Writing Weekend: Final Results

Total Weekend Wordcount: 6511 words

Not as much as I would like, but more than I had when I started. But that's about 1/10 of a book if you're shooting for 60,000 words.  Not bad when you think of it that way. I set high goals so even if I fell short, I'd still have a pretty decent word count.

Onward and upward...

Writing Weekend Update: Saturday

Revised Word goal: 5000
Current Word Count: 2,318

I find my writing day has had more ups and downs than the sand dunes on Bay Watch. It goes something like this:

• Wake up
• Realize I feel like I'm coming down with something but ignore it - no excuses
• Feed the cats
• Eat something
• Avoid looking at my laptop several times
• Turn on some classical music
• Read a book to get inspired
• Avoid looking at my laptop again
• Accidentally look at my laptop and force myself to go over and get started
• Struggle to write a few words
• Consider putting the deathstar in the story somewhere
• Avoid writers' block by surfing the internet
• Realize I've already read everything at the usual websites I visit during last night's attempt to avoid writing
• Struggle not to turn on the television for a quick "break"
• Write a few words
• Play fetch with the cat
• Switch projects out of desperation
• Write a few words and get on a roll
• Stop to do a word count of my prodigious production and realize I've only written 500 words instead of 5,000
• Despair that anyone will ever want to read anything I have written because it's boring and puerile
• Admire a passage I wrote yesterday when I was still a writer, and the virus I'm getting had not destroyed the writing center of my brain
• Cut my word goal for the day in half
• Watch the cats sleep while they lay as close as they can get to me on the couch
• Imagine a day when this might be my day job, and I get to watch them sleep as I write
• Smile
• Frown
• Resent their peaceful napping as I despair that I will ever finish a project
• Blog about my writing day
• Look at the long evening ahead and resolve to do better
• Procrastinate by adding bullets to this list

You can see how little actual writing has taken place. I did better last night than I have all day to day. Part of it is I'm still too controlling. I don't want to make a big draft mess I'll have to clean up later, so I have to plan what comes next. This makes writing a lot like constipation. Nothing comes of it.

I've decided it's time to make a mess, or there will be nothing to clean up. I'll let you know how it turns out :)

Weekend Writing Marathon: Friday Word Count

Added another 1,258 words to my total for tonight. I was shooting for at least 2,000 total.
Current total: 2,643. Not bad for starting after work.

Tomorrow's goal: 10,000 words.

Weekend Writing Marathon

The kids are gone for the next 5 days. There is no Memorial Day/Mother's day/Father's Day/Arbor Day/Family Birthday that I must attend this weekend. No! You may not come over. My lawn is mowed. My fridge is full. The cats have been fed and restrained with duct tape. Holy schmoley, Batman. I have no excuse not to get my wordy on. God help me.

I have schitzophrenically changed books again, done 1,436 words, and read wondertabulous blogs on self-publishing including this one that referred me to this absolutely scary, funny and incredamazing one who's title I cannot mention (mom, don't click on that one). It has me sinking to the depths of despair, down into the muddy muck of the river bed and digging my little toes in hard in fear that it might be me - jumping the gun. Diving in too soon. Oh wait. I have to actually finish the book first. What am I doing here talking to you people?

Random Crap I Write When I Can't Think of What Comes Next In My Book

The good news is I'm making progress on my shitty first draft (6,524 words) The bad news is my brain often spins around like a hamster on a wheel, falls off the wheel, then staggers off to the left because his hamster sense of balance has been shot to hell.

I got this far in my romance story (my heroine has fallen down the stairs in the hero's family home and has a sprained ankle). Then the hamster wheel came out. I couldn't think of one more word to write. Thus, I produced what is below:

After she got dressed, Ellie wondered out to see if she could get a ride home. Bakery smells led her to the kitchen. Mrs. Giordano exclaimed when she saw her. “Ellie. How are you feeling. Do you need to sit down?” She pulled out a stool and helped Ellie arrange the crutches against the counter.

But no. She could not stay in the kitchen. Ellie was drawn by an irresistible compulsion to quest. She got up and ascended Mt. Doom on her crutches. But she couldn’t not bring herself to cast the graven crutch into the fiery molten lava. Then fairies stole it from her. Then she died. And I am glad. Die, Ellie, die.

The End

I hope it will be better tomorrow. Otherwise the deathstar comes out.