Week 1 of GYWO'16: Words are happening
Thursday, 7 January 2016 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarasa_cattl;dr:In addition to meeting/surpassing my goals of 3000+ words per week, writing most days per week, and 2000+ words of it being original fic, not only did I reward myself with fanfic writing, all of this word energy got me inspired and 3524 words of AHOL accidentally happened. Not complaining.
As for the long version:
I only need to average 430 words per day, daily, to meet my goal of 3000 shiny new words per week (x 50 weeks = 150k shiny new words).
My goal is not a towering pile of word barf by Dec 31st. Not aiming at overshooting my goal by too much if overshooting means spending a year cleaning up the barf. The idea is to leave myself time and energy every week this year so I can *edit* old words and new words, while I also produce new words on a clocked schedule.
== DAILY BREAKDOWN PER PROJECT ==
OrigFic One is a difficult project to work on because the world and the characters haven’t opened up to me yet. Writing is slower than molasses as I grope around in a thick fog. That said, I am not writing in pitch darkness. This project has sat on the back burner for a Very Long While which means I have given it some thought. Also, during the final week of 2015, I spent time creating prompts for myself and sketching out ideas for a chapter/story that is a good world-building intro piece for me to write. My Scrivener file for this project is full of hand-holding starter phrases plus one outline. This keeps me from spinning my wheels while staring at a blank page.
But, even though I have a lot of ideas for what I can write this month (and next) for OrigFic One, writing is slow because the project lacks a voice and I haven’t don’t enough world building to know what things are called and what the world sounds like. This is where the groping around in a thick fog part comes in. At 600 to 650 words per hour, it shows. This is the pulling teeth stage of writing-is-paining. Or, this is the “we need to clear the forest and remove the roots and stumps before we can think about plowing the field much less planting the crops. Harvest? Hahahah. Yeah, whatever…” stage. I feel my well running dry whenever I hit 225 words despite all of the seriously exciting prompts and starter ideas in my Scrivener file. This is why I am so glad I have other projects I can work on else I don’t think I would make it through the month. Very happy with my ability to recognize during my few weeks of planning that this project is best done with small word counts, 4-5 days per week. Slow and steady. On the plus side, everything I type FILLS MY BRAIN WITH GLORIOUS VISUALS THAT WANT ART.
OrigFic Two is something I have thought about at a rather significant level. I have drafted text, outlines, etc., but it was’t working. During the final week of 2015, I decided to remix everything I had and I came up with a new structure described in seven prompts where each prompt is a short paragraph that unpacks into a much larger idea in my brain. My goal for January is to take those seven prompts (one page of text) and turn it into a 10,000 word (max) roadmap for a novel, where this roadmap can be used to create a plot outline (multiple plots, not simple) and then mess around with the first pass of a scene outline.
So far, I have taken the first of the seven prompts and banged out an 1372 word roadmap for that prompt. This roadmap was very straight forward to write: banged out in just shy of one hour which came out in one blast at a coffee shop. It raised a single question of something I need to research that matters for the plot/story.
I challenged myself to bang out the other six sections of the road map (six prompts await) by the end of the month, preferably around Jan 25th to allow me time to plan/organize for February. If I make a point to bang each of these out every 3 or so days, I’ll be fine.
AHOL, my reward-for-hard-work project, wrote itself at a comfortable tea-sipping, smirky-smiling while writing, 850 words per hour as the words spilled out, giving me far more words than I had planned. It just wants to be written. This project makes me think about how good it feels once a story has totally opened up to a writer. I know that the plot wants to be. I know all the intricate little details of this world. I know who the characters are and what their voices sound like. I can predict how their behavior. The characters can surprise me at times when I write but mostly the characters make me happy as they come to life and do awesome things as I type. Even though it is coming from me, it feels like an active collaboration. They are doing a lot of the work while my fingers transcribe. This is heaven as a writer.
