Tag: goals

NaNoWriMo 2018: The Wizard

Laura Highcove

I’m finally able to say that I have a complete rough draft for The Huntsman. Turns out I lied to everyone on Facebook though. I apparently started on the Huntsman (according to my blog) for NaNoWriMo of 2016, meaning it’s only been two years, and not three. Sorry for the confusion, but I’m far happier to realize that it only *felt* like it took a million years to write this book.

I struggled a lot with this book, as most people do with sequels, but knowing other people have suffered like you have only helps but so much when you’re in the depths of your own suffering. However, in September of last year, when I was feeling particularly panicked, I decided to write a note to myself that I wouldn’t look at again until I had finished this book. It is as follows:

Sept 27, 2017: I am so beyond stuck with this story that I don’t even understand how any of it is going to work. There’s so much that needs to go on, none of it is flowing. None of it works. I am sitting here terrified, going to through the story trying to find something that will work to make this story make sense.

So when I do make this story work, I am going to look back at this moment and remind myself that I can make anything work. It might not look pretty between here and there. I might have to change or completely rewrite a bunch of stuff, but there is a way that this story works and makes sense, and I just have to get out there and find it without worrying about what it looks like now or how long it might take. If I can make this story work, then I can make any story work.

I’m so proud of me for making it through. All it took was stubborn refusal to give up on my story. Well and support, breaks, some wins, and a whole lot of words. But mostly not giving up. 🙂

And now, on the 31st of October, NaNoWriMo looms. I am immediately launching myself into The Wizard, which is book three of this trilogy. I figure there’s little point spending time polishing book two before I finish book three. Mostly I want to see if I can create something resembling a satisfying ending on a book three. Plus, there’s a high likelihood of something needing to change in book two anyway. I changed quite a few things in book one while writing book two, and that one I had polished.

I’m a little anticipatory (Huh, spelled that word right on the first try.) about NaNoWriMo this year, but I think it’s mostly surrounding starting on the third book of my trilogy. If a book two was uncharted waters, then book three is so far off the map I can’t even begin to wonder what it will be like. But then being a discovery writer, to me, is all about having faith in your ability to eventually figure out wtf is going on. Writing, keys flying over the keyboard, and suddenly your characters are doing something you didn’t expect, the plot is going out into left field, and that moment when suddenly it all works and makes sense? Oh man, it is pretty great.

I’m sticking with the standard 50k words for my NaNo goal. I know I won’t be able to get much past that without going through and smoothing a few times anyway, so trying to push for more words will just burn me out like it did two years ago. (Yay, learning from my mistakes.) So 2000 words per day (Fridays off). No big, it’s just NaNoWriMo. If you’d like to follow my progress: This is me.

Feeling Productive

Laura Highcove

From the past several posts, you can probably see that things have been rough for a while. Yep, it was. And I kept going because, well there wasn’t any other option in my opinion. I can only hide under the desk for so long before writing calls me back.

And these past two weeks I’ve really been tearing it up, writing-wise. Part of its is inspiration from the Wxr cruise. Another part is I am rewriting the Law of the Prince Charming to change the tense because I realized it worked better. And part is giving myself the goal of having an actual rough draft of the Huntsman finished before NaNo so I can start in on the Wizard. But I’ve put in more total hours this past week than I have in any previous week this year, and I still didn’t record a lot of the reading I was did. (Reading is still hard for me to chalk up toward career time, even if I am paying attention as a writer too.)

So I’m feeling very productive, and that is a nice place to be in. The plan is to carry the momentum forward. I have a list of the scenes I still need to write for the Huntsman, and I’m hoping to get those done in time to do a smoothing pass before November. I am trying to kick up the speed at which I am rewriting the Law of the Prince Charming. I seem to be at about 2 chapters a week, but even in just changing the tense of the words I already have written, it’s taking far longer than I expected. I also have an idea for another story that is literally trying to chew its way out of my head. Not sure if this is just a result of my anxiousness about trying to get the Huntsman done, or if the idea really warrants some attention. Either way, I’ll be doing a lot of writing for a while.

