Whooo-HOOO!!! April Report.

I did it!

 
 I got the remaining words needed to make a full 30k this month, and now I've done it!

 Only one day to go, so there wasn't any chance of my going on to 40k, but that can wait til next month.
 I got blindsided by a few things in Real Life that kind of ambushed my creativity and hauled it away captive, so I was very glad that I'd been able to get so far ahead on my word count. It meant not worrying too much over Camp NaNo and instead worrying solely about the Real Life stuff.
 (Nice, right? )

   So... this is me, at peace with myself, my word count and my win. And I think I actually enjoy this one the most I ever have.
  Maybe I'm improving at this "race yourself" concept... and I know I'm very delighted with the story I've managed to get down onto the screen this month, and I look forward very much to having it fully completed.
  Soon!!
  
   But not right now.
    Right now I'm going to work on those Real Life things and get them straightened out as well as I can. 'Cause if they act up once, they'll act up again if you don't get them fixed!

 How 'bout you? 

Have you met a goal this month? Was there something that tried to jump in your way; and did you plow thorugh it, or did it defeat you?

 Tell me!!!

Q& A: How much Plotting?

 Q: I have a sad tendency to get caught up in trying hard to get words written in the NOW, and I
forget to figure out the plot, so that I eventually end up lost in a mess of wilderness with no idea what to do next.
  Do you plot your stories or do you figure out as you go?

A:  I guess I kind of do both... I generally let an idea sit in my head for a little while before I even begin
on it, so I do tend to have a general idea of where it might be going. Then when I start to write, I have a long talk with my sis, (or else a long think with myself!) and get a few plot points decided on, so they act as sort of towns on a map. We may have several options of roads to get there on, and may end up discovering new trails along the way, but the town keeps us moving in the right direction.
 Does that make any sense?

 But I totally cannot outline every scene and every sentence and then go back through and "add descriptions" or whatever. It's got to be much more organic than that, and kind of be allowed to grow up out of the bed of my imagination in all it's viney, leafy gloriousness.

So, I do a bit of both!

   I really understand the feeling you're describing of getting lost in the woods, and having none of the trails line up with each other at all! I've spent my fair share of days in that literary morass and it really stinks to have so many beautiful scenes that are at total odds with each other, and there is no possible way to make them agree! That is a super frustrating experience, so I now go with the "loosely mapped" plot lines... and it really helps!

  (Which reminds me, I'm going to do a post on my "plotting arc" design.)

   So... did that explanation make any sense?

Day 19: April Camp NaNo

Whooo-hooo!
     What a rush this month has been so far! With plenty of real life hectic-ness going on, it's been almost a relief to have a word count goal to worry over, because that at least I can influence!
 I know, but it's true all the same.

  And, I've not had much trouble worrying over my word count lately. I'm ahead of schedule, even on the challenging 30k goal, and I'm super excited about where the story is going!

  First off, in an attempt to get into a friends cabin, I opted out of the un-talkative cabin I was in. But instead of getting into her cabin with her, I ended up in another cabin, pretty well populated with motivated writers and interesting chatting going on.
  This has made the Camp experience much more fun, and encouraged me anew to tackle the major plot points in my tale.

 Secondly, I met a friend of a friend also doing April Camp, and her word count was astonishingly high. I was flabbergasted, and then that little bug came up and said, "If you could catch up with her, you would be happy."

 This itched at me for several days as I tried to get my daily words in, and then I was stuck by brilliance! The story rolled out of my fingers like water out of a culvert in a spring rain, and I loved it!
 My sister also loved it...
 And soon I was within striking distance of that really high word count...

  And then, I had passed it!


 And of course that WriMo had written more, so I wasn't up to her.

Day 19, 4:48 Mtn time!

 But brilliance continued on, and I wrote over and above my daily goals. I got multiple thousands per day, and soon... yes!

  Today, I caught up with her word count! I am ecstatic! I am happy.
 And I am way ahead of schedule, so that means I am also Not Scared I won't make the total.

 And I can't wait to be so far ahead that I burst through my 30k goal line, and then I'll be like, "Good! So glad! Hm, lets' see if I can secretly do 40k before the month is out."

 There is every kind of way that will make this story get finished huge lots sooner, and I really want to send this on to betas! I think they may like it as muchly as my sister does... ('cause she can be hard to impress sometimes, and she likes this!)

