Week 10 Analysis of Writing Challenge

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Hmm, ever have one of those days? You have a good plan, then
SPLAT!

Yeah, that's about how Week 10  ended up. And the more time that goes by, the less time I seem to be allotting to my writing the way I had before the day job resumed.

Admittedly I added more words than in Week 9 (1,842) in 75 fewer minutes, but my biggest issue has been dealing with my own mistrust of my writing.

Yup, I'm back to that old problem, which makes me think...
maybe I need to put some time in figuring out what's making me go sideways every time I make it 50% to 75% of the way through my book.

But, I'm not going to get myself side tracked with my need for therapy or alone time with my ego and self-confidence in this post, this is all about information about my progress from Week 9 to Week 10.

The good thing about Week 10 was the increase in words in less time. I did get 20 pages of edits done, 9 less than the previous week. but considering I wasn't doing much of anything, shows that I at least gave a shot to doing work that my heart really wasn't in.

And that seems to be the theme for Week 10...loss of heart in the project that should be a project of my heart. Again, this will require internal digging and dealing with issues I'm not yet ready to look at, yet, I will get to it by Saturday.

I do intend to get more editing done. I did arrange the pages to allow me to work from the end to where I left off, which should allow me to make more progress on the story. I am still determined to get Rogue Master published by New Year's Eve of 2016.

If that happens, then I'll simply have a great kick off to 2017.

Thank you for sticking with me on this journey. I do intend to get another post up on Friday - Saturday at the least.

Hope you have a great Autumnal Equinox tomorrow!

See ya soon,
Q

Week 9 Analysis - Is Anyone Else Hearing the Hoover?

So, I'm not even going to try to sugar coat this...Week 9 sucked worse than Week 8.

I really need to get a handle on my motivation and make sure I'm working on my book. If anyone has suggestions, I'm willing to listen. I mean, really, I'm angry at myself, yet not angry at myself, because work has been crazy stupid. You try testing 600+ Kindergarten through 8th grade students while working around their lunch, recess, and specials times. Then toss in non-communication regarding other testing that needs to be done and you have a mild view of what my days are like until late next week.

I mean, seriously...I get to work anywhere from 5:00 - 6:00 a.m., work on my sub plans, follow up with trouble shooting any tech issues that may have cropped up for others, then organize a Writer's Club, a Sewing Club, and a Tech Crew Training Club, while trying to explain to 2nd through 8th graders that "no, I don't live at the school, and no, I don't think it's fun to spend until 6 o'clock at night every night letting them hang out and write or sew in my classroom with me."

I really do like the kids I work with, there are some really great ones, but, Lordy, there are days when I'd rather crawl under the covers and hibernate until Summer Vacation rolls around again.

Okay, whiny, self-absorbed rant over...on to the real reason I'm writing this blog.

I'm not even going to spout out the numbers or the lack thereof, because I know where I fell down on the job - sitting down and working through the story. I think it was the three days of arguing with myself about whether or not I needed two scenes I'd put in the outline. My gut was telling me, no, the scenes were nothing necessary to move the story forward, while my inner editor was chewing her nails to the quick and hyperventilating over deviating from the "plan". Like I've never done that before...Hello! Did we pay any attention to how many times Mattie's and Bryce's story was rewritten?

Suffice to say, I'm giving myself just enough rope to either a) hang myself with or b) climb out of the freaked out editor hole I've created for myself.

We'll see how it goes. Considering we're 6/7ths of the way through Week 10, not sure how I'll fare.

Will get back to you this weekend to let you know how the last day went.

Thanks for sticking with me,
Q

Week 8 Analysis

Week 8, originally the last week of the Make Writing A Habit I Can't Break Challenge, has definitely turned out to be the most difficult one yet. Stalled progress seems to have been a theme last week - Claire's work slowed to a crawl and so did mine.

In week 8, I did 1,200 fewer words and 142 fewer minutes than week 7. As you can see by the lateness of this post, I also missed a few of my - assignments - this week as well.

The good thing is I have missed writing every night and, much like Claire, I have learned a new dislike for editing. I know, I know - editing is an important and necessary part of writing, yet it is a pain in the pa-tookis to deal with the angsty crap of looking at what I've written with a critical eye and I don't do critical very well - or didn't before this challenge.

Now, despite it taking so long to get through the first ugly rough draft, I know I'll complete it and begin editing the clean rough draft. While I won't make my original hoped for deadline, I will be publishing Rogue Master and begin moving on to other stories, because, no matter how many major or minor setbacks. I've suffered over the last eight weeks, the most important thing that's come out of it is - I have made writing a habit, I can't break - and I'm happier for it.

