Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights . . .

Okay, I think I'm in serious trouble here. First, one of my friends had me add the "Pirates" application on Facebook. I'm having way too much fun with it. I think she's in cahoots with my writing buddy.

My writing buddy just happened to start talking about totems, and so naturally I had to start looking up websites. The first quiz I took said I was mostly wolf with some bear thrown in. The second one is here:







What is Your Native American Totem?

Monday, July 30, 2007

Day ummm . . . 21? 22?

Is it just me or does it look like I'm picking up speed? Last week I only managed about 1600 words and this week it was 2500.

It would have been more but I had a lot to do on Saturday, and then Sunday I was at a Pow Wow for most of the day and then spent the evening at the in-laws.

Yes, I'm making excuses.

And imagine my surprise when I got home, fired up the lap top, and the internet went down. WTF?? Not that I actually needed it to get some last minute wordage in, but it was the principle of the thing.

Maybe this is how I'll reach my goal - concentrate on trying to surpass my word count each week. Not the total amount, but the individual week's word count.

Hey, whatever works.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Day 14

I kept putting off this post, hoping the numbers would magically change but alas they haven't.

I think I should be up around the 12000 mark by today, but as you can see I'm not even close.

Writing these days is like chronic constipation. You know it's in there, but it just doesn't want to come out.

My excuse all week has been I'll do better on the weekend. I have no excuse for the weekend. I cam home from work on Friday night and literally have not gone out once. I sit at the computer, poised to type, and nothing. I'm not even wasting time playing games. I'm just not doing anything.

It's discouraging, but I'm far from ready to give up. I just have to find my writing groove for this story. Wish me luck.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Day 7

It's not my fault!

Okay, it's partially my fault. I was not as conscientious about writing this week as I could have been, foolishly thinking I could make up my wordage this weekend.

I think by now I should be up to around 6,000 or 6500.

The weekend, of course, did not go the way I'd hoped, so now I'll have to catch up this week.

Knock wood.

I also forgot to check in at the 70 Days of Sweat website, as I was reminded by my good friend today. *sigh*

Monday, July 9, 2007

Day 2

Okay, let's be honest here. Don't expect me to post every single day of the Challenge. It's going to get way to annoying, for all of us.

I'm finding it's much easier to produce 4 pages than 850 words in a single day. I've got my beginning down, and I have a vague idea where I'm going with this, but I think I'm going to have to take a couple of days to get at least a bare outline worked out.

What works best for me is to list everything I want to happen (or think should happen) in my story, in whatever order the ideas come to me. Then I take index cards and write out a brief summary of each of these ideas, or scenes. Finally, I spread out the index cards on the dining room table and decide what order they should go in. That's my outline.

The beauty of it is it's not carved in stone. If I need to I can add or take away cards, or move them around.

The good news is, I already know how it's going to end.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Day 1

One day down, 69 more to go.

As long as I'm able to write between 850 and 1400 words a day I will be on track for the challenge.

I'm a little nervous about the piece I chose - I've had the idea for a few years now but never really did much with it. I do have a vague idea of where it's going, but it involves research *shudder*. Which is why I'm glad I met the goal early on this first day. I have the rest of the day to get organized and make some notes. Time to set out the snares for some plot bunnies.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Committed

Last year when I was floundering with my writing, I signed up for the NaNoWriMo challenge where the idea was to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I fell short of the challenge but found it was a great boost to my writing.

I've been feeling in need of another boost lately, and whilst surfing the net I came across the 70 Days of Sweat challenge. This challenge, obviously, takes place over 70 days and you can write between 60 and 100 thousand words during that time. Even at the maximum it's still giving you more time than NaNo did.

So call me crazy, but I signed up.

It's time I was more committed to my writing. Or maybe I should be committed. Something like that.

In other news, I have wheels again! It's back to the cube farm next week and I needed a ride, so the insurance is paying for a loaner for me. It's a 2007, shiny red Impala. Sweet! But it's so new and pretty I'm afraid to drive it. And God forbid I should have to park it at No Frills or Wal-Mart - people in those parking lots are insane!

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Vacation

Okay, I gotta admit I expected more out of my vacation than I'm getting done.

I made a list at the beginning of the week of things I wanted to get done and told myself I'd be satisfied if I could knock one or two things off it each day. So far so good. But you know the one thing I left off my list? Writing. Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?

I've been in my office three days in a row now, but don't have a whole lot to show for it. It hasn't helped that the weather's been so crappy. Grey and dismal and rainy. I've even resorted to coffee today, but it's not helping.

Sigh.

Yikes! I sound depressing, even for me. I think it's time to change the music in the CD player and buckle down to work.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Holiday From Hell

To be sung to the music for the Beverley Hillbillies theme

Come and listen to a story ‘bout a holiday gone bad
Had to be the worst weekend my family ever had
Unexpected company and plans gone down the dump
Traffic was ridiculous and my car received a bump
Accidentally, that is
Front end damage
Need a loner

My daughter had to leave next day but couldn’t catch her cat
She hid inside the box spring, we had to tear down that
The kids were cute but noisy and I thought I’d go insane
By the time they left I had a honking super big migraine
Headache, that is
Need the Advil
And a nap