So... that's how I'm doing. 

 Tell me, how are you doing?

Day 12: April NaNo Camp

Okay, so you may already know that I've been working on 20k per month goal since last Novemeber,

and I've been being successful so far. But since April is "Camp NaNo" month, it seemed like a good idea to join in on the fun there with my 20k goal and kill two birds with one stone.

 Since I'm trying to concentrate on one project, and I'd really love to have it done, done, done!

So I did.

  It was interesting.

 Last year I did July camp for the first time, so I am somewhat familiar with the way the Camp site works. (Haha, got you there, that's an accidental pun!)
   Anyway, the real NaNo site is more fun, with the Plot Doctoring forums my favorite part, but having the "cabin mates" chat to talk in can be fun, too. My cabin mates so far aren't very talkative, so that's kind of sad. (I may have to resort to a different cabin...)

 So, I got some great days of really productive sprints in early in the month, and was almost nearing the halfway point on my wordcount.
 "If I'm doing so well at this," I thought to myself, "Shouldn't I try to do more? The faster this project is done the happier several people in my life will be, and that includes me. So... why not up the word count to 30K? After all, a measly extra 10k on top of the pile shouldn't be too hard, right?"

 So, I did.

 And now I've hit some days where I'm not getting the scenes rolling like they used to, and I'm kind of losing momentum, and I'm thinking "What was I thinking?!!!"

 But, I think I can still do it... it just won't be easy sailing. I'm on track to accomplish it, as the site stats say:

"At This Rate You Will Finish On

April 30, 2014"

In order to write 30k in 30 days; I simply need to come up with one thousand (high quality, intensely expressive, and on-track-with-the-plot) words per day.
 At 12k on the 12th, (today) that means I'm theoretically doing okay. But I know that I did more than 1k per day early in the month, which means that my actual production has downshifted... and this spells a bad forecast for the upcoming weeks.


 To add to my problems, I have the ridiculous tendency to desperately want to finish early. To the degree that if I simply finish on time I will feel somewhat like a failure; only if I finish early will I have actually won.
 And the degree of actually enjoying the win will directly correspond to how many days early I finish.

   Is this crazy? (Are you afraid to answer that honestly?)

   Does anybody else feel like this? It's actually pretty miserable, 'cause it totally steals the joy out of most accomplishments. (At least timed ones.) And I don't like to think of myself as going through life all joy-less, etc. but I'm not sure how to alter this tendency, or ever from whence it springs.

  Anyway, let me know what you think and make me feel less lonely, will you please? :-)

   Thanks!
    Elizabeth

20k for March is Complete!

I did it! I've gotten the 20k for this month down.

 Yes!

 And that means that I am now free to Not Write until April rolls around, if I feel like it.

 Which of course makes me feel like... I have an idea....

Scrivener Report

Okay, so here is the promised Scrivener report.

 I'd heard a lot about Scrivener for several years, but

1. being easily intimidated by super-techy things, 
2. as well as dubious of "takes the work away" claims, 
3. coupled with a budget of zero, 

  I didn't get Scrivener.

But after finishing NaNoWriMo 2013, I decided that I had heard enough good things about the program to give it a try. The lovely folks who make Scrivener ran a 30 day trial for WriMo's, so I took advantage of that, and by the time Nov. was over I was convinced of it's benefits!
 Being a NaNo winner, I had a 50% off deal, which I exercised.

Scrivener gives a huge amount of flexibility in arranging a work space that fits you best; it has multiple screen options as well as different ways each option can be displayed, so it's super easy for formatting your thoughts and getting a good look at the big picture for your project.

 It also has places for reference material, in the form of photos or articles or just about anything. You can keep them right there in the program to refer to them at any point during your writing, but they won't be counted among or mess with your actual manuscript. It's pretty neat.

 I have only really scratched the surface of what it can do, but it's been a great leap forward in my writing tools department.

Being a "pantser", I leap right in and jot scenes hither and yon, and build and build until I've got a story that I then must stick into a structure-type frame. This has always been a highly difficult task in Word, and has really slowed my creativity down while I cowered in the face of the monumental task of rearranging everything. (I usually took the passive-aggressive track of avoidance, during which period, I got no writing done, of course.)

