Tag: plan

I Lost the Entirety of March

Laura Highcove

I looked away for a moment and suddenly it’s a month later. Though looking back at my last entry, today is April 4th and just today I put the finishing touches on my list of things that needed to be fixed/written, so I followed my plan perfectly even though I had forgotten what it was. I have also gone through and pulled out the items that I think are maroon problems. Maroon problems are the most base problems, dealing with issues that span the book, like not foreshadowing early enough or not taking steps toward a pay-off.

They are the hardest to deal with for that reason, because they touch so much, but also the most important to hammer into shape. I also put in action steps for each one but at this point I have no idea how long each of them will take. I’d like to think less than a month but there are 24 of them and I’m not confidant I can knock out one a day. I mean some of them may be easy enough to. Uhhh, okay, let’s aim to get one done a day and check back on April 18th. I can even pick and choose which ones I think will be the easiest.

The Christmas Break

Laura Highcove

It occurred to me earlier this week that I generally have a vacation around Christmas. Since we’re not going anywhere because of THE PANDEMIC, basically it’s been business as usual, which means the same work schedule as normal. Then I decided, screw that, I don’t have do anything! So I just played fast and loose with my schedule for a few days. In fact I clocked in 15.6 hours on a new game that I bought yesterday morning, in the first day. Excessive, but fun!

As for my writing, I’ve been jumping between Blessings of the Neriel and Jeremy Five-five, since my husband and I are trying out something new with the fight scenes. BotN I’ve been smoothing out pretty hard. Getting a few previously all over the place scenes much more focused, and trying to figure out where I’m going to go from here. I think I have a pretty decent idea, I just have to write it. J55 (which is my new favorite abbreviation for a story) is a story that I absolutely love and I want to write, but the plethora of fight scenes was really a problem for me. This is what I get growing up on shounen anime. My husband got back to me with the first set of bullet points for the first fight we tried, and it still wasn’t easy to write, but now that the rough draft of it is done, I’m hoping it will clean up nicely later. The one we did first was also a short fight, and there are some longer, far more important ones coming up. It’ll be a lot of fun.

I still haven’t gotten back to the Wizard. But my lackadaisical attitude around my writing this week didn’t really lend itself to diving back into that anyway. I want to at least touch base with it tomorrow, though technically the month break isn’t over until next weekend. We’ll see. This is the home stretch, the hard part, and I refuse to give up. I totally get the thing now that writers say about getting distracted by shiny new stories because the one you’re working on has lost it’s mystery. I basically know what I have to do with the Wizard, I just need to write it, and that’s not new and fun, even though I’m sure I’ll still discover new things about this story before it’s all over.

Thanks for continuing to root for me. You’re awesome.

Back to Writing

Laura Highcove

My writing the past two weeks has focused rather heavily on the Blessings of the Neriel. Most of what I’ve done is pushing through what I had written and smoothed out some of the scenes where I had too many different versions to know what my characters were actually doing. I also finally wrote out a character list, because for some reason that story I just didn’t really have all of my characters consistently named. Only the main character, I’ve always known what her name was.

I’m also doing an experiment with my hubby. I have a story I’ve always wanted to finish called Jeremy Five-five. I posted a Chapter 1 of it to my newsletter …last year? Omg was it just last year? …

Anyway, this story is about Jeremy, who is sent to an Academy where the students take part in a video game that allows them to fight each other, only this video game is there to mask the fact that there is magic in the world, in which Jeremy is well-trained, only has sworn off using.

This story, predictably, has a lot of fight scenes. And while I’ve gotten better at them, I’m not convinced I can provide the nuance in the choreography to make the emotional beats land properly. As such, my hubby, who is good at fight choreography, is helping and he’s just gotten back to me with the first set of ‘bullet points’ for the fight so I can take them and turn them into an actual fight.

I also gave myself a bit of a break from the Wizard after Nano, and I’m now getting back to a place where I want to pick it up again. I would like to get through the rest of the smoothing in Blessings of the Neriel first, but that will likely be happening soon. At this point I don’t even remember all of what I wrote, so it’ll be interesting when I dive back in.

Either way, Nanowrimo really did kick me back into my writing habit, and I’m glad that it did.

My NaNo Pep Talk

Laura Highcove

Okay, so yes it’s scary. Terrifying even that I might not be able to come up with an ending, or a good ending. But all I need to do is write. Write, spend time with the characters. Ask them what they’re doing and see what they say. They’re all established pretty well by now so they should be able to answer. At the end of this month you’ll either have an ending, or you’ll have 50k words getting you closer. And yes, that includes this because the mental game of writing is also important in the writing process. So just write.

Falling into NaNoWriMo

Laura Highcove

Hey, thanks so much for stopping by and checking on how I’m doing. It’s officially fall and we had a great one this year. Two weeks of high 60s, low 70s with 40s overnight. All with the gradual shifting of the trees to their autumnal colors. Beautiful!


