Tag: word count

Somebody Greased the Wheels

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The words came easy yesterday, easier than they have in weeks.  I wish I could say it’s because I feel confident in my ending, but I can’t.  I still don’t 100% know how the dharma thing is going to end.  I mean, basically, I have the chain of events, but as for the ins and outs, how the characters will react, what will become of them… it’s all up in the air like a bunch of chainsaws at the end of a suicidal juggler’s act.

That said, I had a flow going, and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the beak — that’s a good way to get your face bitten off.  Nor am I one to complain about having an easy writing session, especially when I’ve really struggled lately.  To what can I attribute yesterday’s flow?

I think it’s because, here in the closing moments of the story, there’s a bit of a return to form.  The main character is back on his quest, the supporters are back in place doing what they need to do, and the villains have been more or less dealt with.  Conflicts resolved, the story can proceed happily in the way that it wants to.  It’s all that conflict that gets in the way of just letting things happen.  DAMN YOU CONFLICT.  Except, the ego-writer reminds me, conflict is the sustenance of the story, so even though I’m wrapping the story up now, that doesn’t mean I can hop off the conflict-train to hurt-town.  Incidentally, I spent the evening mulling it over and I spent this morning’s run kicking around the moment where I left off last night and suddenly the last bit of conflict came to me.  Something about the heat and the fatigue and the rivers of sweat running down my face triggered the perfect last hurrah for the story’s conflict.  Conclusion?  All writers should run.  Alternate conclusion?  Running solves every problem.  Alternate alternate conclusion?  It’s fargoing hot outside and I’m a little baked, there is no alternate alternate conclusion.

As long as I stay on track (and, against all odds and expectations, I’ve stayed perfectly on track throughout this entire process), the first draft will be done in about a dozen more writing sessions.  A dozen!  It almost seems too close to put a bow on the events of a story, too immediate to properly process.  Like a sudden cinder-block wall on the highway, it looks like I’m going to plow right into it before I can get to where I’m going.  But I think that’ll be okay.  Rather too much than too little, and god knows how much the draft will change when I get into the editing phase.

I feel like my words of late about the novel betray a sense of melancholy about finishing the book.  Well, “finishing.”  My laser-beam focus since April has been to get the first draft done, and with the achievement of that (I just scared myself a little, considering it a fait accompli) and in that sense, I am finishing.  And I do feel a bit of sadness, a bit of aimlessness, a bit of my-nemesis-is-dead-what-will-I-fight-for-now emptiness creeping in.  But I don’t think that will last.  I look back over what I’ve accomplished in the last few months and I realize that the act of writing no longer intimidates me like it once did.  I have ideas for books and plays that I am just bursting to write, the only challenge when this one is all said and done will be deciding what I set my laser sights on next.

 

85% (Stay On Target)

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It occurs to me that it’s been some time since I posted any sort of progress report on The Project.

The Project, of course, being Novel Alpha, or the reason I started this whole crazy blarg thing which is by all accounts growing faster than my toddler’s vocabulary and spiraling out of control.  As I close in on my hundredth post (seriously, this is post 86, which fargoing astounds me) it seems a good time for a status update.

The novel is at 85% as of today at about 75000 words, give or take a little.  The fact that I’ve made it this far continues to shock and awe me.  I feel like an Aboriginal Tribesman who has never heard of planes, trains, or automobiles and suddenly gets on one of those Japanese bullet trains and travels two hundred miles in like ten minutes and gets off the train saying, “I came all that way?  Impossible.”  Or, to use a metaphor that’s more immediate and familiar to me, like the thirteenth mile of a half-marathon; I’m aware that there was a lot of work involved to get to this point, but the fact that it was done and that it was all done by me is just sort of eclipsed by the lactate burning holes in my calves.Read More »

Today’s Writing Session Sponsored by The Beast, Apparently

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More on that title at the end of the post.

The writing had me in a weird place yesterday.  I was stressed about where my story had ended up and where it was headed, and I felt the significant gravity of self-doubt and intimidation about the task of writing a novel weighing heavy on my shoulders.  It was one of those days when I really think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, when I wonder if this whole thing was really such a good idea and whether I’d be better off using my spare time to play video games or read or watch TV or otherwise waste my time.  Of course, you have those thoughts, and then you remember the old adage about how nobody on their deathbed says they wished they’d watched more TV.  No, Writing this novel is one of those — I won’t say Bucket List items, because that’s a term that gets tossed around too whimsically for my tastes — but it’s one of those Things I Wanted To Accomplish.  And, like with so many other things in life, I’ve found, the day-to-day struggles become easier to bear if you keep your eye on the prize, so that’s what I try to do.Read More »

It’s Monday. Here Are Some Words.

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I wish I had more to report today, but I don’t.  I could speak of the massive headaches and heartaches and the disgust with humanity and gnashing of teeth that comes with being a teacher — doubly so a teacher of high school seniors, some of whom have failed and will as a result not graduate — at the end of the year.  But I won’t.  Partially for reasons of confidentiality, partially because I’m a softie at heart, but mostly because if I spend another instant thinking about it today I might just have to kick one of my cats, and my cats don’t deserve it.  At least, not today.  Not that I’m aware of.

Disclaimer: I would never kick my cats.  Hard.

Instead, a reflection.  I’m at 70% complete on the Project.  Fascinating.  I’m far enough ahead of schedule that I could significantly scale back my daily goal and still finish ahead of my goal of early August, but of course that defeats the purpose of goals.  No, I will keep on pushing and finish probably in early July, which will be fantastic, assuming of course that things don’t fall into the wood chipper over the summer.

In other news, things may fall into the wood chipper over the summer. Read More »

Zen and the Art of Shut Up and Write

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Gawd, it’s been a rough week for my writing. Hard to find the time, hard to find the motivation, hard to even read what I’ve written.

The Howler Monkey of Doubt was exceptionally loud in my ears this morning, and I think he must have eaten a ton of garlic bread last night, because his breath was AWFUL, and he was not in the least apologetic about it. At any rate, during my tuning-up phase this morning, I went back and re-read the last few pages, as is my wont, and realized that there is a problem. It’s not going anywhere.
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