  Scrivener makes it super easy to rearrange things, and I have to say I'm totally in love with it's Project Targets aspect!
 This allows me to set Word Count goals for the overall project, each Scene I've created, and also to keep a Session Target, (I've set it to 2k, and shoot for that each time I sit down.)
 This ingenious aspect makes it easy to keep track of how much I'm getting done, and the feeling of accomplishing stuff makes my creative muscle happy!
   A happy creative muscle creates better, stronger, faster, and I get a lot more accomplished!

  So it's basically a beautiful cycle that keeps feeding upward momentum.

 One thing, I wish it had a smarter spell-check… my Word program had gotten to be a genius at correcting my typos; so I get a little miffed when I accidentally transpose the letters in “to” and Scrivener suggests “oat, at, OT”
 Not sure how much it “learns”, either… though I’ve only had it a few months now.
(I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Word “learned” my habits, ’cause it got scary good at suggesting the very word I wanted when typo’d. )


 Do you have any questions about Scrivener?
   Have you heard of Scrivener before?

Self Publishing Successes, Clickable Links!

It's always interesting to see what is going on recently, and as well as the fact that as people, we are nosy as all get out! Right? ;-)

Self Publishing Success Stories

 Here's a whole list of authors deemed to be self publishing successes, ranked by selling  over 200k or 50k... and they're click-able links! So feel free to snoop and gain insight, or whatever you do best... just don't let it get your high hopes dashed and put you in that wretched little boat named "Comparison is the Thief of Joy".  You hear, now?

 This post made in 2012, so it's a little out of date, but not so much that the info isn't useful! ;-)

Monthly Writing Goals

Even though everybody talks about them all the time, daily goals have NEVER Worked for me, at all. After several years of doing NaNo, I finally got the epiphany to set a low-ish Monthly goal for all year around. 

  Now working in Scrivener, (NaNo goodie! I should have got it long ago!) this is easier to do, 'cause I put my different projects into “chapters” and work on whatever appeals at the moment. This way I can easily have an accumulative word count, and I’m progressing on something all the time.
 (I am going to have to write up a post on the experience of Scrivener, it's different but good!)

   Monthly goals work particularly best for me, because I am a “bursts” writer, so I can rack up the words one week, and then lie fallow the next. And I don't risk feeling depressed because "I'm not getting my writing done!"
 Instead I can remember that I already did it.
 YahoooO! Love that feeling.
 
I’ve set a trial goal of 20k per month, and have hit it well so far. In fact, I finished my 20k for Feb. by the 16th, which made me very happy! I’m definitely on a creative high at the moment.
  So... if I am able to get in 20k per month, that is 20k x 12 =  240k words in a year! That is two major length books, or four shortish novels, or three medium ones.
 
    Yes! That would be progress!!!

 What do you think? Would monthly goals make sense for you?

  

Word Count Widgets... Wahoo!

 Well, if you're at all like me, you might be lazily (or reluctantly) turning over in your mind a few ways that you'd like to improve something in the next twelve months... and if you're exactly like me, you might be thinking along word and word-creating lines.

  Writing can be wonderful and brilliant and great bursts of fun...

   ...But it can also be a desert of despair in which we weep fat, salty tears and pound rocks together in frustration.

  Taking a cue from my November post, I've been thinking that maybe the desert parts aren't as wide as they seem, they only seem that way.
 If this is true, than actually tracking those monsters would be a good way of cutting their fearsomeness down to size, and thus reducing their mastery over my poor emotions. (Which are sometimes over wrought... yes, they get that way.)

 So, implementing one step in this grand scheme, I set forth in search of word count trackers, progress bars, or things otherwise known as Word Count Widgets.

 Lucky for me, I quickly found a nice collection, all sweetly compiled by the very thoughtful blogger at Writing For Your Supper- 13 Free Word Counters

 This list was made in 2011, but the comment section show how grateful people still are to find them! (Be advised, some may no longer be extant.)
 So, to pass along this little nugget of helpfulness, I've linked to her post and hope anyone in search of Word Count Widgets can find exactly what they need!

   Do you know of more widgets, or have any advice concerning them? Let us know!

Quitting? Maybe something you should consider.

 Well, it's January again.
   December, the supposedly restive "Month After NaNo", has faded too fast, and we're looking at the whole of 2014 stretching out like a road that will be traveled much too fast.

