November 5th – 1,000,009 - DONE!

DONE IT!

YES!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist it. The mental fireworks going off at this moment, a few seconds after 12:06 pm are incredible – the adrenalin rush just unbeatable. I hit 5,038 words just this moment, taking me just past the million word mark. I haven’t finished for the day but I’ve hit the mark, but I’m going to finish the scene.

For the record, the phrase that took me over the line was “the sound would be covered by the music” and the millionth word was “music”. Given I’m tone deaf that’s somehow appropriate. My apologies to my Australian friend who wanted the word to be something momentous, and for some strange reason linking Susan Boyle to Fosters, but music drowning the sound of a silenced gun going off will have to do.

When I started this process, it was about trying to do it, I gave my chances of hitting it at about 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 – in other words I didn’t back myself to make it. It was about the attempt, I refuse to use the word journey. I certainly didn’t expect to take 24 days off in the year, and still finish it with 56 days to go! If you’d told me that I’d have laughed – there was no way – but here I am.

Over the next few days I’ll probably be boring you all to death with the statistics, and if I can remember how to do it properly, with some graphs as well, but in summary the numbers break down as follows:

1,000,009 words written

In 309 days at an average of just over 3,209 words a day.

Since I didn’t write for 24 of those days because of family holidays and commitments I actually wrote that many words in 285 days at an average of 3,508 words a day.

In that time I’ve:

Completed 15 first drafts of novels or novellas varying in length from 35k to 85k.

Written the first few chapters of 5 other books, including the current W.I.P.

Written the opening scene of 4 more books.

Produced detailed synopses of a further 4 ideas.

Written one technical user guide and 10 newsletters.

My writing speed has changed dramatically – I was averaging less than 3,000 words through the early part of the year but for the last 6 weeks averaging over 4,600 words, indeed well over 5,000 words for the last week. Yet I haven’t been spending that much longer writing. I’m going to be exploring these themes over the next few weeks – so rather than a log of my progress you may find this blog may be getting more interesting.

What’s next?

That’s simple – there are two priorities for me.

Firstly I’m not going cold turkey and stopping – not a good idea. I’m going to slow down a little and do NANO as a stretch down exercise - 2,000 words a day form tomorrow to the end of the month is a nice ease down.

Secondly the year of writing 1,000,000 words is now officially over, if prematurely – the year of editing said mountain of words is about to begin – although I have done a first pass on three of the manuscripts, but that’s counterbalanced by massive plots holes in two others. Two of the others twisted so far away from my original concept that I’m not sure I can salvage them, but I will be trying to do so.

And I guess there’s a third one too – finish not just the current work in progress, but the other started books too – above all – keep writing, although I won’t be keeping such a close track of my word count for the foreseeable future - so no more boring numbers - except for NANO tracking of course.

 

 

 

 

November 4th – 994,971

Well I thought yesterday was a hot day in writing terms, but I surpassed it today – it has to be the adrenalin of being this close to the finish. 6,464 words today has put me over the 990k mark and I can almost smell the finishing line. Or maybe that’s just the sweat of effort of the last few days.

Another stint like those of the last few days and I’m there, just over 5k words to go. Looks like tomorrow will be the big day. Start getting the bunting out.

I’d keep writing but I have to get ready for the course tonight, so that takes precedence over trying for an even more stupendous word count.

Never mind, tomorrow looks like it’s going to be V for Victory day, or more appropriately E for Edits day – otherwise known as the day to tackle an absolute mountain of edits. I wonder how long editing a pile of 1,000,000 words is going to take… No. No. No, don’t get me started. I am not setting a new challenge – get thee behind me oh master of darkness…. No… Arrgghhh!

November 3rd – 988,507

I’m trying to work out the motivation behind the fact I’ve hit 6,185 words today – my biggest single word count of the entire challenge so far. Two more days at this level will see me over the line.