So bringing you up to speed, I attended SiWC for the first time. Luckily it was all online, because I’m not sure I would go all the way to California for a conference, even without covid. This was the official alternate meeting place for the displaced Writing Excuses Cruise. Not getting to go on the cruise this year was one of the bigger disappointments, but thankfully I was able to get a little bit of the Wxr Cruise feel around the SiWC.


I attended some Wxr events in the week leading up to the start of the conference itself. Thursday was an all day masterclass, then Fri-Sun were the conference workshops. I learned about plotting, conflict, decolonization, word choice, social media, and endings just to name a few. I’m going to be sorting through that information for a while yet, I’m sure.


And now that October is almost over, it’s time to look ahead to NaNoWriMo! This year has really been rough for writing. Covid simply killed my motivation for several months, and I’ve been working my way back up. This year I’m looking forward to NaNo as a way to just get through the rest of the rough draft for the end of The Storyteller Trilogy so it can be complete. Not only does it mean I’ll finally get to know what happens, but I want to help these characters finish their journey, AND I want to move on to the next project.


I’m also making the shift to a journal entry a week. Every two weeks made it hard for me to remember. Plus, I use these journal entries mostly to reevaluate where I am in my writing and to reset goals if needed, and truthfully, I probably need that weekly right now.

Time Has No Meaning

Laura Highcove

It’s almost June and I really can’t believe it. March took so long and now it’s going super fast. My husband and I went on a vacation to a family condo and now I’m back to my regular schedule, well as regular as it ever is.

I’m still getting up my Law of the Prince Charming scenes three days a week, along with the accompanying video. I’m super proud about the fact that I haven’t missed an update yet. If you haven’t checked that out yet, here’s a link. We’re less than a month out from the halfway point of the book. It feels a little weird. I’ve been living with this book for so long, as well as working on second two books of the trilogy, that I often forget that it’s actually out there in the world for people to read. But then that was always my goal, having people read, and hopefully enjoy, what I write.

I didn’t make a ton of progress on the Huntsman. What little I did on vacation got lost when my USB drive got corrupted. The hubby’s still trying to see if he can fix it, but I’m assuming the work is lost. I’d like to work on this a little more than I have been because it occurs to me that eventually the LotPC will eventually finish posting, and if it does gain a whole bunch of readers, they’ll want the second book and it’s certainly not ready to be published yet. So I should have some sort of goal toward getting it done around Septemberish when the LotPC will be done posting.

But I have 26 more chapters in the Huntsman. At a chapter a week that still puts me into November, and this is nowhere near the final draft. If I want to get this done this year, I’m going to have to put in some work. Well I suppose there are two options. I can panic at the amount of work and give up, or I can start working toward getting it finished. For now I’m going to choose option number two.

Being Gentle with Myself

Laura Highcove

Man, living through history is hard. Yesterday Georgia started to reopen. The general consensus is “are you f-ing stupid?”. Also, last night the store had toilet paper. Yay!

In regards to my writing, which is why you’re really here, I have been doing far better. I am giving myself less hassle for not being productive and I’m actually ending up more productive. How productive, I’m not sure since I stopped using my timesheet, but I am getting done what needs to get done and that’s the important thing. I am still moving through the Huntsman and enjoying the revision step as much as I always do. I am doing a last pass through the Law of the Prince Charming before videoing my reading each scene and posting that video along with the text on Wattpad for public consumption.

I am keeping up with my Stories & Succulent YouTube Plant Channel’s update schedule. I am also now on board with diymfa.com for writing a new series of posts on Writer’s Intuition the first of which will go up in June. All in addition to working at the barn in the mornings, keeping the house clean, and caring for a sick fish. (He’s doing fine, but I’m doing daily water changes right now.)

It’s a lot of stuff, but like I said, because I’ve been giving myself less hassle about it, things have been going pretty smoothly. I have no end goal for finishing the Huntsman, not that I’m going to let it go on forever, but right now I’m just going with the flow. I’ve also been playing video games, watching lots of Asian Shows, and caring for my plants. In general I’m just being gentle with myself. It’s an easy trap to get into right now that there’s so much free time and that I should be super productive as a result, but living during a pandemic on this scale is stressful. Low-key, all the time, you can’t get away from it, death is actually an option, stressful. Do what you can and take care of yourself. I’ll say it as many times as I need to.

Still on Track

Laura Highcove

Okay, so it’s October 17 (when I’m writing this, not when I’m posting it) Meaning I have exactly two weeks and one day until Nanowrimo starts. I got a little behind with all the traveling I needed to do for weddings the past two weekends while on one of the hardest parts of the story, a very important fight/turning point scene.

I have now, gotten past that scene and am into the final push to the climax. There are seven chapters left. Which means a chapter every two days if I’m to finish on time. Not ideal, but I am going to get this done.