   It's always a good idea to take some thoughtful time in the middle of winter, when things have cooled between the craziness of autumn windup and the rush of spring bursting forward. In the brief lull between, thoughts turn to assessments and future strategies... something that is often on my mind, but not often so very clear as I'd like it.  *Wink*

  Kristen Lamb posted about a very apt idea for the coming year, Learn To Be A Quitter. Think about it: everybody always says "Winners never quit." But what nobody can do everything, and sometimes good enough is the enemy of perfect. And if something good is standing in the way of something better, than quitting the good thing is important. Right?
  I really appreciated what she had to say on the subject, and the way she said it. I'll have to think on that, and see if there are a few things to be quitted in my life.
 
 Are there things you should quit, but haven't?

Of Dolls, and Meanings

  When we were little, a girl gave my older (and oldest) sister a china doll. In retrospect, she was rather worn and fairly ugly, but Oh, I wanted to hold her! But she was breakable, and I was seven and us younger kids weren't allowed to play with her. We had cloth dolls which my oldest sister painstakingly made; they were intricate and lovely, but they weren't "fancy".
For years after that I wished and wished I had a china doll, and was fairly sick over it. But we didn't have money for things like that, and I knew it, so said nothing.

  When I was about 13 a dear older friend took us three younger girls into a large department store. It was our first time in an elevator, our first time in such a fancy store, and while she and Mom looked at plates and sweaters, etc. we 3 younger girls found a rack of china dolls and looked at them with our hands behind our backs.
Our friend came over to look at them too, and decided to buy our pick for each of us girls. I was astonished that Mom okay'd it, (she usually didn't allow people to buy us stuff, not wanting us to feel entitled, I guess!) (We were pretty cute, old fashioned looking kids; little girls in skirts and braids and shy smiles, so I'm sure we could have gotten spoiled into "expecting things".)

  It took us three girls the longest time to decide, as we agonized over picking. Finally, I ended with one that reminded me of Anne of Green Gables & named her Rosemary. My sisters chose a chocolate haired one, (which was a different mold, and actually the prettiest) naming her Clara, and a blonde, Maybelle (the same face-mold as mine).
I was weak with joy all the way home, not able to believe that I finally had a real china doll! We played with our dolls carefully; and the younger two used them all summer. Maybelle got several limbs broken, but we always glued her up again, and patched and mended the occasional disconnected body part.*

  My doll sat off to the side while I read book after book, for I was really growing out of doll-playing, even if not out of doll-wanting.
I still have Rosemary, her hair is a little matted, and I wish I'd chosen a different hair color.
I wish I knew some little girl, (littler than 13) who would love to have a china doll as much as I wanted one. But all the kids I know aren't careful with their toys, and the doll would surely be doomed. I don't know people who patch their dolls, or even that don't have many already.
When I look at her I am struck with the dichotomy of what we desperately want, and what actually holds lasting meaning. I will not willingly part with the intricate, cloth dolls my sister sewed, they are precious and real in a way that only the Velveteen Rabbit could understand. Rosemary came over in a crate of shiny boxes from the Orient, and stood glassy eyed in a department store with scores of her sisters for who knows how many weeks. She reminds be of that dear, wonderful lady who touched our lives with her vivacity and enthusiasm and taught Mom how to be infectiously joyful despite the hardships life can bring in secret. As I have grown, the memory of this has helped me be brave and give cheer to others even if I sometimes don't feel it myself. She is a memory I cherish, and her generous spirit is only shown a tiny bit in the gift of the china dolls. I would remember her without Rosemary... and sometimes I think that what we want is not the point.

  It's what we can take into ourselves that mean things.

  And items can hold meanings, sometimes enough to warrant keeping them, sometimes not as much as we think.
 
  (*Sidenote: Poor Maybelle actually had several severe problems... including stuffing issues to the point where she couldn't sit straight. So our brother did surgery on her, un-stitching her seam, taking out the offending material, and stitching her back up. It was quite the spectator event!)

How I did on NaNoWriMo

Okay! November is OVERRRRRR!