The best answer I can come up with is that I’m naturally speeding up as I go along, and the adrenalin rush from getting closer and closer to the target is pulling me along, although it would be wrong to say I was kicking and screaming as it dragged me toward the finishing line.

I’m not spending very more time writing than I was six months ago, maybe half an hour longer, no more than that, but my output has almost doubled. I set out on this challenge to prove, to myself more than anyone else, that the old adage “write every day” either had some basis or not. For me, the empirical evidence is overwhelming. I’m writing more, I’m writing faster and I’m writing better. A quick scan of my most recent completed manuscript compared to the first one that formed part of this challenge is illuminating – one million, or thereabouts, words later, and there is no doubt my writing is better, less error strewn, and cleaner.

I’m not saying it’s perfect, it’s not, by a long way and everything is going to go through the wringer in a two pass edit phase before I even think about letting anyone else see them, but it’s better. At least two of the manuscripts will probably not survive the process, but when I go back to them, we’ll deal with that particular fence when we get to it. The horse may jump, or may yet learn to sing.

What’s not to like as the final finish line approaches – I’m more productive, and what I’m producing is of a better quality – I’m never going to win prizes for my writing, that was never my aim, and I don’t want to appear smug – but I’m feeling good right now.

November 2nd – 982,324

Since I'd finished the previous story, I picked up another manuscript today, one I’d made a 5k start on about a month ago and then put aside to finish something else. I kind of expected it to take a while to get going but I closed the file down and did the calculation to find I’d more than doubled the manuscript’s length – 5,675 words in just about two and a half hours.

That’s taken me past 580k and I’ve hit nearly 16.5k words in the last three days and I’m speeding up not slowing down. This word rate is going to put me over the finishing line some time on Wednesday, if not Tuesday, which is awesome from my point of view.

I’ve already picked out my NANO project and I’m going to literally use that as a stretch down project, and consciously control my writing to keep it below the rate I’ve been hitting. The one thing I’m not going to do is go cold turkey on writing. I’ll ease down to 3k, and then around 2k a day to complete the NANO project, spend early December finishing off this manuscript (which will probably have about 10-15k to go at that point, maybe a little more), and then start parcelling everything up and setting up a self-editing schedule.

Anyway, that’s the plan, and including the NANO project I’ll have 17 completed first drafts to attack for editing purposes. Two of them have major plot holes, and two have stories that bent so far away from the original idea as I wrote them that I’m not sure they’ll be salvageable. The others will be okay – provided I spend 2014 editing and not get tempted into trying to better this year’s score. Which might happen – after all I’ve got another 14 started manuscripts from this year, and about a dozen from before then that are worth pursuing – that’s not counting any new ideas or continuations that come out during the whole process. I’m not known as the sequel king for nothing. LOL

November 1st – 976,649

Yesterday was quite an unusual day. The builders turned up just before eight in the morning, vowing to get everything done and finished before they left. As four thirty rolled around and it started to get dark I expected them to quit and return today, but instead they kept going, and going, and going. Eventually they were reattaching the guttering to the front bay window and porch using their van headlights for illumination. They left at ten past seven, having to admit defeat – the garage door needed another coat of paint and wasn’t dry enough for it to be done.

They’ve come back and done another coat this morning, but they decided it’s not perfect, so will be returning later today for what they hope will be the final coat. I have to say they have been good, not clock wise perhaps, but the quality of the work has been outstanding.

So with the working on the lower level facia boards, soffits and guttering, re-glazing some windows and working on the garage door it wasn’t exactly quiet in the house leaving me with a lot of work to do today, although at least I’d got the writing done.

Today I was determined to finish the story I’d been working on, get it to its natural conclusion and add it to the finished draft pile so that tomorrow I can pick up another started piece and whip that into shape too. 5,534 words later I typed “The End” and finished my writing stint for the day. Now I have a load of e-book formatting and finished formats to produce, four book covers to revise and a web site to update.

I wasn’t planning on going out tonight anyway – it’s a good job I’ve got some beer in the fridge.

