So many words. So little time.
Category: writing inspiration
This week wasn’t a good writing week. I did get some writing done twice…but probably only about 500 words total. Stress seems to make writing nearly impossible for me, so I’m floundering. I’ll try to gain some focus next week.
The good news is my characters are talking to me, so yay!
Rough week at work, so I planned to do no writing until the weekend. I started yesterday morning with a 10-minute session—I find that if I try to write for longer than that, my brain wanders, but I can focus for 10 minutes—re-doing the first scene of my story (since my hard drive died the week before last, taking everything with it.
I’ve had an online backup program, Mozy, for years, but I didn’t realize it stopped working 6 or 8 months ago. My file download took two days to finish, but when it did finish yesterday morning, there was the first 3k of my story draft!
Do I wish it had been more? Absolutely. Will I be better about keeping an eye on the program to make sure it keeps working? You better believe it! But, it’s better than nothing.
I only recently wrote the other 5k words, so it’s pretty fresh in my mind. My goal is to get back to where I was over the next two weeks, and to work through Lessons 7 and 8 of HTWAN. I did get another 500 or so words added on to my recovered file, so there’s that.
Happy writing!
This writing update won’t be quite so upbeat as the last four…
I did get my 750 words in on Tuesday. Everything flowed, and I enjoyed the process.
Thursday…my hard drive died. All my school stuff, personal stuff, and story draft just gone. Thursday was not a good day.
But…at least I only have to re-do 8,000 words. And it’s still fresh in my mind. So, starting that is on the agenda, but not until next weekend, as this will be a crazy week.
Four straight weeks talking about writing on Sunday! I’m really proud of that streak. Really. It seems that for the past couple of years, all I’ve talked about here is books and book reviews, without time or room for anything else. But writing is where my heart truly lies. I’ve made it a priority this year, and the affirmation of that is in these weekly posts.
This week was an excellent writing week: I wrote four different days (I don’t write on my three long work days—we’re talking 12+ hours—because I’m just mentally and physically exhausted after those early, long days) this week, and my goal is 750 words in each writing session.
Nailed it. Which means I wrote 3,000 words this week! This makes me very happy. Years ago, I remember writing 10k in a single day—more than once—for NaNo, but that was years ago, pre-stroke. So, very happy with my 750 words a day…and they are just flowing, which is even better!
I haven’t been able to work on my HTWAN lessons this week, but I’m about to go do that right now. So: 3,000 words for the week!
Happy writitng!
I think the accountability of posting here ever week is keeping me motivated to make progress of some sort in my writing ever week. At least…it’s worked for three weeks straight now, so I’ll take it.
Tuesday, I worked my way through lesson 5 of HTWAN. I completed the worksheets, but I wasn’t super happy with my answers. I wrote 1,000 words or so on the accompanying draft, but the world just wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t making me happy.
Thursday, I opened the 3,000 words I had written for the original story idea and read through it. I was much, much happier with that draft. The flow felt more natural. Less stilted. So, I decided to return to my original story idea, and the Muse was happy with that plan.
Yesterday and today I wrote an easy 500 words both days. I still have only the fuzziest of ideas where the story is going—and I could easily be wrong—but the easy Southern fiction voice feels right.
Look at me: for the second Sunday in a row I’m talking about writing! Yay for New Year’s goals that last longer than a week…
The truth is, I haven’t started actually writing this story yet. But I’ve completed five weeks’ worth of worksheets for Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Novel Class, and now I have an actual idea (or three) of what this story is about, in addition to knowing more about my characters and the conflicts. (To be fair, what I knew about them before this class was basically zero.)
And I know what my first scene is—along with my second. This story is not about quite what I thought it was, and it will be interesting to see how it develops. I’ll be starting the first draft this week, so here’s to hitting my writing goals…the same week my semester starts.
…well, actually, Sunday is for talking about writing. As opposed to books and book reviews, as I do every other single time I post. I basically haven’t mentioned writing in like the past year. That’s because I haven’t really been writing—grad school and working full-time keeps me busy—much less have I felt like talking about this fact.
