Category Archives: Writing in Public Challenge

Writing in Public: Day 15, Month 01

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I had an epiphany about “Into the Wastes” last night that I had to write down before I forget.  Five minutes later I was finished with the beginning of an idea that could help fully half of the story come together better.  I also had Listerine sitting in my mouth for that long.  I didn’t want to get up and spit it out until I was finished.

As with all late night ideas I’m looking at it with an eye of skepticism but also with excitement.  I really think the addition of one more character – or the injection of an already present character into an earlier part of the story – will make some of the chapters flow just a bit better and with a greater sense of urgency.  Anyway, the planning and outlining continues.  My plan is to begin the actual rewrite starting March 1st or 2nd, with a goal of finishing the second draft in 45 days.  The objective is for it to be a much tighter story that leaves room for a sequel but is also definitive in ending the current problem.

On short stories, I spent a good part of the day brainstorming and outlining “Harmonious Bedlam.”  The later afternoon and evening was devoted to writing the rough draft, and I finished about 2,400 words of it.  I’m trying a new experiment with this story in that I’m trying to get a more structured outline in place before the draft process begins.  Usually I just come up with a few basic elements to get a rough idea (Rough, get it?  Ahem, sorry) of what to write, and then I go to town.  This sometimes works, and sometimes results in an inefficient form of writing.  I want to up my daily word count, but I want the ratio of total fiction writing to final, salable writing to shift more in favor of the salable.  The writing is fun, but I’m aiming for a final product that I hope others will enjoy.

Nothing knew on revisions, but I managed to do at least a little bit in the other three daily goal areas: novel work, short story rough drafts, and short story planning and outlining.

  • Nonfiction: 377
  • Planning and outlining: 880
  • Fiction: 2,400
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 39,823

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Writing in Public: Day 14, Month 01

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It took a whole weekend to get rolling on it, but I finally finished with “Listening Post”.  It clocked in at roughly 3,333 words.  I’m going to let it sit until either tomorrow or Wednesday before re-reading it and making the final changes, but it won’t be much more or less than that.  I just need to check grammar, make sure I’m not being redundant in the story-telling, and see if there’s any way I can tighten up the plot and action.

The final draft of “Fallout Ariel” (Renamed to “Blue Pearls”) is finished.  It’s currently at 806 words, and hopefully will not fluctuate too much.

Lastly, the final draft of “Alien Concept” is finished.  Its final word count is 735.

  • Nonfiction: 397 +
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 4,874
  • Salable words: 4,874

Total Fiction for Month: 37,423

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Writing in Public: Day 13, Month 01

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Yet another bad day for actually getting stuff written.  I was at the keyboard for a number of hours, struggling to get “Listening Post” rewritten.  I’m not sure what the problem was, but the words did not want to come.  It was one of those days that makes a writer think he’s not a writer at all.  It’s not a very complex tale either, which had me both puzzled and frustrated.

Further, it ate into my rough draft time and yet another day passed with little more done on “You Are My Brothers.”  Tomorrow is the start of a new week, and a new set of goals.  And part of those goals will be finishing the rewrites of “Listening Post” and “Fallout Ariel” very early in the week, possibly as early as tomorrow.

  • Nonfiction: 148
  • Planning and outlining: 200
  • Fiction: 1,627
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 32,549

Total Salable for Month: 1,070

Writing in Public: Day 12, Month 01

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I’m still trying to strike a good balance between planning, rough draft writing, and revisions.  Today is a good example of the difficulty of that.  The day began with plans for getting more of the “You Are My Brothers” rough draft finished along with revisions for “Listening Post” and possibly one of the flash fiction pieces.  None of that happened.  With so many rough drafts that need to enter the revision/rewriting stage I got caught up in doing research on different outlining techniques and wasted much of the day jumping from article to article.

There was some success, though.  Of the five stories that need to be revised/rewritten I was able to get outlines written for four of them, and I began work on the “Listening Post” rewrite.  For some reason this story has become a challenge to me, and I’m not sure why.  Hopefully tomorrow’s work on it will yield some answers.  It could be there’s just too much in the plot to contain in a 3,500 word or less story.

Anyway, here are the rather lackluster numbers for the day:

  • Nonfiction: 186
  • Planning and outlining: 935
  • Fiction: 203
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 30,922

Total Salable for Month: 1,070

Writing in Public: Day 11, Month 01

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Today was less productive than I was hoping it would be, and a lot of it had to do with my being scatter-brained through a good portion off the day.  Did not really get to serious writing until the evening, but managed to put in another ten pages of “You Are My Brothers.”  This story is as rough as “Sublease” was, but the overall plot is beginning to come together.  And with every scene I write I get a better handle on the pacing and what I can and can’t accomplish with the word limitations given to me.  12,000 – 17,000 words seems like a lot, but it’s amazing how quickly it can get eaten up.

Now you know why flash fiction is a challenge for me!  A fun challenge, but a challenge all the same.

Speaking of flash fiction, I came up with two ideas that I need to flesh out more, but one will be a tale about applying for position of the prince that wakes the sleeping princess with a kiss, and the other will occur in the minutes and hours following the sun going out not with a bang, but with a whimper.  Will the world follow suit?

Anyway, tomorrow my plan is to get another ten or so pages of “You Are My Brothers” written and finish with that rough draft on Sunday.  I would like to revise “Listening Post” as well, and get to work on the reading research for “Song of Battle.”  I’ve never tried writing anything with music in it, so it’ll be a great challenge.