October 31st – 971,115

5,267 words today, and I’ve got my heroine through her black moment, and I’m about ready to write the final scene of the book, which will produce the happy ever after conclusion. This one has turned out to be a much shorter book, a novella rather than a novel, but it still works as a complete story, and stretching it wouldn’t work.

It’s taken me past the 970k mark and I guess I’m about a week away from finishing this challenge. My intention is then to work on a NANO project as a kind of stretch down – with a lower daily word count requirement, that’s a good way to start to relax and take the pressure off myself. I need to make more time for other things, and especially for edits. This book will make 15 written this year, and the NANO project will make 16 – that’s one hell of a backlog of editing work – and I need to get that done and dusted. I think I’ve said it before 2013 will be a writing year, 2014 will be an editing year.

I also need to pick up my IT studies again, and start working seriously on some app building –there’s a number of projects stalled there too.

 I’m not saying I’m going to stop writing, even for a while, that is something I no longer think is possible for me to do, but I am saying, I need to get this done. Give other things a little more priority, and a lot more time than I have been doing.

October 30th – 965,848 words

My internal body clock was way off again today, so I was up at stupid o’clock once more. In order not to wake Marion, that means I slip into my home office, and write, at least it’s something that doesn’t make noise. I guess I could watch a film wearing headphones, but at that time of the morning, I don’t think I could find anything I’d be that interested in watching.

An almost automatic consequence of starting so early is of course I’ve hit my daily word count before lunchtime – managing 4,350 words in total.

Somebody commented (anonymously) on my post yesterday, when I was talking about not understanding why I’m suddenly writing around 4.5k words a day when two months ago I was closer to 3k. They likened it to training for a marathon – you start by running a mile, then a mile and a half, then two miles, and eventually you’re able to run the full marathon distance. For me, though this has been something different. I agree, I’ve trained myself to write every day and concentrate on completing a reasonable number of words every day – but, there’s been a step change in what I’m producing – the word count jumped from a respectable 3k a day, to a rather outrageous 4.5k average. (Okay, I’m slightly under that today, but two days ago I was over 5k for the day). I don’t know why, 6 weeks ago, this happened, and I wish I knew.

I had just come back from a holiday, but my holiday earlier in the year had not had that effect at all, so I don’t think there’s a causal connection there, so I’m at a loss as to the why of it.

October 29th – 961, 498

Well, today was supposed to be our anniversary shopping trip – or should I rearrange that to say our retail therapy in an attempt to find our anniversary gifts for each other. Unfortunately, the trip turned out to be a bust. We did find some stocking fillers for the grandkids but in terms of anniversary presents, we both struck out. She did see one ring she quite liked, but they didn’t have it in her size and couldn’t get it in in time for the actual anniversary. Still, at least I know what to look for, because until that moment she hadn’t given me any kind of a clue. We did manage to have a decent lunch out, so the trip wasn’t entirely a wasted one.

Book-ending the shopping trip, I managed to get quite a lot of writing done before we went, and a good hour at it since we got back – the end result is I hit 4,761 words, taking me through the 960k mark and the word rate doesn’t seem to abate in any way.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if I could isolate the reason behind the step-change in word count, I’d bottle it and sell it. Most writers I talk to, see what I’m doing as either incredible, or crazy, or I guess, incredibly crazy. I’m not nuts, and I know full well everything I’m writing for this challenge needs editing before it goes near anyone else, let alone a professional editor, but it’s getting written and it’s getting written quickly.

October 28th – 956,737

I have to admit, that at a couple of points yesterday I wondered if this story idea was running out of steam. Not so, today. In fact, the storm, or rather the northern edge of it had me awake early so I was up and writing before seven this morning. It’s now lunchtime, my usual stopping point, and I’ve just hit 5,187 words for the morning. I’ve even left the story in the middle of a fast paced scene that has my fingers itching to keep writing.

My problem is I need to knuckle down and do my homework for the course tonight, so I can’t, however much my fingertips twitch, and my brain screams go for it.

