Well, today is number 199 in a row ... only one more till a new plateau. This is the one piece of work I do that seems to be the most successful. If only, I could do so well with my other pieces of work. This one has become easy. For a lot of reasons I suppose. It is a habit. It is simple and clearly defined. It's small and manageable. I don't think of it as being something big, even though, after doing it every day, it has become quite big in terms of total word count. It's at least the size of two novels by this point. I think I'm somehere over 150K words by now. That's certainly a couple of novels. I could be closer to 200K words actually. I think, that's another badge once I get to that point. That's perhaps the step I'm missing in this whole novel writing. It rarely, except for days like today occurs to me, just how many words in total I've written for this. But, when it comes to my novel, it's most of the time, that I'm thinking of the grand total of 75K words or so that springs to mind. I do need to stop thinking that way obviously. When I was doing the 1250 words in 45 minutes thing, is when I was the most productive. And, it was easy. You don't have to care about the big picture. Just focus on the next 45 minutes. Do the next 1250 words, and take your break. It's easy really. No big deal at all. It's only a rough draft. No one is going to see the rough draft but me, and you'll have plenty of opportunity to make it better. And, next time, going in, you'll have a clearly defined outline of where the story is going. Start off with your island of events and move to organinzing them into a W structure or some other sort of beats that is appropriate to moving things along. It's not rocket science. It does need a structure though. I thought to myself yesterday, that what you need is doing that things are being organized and put into place. You like that. Games like tetris and 2048 are organizing like games. Your putting things into their proper places. That's why you become obsessed with them. Even squash is something like that. Your keeping the ball in the proper place ... down the side walls, nice and straight, and no messy stuff into the middle where it's all cluttered with bodies and limbs and racquets. Even when you were selling links, it was about keeping all the sites organized, and completed with enough articles, and properly running, and making sure all your orders for the day were fufilled. So, you can accomplish the same thing with writing. Number one goal, don't get overwhelmed with the sheer size of the goal your trying to accomplish ... always live in the moment ... in the next 45 minutes worth of words. That's all you need to be concerned with. Then the next 45 minutes, then the next ... till your done. Then, by noon, you'll have 5K words of rough draft to work with. That's where it all stems from ... everything else, is just gravy. Bonus work. Do, the 5K of words ... you'll feel better ... just like how you feel better doing this ... then the rest is easier. And you have a feeling of accomplishment, of organizing, of moving forward to something better. That's the key here. So, speaking of moving forward. How do I move forward with the novel. You have some good plot/story suggestions from Emily your editor. You should incorporate those, break the story down into two pieces, and publish away. Get the first book set to perma free, start working on the next novel, and move ahead. I think, I do want to setup a mailing list, and I don't want to look for beta readers (or do I) for this novel??? Maybe, I should make a post on GoodReads forum, and see what happens. You never know, you may get lucky. You could find someone good to read and give you some feedback. You could even publish before they get back to you. That's no big deal. It's a novel, and you can always go back, and make it better after it's published. That's again no big deal. You can do whatever you want remember. You just need to get past this first big hurdle of having a book published. So, break out of your old habits, and get things going.
TIGERBLOOD: barely DAILYMOOD: tired LOCATION: home office WORDSWRITTEN: none PUSHUPS: 2:00 plank TODO: outline, write, rewrite TV: supernatural (very first episode), californication BOOK: Your First 1000 Copies GAME: none EXERCISE: none WEIGHT: 170 BREAKFAST: bacon & eggs LUNCH: big ass salad DINNER: chili SNACKS: orange, grapes, 3 chicken fingers ALCOHOL: none BEDTIME: 10:00 & 1:30 AWAKE: 6:30
YOU ARE READING
A Writers Journey
Non-FictionMy journey, and struggle to become the writer I feel I can be. This should be easier then it is ... shouldn't it?
