The worst thing about September is that the cool weather starts coming in and when you're already stressed, you catch bugs every week or so. Last week, I caught a minor one that didn't do much more than kill my concentration. This week, I caught something that has taken me out for two days.
Thus, I'm a bit behind on my numbers. To get back on track, I'm updating my business plan for the next four days.
I have mentioned my business plan, yes? Basically, it's just me writing down what my goals are for the year. I write them in loose strokes, and the closer I get, the more I refine them. This month, my goal is 15,000 words, 1 short story, 8 blog posts and quite a lot of editing, 4 short stories and my novel.
As I mentioned I'm a bit behind on my writing, 2,301 words worth, as of this morning. I have finished my short story of the month, a little vignette for my husband called Nala's Tale, a story about one of his characters slaves in our Pathfinder (evil) game. So, I have just over 4k to do, in four days. Even sick, I can try to do 1,000 a day. The whole reason for leaving my current daily word count at 500 is so that if I fall a bit behind, I can still play catch up, after all.
On the blogging front, I have only completed five blog posts, if you count this one, which is a bit short of the eight I wanted. On the other hand, I should get one more this month and that will bring it up to six. Still lower than I'd like, so I'll have to try harder for next month.
The last thing on my business plan is editing. Normally, I try to separate out editing months and writing months, but I decided to put the two together this month and see how it worked out. The first thing on my list was editing my novel. I'm not done it, but since only one person has gotten back to me with comments so far, I'm taking that off my list and will move it into October. The other editing I wanted to get done was four short stories, I have looked over 2 of them and am halfway through editing one. Both of the other ones I looked at need a nearly complete rewrite, which may become a task for next month, but I should be able to finish the one story I'm halfway done before the end of the month.
So, what have I learned? Well, mostly that I need to either up my word count, or lower my editing amount, while I figure out how to increase my speed. Part of that speed will come as I do it more often. Part of that will be higher when my tendinitis isn't acting up and I don't have any sick days. However, I prefer to leave room in my plan for life to butt its nose in and mess everything up. It saves me from some of the guilt of not meeting goals since at least some of it(like my novel not being edited) was really beyond my control.
Do you have monthly goals? How do you keep track of them?
Showing posts with label Hunter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hunter. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
The Verdict is In!!! (Kinda)
Woot! A little over a month ago I gave my edited novel to my beta readers. They are, for the most part, still working on it, but I have gotten the first one back. I will remind everyone that the changes were quite thorough. I rewrote nearly half of the novel and added another 15,000 words or so to it. So, yeah... lots of changes. But the verdict is in!
For the most part, the verdict is good. This beta reader hadn't read my alpha version and was coming at it completely new. She seemed to really enjoy it and gave me a lot of compliments as well as shared a few of her favourite lines with me. She said that the first chapter works perfectly to get you into the world and tell you exactly what type of a story you're getting. She quite liked the story in general, loved how I tied up all of my threads while still having some frayed ends to pull you into a sequel. She enjoyed seeing the characters grow and enjoyed seeing the character arcs. She even picked up on some of the secrets that I've sprinkled in that will tie into the main threads of the overall series arc. Not enough to solve it, but enough to make her wonder.
I think my favourite quote of hers was, "It was a cheering/sense of dread moment and if that’s what you wanted to come across, it worked 100%."
Now, while I'm super excited about this review, it wasn't all good things. She pointed out a few points where I had slipped up, identified one place where I'd cut too much (meaning parts of it are going back to the original way I'd written it) and a few places where I can tie my story and characters to make it an even more cohesive story.
The word from my other three beta readers is "good so far, loving the characters, and not done yet." I'm bouncing from anticipation, and can't wait to see what they all have to say.
This is a picture of a productivity app I use. It's called Forest and it rocks. It's on Android, Apple and Windows!
I think my favourite quote of hers was, "It was a cheering/sense of dread moment and if that’s what you wanted to come across, it worked 100%."
Now, while I'm super excited about this review, it wasn't all good things. She pointed out a few points where I had slipped up, identified one place where I'd cut too much (meaning parts of it are going back to the original way I'd written it) and a few places where I can tie my story and characters to make it an even more cohesive story.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
What I Learned This Week
It's been a while since I did one of these; way too long in my opinion. It's due to me not working on my novel as much as I should be. I'm getting back into it. This month, I've already done almost as much as I have the two months prior combined. Sometimes, the hardest thing is understanding why you're trying to sabotage yourself. Which is what I've been doing. Still, I'm looking forward to getting it done. Hopefully next month. I have signed up for Camp Nanowrimo and put myself down for 50 hours or whatever it takes for me to finish this novel. Hopefully, I'll have damn good news for you each week on it!
That's not what I actually wanted to talk to you about today, though. Today, I want to tell you about what I learned this week. I've been working on my edits and one of my characters is getting a lot more screen time than she was before. Unfortunately, her chapters have never come easily for me to write and these were getting to feel like I was pulling teeth.
About this time, long time blog followers will note something missing... I haven't said which character yet. No, that isn't me being coy at all. It's for a reason.
You see a name is important; very important. Especially for me. Even in my Pathfinder games, I will search for the right name for days, trying to figure out exactly what I want. I will search for names that have the meaning I want, that sound the way I want that name to flow. I look for names that resonate, not only for me but for them and the way they want to be portrayed.
Skylla isn't human, but she was human when she was born. She's a hunter by trade, and lonely by choice. But her name was wrong. It was a Celtic name meaning archer or some type of warrior... and while that's what she is too, it wasn't right. Skylla doesn't sound like a warrior's name. Also, she isn't Celtic. All of the characters from my book have names that we have in our world.
