Anyway, my numbers this month turned out pretty well– 39,400 words for the month. Total of 163,926. I am officially OVER halfway to my 300,000 goal. Amazing. Now for sure if I do NaNo this year that will put me over 300K, but I’m not sure I’m doing NaNo. I guess we will see once October comes and we’ll see if I have any ideas.

Til then, onward! I’m still ‘just writing’ and trying to plow through my storyline. Pen in hand,

My April numbers show it, I feel. I usually hit about 30K words a month. this month I just barely scraped 25K. Got to get on the ball! Right after I take a nap.

I’ve attached the chart that I use to track and submit my numbers. There are corresponding monthly charts behind it that feed into this one. This just gives me a snapshot of where I am. Almost 50%! WOOO! Even given my slackerificness, I am head of the game.

GYWO_2010_Pledge_Tracker

A couple of fests that I’ve signed up for (more to be added):

May 1st- 50 Followers Baking Blogfest, hosted by Charity Bradford

Write a scene where your MC bakes something, anything, good, bad, yummy, burned, anything. Have fun with it, and post it on your blog on May 1st. Bake in space, for a first date, as a cave man/woman, I don’t care. Find a way to incorporate a cooking scene into your wip.

★ May 16th- Flirt Fest Blogfest, hosted by Critique_This_WIP

On Sunday, May 16, 2010 post your favorite flirty scene, either from one of your WIPs, or a brand new one you’ve written just for this blogfest. It can range anywhere from sweet to hot, and any genre is fair game…you don’t have to be a romance writer to participate!

★ May 18th- The “Let’s Talk” Blogfest, hosted by Roni Griffin

On Tuesday May 18, post a short excerpt on your blog of your most sparkly dialogue scene (no, I’m not talking about Edward Cullen).  It can be anything dialogue-heavy–a laid-back chat, an all out argument, a flirty conversation, two friends ribbing each other–whatever.  The options are endless.

Still looking through the list… basically if an idea doesn’t come to me as I am reading the description, I am skipping it. I can’t really ‘make’ myself do these things. I have to be inspired. So far, I am inspired! I’ve already written my Flirt Fest entry and it is being read and critiqued. I’ll continue to edit and perfect until I have to post it.

I’ll try to get to the 50 followers Baking Fest this week. I will be flying to NC for work this week so perhaps I’ll have some time on the plane. If not, I’ll be at a hotel. Wednesday night and flight time Thursday as well to write and have people read it. It’ll probably be fan fic, since I sort of had a scene in mind along that route anyway and I might use it later.

For the Lets Talk Fest, my idea is pretty vague at the moment but I might have something already written that I could submit. I’m pretty good at dialogue so I think that one will be a fun project that won’t make me want to toss the laptop across the room.

Now all I have to do is write something!

I’ve been following Courtney Reese for a couple of weeks now (uhm fellow Criminal Minds fan, HELLO match made in heaven)  and she posted a GINOURMOUS list of blogfests going on… basically where someone issues a challenge to write along a specific topic and then submit their entry. Fun, and it makes people write. I may join one. Or several.

For example, the new writer’s blog Critique_This_WIP has a FlirtFest going on, where the task is to write a flirt scene. How FUN. I don’t have a firm idea right now, but I’m sort of inspired by Pride & Prejudice (it’s about time to watch that movie again) and the scene between Darcy and Eizabeth Bennet, where they are dancing, though Darcy proclaims to not dance, and they’re having a particularly high brow yet very flirtatious exchange. They just don’t realize that they’re flirting.

I have completed a very loose outline of the remaining story in All I Wanna Do. I am encouraged by the fact that I know how it ends. I’m not writing into oblivion. I am trying to think of places where I could skip story– it just doesn’t seem to work. The end is very climactic and everything that’s been talked about in the story thus far is important to the emotion of the ending. I want to be lazy, but I also want the ending to make an impact. So I have to write. SIGH. And I cant just write ‘okay this happened and then that happened’ and have a bunch of lame flashbacks. Unfortunately. It’s not a novel but I like it to read like one. That means I take my time crafting the story. And that means I have to be inspired and motivated and ~feel~ like writing because when I don’t, I end up trashing it and then it’s a waste of time.

