A few weeks ago I started keeping track of how many words per day I write.

I’ve been trying to work out a suitable goal for my writing. I don’t know whether I should make my goal X words per day, or XX words per week. I’m leaning towards a weekly goal, since then I can do more on one day, then take a break another day. I like variety in my schedule, and I don’t want to feel locked doing something every single day, even if I don’t want to.

And the fact is, I feel that if I force myself to write at times when I really don’t want to, then that writing won’t be so good, so there’s no point in doing it. It’s best to be flexible, and write when I feel like writing.

I think, if I make my goal a weekly total of 6000 words, that would be a good starting place. Then, once I achieve that goal regularly, I’ll up it to 7000.

How do you guys write? Do you set daily/weekly goals? Do you meet them?

Words I hate #1: http://craigsplace.info/2009/07/words-i-hate-168/

Fellow

as in “Have you met that fellow over there?”

It sounds wierd! Sorry, but I can’t help it. I think people that say fellow sound like they’re trying to be posh, but they just sound silly. It reminds me of Humphrey B. Bear. In fact, the only time fellow sounds normal is when used in the phrase “What a funny old fellow is XXX”. Extra points if the funny old fellow is named Humphrey. In any other context, it’s wierd.

Twit

as in “Did you read the twit from @thatperson?”

I use twitter all the time. and originally a single twitter post was called a tweet. But lately people have been calling them twits. This is not right. A twit is an idiot. A twit is what you sound like when you call a twitter message a twit. Please people, think about it. The word twitter comes from the sound a bird makes, and the singular form of that is tweet. Use the word properly!

I lost part of the second draft of my book.

It was my own fault really. As you can see from my last blog, I wanted to put up a preview of my book. I opened up the second draft, deleted some of the chapters so it was only the Prologue, First and Second Chapter, then I must have accidentally saved over it. I intended to save it as a different name, which I did. But I didn’t realize I also saved over the top of my proper second draft until I went to do some writing the next day and half of it was missing.

So now I have to re-revise a few chapters of the book. I can vaguely remember what I did before, but it’s not going to end up the same. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. Perhaps revising again isn’t so bad, but it’s annoying.

Now I’m using version control. Each day I do some writing, I’m going to make a copy of the file. I’m on v2.3 now, so when I do some writing later, I’ll make a v2.4. I might end up with v.2.34221 but so be it!

The Spiral Dilemma is a traditional fantasy novel, but without the stereotypical humans/elves/dwarves, etc. In fact, if you find a fantasy stereotype in my book, you have my permission to slap me. I’ve tried to be as original as I can, while still sticking to the roots of the Fantasy genre.

It’s the story of a young woman’s adventures as her life is turned upside-down. Dilemma is a Sorceress in Training when her home is attacked by Daemons. These Daemons lead her on an adventure in which she discovers secrets she will wish stayed buried.

I hope that makes it sound interesting. One thing I’m still made at is writing short summaries of my books.

Originally, I wrote this book several years ago, at that time it was called ‘Dilemma of the Hour’. This new version has a different ending, and I removed one character who really didn’t need to be there. It’s better than ever, and I can’t wait to finish it.

You can read a preview (the prologue and first two chapters) here:

http://craigsplace.info/files/The_Spiral_Dilemma_Preview.pdf

I have so many things I need to do, but I can’t seem to manage to get off my butt and do them.

I changed banks last year, but I still haven’t cancelled my old bank account. I know that’s dumb, but I’m lazy and I keep putting it off.

I have my Superannuation in four different places, and I keep meaning to combine them into one, but again, I just haven’t gotten around to it.

There’s probably heaps of other things too, things that I need to do but have completely forgotten about. It’s stuff like this that makes me get a little panicky. What if I run out of money, and its all my fault because I was too lazy to go to the bank and sort some stuff out?

I’ll do it, eventually. It just seems like so much of a hassle. I know if I go to the bank and tell them I want to cancel my account, I’ll get hassled about it. They hate cancelling things.

And to combine my super into one, I just need to send in a form. The trouble is I also need to send in a registered copy of my identification, which means finding someone who is capable of signing, like a JP or something, and I have no idea how you find people like that. It’s so much hassle, why don’t they just make things easier?

God, I hate money.

I said this on my fitness blog (link), but I’ll say it here too. Over the last week I fell back into my old, lazy self. I had been taking a break from my first draft, and writing an unrelated short story, but for about three days I didn’t do any writing at all.

That’s bad. I like writing, and I intended to do it every day. It’s just that for some reason, I relapsed, and couldn’t be bothered doing anything. Anyway, I’m back to normal now. I’ve started to revise my first draft, and shape it into an even better second draft. It’s going well.

I experimented with different methods of revising. One said that you should read your book and make notes, but don’t change anything until you finish. Then, go through with your notes, and write the second draft. I tried this for a while, but reading my book without making any changes just felt like a waste of time.

So I’m using my own method. I open up two windows in Word, have the first draft in one, and the second draft in another. Then I read the first draft, and copy it into the second draft, making changes as I need to.

I’m happy now that I’ve started revising. I really did need the break. I know it was only a week, but now I can look at my novel with a fresh eye.

1. Overall it’s a fun game, but nothing new.
2. It’s basically Champions in Space, but Champions was kinda fun, so that’s not to bad.
3. They reused a lot of assets from Champions. One of the first planets you go to looks exactly like an area from Champions.
4. The space battles are kinda fun, but very grindy. You just end up pressing one button over and over until the other ship blows up.
5. Ground parts are just like every other MMO, nothing original at all.
6. Overall the game feels just like every other MMO out there. But it’s Star Trek so I’ll give it slightly more attention.
7. Lots of familiar names and places for fans of the shows.
8. You can create your own alien, which is cool. I am a male, or something approximating a male, Tern (tree man).
9. It’s incredibly laggy at the moment, but it is beta after all.
10. Graphics are good, sound is good, music is annoying, and I immediately turned it off.