So, one day I made a goal...

Alright, so here's my confession on this wonderful, fall Tuesday. I made a goal and started to slack off.

If any of you follow my Twitter or Facebook you would have seen that around the beginning of this month I decided I wanted to save up and try to go to the Pike's Peak Writer's Conference in April of 2012. I put together a savings plan to save a little each month until then until I have the conference fees ready (which I should have soon since registration starts on November 15th!) and of course some extra spending money. I decided to make my first conference an "easy" one. Meaning it's only up in Colorado Springs so that means I will be driving there in the mornings and home at night, so no hotel stays.

One of the other things I wanted to do is plot out and finish writing one of the stories I've been working on. Aislynn's story has been the focus of my spare time for awhile now so I decided to work with her. So I got myself all excited with "I can do its" and "there's plenty of time". And I got some great encouragement from my family and friends when I told them what I wanted to do.

But...

I STARTED TO SLACK OFF.

The first week or so of it worked wonderfully. I sat down and tried to do a bare bones plot outline for my story and got it pretty much squared away. Then I sat down and started to rewrite. From the beginning. Most of you out there probably think I'm crazy, but I needed to make this story get done and the only way for me to do that was to refocus myself on the writing instead of the plotting.

So I picked up a pencil (which I never write with) and started writing. Let's just say I went through at least one eraser that first sit down session trying to get the words to sound right. I was encouraged, I was getting words on the paper. And yes, some were along the same lines as my original ones but I got quite a bit of new product in there as well.

Then I started to write while at work -- on breaks and lunches -- and found that I would get into the flow right as my time would be up and would have to stop in the middle of a good writing spree and would lose my train of thought. Which meant more time of "catch-up" before trying to write again on my next break.

So, it got to the point where I didn't even want to try and write while at work because I got too distracted and really didn't get anything good out of it. Then my strategy changed to just writing before and after work. Well, that also meant that writing was on my mind when I left for work and then I didn't have enough time to destress after a day of work and honestly the work was still suffering.

I really need to restrategize and I hope that this slacking hasn't ruined my plan. I won't let it.

I think I'll focus on NaNoWriMo this year but a little more focused to me instead of how they do it. I will set my goal to 50K new words written during that month. If I do that, that will be a majority of the novel right there. That will give me time to wrap it up and hopefully have some people read it. Then by the beginning of the year I'll be ready to add changes and get into the process of making my manuscript sparkle.

And there you go with my confession of the day!

Update

So, I've been writing a lot lately. Mostly at work, really. A lot of the writing has actually been getting notes and outlines written up. One things I really wanted to update here was my current word counts.

• Noah's: 99 words


• Selene's: 12,743 words
  


• Aislynn's: 6,719 words
  


• God's: 580 words


• Justice: 848 words


• Ezra: 5,145 words

Well, Selene's is mostly an estimate at the moment. I took most of my word counts from what I have typed up, so everything I have written that hasn't been entered on the computer just yet. That is one of my many to-dos for this weekend.

But that is my update for today

My ongoing project

Since I was about 11 or 12 I've been writing a novel. The same novel. Some people think thats drastically a long time to be working on one project. I've also heard that I should put it aside. I never will. And here are my reasons:

1. I started this project as a release of emotions I have always bottled up.


2. It has become my baby. A child that I want to grow and prosper.


3. I WANT TO FINISH IT

I am constantly thinking about my story in the back of my head. So why can't I finish it? Well, because my idea keeps evolving, becoming better in my mind. So I pre-write, and then change it all, well maybe not all. I love my characters, and that could be a problem. But I don't let it.

It started as a single book with a single female MC. It stayed that way for a few years. But then that character didn't have the flaws and strengths and abilities that I wanted in a character. But instead of getting rid of her, I gave her a daughter. My new MC. The previous MC was still in the story, and her own story ended half way through the story.

Then about two or three years ago, I decided that there was too many things happening for one plot line. So I decided that my single book would be come two, or three, or even more. A series is what I found myself holding onto. But it had been just a thought for a long time. I never took real action in trying to separate the two stories that I had combined in one.

Then about three months ago, I finally took it into my hands to separate the stories. This initiative came from the idea for a perfect beginning to one of their stories. (I've always been an out-of-order writer, one who never was good at beginnings.). Yes it may need some tweaking, but at the moment I love the direction it is going.

I am on a roll.

CMA