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As many of you know, I've been dithering back and forth a lot about what writing project to work on next. Ultimately, when it came down to it, although I had plenty of options, I wasn't doing much of anything. Not in the mood. Muse not musing. Lazy. Unmotivated. Call it what you want.
Monday was the first day back to school after Christmas vacation. A two week period of time where I did basically nothing. Let's just call it a well-needed mental health break. I read about a dozen books, but didn't do anything related to my own writing, even though there was a tiny niggle in the back of my brain telling me to work on a Christmas novella I have an idea for.
Sunday night, for whatever reason, I finally sat down and wrote. After my shower and while waiting for the hubby to finish his so we could watch some tv together, I opened a new doc on the computer, formatted it, and wrote 504 words. For those of you who are prolific, that might not seem like many, but for me, it was huge. Amazing. An incredible break through. I haven't written anything new since I submitted One Great Night to my editor in August. That's quite the dry spell.
Monday night, I used the same routine. Wrote 444 words.
Tuesday night I wrote 626 words.
Yep. They're starting to add up. In just three days I was up to 1,574 words. Again, those of you who pound out thousands of words of lovely prose each and every day are probably saying 'so what?'. But it's progress. And everything counts.
And then on Wednesday, things really got good. By the fortuitous quirk of Polar Vortex 2015, the temperatures plummeted and the wind chills dropped into the negative thirties or so, and we had no school. Not that I needed another day off. I'd just had two weeks worth, but when you get a bonus day at home, the usual routines and rules don't apply. I spent most of the day writing. I managed to work in a work out and a bundled up trip to get my nails done, but I pounded out those words. As of the writing of this (I'm drafting a day ahead.) I've written 1,776 words. Which puts my WIP up to 3,350 words and about 18 pages.
I've plans for this to be a short novella, so I'd have to estimate I'm about a quarter to a third of the way done, depending on where my characters take me. It's a spin off of my Corral Series, featuring a character I'd mentioned once in passing in This Can't Be Love: hero Zach's brother Van. I've wanted to do a few spin offs of the trilogy for a while now, and with the recent holiday season, had the idea for a Christmas story in my head. So, I decided to go ahead and combine the two. So far, it's working out well.
So why call this an attempt? For no other reason than the word attempt seemed less scary than the word goal. Don't ask me why.
The deadline at TWRP for Christmas stories is March 13 each year. So I'm going to attempt to finish the novella and submit it before then.
It won't be easy. Basketball season is in full swing at school. But I have a new routine and time set aside to write, and I'm keeping track of each day's progress. And I've really enjoyed seeing those numbers climb higher in the first part of this week. I know I won't get another bonus day like Wednesday. (Although who knows, Polar Vortex 2014 gave me four bonus days last year.) More importantly, I feel motivated and into the story.
I'll be sure to let you know how I progress in my attempt as I go.
Until next time,
Happy Reading!
Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com
One Great Night coming January 14 from The Wild Rose Press.
I love your post. My writing routine seems to have gone awry lately. The funny thing is I always used to count the number of words I wrote each day and I've stopped doing it. You have now encouraged me to start again because it really can be an incentive.
ReplyDeleteI've never done a daily word count, so this is something new for me. I'd chart progress from time to time, but this daily thing is really keeping me going. Sometimes it's all about trying something new to fan the spark into a flame.
DeleteBeing in the "flow" is such a good feeling!
ReplyDeleteI am ankle-deep in mine and going deeper again. I just finished a two- month marathon helping my daughter craft and format pitches for a half-hour TV comedy, and a web series. I learned how similar the visual medium process is to novel-writing. Yesterday one got sent to agent, and the other to a producer. Fingers crossed. I could be a co-writer for a cable show some day!
How fun would that be? A co-writer on a cable show...that's way fun.
DeleteThe 'flow' is fun, too. I find myself thinking about the story in free moments. And I logged another 458 words today. Yay!
That's awesome, Debra! Never negate what you write, no matter how many words it turns out to be. The important thing is that you're writing and you're enjoying what you're writing. Great job.
ReplyDeleteThat's a big part of it, too. The enjoyment. I'm liking this story. And I'm not doing a whole lot of editing each time I sit down, so I'm spending the majority of my allotted time moving the story along.
DeleteYou sound like you're on a roll now, Debra! Congrats - and keep going! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm feeling a bit like the Energizer bunny...he keeps going and going and going! Hope my batteries don't die out any time soon. :)
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