Quick pitch: “Dragons ride the elemental storms and Ryo was trained to fight both.” Yeah, I wrote it just now. It’ll be better when I spend time on it.

Pushing Through the Huntsman

Laura Highcove

Things are a little rough right now. I’m in the middle of working the barn 7 days a week (with one coworker) for two and a half weeks. I’ve done a pretty good job of losing track of what day it is, and I’ve been grumpy, tired, and watching a lot of Supernatural.

As such, I’ve gotten very little writing done. But not none, because I like writing and I want to write. I made a bit of a breakthrough a week ago with the order of some scenes in a few chapters, and then hit the wall of the most underdeveloped part of the story. My brain’s a little lacking in the “organizing the overall plan” space right now, so it’s probably harder than it should be.

But, as you may have seen in my newsletter, my plan is to have some alpha readers look at the Huntsman at the end of July. Last time I had my hubby read it. He was able to give me some very good advice that cleaned up a lot of things and I’m hoping this time will do the same. It would probably really help for me to have writer friends who are willing to do critiques, but I’m not strong at making friends.

I still have work through this weekend, and then I’ll be back to my regular schedule. It’ll probably take me a day or so to get back into the swing of things, but after that the plan is to plow ahead full speed and get the Huntsman as ready as I can make it. Right now I have 11ish chapters left. (41k words) Things are rather haphazard at the end of the story, so I can’t really count on those to be anywhere near the same amount of words or work to bring them up to snuff.

My first job will be organizing the scenes I have written into a workable order, sight right now they’re mostly scenes I wrote totally independently of each other, all stuck into the same part of the story. Then I need to make sure all of the elements I need are in there, and then smooth it out a bit. That, of course, being the least important bit, since my alpha readers will know it’s a little rough. I actually left notes in the story when I had my hubby read it to warn him at two distinct points when the amount of polish took a moderate, then severe nosedive. He still got through it enough to help me out.

Anyway, so measurable goal: By the end of next Sunday I will organize though Gabir’s turning point, which is approximately three chapters. All scenes need to be orange, which means all of the elements are in the scene, even if it’s not perfectly readable.

Keep Making Goals

Laura Highcove

Two weeks ago I went back to revise the Huntsman from the beginning, going much deeper than I usually do. I’ve been forcing myself to fix the issues and adding the descriptions I have marked for ‘later’. I don’t think any of the changes have seriously effected the story, but then that was why it was safe to leave them for later in the first place. However, I did this because now, the point at which I’m ready for alpha readers is coming into focus. ~cringe~ As such, the story will need to be as readable as possible for someone who is not me.

Now of course I don’t have the middle of the book solidified, and gosh darnit I still don’t know what I’m going to do with Tabitha. It has been very helpful to have The Law of the Prince Charming under my belt. It is good and it is done so I can convince myself that if I could complete that book, then I can complete this one. You know, eventually. I give myself goals only to realize a few days later they’re unobtainable. And the timeline to finish the book keeps stretching out into “someday”.

I wanted to try and get a pass of the story done before June 21, because that’s when the show team is leaving for Nationals, and I’ll be working full time + weekends while they’re gone. That means it’s unlikely I’ll be spending much, if any, time on my writing. While I realized about three days into that goal that I wasn’t going to reach it, I have been ridiculously productive this week. This is particularly helpful since I’ve had a string of less than productive weeks and I’ve been feeling crappy about that.

I’m not sure yet if I should attribute this surge of productivity to the fact that I restarted my yoga habit, or just the fact that I sat down and had a reset at the beginning of this month. For right now, I don’t think it matters. Productive is productive, and as time goes on I’ll evaluate and reassess. And then I’m sure I’ll turn it all into a post, because that’s what I do.