The scaffolding will be coming down today or tomorrow, depending on the weather more than anything else, so hopefully by the end of the week the builders will be finished. In fact, even as I was writing that last line, the scaffolding company turned up and I have three men climbing all over the outside of the house removing the whole kit and caboodle. By the way they’re going at it it’s going to take a lot less time to take it down than it did to put it up.

At least the storm, what little we saw of it has blown through, so when there guys have gone, we should have the rest of the day in peace and quiet – depending on family, of course.

 

October 27th – 951,550

I had expected to spend today wrapping up the story on my main manuscript and coming to a conclusion for the heroine. Sometimes though story pacing can take on a life of its own, and after only 2,425 words I was writing “The End”, a good couple of thousand words sooner than anticipated. Still it did manage to limp past 60k, which for a first draft is acceptable. (Limp as in word count, not as in story, as the story is explosive right up to the last sentence and I'm quite proud of the ending to this one).

At least I had the other one I’d been working on early in the week to fall back on, and after a few minutes to reread through it up to where I’d left it, it was all systems go, and just over an hour later, just as Marion called upstairs to tell me it was time for lunch, I'd hit 2,101 words and a suitable breakpoint, making 4,526 words for the morning.

Most writers I speak to, find switching between two different manuscripts, two different voices something that’s incredibly difficult. For me though, it seems as natural as breathing. I’m in document A so I’m in voice A for penname A, and when I pick up manuscript B, that’s voice B, penname B. Sitting here, I have two more pieces to work on, one for submission to a critique group (we’ll call that voice C) and the one that forms the homework for the Monday night course – call that voice D.

Then of course I’m sitting here in my own voice (Voice Zero) to write this blog extolling the fact I’ve passed the 950k mark.

What’s so hard about that?

If only I could bottle it as snake oil and sell it. Any takers?

Mind you, typing from the confines of a strait jacket isn’t exactly easy.

October 26th – 947,024

Yesterday’s critique group through up an interesting question about the amount of help out there for authors looking to construct their characters or their plot, or even, given it was a speculative fiction group, their setting. So, for about an hour last night I went looking on the web to see what I could find.

God knows how, for a real newbie at this lark, how they would be able to sort the wheat from the chaff (sorry for the cliché). I have no idea how they would. I found some useful stuff, I even found something useful to myself (it’s called a beatsheet, and although primarily a screenwriting tool, a number of my friends have been suing it for plot planning. I’d heard the term but not bothered going to look for it, now, I have, and I can see its usefulness. I’m not sure I’ll change what I do, but it’s food for thought. Damn, there goes another cliché. Sorry. I guess I’m getting tired.

Life has intervened today, which is surprising – today was quiet after spending the last couple of days working in the middle of builders thumping and sawing all the way round the house, so I’d anticipated getting a lot of work done. I’ve reverted to being a good boy, returning to my main manuscript and managed 4,609 words, taking me within touching distance of hitting 950k tomorrow and quite probably wrapping that particular story up, somewhere above the 60k mark, which given I’d intended for around 40k (long novella) may well mean there’s a lot to cut at edit – or maybe not. We can always hope.

 

October 25th – 942,415

Yesterday as the builder’s left they told me they intended to return at about lunchtime today in order to finish off the work at the top of the house because they needed some materials to be delivered to site. So it was rather a shock this morning when I heard a noise on the scaffolding at eight o’clock and looked out the window in time to see two pairs of feet go past. Ten minutes earlier I’d been in the shower!

It turns out the supplier had called them first thing to let them know his van was on the way so they’d had to rearrange and race to get here before the van arrived to deliver the stuff they needed – and take away the stuff they didn’t. So they were on site about four hours earlier than expected, and then the van they were waiting for was late! The idea of texting to let us know never entered their heads – I’m so glad the upper level work is almost finished, with the scaffolding gone, I’ll be able to cope better, and see what’s happening.