 Yes, that is about how happy I am to be able to say that.  It is not like I didn't appreciate it while it was here, but 50k words later, I am very, Very VERY ready to say goodbye to the month and move on to a little different headspace for a while. My creativity is strained and sprained and feeling mighty sore, but the words I got out were mostly good, high quality ones... even if I had to slip into Science Fiction scenarios there at the end.
 (Hey! Some day I'll have a crack-shot group of sci-fi story lines... )

 So, at first I did great. I was like:

Kristen Coco oil paintings

   Oh, yes. I can do this!


  Then on the 5th my sister had a cattle working accident that bashed her teeth in, and we spent all day in town at the oral surgeon's for emergency dental care. I was pretty worried about the situation; stressed and keyed up... and didn't write that day, or the next.
  I barely made any progress the third day, and (I think,) the next two either.

Tiny turtle on keyboard.

  My mojo was just gone. I had nothing to say.

Cartoon stock.

 So shortly I was like:

Sad dog.

 And pretty soon I was like:

Reminder beagle.

 Then I recovered my creativity and started to write. I was determined to make up the lapse, and even pull ahead. 

  At this point I was like this:

Armored Beagle

 I wrote hard, pulling those emotions out of the clouds, making things tough.
 I made it to my goal post, but had a hard time keeping up later.

           I flagged, I felt exhausted.

Dramatic Animals

I struggled to find compelling scenes to drag me back into the world of my tale.

 Then on 13th, it happened. I surged forward! The story was a wild thing, and I was riding it, hanging on for dear life! We sailed forward toward the horizon!
 

Photoshop Disasters

I over shot the line! I got down great scenes, sweeping complications of people trying to do their own thing in a world that draws harsh lines. Hard things. Sad things.
  I fell behind once, but it didn't bother me. The tale was coming, in bursts and snippets. The words bubbled up and sank away again, ebbing and tiding like an ocean of meaning that would fill my cupped hands, and now flee away.
 
 Then it simmered down to a faint  hum, and wouldn't sing to me any more.

via Pinterest

via Pinterest

   

 I researched ancient Rome.

And the legions.

I found shiny pictures.

 But not much inspiration.

via Pinterest

 This was starting to get serious. My lack of fire in the direction of my story was worrying me. Had I overworked the plot? Were there not enough holes for my imagination to play with? Were there too many?

  I cut off into a new direction... pitting hero against a dragon, on a burnt and blasted wasteland.

That was a lot of fun to write, and so I allowed my imagination out to play. I switched between "real stuff" and "playing stuff", and kept on track with the word count goals.

Then it was the thirtieth. And I needed 2000 words by midnight to officially make it.

 I didn't feel good. My brain felt fogged. I was sick.
 

White Tiger

But there it was: the fact!

Feature Pics

  So I tackled what may be the toughest scene in the book. The one where the hero finally understands he has to make the right choice, even if it takes everything from him.

  I typed madly at the keyboard on that afternoon, determined to make it those last couple of thousand.
   I was kind of like this:

Typing madly

 But he fought me. Why would he give everything up? He's had it good, he's done it his way. What would make him change his whole mindset, his whole life? When he has nothing to gain, and everything to loose? Hasn't he already lost enough? Shouldn't he hold tight to the things he has left to him?
    Grrr!!

On the road to Damascus

 So I had him turn aside to a small spring, and there he met a young man. They talked. He pondered. Time slipped away....

 I crossed the 50k line.

Think Stock

 My MC still hadn't decided to commit. All the way in. 

Kingfisher Dive

   But... I was done.
   I didn't feel done though.
        I felt... behind. Like I should have written 60k, or finished 5 days early, or... something.

 Or found a way to resolve this pivotal scene.

But I couldn't find a way. I thought I was getting close, read it to my sister, and she said "That's not a believable change."
     So I quit writing and watched a movie with Dad and was like this:

Watching TV

 

 The next day was December first. 

  I walked around kind of jittery, trying to remind myself that there was no required word count today. That I was free. But I didn't really believe it. Not totally. It hadn't sunk in.
 So I was kind of like this:
 

 Then it was the 2nd.


     It was real.



   I checked my NaNo profile.

 

 I had written 50k.

  And then I was like:

Exultation

 And this:

Triumphant joy.

 Sure there was a lot left to write. And my hero's turning point would come. Later...

 But right now: there was a whole lot less left to be written.

    

 So that was my November.

 How was yours?