Posted by Craig on February 5, 2010 – 12:15 pm
Filed under Writing
Tagged as daily, goal, weekly, Writing
A few weeks ago I started keeping track of how many words per day I write.
| WHEN |
TOTAL |
AVERAGE |
| Week 1 |
6226 |
3113 |
| Week 2 |
7559 |
1080 |
| Week 3 |
5656 |
808 |
| Week 4 |
7821 |
1564 |
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?
Posted by Craig on January 27, 2010 – 1:19 pm
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!
Posted by Craig on January 17, 2010 – 9:01 am
I said this on my fitness blog, 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.
Posted by Craig on January 7, 2010 – 3:23 pm
Well, after about four-five months of solid writing, I finished the first draft. Of course, this was a rewrite of the last book I wrote (and discarded), so I guess you could say this is the third draft.
The first version was called ‘Dilemma of the Hour’ and I discarded it because it didn’t really end. The new version is called ‘The Spiral Dilemma’ and is much much better. I took out a character I didn’t really need, moved her to the second book. I also added a bunch of scenes after the original ending, to give it a proper full blown finale. I love it, it’s actually the best thing I’ve ever written.
Now, the next step is to edit, and come up with a second draft. I know there are few scenes which I rushed, and I’ll have to add more detail to those parts. Other bits just didn’t feel right, but that’s what editing is for.
It’s all down hill from here.
Now, where did I leave my fine-toothed come?
Posted by Craig on October 10, 2009 – 12:55 pm
Before all this stuff happened in my life, I had made the decision not to give up writing, but to postpone it. I just couldn’t see how I could write while working full-time at a stressful job.
Now things have changed. 
Since I’m taking care of Dad full-time, I actually have much more time to devote to my writing, so I’m throwing myself back into it.
Technically I’ve written three novels, all of which I don’t consider good enough to be published. What I am doing now is re-writing my third novel. Previously it was called “Dilemma of the Hour”. The title now, for this new version, is “Time and other Dilemmas”.
Its a fantasy novel about a young woman who is studying Magic at college when her town is invaded by demons. She discovers the demons are being controlled by a mysterious Necromancer, and together with her best friend Keldis, the renown heroine Ocean, and her Sorcery mentor Woodrill Rivers, they track down the Necromancer – to discover why he is attacking innocent downs and stop him.
As a teaser, I have uploaded the chapter two of my novel here. It is a good introduction to the world, and to the character of Dilemma.