The good thing is that I know what it feels like when a project is new and I remember AHOL when it was in that horrible foggy state that OrigFic One is currently in. And I trust in the process. Eventually OrigFic One will open up to me the way AHOL has. FWIW, OrigFic Two is somewhere in between: it doesn’t quite have the structure that AHOL has but it isn’t structureless. The characters are alive but still more fluid and malleable.
EDITING: After pulling teeth during a few of the OrigFic One sessions, I edited 1078 words of difficult-to-edit stylistic prose for Anthem and for Invisible Sun. Also had time to edit 2826 new words written for AHOL this week.Yay me. Keep editing.
THINGS I AM FEELING GOOD ABOUT:
1. I still remember how to write, lol. ;)
2. Getting the absolute minimum done to stay on track for 150K in 2016 means writing for 30 minutes per day. This Is Doable.
3. When I limit my new words to 30-60 minutes of writing per day, that leaves time for editing, planning, and other writerly activities. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
4. Swapping between two major projects leaves me energized. Using fanfic as a reward is great because I feel psyched to write (rather than feelings of dread or flirting with burn out). Rewards are good. I am very reward driven.
5. I banged out almost double my weekly goal yet still found time to edit old text plus edit text produced this week. This is great. I have a bad habit of letting my editing pile up for years. …orz…
As for the long version:
I only need to average 430 words per day, daily, to meet my goal of 3000 shiny new words per week (x 50 weeks = 150k shiny new words).
My goal is not a towering pile of word barf by Dec 31st. Not aiming at overshooting my goal by too much if overshooting means spending a year cleaning up the barf. The idea is to leave myself time and energy every week this year so I can *edit* old words and new words, while I also produce new words on a clocked schedule.
This first week is a success. I surpassed my goal for 3000 words per week on day 6, and I met my goal of 2000 new original fiction words on day 7. Writing was spread out over a few different projects that are at different stages of conceptualization, which saved me from flipping tables and giving up — more on that below.
First, here are some stats for the week with breakdowns from my GYWO 2016 spreadsheets:
== ON TRACK FOR WEEK 1 OF 52 ==
| General Statistics | |
| Total Words Written So Far | 5,900 |
| Total Hours Spent Writing | 6.35 |
| Avg Words Written Per Day | 842 |
| Avg Hours Writing Per Day | 0.91 |
| Avg Words Per Hour | 928 |
| Number of Words Remaining | 144,100 |
| Number of Days Remaining | 359 |
| Number of Hours Remaining | 155.00 |
== DAILY BREAKDOWN PER PROJECT ==
OFIC ONE | OFIC TWO | FFIC AHOL | BONUS: DAILY | ||||
| DAILY TOTALS | EDITING | ||||||
| F | 1/1 | 443 | 443 | (old stuff) 606 | |||
| S | 1/2 | 53 | 53 | (old stuff) 472 | |||
| S | 1/3 | 232 | 232 | ||||
| M | 1/4 | 425 | 425 | ||||
| T | 1/5 | 1,372 | 1,372 | ||||
| W | 1/6 | 2,826 | 2,826 | (new stuff) 2826 | |||
| T | 1/7 | 276 | 273 | 549 | |||
| 1,004 | 1,372 | 3,524 | 5,900 | 3904 |
OrigFic One is a difficult project to work on because the world and the characters haven’t opened up to me yet. Writing is slower than molasses as I grope around in a thick fog. That said, I am not writing in pitch darkness. This project has sat on the back burner for a Very Long While which means I have given it some thought. Also, during the final week of 2015, I spent time creating prompts for myself and sketching out ideas for a chapter/story that is a good world-building intro piece for me to write. My Scrivener file for this project is full of hand-holding starter phrases plus one outline. This keeps me from spinning my wheels while staring at a blank page.
