So, um, yeah…

That would be a big zero words today. I was otherwise occupied. I’m not entirely sure this is going to happen this year… I’m not giving up, just not sure about it.

20,712

Um, so, it’s a little better, right? In fact, an order of magnitude better than yesterday’s 43 words. I wrote 457 words on the novel today. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve stooped to. A pro/con list. In my novel. I have no idea why.

That puts me 2621 behind. I’m not sure I can recover from that. I suppose my best bet is to recalculate a new target pace for the amount remaining.

20,255

I don’t think I can write today. My mind is elsewhere and I’d rather focus on more mindless things. I won’t go into the details, but most of you know them. (And I am trying to think positively, but that doesn’t mean I can write.) I’m sure I’ll resume tomorrow. I just need a day off. I wrote only a short paragraph. It sucked more than usual.

20212

I skipped out on the write-in tonight in favor of watching the Seahawks destroy the 49ers in Monday Night Football. It was already close to 7 by the time I’d finished all the stuff I needed to do at home anyway. Yay for DVR’s! I would pause periodically to write, then I’d watch the game for awhile and fast forward the commercials and between certain plays. Once I got live again, I’d pause and repeat. Of course, my most effective writing came at the latest part of the evening well after the game ended. I hit an easy part again. I’m nearing the end of that though. I’m leaving a little bit so I can start with that next time.

But, the good news is I broke 20,000 by writing 1755 words today. Overall, I’ve done a much better job of meeting target during the week this year compared to last.

I basically need to stay on pace. I don’t think I’m capable of huge getting ahead or huge catching up if I fall behind. It’s too intimidating and I just can’t write very much per day. It sprains my small and weak imagination.

18457

Yep, I’m sticking right to pace. I wrote exactly 1700 words today. I’m still glad I went to the Commons even though it wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped. It was like pulling teeth to get words today. I didn’t know what should happen in the story. I know a lot of what has to happen later, and I know a few of the “reveals” that have to happen, I’m just not sure of the interim bits.

I notice I’ve really done a lot of creating mystery in the story. Unfortunately, I’m creating the mystery without knowing the answer first. I have to figure it out on my own as I write. A little backwards, I realize. I’m not sure how it started, but I have several of them ongoing right now. Some of the answers I’ve come up with are surprisingly good. Some are reaching. A lot.

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good about where I am right now. I do wish I’d been able to work out some more back story for some of the characters I’ve introduced more recently, but it’s not to bad to work this way. I still wish I had a bigger word count. Tomorrow I should break 20,000! -crosses fingers-

Regarding Third Place

It is, however a good place to randomly run into friends unexpectedly.

I wrote 614 words while there, though some of those words were more brainstorming of future events. Only a few sentences were in that category. I had to get some of those revelations out because I kept being worried I’d forget them or accidently go in a different direction.

I did get inspired while there to make beef stew. It’s currently simmering. I want it now…

Note to self

Third Place Commons is not a good destination for me to go to write. At least not by myself. I am thinking of almost nothing on how to continue my story and am too distracted by all the conversation and activity. Blech. Shoulda stayed closer to home…

16757

I caught up from the deficit I created for myself on Thursday. I wrote a little bit throughout the day, but most of it was this evening.

With 2152 words today, that takes over from yesterday as second most words in a day. I’m now all of 90 words ahead of overall pace, but at least it’s ‘ahead’.

I think I need to go somewhere to write tomorrow that isn’t my house. I’ve had a lot of success with that the two times I’ve done it.

14605

Today was another first. Until today, I had never written a single noveling word at work. Today my co-worker and I held a mini-write-in at lunchtime. He booked one of the small conference rooms for the lunch hour for “document writing”. We each brought our lunch and our laptops in and wrote the whole time. (I actually brought my personal laptop in.) In that hour, I wrote 1347 words. That kind of surprised me because I spent a fair amount of time at the beginning staring at my words and everything else trying to figure out what should happen in the character’s current position. I kept finding minor ways to extend the previous portion, and then to extend it a bit further, and a little further… Eventually something kicked in and it was fairly smooth sailing. I like that.

I didn’t do as well once I got home, thanks to the usual distractions. I am really in a harder to write spot. I typically don’t immediately have something to say, I have to think about it for a bit first. That makes it hard when I can’t focus for more than a few minutes before getting fed up with minimal progress and going elsewhere. “What? That was only 100 words? Really?”

After writing the above, I picked up a little more, though still not as much as it should have been. I completed my pace’s worth of words, but did not catch up to overall pace. I broke 2000 with 2062 words. That also puts it at my second biggest words day behind last Saturday. Not bad at all, I guess.

Gotta get up kinda early for the world wide flash mob tomorrow, so I’m calling it a semi-early night.

Widget insanity

Yay for widgets!

As of right now, Seattle is second to Maryland

And here is a link to an automated progress report, including outlier analysis.