I may have days when I don't write, or I write very little, but my feelings about my writing have changed - it's an important part of who I am and I respect myself and what I consider important too much to let it go again. I recognize there will be moments when I'll hesitate or doubt what I've written, yet I know I can make changes to anything I write. What I can't make changes to is a blank page.  I'm not afraid to walk away from one story idea if it doesn't suit  the characters or story line - because, while it might not fit one place, there's no telling that it could work better elsewhere.

These last eight weeks have been an interesting journey of self-discovery. I've learned strengths and weaknesses in myself as well as the thought processes I use when developing and writing a story. I've learned patience and objectivity (this last I'm still working on...but I'm getting better at it.) I've learned the importance of taking a step back and looking at the big picture - even if I make a move before I process through all the information - I can see where an issue is and work toward fixing it.

Main goal for week nine is completing the ugly rough draft - that's it. Nothing else. Moving forward in baby steps until I can get organized and really get to my full stride. 

If you have any questions or want to comment about my progress or lack thereof...

Feel free to leave one.

Take care,

Q

Week 7 Writing Challenge Analysis

It has been a long, hard week. I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped on the edits, but that's primarily because I was trying to play catch-up and get organized for the new school year. Yes, the day job does interfere on occasion.

gif from photobucket.com

Which means, I have to reevaluate my time commitment during the week and make up for it on the weekends. Looking at everything I have to do, and the after school club I manage, the three hours a day is not feasible at this time. Nor is adding another hour a day for plotting/outlining new stories.

And this isn't a permanent thing, it will change as the year progresses and I get more things under control and can free up my evenings for what I love doing...writing.

I'm still very proud of myself and all I've figured out about my new writing method. I also like that I've done a phenomenal job remaining positive and objective when it comes to how I look at how I've handled this writing challenge.

I wish I could make the really cool charts that Claire Jane used for her updates (and I'll be contacting her about them soon), I'm just going to toss the information out there for you...

Time spent on edits and writing in Week 7 was 785 minutes (13 hours and 5 minutes) which was 700 minutes (11 hours and 40 minutes) less than time spent in Week 6.

All new words were exclusively written for my blog (a total of 3,274 words in 3 hours 45 minutes), and only 41 pages of the manuscript were edited in the week.

If this had been the beginning of the Making Writing A Habit I Can't Kick challenge, then I probably would be slamming myself for not getting what needed to be done done. Which makes me glad this is Week 7 and not Week 1.

from worldartsme.com

Goals definitely need to be revised, so here goes...
Writing Challenge Week 8 To Do List:

1. Finish clean rough draft of Rogue Master:
• edit at least 5 pages of manuscript each night - except Wednesday or
• edit at least 2 scenes each night - except Wednesday or
• Spend at least 1.5 hours working on editing the manuscript each night - except Wednesday
• Spend at least 3 hours working on editing/transcribing the manuscript on Saturday and Sunday
2. Post 2 blogs during the week:
• 1 post will be Weekly Challenge Analysis
• 1 post on any other writing or reading related information
3. Spend 3 hours in the week to build projects to be worked on by:
• Reading through old scenes to find usable ones or
• Creating rough outlines for stories or
• Creating a rough series outline for series stories in development or needing completion

That doesn't seem like to heavy a burden. Considering I did get both blog posts up last week, and I spent every night editing, even if I didn't reach the 20 page or 3 hours a night goals, I still spent a good amount of time writing.

Even better, I didn't put writing off. The goal of the challenge was to make writing a habit and I believe it is slowly becoming a daily habit for me.

Until later,

Have a great week!

Q

Writing and Insanity

So, the update isn't happening until probably this weekend, when I'll analyze both week 5 and week 6 of the Writing Challenge...

Why is it late? Because I'm going in forty directions at one time and have not found an opportunity to sit down and focus on the data.

My friend Claire Monroe talked about a crazy busy week last week and that's what I've had this week.

Prepping my classroom for the new school year and getting the equipment for all the other classrooms inventoried and distributed as well as dealing with computer issues and the fact that I was informed on Monday that the computer lab would be losing between 1/4 to 1/2 the space to create another classroom made it fun, fun to figure out a configuration for the computer tables that didn't overload circuit breakers and keep kids from complaining about other kids being too close. (*shudder* visions of "he's touching me" play through my mind and it isn't pretty.)

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Good thing is, I have gotten some editing done...not as much as I'd like, but I wrote three (3) of the nineteen (19) new scenes that need to be written, so I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.

Friday is going to be a very long day since I have to head out of town for training, return and work on a painting project in my classroom, then come home, hopefully edit a few more scenes and get back to school on Saturday to complete the painting project so I have all day Sunday to write.

Hope you all have a great day and a great weekend. Be prepared for another post on Saturday night/Sunday morning with my analysis for the last two weeks.

Take care!
Q