But, even though I have a lot of ideas for what I can write this month (and next) for OrigFic One, writing is slow because the project lacks a voice and I haven’t don’t enough world building to know what things are called and what the world sounds like. This is where the groping around in a thick fog part comes in. At 600 to 650 words per hour, it shows. This is the pulling teeth stage of writing-is-paining. Or, this is the “we need to clear the forest and remove the roots and stumps before we can think about plowing the field much less planting the crops. Harvest? Hahahah. Yeah, whatever…” stage. I feel my well running dry whenever I hit 225 words despite all of the seriously exciting prompts and starter ideas in my Scrivener file. This is why I am so glad I have other projects I can work on else I don’t think I would make it through the month. Very happy with my ability to recognize during my few weeks of planning that this project is best done with small word counts, 4-5 days per week. Slow and steady. On the plus side, everything I type FILLS MY BRAIN WITH GLORIOUS VISUALS THAT WANT ART.
OrigFic Two is something I have thought about at a rather significant level. I have drafted text, outlines, etc., but it was’t working. During the final week of 2015, I decided to remix everything I had and I came up with a new structure described in seven prompts where each prompt is a short paragraph that unpacks into a much larger idea in my brain. My goal for January is to take those seven prompts (one page of text) and turn it into a 10,000 word (max) roadmap for a novel, where this roadmap can be used to create a plot outline (multiple plots, not simple) and then mess around with the first pass of a scene outline.
So far, I have taken the first of the seven prompts and banged out an 1372 word roadmap for that prompt. This roadmap was very straight forward to write: banged out in just shy of one hour which came out in one blast at a coffee shop. It raised a single question of something I need to research that matters for the plot/story.
I challenged myself to bang out the other six sections of the road map (six prompts await) by the end of the month, preferably around Jan 25th to allow me time to plan/organize for February. If I make a point to bang each of these out every 3 or so days, I’ll be fine.
AHOL, my reward-for-hard-work project, wrote itself at a comfortable tea-sipping, smirky-smiling while writing, 850 words per hour as the words spilled out, giving me far more words than I had planned. It just wants to be written. This project makes me think about how good it feels once a story has totally opened up to a writer. I know that the plot wants to be. I know all the intricate little details of this world. I know who the characters are and what their voices sound like. I can predict how their behavior. The characters can surprise me at times when I write but mostly the characters make me happy as they come to life and do awesome things as I type. Even though it is coming from me, it feels like an active collaboration. They are doing a lot of the work while my fingers transcribe. This is heaven as a writer.
The good thing is that I know what it feels like when a project is new and I remember AHOL when it was in that horrible foggy state that OrigFic One is currently in. And I trust in the process. Eventually OrigFic One will open up to me the way AHOL has. FWIW, OrigFic Two is somewhere in between: it doesn’t quite have the structure that AHOL has but it isn’t structureless. The characters are alive but still more fluid and malleable.
EDITING: After pulling teeth during a few of the OrigFic One sessions, I edited 1078 words of difficult-to-edit stylistic prose for Anthem and for Invisible Sun. Also had time to edit 2826 new words written for AHOL this week.Yay me. Keep editing.
THINGS I AM FEELING GOOD ABOUT:
1. I still remember how to write, lol. ;)
2. Getting the absolute minimum done to stay on track for 150K in 2016 means writing for 30 minutes per day. This Is Doable.
3. When I limit my new words to 30-60 minutes of writing per day, that leaves time for editing, planning, and other writerly activities. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
4. Swapping between two major projects leaves me energized. Using fanfic as a reward is great because I feel psyched to write (rather than feelings of dread or flirting with burn out). Rewards are good. I am very reward driven.
5. I banged out almost double my weekly goal yet still found time to edit old text plus edit text produced this week. This is great. I have a bad habit of letting my editing pile up for years. …orz…
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 11:21 am (UTC)You inspired me to modify my program, I had an unofficial 'write what I want' policy with the understanding the majority should be original projects, but officially changing that to 'write what I want after hitting the daily minimum on original work' is better. I too am very reward-driven.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2016 04:17 pm (UTC)At least for me, it allows me to end on a high note by clearing away the cloud of self doubt and self censorship that tends to happen when I write original fiction. My fanfic is joyously self-indulgent which makes me happy in an AO1 sort of way. I have good feelings when reading-editing or writing my fanfic, purely because.
Rewards work.