Still all in all, despite the early frustrations of the day, and a lunchtime critique group, I’ve managed to hit 4,389 words for the day, sailing clear of the 940k mark and setting myself up to hit the 950k mark by Monday at the latest – but more likely on Sunday.

I’ve been a naughty boy though – continuing with the new story concept rather than picking up my main manuscript again. Still, the only schedule I’m hurting there is my own – I’ll probably drop back onto that tomorrow, a good couple of days should take that heroine over her personal finishing line.

October 21st – 923,594

Another day's writing done, another 4,273 words in the bank taking me past 920k. Mind you, I passed that number at about ten past seven this morning – I only needed the first 700 words to do that.

I cleared my schedule to allow time this week because the builders were supposed to be on site first thing – but it’s raining hard out there, hasn’t stopped since some time in the early house, and you can’t expect them to work up scaffolding under these conditions.

Hell I wouldn’t!

I guess the phone call to say we won’t be with you today because of the weather is a waste of time from their point of view – it’s obvious after all, but it would have been a courtesy to receive it.

Never mind, it’s cleared time on my schedule to allow me to get my word count done, and now it’s time to get cracking with the course homework. Although I’m not entirely sure I can get my head around Jungian Character Archetypes at any time of the day, let alone lunch time.

 

October 24th – 938,026

Well it’s a glorious, sunny, October day and the builders have been hard at work since about half eight. That’s good but for me it’s also noisy, as where they’re working means the noise reverberates around the entire house – not the most conducive atmosphere for my own work. I’m afraid I’m one of those people who prefer to have peace and quiet to write – so I can’t sue music to drown out the sound.

I also have a confession to make – the idea I had buzzing around my head yesterday just demanded to get the first chapter written, so today I took time away from my main manuscript to write the first chapter. As this story starts with a serious bang – a confrontation between the two main protagonists, the dialogue of the argument quickly took on a life of its own and I felt like it was writing itself. It took me about an hour, maybe a shade more than that, but when I looked up, I’d written the argument and the follow on linking scene, a total of 2,659 words.

Then it was a question of being good and going back to my production manuscript and another hour and a half saw 2,233 words written to take me to a total of 4,992 words. In fact I might have deliberately written another sentence just to take me past the 5k mark, but I decided after the count up that I wasn’t going to be that shallow.

October 23rd – 933,034

Well, the sun decided to shine from quite early this morning, although with some intermittent showers, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when the builders turned up. Some of the work is a two man job but with the scaffolding the bulk of it is a one man job. The guy they left on site is cracking on with it, but it’s a bit disturbing to hear him working, or indeed just tramping around the window level scaffolding.

Still, despite the less than perfect peace and quiet, I did manage to get 4,889 words written, completing all the transition needed to get the heroine to the final scene. I’m no longer so sure I’ll finish that tomorrow, but certainly the book will be finished by the weekend.

That is of course provided I don’t distract myself with a wonderful new idea that started floating between my ears at about one o’clock this morning! There he goes, at it again, you say, and to be honest I’d agree with that assessment.

Passed the 930k mark with less than 70k to go, and nothing seems to be slowing me down, word count wise which is something I’m finding is amazing.

 

October 22nd – 928,145

Writing today has been an unusual experience. Although I’m quite happy with the manuscript and I wanted to get the next part of the story told, by lunchtime I’d barely managed to write a thousand words. Given that I’m frequently finished in a similar amount of time, and I didn’t have any distractions or time away from the computer this was strange for me.

I assumed I was having an off day, a down day or a lazy day, but when I came back to the computer after lunch, within ninety minutes, I’d added another three and a half thousand words, taking me to 4,551 for the day.

I’m now going to pass the 930k mark tomorrow, unless working with the builders here becomes an issue. They’re not here today, and given the amount of rain that’s fallen, that’s a good thing.

The story is approaching its final dénouement, but I think that might be another couple of days, or at least a day and a half. That depends, there’s a final scene, and I’m in two minds whether to write that, or write just the start of it and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination. Not a hook for a series – that would be something different entirely. Just a different way to end the book.