Normally, my reading inspires me to write…. it just hasn’t been. I’m smack in the middle of A Reliable Wife. It’s alright. It doesn’t inspire me much but I am trying to plow through it. I may be tempted to buy it on Kindle, just so I don’t have to drag the book with me everywhere I go and I can read it in those off moments I so often have.

Also, remember my search for an active writing community of people that aren’t from the UK? FOUND.  I stumbled onto the Writer’s Digest community. It’s totally active and awesome and there’s so much there that I haven’t had the chance to dig into it much but it is my next stop after I publish this entry!

Which I am doing NOW, because I am cold and I need some tea. And I need to get away from these donuts.

In the month of February, I blogged quite a bit on my personal blog, sometimes managing 7 blogs a week. I also completed a chapter of All I Wanna Do, the epic fanfic that seems like it’s never going to end but will, eventually. I also slaved over my first short story submission, Try to Say No, which I’m particuarly proud of. I’ve heard nothing about it, thus far.

My word count for February comes in at 33, 431, beating January’s 31K by a few thousand. I am at 22% of my goal for the year, which seems about right. At the end of March I should be over 25% of my goal. My YTD count is 64,756.

Sometimes I just can’t believe I write that many words!

I am hoping to get to Chapter 41 this weekend and the beginning of this week and have an update to that story by next weekend. My father is in town so I need to use my time wisely this week!

I joined My Writer’s Circle, finally. Read a couple of great pieces, offered some opinions and such. Overall, though I find a lot of older US writers who write fantasy, or young writers looking for help with speeches and English assignments, and writers from the U.K. *shoulders sag*  Believe me, I’m kind of annoying myself, with this. I told Green Eyes that when I ask someone to read something, and they don’t have anything to say, it ticks me off. But if they pick it apart, that hurts my feelings. I’m not sure, exactly, what I want. Maybe I should try to define that, first.

In the meantime I have successfully not made any more edits to Try To Say No. I think that’s a good sign.  Maybe I should upload it so  people can read it and offer thoughts?

Heard about a new writing contest. Due April 1. HMMMMM. It seems to me that the winner’s of these contests have a distinct style. The subject matter is fantasty, futuristic, or historical. I don’t feel like I have skillz in those areas.

Well.

We’ll see…

**

Have been up since 6ish. First thing I did was open the laptop and take a fresh look at ‘Try To Say No’. I got some good feedback overnight, over some parts that were niggling at me but I didn’t know WHAT was exactly wrong. Thanks to that person that went beyond a cursory glance and actually read the piece and had something to say besides ‘it’s good, now read mine’. Not sure I will hang out there, much. I know I am much more interested in hearing what people have to say about my piece than sorting through every 17 year old’s 122 lines of poetry. I can’t imagine how many people there want to read other people’s stuff, either. We shall see. I’ll do my best to return the favor when I can.

I think I am coming much, much closer to  final draft. Taking a long, overnight break did a great deal of good, as did that critique. I do need to come to a point, eventually, where I decide I am done and call it good and finished and move on to something new. Not sure I’ve reached that point, yet.

Hopefully more writing today and a trip to Barnes & Noble this afternoon. Looking forward to that. Books!

Write.

Write some more.

Look for some books.

Leave the house.

WRITE.

I am hoping to get a start on Ch 41 of AIWD. Got some ideas rolling around but the chapter needs a purpose. A goal that I need to achieve in writing it otherwise I will write into oblivion. Maybe some planning tomorrow.

More editing on Calm Waves and Smooth Moon. I made some really great progress last night before I stopped to watch one of my fave shows. Tonight I have been playing around (obviously, with my theme) and enjoying my Friday night.

If I’m reading it right, I should have about a month to come up with something spiffy and shiny for Glimmer Train. I seriously need to start writing things down. I had an idea but it’s now gone. No clue when I am going to learn this lesson.

Beginning to yawn and hallucinate. Time for resting. Work tomorrow.

Gee.. I gotta make everything so hard.

I am thinking of revamping Calm Waves and Smooth Moon. Giving it a new title and a little more story and submitting it to a short story archive. Have to check to see if it has to have not appeared elsewhere first, since I put everything in my personal archive.

After that, I’ll get some prompts and get to writing something new as well as plan out the next chapter of All I Wanna Do… I also want to have something submitted to The Glimmer Train by the end of March. I could aim for the end of February but that’s not a lot of time to produce a quality piece.