I feel like I should have more to write for this post, but a lot of what I’ve been doing has been traveling, so while it’s a lot of stuff, it’s not really good material for a blog post.

I have also started a youtube channel where I talk about the plants (mostly succulents) that I have. It’s a fun little side project for me because, well I love showing off my plants in case you’re interested in that.

Other than that, it’s a countdown to Nanowrimo, which is exciting, as I hope to finish the draft of the Wizard, or at least get about 50k words farther with it.

February Goals

Laura Highcove

Now that I’m into February and my first newsletter with a Chapter 1 has gone out, it’s time to shift focus to the next thing on my list. My current wips, the Huntsman and the Wizard. At the end of last year I vaguely told myself I was going to give myself until the end of this year to finish my rough draft. Now I’ve actually sat down to work out how long it will take me and it came out for 17 weeks, or four months exactly.

And, if I make my goal, I’mma buy Kingdom Hearts 3.

Measurable goals:

Make the Huntsman readable: There are a number of scenes that still need to be written. Bits of foreshadowing. And the ending needs to be solid. Basically I want it to readable straight through, even if it’s not polished.

Feb 4 – 1 week to solidify the ending.
Feb 11 – 1 week to fill in any big holes in events/foreshadowing with scenes.
Feb 18 – 1 week to smooth the whole thing.

Rough draft of the Wizard: I have only a basic idea of what this story is going to do, despite having 44k words written already. I want a beginning, a middle, and especially the end, so I know where this whole thing is going.

Feb 25 – 1 week to smooth what I already have.
Mar 4&11 – 2 weeks of 1.6k words a day (23.3k)
Mar 18 – 1 week of smoothing
Mar 25&Apr 1 – 2 weeks of 1.6k words a day (23.3k)
Apr 8 – 1 week of smoothing (Horse Show)
Apr 15&22 – 2 weeks of 1.6k words a day (23.3k)
Apr 29&May 6 – 2 week smoothing (Vacation here)
May 13&20 – 2 weeks writing important scenes
May 27 – 1 week final pass

Revision Update: Main Character 1

Laura Highcove

So I woke up Sunday morning last week and sat for a good half an hour in front of my computer with my inner critic on a rampage. I was so unhappy with how my revision was going (or not going) that I was ready to give up on the entire story because it wasn’t good enough.

But you see, this story is my tripwire. I put my last story away because I got stuck in the exact same place, the muddle in the middle. Just like with that other story, all attempts to shove and muscle my way forward caused more and more angst.

So after I let myself wallow my my negative thoughts for that half-hour, I told myself ‘This is not working, it’s time to take a step back.’ This is a lesson that the universe likes to keep throwing at me, and I’m finally starting to learn it.

Then I did the only thing I could think of and went back to the revision slides from my DIYMFA 101 class and started from the beginning. The answer slapped me in the face six slides in.

You see, Gabriela, the instigator of DIYMFA, had helped me come up with a revision plan using her revision pyramid and she said that characters or plot can be the base of the pyramid, dependent on which you are stronger at. I was confidant in my character development, so I decided to put plot and story first on my revision schedule.

Well when I took that step back, I realized that I am great at character development …on all of the characters that I have been working on for years. However, the story I am revising right now has been in existence for less than five months, so of course the characters aren’t well-developed yet.

I spent the rest of Sunday filling out character questionnaire for all of the important characters. And then I spent the rest of my time this week poking at Tabitha in a few scenes again just to see what came out, and she seems much happier when I’m not trying to simply shove her after plot points.

So as for my specific measurable goal from last week, I failed to achieve my goal. I instead discovered that I had my revision plan in the wrong order. As such I am reordering it:

December 6 – 31 (3.5wks): Extract an Outline
January 1 – February 7 (5wks): Plot and Story
February 8 – March 5 (4wks): Main Character
March 6 – 26 (3wks): Secondary Character(s)
March 27 – April 2: (1wk) Plot and Story 2
April 3 – April 23 (3wks) World Building
April 24 – April 30 (1wk) Dialogue
May 1 – May 14 (2wks) Description
May 15 – May 28 (2wks): Theme
May 28 – June 3 (1wk): Line Editing

There is a yoga aphorism that is very common around the barn where I ride that goes like this:

Do the work,
Reflect on the work,
Release the results.

I am doing the work required for this revision (taking into account honoring my reality), and I am reflecting on the work, which has basically become the job of his blog, and while part of me wants to be upset about the fact that my timeline is pushed back, I just have to look at what has happened and release the result. Good or bad, the result cannot be changed so I take what I can learn from the process, and start it over again.

So now for my new specific measurable goal! This week I am going to write an outline for Tabitha’s character arch, and then go through my folders focusing only on the pieces of the story that deal with her character arch. My goal is to get through the first six folders, which shouldn’t be hard as she’s fairly well-established in them already. Folder 7 is where I started running into a wall.

And since this post is getting close to too long, see you next week!