  • Nonfiction: 276
  • Planning and outlining: 250
  • Fiction: 3,000
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 30,719

Total Salable for Month: 1,070

Writing in Public: Day 10, Month 01

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Spent a little bit more time tweaking “Amidst the Swirling Sakura Petals” and fired it off to Flash Fiction Online with a total length of around 1,070 words.  If accepted there, it will need to be trimmed down to 1,000 words, but they accept submissions up to 1,100 words with that understanding.  All we can do is wait and see what happens there.

I also started work on the epic fantasy story “You Are My Brothers”, with ten pages and approximately 3,000 words finished at the moment.  Think of this story as a sword-and-sorcery version of the Siege of Bastogne, featuring a mercenary company caught behind enemy lines and the band of all-female knights that come to their aid.  The Order of the Emerald Garland is here to save the day!

  • Nonfiction: 142
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 3,500
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 27,719

Total Salable for Month: 1,070

Writing in Public: Day 09, Month 01

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The rough draft of “Sublease” is finished!  It took a few more hours, but with around 5,100 words put in today the total is right at 10,000 words, which was on the low end of my estimate.  Once I begin the rewriting phase of it, I imagine this story will actually grow a little bit longer.  Working through the rough draft gave me several ideas that should help make the plot and overall theme more coherent, and the pacing should be better.  This is a story that I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years now, so it’s exciting to see it finally getting done.

I didn’t meet any of my other goals for the day, unfortunately.  But, 5,100 words for a single day is not bad.  Not quite what I wanted, but infinitely better than the first few days of this “Writing in Public” challenge.

Tomorrow the focus will be on revisions for some other stories, so hopefully the “salable” number will be on the rise, especially considering there are a few deadlines that have to be met by the 28th of the month.

  • Nonfiction: 000
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 5,100
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 24,219

Total Salable for Month: 968

Writing in Public: Day 08, Month 01

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Today was another good day, although I’m still not meeting all four goals.  On the rough draft side of things, I met my goal of getting the first half of “Sublease” written.  The story is now at its midpoint, and I plan to write through to the ending tomorrow.  This rough draft is about as rough as it gets, to the point it’ll have to be rewritten entirely.  But, it’s helping me see what will work, what won’t work, and what sort of pacing the story will have.  That alone makes it worth my while.

I wanted to edit the flash fiction piece “Alien Concept”, but wasn’t able to.  Instead, I shifted focus back onto “Ninja Mama” (Henceforth referred to as “A Mother’s Duty”) and reworked the final draft a bit.  There’s still a tiny amount of work I want to do on it, but it will be going out this week for sure.

That’s all for today.  We’ll see what tomorrow holds!

  • Nonfiction: 178
  • Planning and outlining: 1,000
  • Fiction: 5,300
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 19,119

Total Salable for Month: 968

Writing in Public: Day 07, Month 01 (Attack of Ninja Mama)

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Day one into the new plan, and already things have been derailed!  Well, not quite.  There is a good reason for a couple of things not being completed.

First order of business was to work on the rough draft for “A Gentle Breeze”, which turned out great.  A 3,900 word rough draft was finished in just over two hours, right before lunch.  Following lunch I got to work on the revision for “Ninja Mama”, which is a horrible name and not the final product name by any stretch of the imagination.  Of course, with that said, a quick Google search game up with this gem of an ad from Nissin as the first image hit:

Who needs swords when you have dual rolling pin action?

Who needs swords when you have dual rolling pin action?

Ok, moving on… “Ninja Mama” has been completed.  It took a few revisions, but the final product has come in at 968 words.  I want to read over it one more time and will probably do that tomorrow, but then it’s out the door into the submission pile.

On the research and outline front I went back over my notes for “Sublease” and have a pretty good feel for the going into the rough draft writing tomorrow morning.  “Sublease” is going to be anywhere from 9,000 to 10,000 words, so I assume that will take two days to accomplish.  Tomorrow I’ll work on it until I get at least 5,000 words finished, and the rest will follow Wednesday.

My task for the “Into the Wastes” today was to read over my first chapter, analyze it, and compare it with the opening chapters to some of my favorite epic fantasy books.  I have postponed this until tomorrow afternoon, and there is good reason for this.  We’re due up to six inches of snow tonight, so shoveling is in the cards for tomorrow at some point.  Odds are good I won’t be in much of a writing mood after completing that task, so a relaxing late afternoon of reading should fit the bill.

Anyway, on to the numbers!  With this one day I’ve effectively doubled my fiction output for the month.  Here’s hoping tomorrow is equally productive, if not more so:

  • Nonfiction: 675
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 6,451
  • Salable words: 968

Total Fiction for Month: 13,819

Total Salable for Month: 968

Writing in Public: Day 06, Month 01

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Today was a very productive day for fiction writing.  I finished up with the “Listening Post” short story.  The rough draft, anyway.  The revision will be complete before the week is out, and hopefully it will be submitted by the weekend along with a few other tales.

Tomorrow begins a new week and a new experiment in writing that was outlined in this yesterday’s Writing in Public.  Expect the numbers in all four categories to rise on a (hopefully) daily basis!  I also want to start posting some snippets of the different stories as they are worked on, specifically to show the evolution from rough draft to final product.  To use a movie industry term, a lot gets left on the cutting room floor.

On to the numbers!

  • Nonfiction: 516
  • Planning and outlining: 000
  • Fiction: 3,000
  • Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 7,368

Total Salable for Month: 000