Word Count 3/23 - Easter Sunday

Tracer Photo:



So, I was off on vacation for part of last week and the week before. In the realistic part of my mind, I knew that I wouldn't have time to come up with 10,000 words, even if I had brought my computer. Okay, maybe I thought somehow it would get done. Note the passive verb there.

I knew I'd have time on the plane, and at least one day while my wife was prepping for the wedding (she was a bridesmaid). And that was exactly the amount of time I had. I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing going on. I probably could have made more time if I'd really tried.

Anyway, in the 6 days we were gone, I got 1,114 words written for part of The Nine Mothers in my little Moleskine notebook. (avg: 186 words/day) Of course, writing by hand slowed me down to about 50% of my speed as compared to using a computer. I kind of thought it would slow me down more than that...

Of course, now that I'm back, I've decided to go back to working on a project I've been trying to do since high school. It's gone through at least four different titles, but I believe my official title is now: Hear the Grass Grow, Sound the Ringing Horn. In the past two days (aka this weekend), I've written 848 words for that one. I think that's pretty good considering I went out to lunch, took a nap, and went to a party yesterday, and then today was at church, followed by visiting family, followed by preparing for the coming work week.

I'll get into more details about HtGG (as I now call it) when I actually get closer to releasing it into the wild.

In Which Evil Monkey Scares Me

Jeff VanDermeer posted 7 tips for Beginning Creative Writers.

(2) Understand that you need to pay your dues. The worst thing you can possibly do as a beginning writer is think because you have a blog, a pen, and MySpace account that you and Gene Wolfe are now best pals and should be sharing writing advice with one another. If a Wolfe-type wants to, hey–that's great. None of us are posturing. But don't assume it.

So, I don't go around friending people I don't actually know (okay, except Ben Gordon) on MySpace, let alone giving anyone writing advice. I don't think I have any writing advice to give. But I do have a blog, a pen, and a MySpace account. Am I posturing? I don't know... is assuming that more than one person actually reads this blog posturing? Probably. But I like to think I do it in a self-effacing, self-deprecating sort of way.

As fellow-Chicago-wannabe-writer Cesar Torres commented:

I write a blog where I talk about word counts, writing accomplishments and links to useful sites for writers and people wanting to learn about publishing. I hope I haven’t broken any of these seven points from the guide! Pride is a deadly sin.

As for the rest of the list, I'm not feeling entitled to anything, and I'm working to get better. Hope that keeps me in line.

Word Count 3/12

I always hate making excuses. It's been 8 days since my last Word Count update, and I've averaged 5.625 words per day since then. The only thing I can say is that it's better than 0. At least at this rate, I'll have a finished novel in 36 years. A rate of zero would put my completion date at Never.

I'm hoping that on vacation (maybe on the plane at least) I'll have the free time make up for all my slacking. I mean, I know it's BS because I've still been doing my posting at Give Me The Rock, so it's not like I don't have any free time. But there was Lebowski Fest last weekend, and I've been trying to get in a full week of work in 3 days this week... so I know there is a reason, even if it's not an excuse.

Word Count 3/3

Words today: 592
Average: 456 (my goal average is 495, so I'm behind, but not by too much)

I was thinking about trying to copy Elizabeth Bear's word count posts, but I don't have a cool graphic like that to show my word count (speaking of that, The Nine Mothers is up to 13,270). So, let's try this...

How many different ways can I say: probability; program/routine
Stopped because: Bedtime
Pretty sure I'll: be listening to Apologize and Hurt on repeat for the final scene of the book

Bonus:
Currently Reading: A Game of Thrones. Yep, I ended up going for the long first book in the unfinished series. I'm liking it, though.

Consolidate Identities?

Everyone (or "everyone") says that when blogging, your blog should be focused on a single topic. So far, Fanatical Pupil has been my On Writing blog, while Nels Wadycki has been my tech (and somewhat more personal) blog. I'll admit I am currently struggling with whether to keep the two separate. I know it makes sense to follow the blogging guideline of keeping the two separate, but by doing that it also means that I have to post twice as often to make "regular" posts to two separate blogs. I mean, it should be obvious enough from just looking at the dates of the archives here that I'm not exactly a "regular" blog poster (but I'm trying), so making posts frequently enough to keep up two blogs (and GMTR) is something I'm not positive that I can actually do. That said, I guess haven't really tried as hard as I probably should.

And I also suppose that if people subscribe to my lifestream, or tumblog, they will get the posts from both blogs (I make sure of that), and if they only want to read about tech stuff or writing stuff, then they can subscribe separately to the blogs. This is actually the opposite conclusion that I came to when I went over this topic back on my Nels Wadycki Wordpress blog (which has migrated to the Nels Wadycki Blogspot blog). That's the difference that 8 months can make.

Speaking of the difference 8 months can make... After 2,639 words last night, I'm up to 13,674 words on The Nine Mothers, which you can get a preview of here. Of course, it's just my first novel, so depending on whose advice you follow, I'll either be throwing it away as soon as I'm done, or else just setting it aside for 4-6 months before coming back to rewrite the whole thing.