Working on Vacation

Laura Highcove

So this past weekend I was in Williamsburg for vacation (Yes, Williamsburg, because I’m old.) and I can still remember the stresses of the up-coming vacation. Trying to get everything done in prep (I didn’t) hoping things would be calm at work (they weren’t) not forgetting anything important (we did).

The first morning I sat down in front of my computer, entirely intent on writing something, as I usually do on vacation because I just love to write. I realized about ten minutes in that I didn’t want to write. I forced myself to anyway, because what is vacation for if not having time to get things done?

And after I had finished I looked at it. Why? Why was I forcing myself to work? Yes, I got something done. Something that wouldn’t have gotten done otherwise. I had filled my head with idea that since I had written on vacation in the past, I should do it now. Because this was time I could spend writing …why wouldn’t I?

And I think we humans do this a lot. We convince ourselves that it’s not a good time to take a vacation. That there’s more that needs to be done! Right now! Can’t wait! I was able to turn something I generally enjoy into work. (I mean and it normally is work, but I was on vacation.)

The truth of the matter is yes. There is always going to be something to do. All. The. Time. That’s never going to go away. It’s important, I think, that when you do set aside time for yourself, whether it’s a whole vacation or just relaxing in the evening, that you don’t convince yourself somehow that you should be working. Take that time to relax. Yes, you could be getting something done, but relaxing is getting something done as well. It just doesn’t always feel like it. There is a time to get the job done and there is a time to sit back and relax, and you’re never going to relax unless you make that time for yourself.

It’s Vacation Time Again

Laura Highcove

So Camp Nanowrimo was both a success and not. I easily passed my word count goal of 20k. I validated with 30k, but I didn’t finish writing all the scenes I needed in the Huntsman. I did a lot of new ones, and then I went back and rewrote a number of scenes. I am certainly further than I was at the beginning of the April, but certainly not as far as I would’ve liked to be. Of course ‘doneness’ of a novel is not an easy thing to calculate, so it’s more like, my goal of having a draft 0 done has still not been reached.

I’m still moving forward, I’m still making progress, but I really want to hit some sort of milestone. Something I can point to and say, ‘I’ve finished x.’ I mean I gave myself a reward for reaching my goal in Camp Nanowrimo, but I feel like that was a milestone for Camp Nanowrimo, and not necessarily my book.

Of course this week I’m on vacation and I’m trying to give myself a break from having to work on Huntsman. I generally write for an hour or so in the mornings even when I’m on vacation because I love writing. I just don’t give myself any time or word count goals. I write for as long as I want to, on whatever project I want to. (I spent this morning on a scene from Blessings of the Nerial.)

I’m hoping that this more lax structure will help me to gather myself and be ready to move forward again once vacation is over. Short post, I’m on vacation.

What is My Greater Goal?

Laura Highcove

I started Camp Nanowrimo at the beginning of this month with a goal of 700 words a day, and actually challenged myself to get the typical 1,667 words required to win Nanowrimo Proper, on the days I had time. Turns out that was most days in the first week and a half. I had 14,871 words before I went to a horse show this past weekend, which created four days of no time for writing.

I had great success due to, before the month started, prepping by making a list of all of the scenes, situations I still needed for my novel. Each day I would take one or somtiems two if it was short, and write it.

Now on the other side of the horse show, I’ve found that I lost some of my momentum, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s due to taking so many days off writing, or if I need to revise for a bit to organize what I have and find the path forward.

I wrote 700 words yesterday and today, but I am planning to sit down and try and organize the scenes I have written and expand my list with other scenes that I will need. Once that’s done we’ll see if my momentum comes back. Getting my goal of 20k words is not going to be a challenge, so I’m just going to push forward with however much I can get done each day and not drive myself crazy.

I’ve also been inspired by a facebook post from Gabriela of diymfa.com and as such, I’m adding a little more to my journal posts. Gabriela posed three questions as a weekly check-in. The first two I already ascribe to: “What have you accomplished this week?” and “What’s on deck for next week?” But the question she posed that got me thinking was: “How do these activities serve your greater purpose?”

