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.