April writing goals.

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Where The Mild Things Are

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Matnov

Basic
Oct 19, 2014
London
Turning my attention to the first of 3 first drafts I have looming over me and hoping to knock it into a viable shape for proofing/editing/general anguish when I realise how clumsy and chaotic it all is. But it's all in the game!

Also have some rewriting to attend to, a process I rather enjoy, on two works that I had considered to be the finished article but in the self-publishing world I am discovering that nothing is ever quite the finished product.

Along with a project that is all about me just writing what the hell I want and thoroughly enjoying it. Returning to a journal format that see's my degenerate MC buggering up his life in ever more imaginative ways and generally blundering through a cosy catastrophe pandemic dystopia in somewhat of a chemical and alcohol induced fug.
 
Shit. Is it April already? Well, I have a good reason for not accomplishing all my first quarter goals, but it hurts to shunt half of them to the second quarter. The autumn school holidays are in April, so there go two weeks of the month...but I WILL manage to peddle my books to local stores this month. I WILL, darn it.
 
April already!! Crikey! I have a manic month coming up so simply to do some writing will be achievement enough! :)
 
I'm one-third of the way through my WIP, and realising that I'm at a pivot point in the plot. This story isn't going to be normal, with my detective protagonist devoting his life to hunting down criminals, as he develops a love interest—which distracts him, meaning he misses seeing how dangerous his quarry is—and he comes close to being killed through stabbing.

Usually, I know where the storyline is going, despite being a pantser by nature, but this time the narrative is going off in peculiar directions. It feels like an eccentric crank is driving the forward motion, and I'm keen to see where it takes me.

(Hmm, this gif is strangely erotic...it must be spring, my hormones are waking up! :oops: )

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I woke up on Saturday with a gem of an idea for a new story. Spent most of the day and yesterday exploring it and started writing the beginning. It is sounding good so I'm going to pursue it as far as it will go this month.
10,000 words already written.:)
 
Goals are best if they're specific right? I'm going slow, as slow as can be. This month I'm doing 500 words a day. I read someone on here does that... I can't remember who at the moment... they have a dark avatar....

It's not age. I've always been like this., I swear.
 
So, how have we all done?

Me, I have been editing, proof reading, redrafting, tearing my hair out, cringing and...well you get the picture as I embark on doing the horrible part of this writing malarkey.

Decided against risking anything new because I have close to 500,000 words of first draft puerility to try and knock into shape and blasting out fiction for the sheer pleasure of it is far to addictive.
 
Didn't do much other than waste a lot of time sending out submissions on the women's fiction novel, and expend too much angst on my writing career in general. Have now decided to self-publish the novel, but that won't happen for a few months since I have other obligations first, and I've never self-published anything before. Lining up my hand holders now. LOL! :)
 
A year ago, I reached the stage with Truthseeker where I could no longer see the wood for the trees. I put it aside and at the beginning of March I began working on the MS again. 74K spread across twenty-four chapters became 62K spread across thirty. This resulted in a great deal of cutting, pasting and re-writing. By the end of the month, I'd made further changes to 154 pages of the revised MS.

During April I went through the MS again. Revising one chapter each day, I ended up making additional changes to 71 pages.
 
Progress is stately with my WIP The Dead Need Nobody, owing to me trying a different writing technique of staying in the moments of a chapter or two for several days. This reveals more of the characters' thoughts to me, though I'm resisting the temptation to add unnecessary padding. The daily word count has slowed to a few hundred, which doesn't bother me one iota, as I reckon I'll have less editing to do by the end. Anyhow, writing a novel isn't a race—it's a journey with interesting views, where I stop to smell the roses! Who says I'm an old hippy?
 
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