October 20th – 919,321

Perception and reality remained joined at the hip today and I cranked out 4,748 words before lunchtime which made for the perfect break point as I have loads of other stuff to do.

It probably helped that today was the climactic scene in the manuscript – not the final scene but the one that one of my tutors refers to as the “black moment”, where the hero, or heroine, feels everything is lost. Of course we then build from that toward the finale, the denouement which in terms of a romance story would be the happy ever after moment. Since this is not a romance, it’ll be building to a climax of a different type, although not the miserable ever after that seems to be norm for certain kinds of fiction these days.

For once, this story isn’t going to have a sequel, either, the story is going to come to a natural end at around the 45k mark – so all being well it’ll be finished in a couple of days’ time. That being said, I can already see this piece is going to need some substantial plot editing early on, as the pacing may be a little off.

I intended this one to start relatively slowly (I mean relatively too – if it was too slow nobody would read further), and then build at a relentless rate of acceleration to the climactic scene (the one I’ve just written) and continue speeding up through to the end.

This kind of “constant acceleration” story is, I find, among the hardest type to write, ad certainly the hardest to edit once written. Ah well, rods, backs and own spring to mind - rearrange to suit.

October 19th – 914,573

Marion woke up with a really bad headache today, so I knew before I got dressed that today would be a quiet day, and we wouldn’t be going anywhere. She gets them from time to time, not too frequently, maybe four a year or thereabouts, and they’re good for the day – she’ll sleep it off tonight.

Apart from the added time from running around after her, I actually expected to be able to spend the quiet time writing, but for some reason, one I can’t fathom, I  haven’t had the writing time I expected. So my now, mid-afternoon, I’ve just passed the 4k mark, hitting 4,187 words for the day.

I’ve got a huge pile of stuff to do today, so I can’t put any more time to it, and besides I’ll need to concentrate on dinner shortly, so that’s it for the day. Yesterday I was concerned about the way I was perceiving this piece, that it was slow going when in fact the words were flowing. Today, I can report that perception and reality are back in line. The words have flowed and I’ve felt I was flying along.

Writing is such a strange game.

October 18th – 910,386

Another percentage point scored on my way toward the target, as my 5,161 words today have taken me smoothly past the 910k mark.

It’s been interesting to watch myself today. I’ve had the feeling that I’m struggling with this particular manuscript, that the story isn’t working, and the writing is slow and hard. In fact, each time I glance at the clock I’m amazed how much I’ve managed to get written and in how short a time span. My perception is the piece is slow going, but in reality my writing speed and output is running at the same rate as the previous manuscript. The difference between perceived reality and reality almost doesn’t make sense.

When I’ve been flying on a work in progress I’ve felt the flow, that I’m “in the zone”, but with this piece, this week, I’ve felt I’m struggling when the reverse has been true. I’m not complaining, it’s just another facet of the experience of writing, and one that gives me pause to think.

Time to crack on with other things, real life and all that.

October 17th – 905,225

The builders turned up today, to measure up and then disappear again, and won’t be back till Monday when they have the materials. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – what is it with builders and calendars. They could have turned up any day this week to measure up, so why leave it till today. The answer is glaringly obvious – they were busy elsewhere. Fair enough it rained exceptionally hard yesterday afternoon, but that was just one afternoon out of the week.

Given the brakes on my car were making some fairly nasty noises, at least that’s given me the chance to take the car down to my mate Russ in town and get them checked. I’ll be fetching the car back shortly, but I’ll be forty pounds lighter when I come back. Still, a main dealer would have charged me double that, and then more, so I’m not complaining. I guess I’ll have to redouble my efforts and sell a load more books to recover the money.

In any case, I have managed to get 4,548 words written today, and taken my word count to more than 905k, so overall I’m happy with that.

The new critique group last night was fun too – it’s amazing how many divergent opinions there can be within a group of four people – I think I counted five opinions in the room, and that didn’t count the author’s!