Going to do it. HAVE to.

Pen in Hand,

So, what comprises my word count? Whatever I write on purpose, for pleasure. I include updates to current WIPs, drabbles, writing exercises, book reviews, and blog posts that aren’t written for a specific purpose like some kind of commercial post (which I never do anyway). I also don’t include short ‘hi, bye’ posts. My word count isn’t suffering so I don’t feel the need to waste time sending that through a word counter.

I’ve been doing a TON of writing at work– revamping our website and rewriting all of the content, updating the graphics, etc –and if I could count all of that, my word count would be outrageous. However, that’s writing that I’ve done for work as part of my job and that doesn’t really count for GYWO. I wouldn’t want to count all that anyway, then work writing would fill up my word count and I wouldn’t feel challenged or compelled to write for myself.

So tomorrow the count starts over at ’0′ (figuratively, I’ve no intention of moving my physical counter back, it’s come so far!) and I’ve got to get on the ball with more writing. I feel kind of uninspired lately and oddly I feel this way whenever I spend a lot of time talking to people who are further along this writing journey than I am. I don’t know if it’s a need I have to feel like I’m ahead of someone, or if I feel subconscious competition, or if I just feel like I’ll never be able to do what others are doing but… I always go through a period of doldrums, so I’ve cut myself off from that. I do best when I keep my eyes on my own paper.

As for any ideas of publishing… they’re far off as well. I’ll definitely keep trying to get short stories, etc published but “Same Time Next Week” is in danger of even being finished, let alone published. Not to mention that there’s no way I could even self publish that story. It’s entirely too graphic and I’d be embarrassed. It will sit at the archives and will continue to be my ‘I let it all hang out and I’m proud of it’ piece. Maybe sometime I’ll finish it, I just… I got nothin’ right now. Less than nothin’.

Only thing I do have is a whole month with which to fill with writing! Yay.

Pen in hand,

Last night as I was tiptoe-ing through my Google Reader, I opened a post from a writer I’ve been following. She’s currently editing a book and sent out some queries and is trying to get published. She posted last night about a website that she found the is sort of an auto-editor. It looks out for things like cliche’s, overused words, sentence structure, all things I wouldn’t normally look at, when I’m editing. I’m always more concerned with does it make sense, do you care about my characters, are there any misspellings?

Well. WHOA, mama. The wesbite is called AutoCrit and it does some things I’ve never seen a website DO! This is, of course, not made for a rough draft or even first pass, but if you’re past the point of seeing your faults, this will definitely show you new ones!

I love constructive criticism (concrit). I want my pieces to read the best that they can and if people can see where there is a flaw, I want to fix it. I don’t want strangers pointing out my literary failures, if that makes any sense. So, even though I had just written the beginning of a new chapter in my (hopefully) novel, I plugged in the first 800 words and waited for the result. When it popped up, my eyes lit RIGHT UP.

Suddenly I was seeing things I hadn’t ever seen before. How many times I use certain words; whether or not I used too many -ly words (I rarely do) how many times I use ‘just’ (which I’ve been trying to get away from, but in an 800 word sample I used it 8 times! EIGHT! I feel like the clouds just parted and the sun came out. STUFF I CAN DO TO MAKE IT BETTER!

Of course, that’s only the free version, which limits you to five times a day at 800 words a pop. For shorter pieces, and if you’re only concerned about the basics, it’d do you fine. I’m salivating over the option to upload up to 100,000 words in that baby and have it spit out a report.

But first, I have to FFFFIIIINNNIIISSSHHHH IIITTTTT. GUH! I cannot seem to get going on this thing. I think I’m freaking myself out by thoughts that this might actually turn into a book. I waiver between thinking it’s really very good and I’m impressed with myself and then thinking it’s so dumb, no one will want to even look at it. Put it away and move on. No matter what, I don’t want my parents to know about this book. They are religious and it is…. It’s uhm. Explicit. Holy Gah… if my mom ever…*passes out*.

Hoookay. Well. Since I have a book to write, I am going to skiddadle and get to writing. I’ve written about 1000 words this weekend, which is completely underwhelming for me. I’ve found everything to do BUT write, and it shows.

Pen in hand,