For the most part, I figure my answer to that last question is “So I can finish my book.” But I think that might be a little too broad. The same way as answering: “So I can become a published author.” That’s all well and good as a goal, but there are tons of smaller steps that need to happen.

I sat down to think about what my goal is for right now with this book. I feel like finishing the book is still a ways off, so I came up with a more specific goal: “To write all the scenes that need to be written to give myself a draft 0.” After that’s done, the goal will be to turn what I have written into a rough draft (which is what can be read by a beta reader.) I hope to have that first goal of a draft 0 done by the end of this month.

April, the Most Productive of Months

Laura Highcove

At the beginning of last week I got a new shipment of books. Reading and I have a strange relationship. I love reading, but not only do I have a hard time attributing something so fun to something I need to do for my writing career (and thus make time for it), but when I read a book, I am generally obsessed with finishing it to the detriment of all else.

As such, I have actually avoided reading in the past, because it ‘distracts’ me from writing. Now that is silly, because in order to become a better writer, I need to read. I managed to convince myself of that enough that I read four of the five books already. (I have reviews written that will go up in the next few weeks.) However, this did cut into my writing time so while I progressed with the Huntsman, it was less than I usually do.

That brings me to my next topic. During April (Which started yesterday for you reading this, but I am writing this on March 31.), I am taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time. I was a rather religious participate of NaNoWriMo (the original) until this past year when I was in the middle of a writing project I couldn’t put off. As such I didn’t get my NaNoWriMo fix for the year and since a friend set up a cabin, I thought it might be fun to give this a try.

Unlike NaNoWriMo, Camp NaNoWriMo allows you to set your own goal and then attempt to accomplish it during the month of April. (And it can be counted in word, hours, minutes, lines, or pages.) Now I’ve been playing around with the ‘rules’ of NaNoWriMo for years. And while I always hit what I consider the ‘main’ rule (the words I authenticate are written in the month of November), the idea of giving myself my own goals is not outside of my comfort zone.

Two years ago when I had just started the Huntsman, and I gave myself the lofty goal of 90k words for NaNoWriMo. My expectation was to burn through the rough draft like I had The Law of the Prince Charming two years before that. I failed.

But of course that didn’t mean I gave up. It just took me two years to come to grips with the fact that this book won’t be as quick and easy as the first one, and that there’s nothing wrong with that. At the same time, I want to push forward this dreaded ‘muddle in the middle’ that I always have trouble with.

So I’m going to use Camp NaNoWriMo to help with that. I’ve been wibbling back and forth about what kind of goal to give myself. I’m not sure I can realistically expect to make 50k words since my weekends are spoken for all month. So I’m going to go with 20k words which is less than 700 words a day, and hopefully a number I can keep up since there will be days where I simply can’t write.

I spent part of this morning writing out a list of scenes I need to write, so hopefully I’ll just be able to bang those out. Either way, I’ll have more words written by the end of the month than I have now.

I am also participating in #WIPjoy again. Those posts will be going up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds starting today, so you’ll get some more tidbits about the Huntsman if you’re so inclined.

And this month brings the last four parts of The Aesir-Vanir War short story that has been going since the beginning of March.

It’s going to be a productive month whether I like it or not.

New Timesheet Questions

Laura Highcove

Week before last I finished taking notes on the Huntsman. I organized what I had, wrote a bunch of new scenes (and rewrote old ones) based on what my notes had told me. I then realized I was still stuck. The idea that I had for the end of the story is just not coming together the way I want. So I did a quick cleaning and sent it to my husband for an alpha read so he has a better idea of the story to help with a plan. (He’s much better at outlines than I am.)