But not being creative makes me cranky and changes who I am, and I don’t want that to be my reality anymore. So, I’m getting back into writing. Baby steps, right now, but it is forward motion (in the words of Holly Lisle).
I’m doing some very basic work on a new story, and I’m hoping to get things ready to start writing very soon. I’ll be posting writing updates weekly to keep me motivated.
Onward and upward. Write on.
Title: The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Author: Shannan Martin
Genre: Nonfiction, Christian
Rating: 5 out of 5
Many people dream of big ministries in places they feel at home in, surrounded by people like them. Shannan Martin found that that sort of ministry wasn’t her destiny at all. Instead, she ended up in a working-class neighborhood in Goshen, Indiana—okay, a neighborhood where sometimes finding a job to work at is hard—an ordinary place, surrounded by ordinary people who might be wildly different on the surface, but who are alike at heart: struggling and in need of love.
Truly paying attention to both the big things and the small can open your eyes to the truth in the world around you, and Shannan built a home amidst people who were willing to do life together—no matter how hard that is at times. Sometimes, when God calls people to ministry, it’s not a Billy Graham-style of ministry. Instead, it’s smaller, quieter, and has a profound effect on the people around us, the people who make up our lives.
This book. This book. Usually when I read nonfiction, I can only read a few pages at a time, but I wanted to read large chunks of this at a time. Shannan’s writing is so powerful and evocative, full of truth that touches the heart and opens the mind to broader ideas of home—and what that can look like.
Shannan Martin is a writer and speaker. The Ministry of Ordinary Places is her newest book.
(Galley provided by Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review.)
Title: After the Fire
Author: Will Hill
Genre: YA
Rating: 5 out of 5
Before
Moonbeam has lived inside the fence as long as she can remember. Her parents joined the Lord’s Legion when she was very young, and this is the only life she’s ever known. Her father died here. Her mother was banished. Now Moonbeam is alone, except for the rest of her “family,” and Father John, the leader of the Legion and her future husband.
Every day is filled with labor, a fight for the Legion to survive. Rules govern every action, every thought. Father John is the Lord’s voice, so his words are law. No matter what. Less food. Stricter punishments. New rules. More wives. Disagreeing means banishment: being forced to leave the safety of the fence for the dark world outside. Sometimes Moonbeam wonders if this is what life should really be like. But she can never let any of her family know she wonders.
After
Reeling from the destruction of the Lord’s Legion, Moonbeam struggles to stay true to Father John’s teaching: never speak to outsiders! They are servants of darkness and speaking to them gives them power. But Dr. Hernandez seems to really care what happens to her, and slowly her defenses come down. Then Agent Carlyle starts asking questions about life inside the fence—and what really happened the night of the fire. Moonbeam knows she shouldn’t tell, but some wounds will never heal without being exposed to the light. Even if the truth means she must pay for her sins.
This book. Wow. I was intrigued by a character raised by a cult, and I loved how Will Hill handled it. Moonbeam is a fantastic narrator. The story follows her growth from a fervent believer in the Legion to a tragedy survivor who realizes the truth. The subtle way Hill weaves this tale together had me hooked from the beginning, and this vivid look at life inside a cult was completely engrossing.
Will Hill lives in London and calls himself a creative procrastinator. After the Fire is his newest novel.
(Galley provided by Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.)
My goal for this month was to finish up the first draft of The Fall. The story is completely outlined–using my favorite, a phase outline–everything is fresh in my mind, I still like the story…but for the past few weeks, forcing myself to sit down and write has been kind of like pulling teeth.
Today, I figured out why: the story that’s outlined, that I’ve been writing, is no longer the story I want to tell.
Don’t get me wrong, I still want to tell this story. But the story is no longer about what I thought it was about. So, I have all these little glimpses and glimmers of the other story in my head, but I don’t have my trail mapped out. I’m close to finishing the current draft, but there’s really no point, since I no longer want to tell the story.
So, I’m going to stop writing this story. Give myself a break for the rest of the month to deal with the huge, looming reports due at work. Continue outlining the Witches rewrite, but stop all of my other writing efforts as I focus on the job and school for a couple of weeks.
And bump The Fall to a bit later on my list of writing projects.
Tomorrow Is Another Day 