My Baby...

Turns two today! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Where does the time go?

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweetheart!

Wednesday's Word Count

Alright writers, last Friday we decided it would be beneficial to do a Wednesday Word Count day each week. We'll have to smooth out some details but here is what I'm thinking.

Every Wednesday I'll make a post stating the following:

• How many words I wrote during the week versus my goal for that week.
  
• My new or recurrent goal for the new week.
  
• Any extenuating circumstances (read: excuses) I may have to make me feel better if I've done horribly and/or comments I may have.
  

Since we're all at different phases of writing, feel free to adjust these prompts to suit you if you're doing revisions, outlining, etc. It doesn't matter what you're working on or what your goals are for. The goal is to try to make ourselves accountable to each other but not in a negative way, so don't give yourself more than you can handle!

A couple more things before we begin. This will obviously be considered a short week since we conceived this idea as of last Friday and it was a holiday weekend, which may or may not have effected our writing time. Also, please make any comments and or suggestions on what I've posted here. I'm going to be looking for some different title ideas since Wednesday Word Count is focused more on just word count goals but I know some of us are bound to have other writing-related goals such as revisions, querying, etc. So give me your suggestions!

I think that's everything! Here we go.

• Words written versus goal: 2828 / 3000
• Goal for new week: 4000
• Excuses/comments: I usually don't write on the weekends and did not write at all this holiday weekend. My new goal is for a five-day writing week including today, excluding the weekend, and ending next Tuesday.
  

Now post yours in the comments if you'd like to participate! If you'd rather post your actual word count so you can keep track of your progress that way, that's fine too!

Snowflake Method

Thanks to Mary Danielson over at First Edition (awesome blog, by the way) I've discovered a new outlining process: The Snowflake Method.

See Mary's post here.

So far I'm really liking it. It's given me a lot more direction than my previous attempts at staying organized with numbers, letters, bullets, and questions that led me in circles (organization that was not very organized, let me tell ya.) It does get extremely tedious by step 4 (at least for me) and I pretty much gave up by Step 6. Even so, I've come away with a lot more from this process than I had before and there is always the option of tailoring the method to suit my attention span, which I plan to do.

Mainly, it's helped me drill down the seperate story lines I have going for each character. It also helped me realize I have too many minor characters being introduced that I don't know what to do with. I have five teenage foster kids living at the mansion (the main setting of my story) and I can't find a way to make them all pertinent to the story, so now I'm debating between two or three or if I even really need them at all. I think I do but I'm still weighing it out.

As fabulous as this all is, well, I've run across a problem that we all face as writers - I now have scenes that need rewriting. This seems so tedious to me since I've been appreciating every added character of my word count lately. Certainly I'm being being saved a lot of trouble in the long run and a lot of the story will probably end up rewritten anyways, but now I'm faced with a choice: Do I rewrite the scenes now or mark them for later and continue with my new train of thought?

It's really another question that relies heavily on habits and personal preference but I'm curious what other writers generally do. Do you leave a note and forge ahead or do sacrifice the time to stop and set the story straight again?

**Added** I just realized today is Wednesday! Wow. Gotta love these short weeks. The Weekly Wednesday Word Count is to follow!

Writing Goals

I used to always set writing goals for myself, but lately I've been so up and down that I've pretty much abandoned them. Now, after watching my friend Heather's amusing but informative guest vlog on revisions (something I'm far, far from) featured on Lip Gloss Lit, I've decided to give them another go.

Amidst her great advice on revisions she talked about goals and I was reminded that goals and deadlines are hugely important in writing, especially when we have to be our own taskmasters. I should know this since I'm self-employed and struggle with the exact same problem in my other work - self-motivation.

So... what is my writing goal going to be? Hm.... Normally it would be at least 1000 words a day (which used to be cake) but I'm almost afraid to commit to that right now since my daily word count has been all over the place. On the other hand, it might be exactly what I need and 500 words seems too little.

Okay, I'll commit to 750 words a day and see how it goes for awhile. If I can stick to that then I'll keep challenging myself and up my goal count. I'm thinking about doing a Wednesday Word Count post each week too so I can track my weekly progress. We'll see! I'm hoping to get back up to the 2500+ daily word count I used to keep.

Feel free to add your own writing goals in the comments and we can try to keep each other going!

In other non-writing related news, we found out on Monday that we're expecting a little boy! Now I'll have one of each and I couldn't be more thrilled. This should be the last one for us so I'm trying to soak up my final pregnancy (which isn't always easy) and can't wait to have an infant again (which certainly isn't easy.) I just wish they didn't grow so fast. My daughter is turning two next week!

**Update** I have 1200 words written so far for today! I might write more later but now I have some cleaning to do, yuck.

Realizations on Reality

I’m one of those people that is good or mediocre at a little of everything. I’ve tried a lot of different hobbies hoping to find something I’m immediately genius at. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it’s something I haven’t been able to shake. Maybe it’s the era of instant gratification I’ve grown up in, but I always give up on things before I’ve even had a chance to get really good at them – all because I want to be immediately fabulous at something and find my place (as it were) in the world.

Writing has been my one constant, which is why I hold on to it so tightly. I’ve been writing since I was rather little but it’s always been pretty directionless. Because of this, I don’t think I’ve come very far. The main improvements I see in my writing are things like grammar and sentence structure and, mainly, I have college to thank for that (and they still need improving.) It’s only been this past year that I’ve really set out to learn the art of creating and shaping a novel, but it’s certainly not easy. I feel like there is entirely too much to learn and it’s even harder learning how to spot and implement these gems into my writing.

I was pondering this little annoying tidbit about myself this morning and decided it probably explains my occasional, recurring desire to give up. In reality though, given how long I’ve been writing without really giving up on it, I think it’s essentially “my thing.” It’s just that I need to put the time and effort into learning the craft, to shape my love of writing into something other people find worth their time to read. So what if I’m not naturally genius at it? If it means enough to me, I can succeed despite this unrealistic standard I have for myself, right? I think so, and I think I really needed to come to this realization.

So, now a question for my writer readers: What method of learning caused the highest level of improvement in your writing? What would you suggest I do to improve? I already read and write a lot, so where is the next best place to focus my desire to learn?

Argh...

I haven't posted in a few days because I managed to catch the small cold my daughter had and turn it into a bigger one. At least it seems that way. I'm certainly whining a lot more than she did, haha.

Fortunately, just a day before this came on, my best friend gave me the first five books to the Sweep series by Cate Tiernan to borrow. They're small, around 180-200 pages apiece, but I managed to read all five in less than 24 hours. Crazy, I know. But, I haven't felt up to doing anything else and the small amounts of energy I have been able to muster go straight to my daughter.

I really, really enjoyed them but now I'm wishing I had the rest to plow through. I beleive there are fourteen or fifteen total. Guess I'll be texting my best to see if she owns the rest!

And...But....Yet...

I remember being taught in school that you shouldn't start a sentence with a conjunction in formal writing. I don't know what falls into the category of "formal" writing (business correspondence?) but it seems to me that this rule is either lax in novel writing or it has simply become lax in general.

I'm speaking of, in particular, the conjunctions "and" and "but" which seem to beg me quite often to place them at the forefront of my sentences. I am quite guilty of starting many sentences with one or the other. It's part of my writing style. But, (and here I go!) each time I do there is a portion of my brain that pauses and wonders if I should be limiting myself. Is this something an editor would cringe at or is it truly acceptable in the publishing industry?

So my questions for the day are: Does anyone have educated insight on this question? And, do you, as writers, ever use conjunctions as sentence starters in your own writing? Often? What are your thoughts on this?