Since that is off my plate for now while the hubby reads it, I started working more on my Blessings of the Nerial story. I once again ran into the problem of being a discovery writer who now knows enough craft that I keep trying to put the plot together as I write. And right now I have no idea if it’s helping, or just stifling my writing. I talked out some of the ideas with my hubby and realized how little of my ideas are actually solid (ie, I can explain them successfully to someone else). It’s possible that it’s always like this at the beginning of a story and I’ve just never been aware of it before. I’m still on ‘vague feelings’ and ‘this is how it would look in a movie’ stage of writing. And who knows, it’s possible this story won’t stick at all. (It’s only at 13k words, so I’m not all that deep yet) But I’m going to keep working on it until I get the Huntsman back, barring anything else unforseen.

At the end of last week, I also noticed how little I had on my timesheet related to ‘reading’. I did finish my mushroom book, which is counted as ‘research’, but that’s all I had in the past month and a half. I think part of the problem is that counting ‘reading’ time toward ‘work’ time feels like cheating, since I enjoy it so much. Like yesterday I ready Dennard’s new Witchlands novella, Sightwitch. I put down the two hours it took on my timesheet and I feel weird about it.

And yet, I feel like I haven’t been reading much of anything because I’ve been so focused on getting the hours I want for my timesheet. I do want to work on doing more in depth reading, but in order to have fodder for that, it means I need to have read the story in the first place. Obviously this is just a timesheet I keep for myself and there are no right or wrong answers. We’ll see how the data pans out in the next month or so.

I also am working on making my descriptions more descriptive. My descriptions tend to come out rather …well like I’m writing code. (I have a BS in computer science.) It’s certainly a weakness of mine, so I’ve been looking for good examples in books I’ve read and trying to see how I can improve.

Goals for the next two weeks: Keep working on Blessings of the Nerial. I’d like another 7k words. I finally think I’m starting to get a handle on Eira’s (main character) personality. Write four descriptions that I’ll post on facebook and get some feedback. Spend at least two hours on some sort of deep-reading or analyzing. Man, I am being super specific this week. We’ll see how that goes.

May Writing Plan

Laura Highcove

In April I got very little writing done. It was a busy month with lots of fun things to do that managed to all fall on consecutive weekends. It means I got to do everything, but it also meant that preparing for the Horse Show and the Spotlight MasterTreat took up most of my free time.

Over this past weekend I was in Las Vegas for the MasterTreat, and in an attempt to stay on east coast time, I was up at 4 or 5 every morning. I managed to get a lot of ‘writing’ done during these free hours before the actual event started at 9. I actually did a lot of smoothing. (Which is what I call organizing/rewriting the results of writing scenes multiple times and in random order.)

When I got home and synked my files from Dropbox, I realized that all of the organization I had done had been reset. The changes in the files themselves were safe, but whatever file decides how the files are displayed in Scrivener must have got screwed up somehow. I had to go into my project folder, pull out all the files I had edited this weekend, and then try and put everything back in order.

I was rather annoyed about that and it took me longer to do than I would’ve liked. Instead of being able to continue the momentum I had over the weekend, I had to stumble around in the dark. I’ll push forward again knowing that some of the changes I think I made may not be there anymore.

That being said, it is still my goal to have the rough draft of The Huntsman done by the end of the month. So I have made a schedule in the form of a list, as I love to do:

  • May 3 – 7: I am going to finish smoothing (or resmooth if necessary) what I need to smooth.
  • May 8 – 14: I am going to focus on writing the scenes needed for Tabitha’s character arc, which involve Wildrose and Snowdrop.
  • May 15 – 21: I will be on vacation, but I always like working on my writing anyway. This week I’ll work on Emelia and do any smoothing as a result of the previous week.
  • May 22 – 28: I will work on finishing up the story which is mostly Gabir’s arc, which will give the book an ending.

I am looking forward to being able to put a done stamp on this rough draft since it has taken me so much longer than writing The Storyteller. I’ll be posting again in two weeks with another journal entry.