with one of my friends, helped, because I found a solution: I will write more of the story! Maybe it would become a novella and that's alright, too. Because I don't write it for a competition anymore, so I can write more and tell the story in full. I still need to come up with some details, but so far, I think I needed the permission myself to write more of the story if the story wants me to. Not to restrict myself.
Short stories are really not my forte - usually, I think in novel-lenght ideas.

Anyway, today came. And I was like 'Ohoho, I'm already done with this week's amount of words! I don't need to write more!' Plus, I even ended somewhere strange yesterday, because I didn't write as much as I usually do (ahem, I mean, in round 2).
But the more I thought about it... Thursday was my day off. And my goal said: 'at least 6000 words per week', which means if I write more, then I'll write more. And the thing is, I wanted to write some more! And to make a habit. To make a long story short, I wrote 1129 words, so it's 7175 words for this project for this week. Which means, I'm over 31k now! Yay! I'm very satisfied, plus I even advanced with 2 other projects this week! Better to write now while I still have time for it (such is the life of the job-hunter). It'd be a waste not to and I know I would regret it later.

Hope you had a good week and you reached your goals, as well!

April 09, 2012

ROW 80 R2 #2

I know it's Monday, but it's still Sunday in some parts of the world, so it's okay, right? Right?!

It was very late last night when I wrote the remaining words to reach 6000 for last week, so that's why. And yeah, I've reached my goal for last week! Weeehee!
You already know about the first three days; I took a break on Thursday, then Friday was over with 1076 words, Saturday I've written 1449 words (in two parts - maybe I should make a session in the morning and one in the afternoon?), and yesterday was 767 words. All in all, last week, I wrote 6059 words for my freshest novel (I'm a little over 24k now), plus 727 for one of my short stories which is still unfinished, after two years...
I'm happy I could start round 2 with success! Let's just hope my energy would last *knocking on wood thrice*

And as I've thought, it's easier to focus on page count, because I can immediately see it and it doesn't take my attention away as does checking wordcount. It lets me focus on the story more and before I know it, I've already written the daily amount!
At the end of the day, I would check the wordcount, after I've reached 2 new pages :)

So, let's stick with this plan and see how far I can get :) 2 pages per day, so I'll get 6000 words per week. And after I'm done with the daily amount for this novel, I can work on other WIPs.

I hope you had a successful first week, as well!

Link for other check-in posts.

April 04, 2012

ROW80 R2 #1 & Goals

Weee! A Wednesday check-in! Quite rare from me, isn't it?
Ahem. Let's state my goals for this round. Even though it half-worked in round 1, now it's already spring and I have more energy. Also, I have goals (and self-proclaimed deadlines) beyond ROW80, so I thought I must pick up my pace a little.

The details are... flexible. Originally, I wanted to write 2 pages per day. Every day. But I realized that might be too much of a jump after my performance in round 1. So I opted for 6 or 5 days per week.
Then I calculated some and arrived at the decision that I wanted to have 6000 new words per week for this novel I've started in January.
Concluding the first 3 days of the first week of round 2, I've reached a compromise with myself: my aim is 6000 words per week for this novel. If I can write 2 pages per day, that's quite great, but there might be a day when I write less, so there will probably be days when I write more. The average is 2 pages (which is around 1000-1100 words, I guess), but it can be amended.

Also, I have some other projects (loads of them) and while I'm certainly grateful for NaNoWriMo, I realized it made me learn to concentrate on one project at a time. Which is really not my style, since I tend to jump around from here to there. So, I'll try to get some writing done on those 'currently work in progress for years' projects, after I've written my daily dose for this new novel. And I don't start on another novel, until I've finished this one.
I hope this method works and lets me to get back my skill on concentrating on more than one projects at once. This first half of the week was deemed successful in this aspect, as well.

583 words on Monday, 1025 words on Tuesday, plus 727 words for another project, and today I've stopped with 1157 words. AND I've crossed the 20k line. Which is not much, but if I keep up the good pace I set in the beginning of this week *knocks on wood thrice*, then I can write more and come up with a respectable wordcount at the end of R2.

Well, I'm curious.

Good luck, everyone!!!