This week, I discovered that Skylla's human parents were from different cultures. Yet she wasn't named from either of those cultures. Searching both cultures I found two names that I quite liked. So I combined both names, not only into the meaning that suits her but into a name that suits her. Her name is now properly Isashi.
The interesting part of this was that it also led me to rename one other character. The name I had given to him was a name I love and one that was the name of a character in a book series I quite enjoy. But the name wasn't his, and due to its French connotations, it sounded like a girl's name. It was confusing most of my alpha readers, especially since that character isn't from a French background. I looked back to what his name originally was. It suited him better and the meaning suited him better. Even better, I found out that it was from the culture I wanted in that area. So, Jocelin is now Deckard.
What about you? Are you a sucker for names? Do you have trouble writing characters that are mis-named or is that by far, the easiest part of your writing process? Let me know, in the comments below.
That's not what I actually wanted to talk to you about today, though. Today, I want to tell you about what I learned this week. I've been working on my edits and one of my characters is getting a lot more screen time than she was before. Unfortunately, her chapters have never come easily for me to write and these were getting to feel like I was pulling teeth.
About this time, long time blog followers will note something missing... I haven't said which character yet. No, that isn't me being coy at all. It's for a reason.
You see a name is important; very important. Especially for me. Even in my Pathfinder games, I will search for the right name for days, trying to figure out exactly what I want. I will search for names that have the meaning I want, that sound the way I want that name to flow. I look for names that resonate, not only for me but for them and the way they want to be portrayed.
Skylla isn't human, but she was human when she was born. She's a hunter by trade, and lonely by choice. But her name was wrong. It was a Celtic name meaning archer or some type of warrior... and while that's what she is too, it wasn't right. Skylla doesn't sound like a warrior's name. Also, she isn't Celtic. All of the characters from my book have names that we have in our world.
This week, I discovered that Skylla's human parents were from different cultures. Yet she wasn't named from either of those cultures. Searching both cultures I found two names that I quite liked. So I combined both names, not only into the meaning that suits her but into a name that suits her. Her name is now properly Isashi.
The interesting part of this was that it also led me to rename one other character. The name I had given to him was a name I love and one that was the name of a character in a book series I quite enjoy. But the name wasn't his, and due to its French connotations, it sounded like a girl's name. It was confusing most of my alpha readers, especially since that character isn't from a French background. I looked back to what his name originally was. It suited him better and the meaning suited him better. Even better, I found out that it was from the culture I wanted in that area. So, Jocelin is now Deckard.
What about you? Are you a sucker for names? Do you have trouble writing characters that are mis-named or is that by far, the easiest part of your writing process? Let me know, in the comments below.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Do You Want to Read an Update? It Isn't Just an Update...
Wow, I did not realize that ten days had passed since my last post. I should have, but this cold I caught has driven me to the brink of exhaustion. So, I apologize for that. I'm finally getting better and so I figured I should really get on with my next post. Which is part self-congratulations and part gift from me to you.
First off, a quick update on my plans from now to the end of the year. My novel has been self-edited and sent to my beta-readers. First responses have been overall positive, with one asking me flat-out when the sequel would be ready. I'm hoping to have full comments from them in the next day or so which will allow me to go through it once more before I send it to a professional editor to go over.
Yes, I have arranged for time with an editor for Hunter in early November. I don't know how long that process will take overall, but given any chance, I'm hoping to have it out and available for Christmas this year. It will depend on a lot of factors and with this being my first time going through the process, I could be severely underestimating the time needed for it. In any event, as soon as I have news on that front, I'll let you know. I'm hoping to give you as much time as possible to get excited for its release before it comes out!
I will also be working on a new novel for Nanowrimo, the third book in my Kitsune-Ken series (I wrote the second earlier this year). I'm expecting it to be another 65-75k words, so I'll probably have to finish it in December (though I'll be a Nano-rebel and start it early if I have it ready before November 1rst).
For those of you planning on doing Nanowrimo with me, I got bored a few months ago and put this together.
The picture is from Frozen, though I'm uncertain of who originally created this version. If you find out, please let me know so I can attribute it correctly. You can customize it pretty much however you want to match your total, the year or whatever. My idea was to use it as a single sheet to keep you motivated since you update it daily. Really however you decide to use it, just have fun.
First off, a quick update on my plans from now to the end of the year. My novel has been self-edited and sent to my beta-readers. First responses have been overall positive, with one asking me flat-out when the sequel would be ready. I'm hoping to have full comments from them in the next day or so which will allow me to go through it once more before I send it to a professional editor to go over.
Yes, I have arranged for time with an editor for Hunter in early November. I don't know how long that process will take overall, but given any chance, I'm hoping to have it out and available for Christmas this year. It will depend on a lot of factors and with this being my first time going through the process, I could be severely underestimating the time needed for it. In any event, as soon as I have news on that front, I'll let you know. I'm hoping to give you as much time as possible to get excited for its release before it comes out!
I will also be working on a new novel for Nanowrimo, the third book in my Kitsune-Ken series (I wrote the second earlier this year). I'm expecting it to be another 65-75k words, so I'll probably have to finish it in December (though I'll be a Nano-rebel and start it early if I have it ready before November 1rst).
For those of you planning on doing Nanowrimo with me, I got bored a few months ago and put this together.
The picture is from Frozen, though I'm uncertain of who originally created this version. If you find out, please let me know so I can attribute it correctly. You can customize it pretty much however you want to match your total, the year or whatever. My idea was to use it as a single sheet to keep you motivated since you update it daily. Really however you decide to use it, just have fun.
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